Breaking Stereotypes: The True Value of Sales with John Golden, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Pipeliner CRM

[00:00:02] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. So excited that you tuned in once again. Today I've got the privilege of having just an incredible leader on the podcast. His name is John Golden. He's a leader, author, speaker and podcaster, just currently serving as the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Pipeliner CRM. I'm excited to have him on just because he is really doing an incredible job in the market.

[00:00:33] of putting quality output in content like his books, like Winning the Battle for Sales and How to Win at Social Selling. John's really paving the way. So I thought it'd be a really valuable content episode to share with you all. John, thanks for joining me.

[00:00:47] John Goldenberg Yeah, listen, thanks to all. I appreciate it.

[00:00:50] Jason Vale Yeah. So John, look, to kick things off, tell our listeners a little bit about you and what got you into the sales game?

[00:00:56] John Goldenberg Oh, that's it's an interesting question. I, as you might tell, I'm not native San Diegan, not native, native America. I'm not native to America either. I came to the US from Ireland during the mid to late 90s during the dot com era. And I came initially really as a product kind of product marketing person. But over time, I ended up I worked at I worked at different companies, startups. And in a few places I ended up, especially the startup.

[00:01:26] John Goldenberg ended up I was sales and I was marketing. And so that brought the two parts together for me. And I really feel that ever since having both a sales hat and a marketing hat together and being able to live on boats and be able to understand both sides of that equation has really helped me.

[00:01:44] John Goldenberg And then I was extremely fortunate to take over as CEO for a time of Huthwaite, which was owned by at the time by Informa, large international company based out of the UK. And Huthwaite was spin selling based on the IP of Neil Rackham, who wrote the seminal book, spin sales books, spin selling.

[00:02:03] John Goldenberg And so we consulted with sales teams all over the world, like large sales teams and well-known organizations. So I really got to see things from the inside and a kind of demystification in many ways of sales, because sometimes you assume these large companies with like big global sales force, you think, oh, they really must have their stuff together and they really are on top of things.

[00:02:27] John Goldenberg And then you go in and you realize, wow, there's a lot of work to be done here. There's a lot of fundamental maybe sales skills missing. And over time, I came to realize that sales is the most underserved, undertrained role in any organization. They're kind of, if you like, forgotten about in many ways. It's just like, because it's easy to judge a salesperson, you make your quota, you stay, you don't make your quota, you go.

[00:02:52] John Goldenberg And therefore, I don't think people invest enough into the salespeople and into helping them. So that really led me to where I am today with Pipeliner CRM with the founder, Nicholas Kimlu, asked me to come on board and help him bring this to market.

[00:03:08] John Goldenberg But we both shared a passion for education and for elevating the role of salespeople, because at the end of the day, we believe that salespeople have a huge role in society because salespeople are the conduit for trade, if you like, and trade.

[00:03:26] And when people are trading together and when you're creating win situations, you can't be in conflict.

[00:03:32] It's like countries. If countries are trading fairly and it's benefiting both sides, well, tanks aren't rolling over their borders, right?

[00:03:40] Because everybody's happy. And therefore, we saw that sales, this kind of much maligned, as I said, underserviced area, this role is one of the, if not one of the most critical role.

[00:03:53] And the benefit that it has to society and to business and stuff is just huge. And they haven't really been given the attention or the credit they deserve.

[00:04:01] Hey, I couldn't agree with you more, John. I think that's spot on. And sales moves businesses. I heard one guy say, sales can cure any business ale.

[00:04:12] Well, we have an old saying from way back is that revenue fixes everything.

[00:04:18] Hey, I love that. Revenue fixes everything. That's a better way to say it. That's a better way to say it, John. I love it.

[00:04:24] Well, that is so true. And so look, sales cannot be successful without the proper systems, documentation, technology.

[00:04:36] Talk for us about Pipeliners. What are you guys doing in the industry and how is it different?

[00:04:40] Well, one of the first things is that originally Pipeliners building the CRM product was all about taking a completely different approach to traditional or legacy CRM.

