63. How to Maximize Your CRM: Boost ROI & Drive More Sales | Brian Gardner, Sales Process 360

Karthik Chidambaram: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Driven
by DCKAP podcast. I'm your host, Karthik Chidambaram, CEO of DCKAP. We make
systems, talk to each other.

I'm really glad to have this guest with me today. Brian Gardner is the
founder of Sales Process 360, and the author of ‘ROI from CRM’. Brian has
over 25 years of experience in sales management in the CRM space. And he's
also a subject matter expert in CRM at Texas A&M University.

In this episode, we are going to be talking about customer relationship
management, how to leverage your CRM and how to improve your sales process.
Welcome, Brian, and thanks for being on the podcast.

Brian Gardner: Thank you, Karthik. I'm glad to be here. How are you this
morning?

Karthik Chidambaram: So, thank you so much, Brian. I'm really excited to be
chatting with you today. Thanks for joining Driven by DCKAP.

To get us started, let's start with the basics. What is a CRM?

Brian Gardner: That's a great question. That three letter acronym, some
people say it stands for cost real money.No, obviously the real acronym is
Customer Relationship Management, but that can mean a lot of things to
different people. You know, who's the customer, you know, something- When
working with clients, I think their first inclination is to go to their
customer, the Shells, the Exxons, the ABC Chemicals, whatever their
customers are.

But I also think they're internal customers to each other. You know, you got
inside sales customers and outside sales product specialist customer
marketing and this is an internal customer. So, you know, I look at CRM in
the 360 kind of approach of not only your external customers, but also your
internal customers. And at the end of the day, it's really change
management. That's what the challenge has been for a lot of companies, I
believe, with CRM is change management.

So again, I