[00:04:51] Because traditional or legacy CRM were very much built from a command and control perspective, really built by here's all the information that the executives or the business leaders need in order to forecast properly, do all of this.

[00:05:05] And they never spared a thought for the poor person on the other end who was going to have to supply this information.

[00:05:11] So it was all built wonderfully with that in mind and then imposed on the salespeople.

[00:05:17] But just like, and it's kind of ironic if you like, if a salesperson is going out to sell something, one of the first things they got to do is sell the what's in it for me, what the benefit is to you as a buyer.

[00:05:28] CRM was imposed on salespeople with no thought whatsoever about the benefits to them at all or the what's in it for me.

[00:05:36] And I even had this experience at some companies using legacy CRM where you would get the classic answer when you'd say, Saul, the CRM is not up to date.

[00:05:45] You've got to put your information in there.

[00:05:47] And you would come back with the classic line of, yeah, but do you want me to do data entry or do you want me to sell?

[00:05:54] Right.

[00:05:54] And you'd say, well, ideally, I'd like you to do both.

[00:05:56] But you could see the issue.

[00:05:57] So therefore, we took it completely different.

[00:05:59] And this is Nicholas's brainchild of taking it from a salesperson perspective and building something that actually helped the salesperson, benefited the salesperson that was built visually because salespeople tend to be quite visual people.

[00:06:14] And therefore, it starts off with the premise that if you engage with the system, it will help you.

[00:06:20] And therefore, it encourages you to engage with the system.

[00:06:24] And therefore, the management are still actually getting what they wanted because they're getting good data.

[00:06:30] They're getting use of the system because there's a benefit to the salesperson.

[00:06:34] And that's why we built the most visual system.

[00:06:38] We built it so you didn't with a uniform navigation.

[00:06:41] So the learning curve is really easy.

[00:06:43] We've embedded AI into it now.

[00:06:45] It's practical.

[00:06:46] We only focus on sales.

[00:06:47] We're a sales CRM.

[00:06:48] And we've only embedded practical CRM or AI elements that benefit the salesperson.

[00:06:54] And over time, because we went through a transition of our technology stack, we're now here with open source, the latest technologies, and with the AI embedded, not just linking out to chat to ETP, but actually embedding AI properly, deeply in the system.

[00:07:11] We've built a future-proof system now that can go forward and can challenge, quite frankly, the big four in the industry.

[00:07:17] And that's our journey.

[00:07:19] But that's why we also do SalesPop and we do the education because we always feel it's not just the tool.

[00:07:25] It's also the theory.

[00:07:26] We also want to help salespeople get better as salespeople.

[00:07:29] So we provide a lot of sales-related content to them as well.

[00:07:33] That's great, John.

[00:07:35] Thank you.

[00:07:35] And it is a lot about the tool helping the salespeople.

[00:07:39] Look, we do a lot of healthcare on our podcast, right?

[00:07:42] That's the focus of our audience.

[00:07:45] And I think about the electronic medical records, for example, like very much tailored to reimbursement and help the business gets what they want.

[00:07:54] And then the physician's kind of like, hey, do you want me to take care of a patient or do you want me to log stuff into Epic or Cerner, right?

[00:08:00] So maybe you could highlight some ways, in addition to what you've mentioned, that you're helping salespeople with the system and maybe some healthcare examples would be great.

[00:08:09] Yeah.

[00:08:09] And I think a lot of these are applied to most areas.

[00:08:11] But I think one of the most important parts now is that, say you have a lead system, right?

[00:08:17] You have a lead form or however you gather leads.

[00:08:20] Automating that and having to come into the system and being able to be routed properly to the right person, say this is a fit for Saul or Saul's group or whatever.

[00:08:29] And then augmenting that information automatically, like enhancing that information, bringing as much so that you get such a complete picture of the person that you're going to engage with.

[00:08:40] And then have all of the communication, whether it's text, email, whatever, have all of that in feed so that you can have a track record of every single engagement.

[00:08:50] And then we've taken it a step further now with AI.

[00:08:53] And now AI can look at your engagement with the customer and it can gauge sentiment, right?

[00:08:59] It can go looking at all these text messages, these emails, all of that.

[00:09:03] It looks like Saul is interested, but maybe not hugely interested.

[00:09:08] Or maybe he's a little standoffish or it sounds like he's enthusiastic.

[00:09:12] So now you get to actually tailor your approach.

[00:09:15] So now you know, OK, you're a bit hesitant or whatever.

[00:09:18] OK, now I know I need to focus on building more credibility with you.

[00:09:22] But I think the most important part, actually, and this would go for health care as absolutely in a big way, is automation.

[00:09:30] And so we were one of the first to bring out a workflow automation engine that I have the dubious honor of naming the automatizer.

[00:09:39] And everybody laughed at me, but everybody calls it the automatizer today.

[00:09:42] So there you go.

[00:09:43] The automatizer.

[00:09:43] I love it.

[00:09:44] But being automation is so important because there are so many.

[00:09:49] What's the most frustrating thing, as you just mentioned there earlier with the doctor or whatever?

[00:09:53] It's a road routine tasks that basically are not high value that anybody could do.

[00:09:59] Automating those and creating workflows and integrating with other systems so that you are only engaging with the system when it brings you value, right?

[00:10:10] You're not doing things that are wasting your time that the system can actually not just do for you, but frankly, do better than you can do anyway.

[00:10:18] And allowing you, allowing then, allowing for you to elevate what you're doing and to really focus on the important parts.

[00:10:26] So you're like in the medic feel like in focusing, my goodness, like focusing on the patients, focusing on the things that matter,

[00:10:33] knowing that the system is helping you taking care of all those other pieces that is not a good use of your time.

[00:10:39] I love that.

[00:10:40] It's great to have like that safety net, right?

[00:10:43] That AI that can help you with follow-ups or even reminders.

[00:10:47] Like maybe you don't want the system to do the follow-up, but just a reminder.

[00:10:51] Like, hey, you haven't followed up with this person.

[00:10:54] There's an opportunity and just brings it to the top of your inbox.

[00:10:57] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:58] And we also have things like an email assistant, an AI email assistant.

[00:11:01] And therefore, you can choose your reply.

[00:11:05] You can say, oh, Saul and I have a pretty good relationship by now.

[00:11:08] So this is what I want.

[00:11:10] And you can even use voice.

[00:11:12] You can just read what you want and then have the system turn it into a casual email to Saul.

[00:11:18] Or maybe I don't know you very well.

[00:11:19] It's early in the process.

[00:11:20] So I want to do a more formal one.

[00:11:22] So we do it in a more formal tone.

[00:11:24] So it's just, it's honestly, it's things like that that have an outsized benefit.

[00:11:29] They sound really simple, but there's an outsized benefit to salespeople.

[00:11:33] Because let's face it, most salespeople hate writing emails.

[00:11:36] They know what they want to say, but then they struggle with saying it in the right way

[00:11:39] and pitching it in the right way.

[00:11:41] So the tools can help you do that, which for me is a massive benefit.

[00:11:45] Oh, that's a huge benefit.

[00:11:46] And so folks, we're having an awesome chat here with he's all things sales,

[00:11:52] chief strategy and marketing officer at Pipeliner CRM.

[00:11:56] He not only works in the business, but he also interviews a ton of people in the business

[00:12:01] on his podcast, the Sales Pop Surveyors of Prosperity podcast.

[00:12:06] So talk to us about all the interviews you've done.

[00:12:09] And by the way, folks, I just jumped on the podcast with John.

[00:12:12] I think it recently published.

[00:12:13] It did, yeah.

[00:12:14] So love that.

[00:12:16] So check out that one at least.

[00:12:18] But you have a lot of interviews.

[00:12:20] What are some common themes?

[00:12:22] You're seeing in the people that are what I would call the repeat offenders in like

[00:12:29] the president's club, like the people that keep showing up at the top.

[00:12:33] Yeah, there's a few things.

[00:12:34] And you mentioned one earlier that I wanted to come back to.

[00:12:36] And that was about process and systemization.

[00:12:40] Because when I was first engaged and engaging with salespeople before I was ever really involved

[00:12:46] in sales myself, your impression of salespeople was always like, yeah, it's a bit of an art

[00:12:50] form.

[00:12:51] I did things my way.

[00:12:52] Don't interfere with me.

[00:12:53] Whatever works, work.

[00:12:54] And over time, it discovered that's not actually the truth.

[00:12:57] It's the truth is that when you have a well-defined sales process with good stages, and each of those

[00:13:04] stages have activities that need to be completed within them before you move on.

[00:13:10] That is what the most high-performing sales organizations have.

[00:13:13] And don't take my word for it.

[00:13:15] ZS Associates and others have done, have got research papers that show that they, and I

[00:13:20] think KPMG is one too, about the highest performing sales teams have a defined process, follow that

[00:13:25] process rigorously.

[00:13:27] And it actually turns out that if you follow a process rigorously, it actually gives you

[00:13:32] more flexibility in many ways.

[00:13:34] It's a paradox because you're following along.

[00:13:37] You have things in the right area.

[00:13:39] You're doing all the right things.

[00:13:40] So it allows you to be, to put the icing on yourself and then to build the relationship

[00:13:44] part of it.

[00:13:45] So that's the first thing is the top performers follow a process.

[00:13:49] And the next thing is the top performers prepare.

[00:13:53] They're rigorous in their preparation.

[00:13:56] So one of the questions that I used to ask when we do some consulting work, or if I do

[00:14:00] consulting work on my own, is let me ask you about your calendar there, Saul.

[00:14:05] I presume you have appointments and meetings set up with your prospects, and they say yes.

[00:14:10] Do you have prep time on your calendar for each of those calls?

[00:14:15] And oftentimes they'd be like, I don't.

[00:14:17] No, but yeah, I do.

[00:14:19] And to go again, the best salespeople have prep time.

[00:14:22] It's just best salespeople don't leave anything to chance.

[00:14:25] And they get their head in the zone before they do the proper preparation.

[00:14:29] So those are two main things.

[00:14:32] And then the next thing is, I think this idea of listening and active listening, the best

[00:14:37] salespeople are not the gregarious talkers, not the one where you can't get in a word

[00:14:42] edgewise.

[00:14:45] They're asking good questions.

[00:14:47] Then they're listening to what you say and not just taking superficially what you say,

[00:14:53] but they're drilling down and trying to understand at a deeper level what you're talking about.

[00:14:58] Because one of the big mistakes people often make is if I'm trying to sell you a product

[00:15:02] or service, I get you on the phone or on a virtual meeting and we're talking, I ask you

[00:15:08] a question and then you say, yeah, that's a bit of an issue with us right now here.

[00:15:12] I go, excellent.

[00:15:13] I've just hit on an issue.

[00:15:15] Fantastic.

[00:15:16] So I jump on it immediately.

[00:15:18] And I think I've got a hook in here.

[00:15:20] Now, if I'd have taken a few more moments to drill down, I may discover that's an issue

[00:15:25] you can live with.

[00:15:26] That it's an issue that's not that, that at the end of the day, it's not that urgent.

[00:15:30] And now I may have missed the opportunity to find the real issues because I got so excited

[00:15:36] about the fact that you mentioned something that I could fix.

[00:15:39] And then I think the other thing too, and I think this is something that's so easy for

[00:15:43] people, it's just intellectual curiosity.

[00:15:46] It's like being curious about the business of your client, the business that they're in

[00:15:51] and the business of business itself.

[00:15:54] Because once upon a time, I think some salespeople could get away without even knowing anything

[00:15:58] about actual business.

[00:16:00] They could just, because they were great at building relationships and doing all of that

[00:16:04] kind of stuff.

[00:16:04] You can't get away with that anymore.

[00:16:06] So those are particular things.

[00:16:08] And I think intellectual curiosity and sociable curiosity is something that really separates

[00:16:14] salespeople.

[00:16:15] And the other thing too is, and it's from the research as well, from Neil Rackham back in

[00:16:19] the day, there isn't a typical salesperson and salespeople are not born.

[00:16:24] You can have really outgoing, gregarious people who are fantastic.

[00:16:28] Salespeople, but you can have the most extreme introverts who are actually excellent salespeople

[00:16:33] and just as good in their own way too.

[00:16:35] I love that, John.

[00:16:36] What great value you're sharing with us today.

[00:16:39] And folks, by the way, this is tip of the iceberg.

[00:16:42] If you really want to get your sales game to the next level, make sure you check out

[00:16:46] SalesPop.

[00:16:47] We're going to leave a link in the show notes so you could tune into some of those episodes.

[00:16:51] They're short and sweet, just like these.

[00:16:53] So you're going to love it.

[00:16:55] And so, John, as we wrap up today, I got to say thank you.

[00:16:59] I'm just like taking, I'm going to go for, this thing's being recorded.

[00:17:02] So I'm taking the transcript.

[00:17:04] I got some good notes to improve my sales game.

[00:17:07] So I thank you for that.

[00:17:08] What closing thought would you leave our listeners with?

[00:17:11] And where's the best place they can get in touch with you?

[00:17:13] Yeah.

[00:17:14] The final thought I'd leave people with is that sales is a great career and it's a great

[00:17:19] thing to be in.

[00:17:20] And I think you should, because the reason I say that is because unfortunately popular

[00:17:25] culture has perpetuated negative stereotypes about salespeople.

[00:17:30] They all think of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.

[00:17:31] You think of the used car salesman, the high pressure tactics, all of that nonsense.

[00:17:36] Right.

[00:17:36] And I think that salespeople need to be more proud of themselves and organizations need

[00:17:41] to have a higher need to elevate their respect for the sales profession.

[00:17:45] So that's the last thing I would leave you with is don't, because a lot of people end

[00:17:50] up in sales by default.

[00:17:51] They do go do a marketing degree and come out of college and realize for every one marketing

[00:17:55] job, there's 5,000 sales jobs and they don't get the one marketing job.

[00:17:59] So they become a salesperson and they never embrace it.

[00:18:02] Right.

[00:18:03] So I would say if you're in sales, you'd be doing embrace it, educate yourself.

[00:18:07] There's so many, there's so many fantastic assets out there, but embrace it, be proud of

[00:18:12] it.

[00:18:12] And those of you in organizations, embrace your salespeople and be proud of them as well

[00:18:17] and elevate them and realize they're in the toughest.

[00:18:19] They are what we call salespreneurs.

[00:18:21] They're the entrepreneurs in your organizations.

[00:18:23] They're probably the only ones who's significant or even all of their compensation is tied to

[00:18:30] performance, right?

[00:18:31] Is variable.

[00:18:32] Nobody else like the dude down in accounting isn't half his salary, isn't made up of commission.

[00:18:38] He knows exactly what he's getting.

[00:18:39] So I would say like really embrace your salespeople and really support them and lift them up.

[00:18:44] And then as for me, you can find me at pipeliner sales.com, salespop.net.

[00:18:49] You can find me on LinkedIn.

[00:18:50] I'm kind of everywhere.

[00:18:52] So I'm not hard to track down and I always welcome anybody reaching out.

[00:18:56] That's awesome, John.

[00:18:57] What a great close, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:18:59] I know I feel better as a salesperson right now, as a sales leader.

[00:19:03] I hope you are too.

[00:19:05] And when you think about your teams and the hard work that they do in the sales profession,

[00:19:10] make sure you're supporting them, lifting them up.

[00:19:14] If you don't have a CRM, why not?

[00:19:16] Check out Pipeliner.

[00:19:18] They have one for you.

[00:19:20] And certainly make sure you check out John's podcast to continue getting the sales inspiration

[00:19:27] that you got today.

[00:19:28] So appreciate y'all tuning in.

[00:19:30] Check out the show notes for all the things that we discussed.

[00:19:32] And John, thank you for being with us.

[00:19:34] Yeah, and thank you so much for having me.

[00:19:35] I really enjoyed it.

[00:19:36] Thank you.

[00:19:37] Thank you.

[00:19:43] Thank you.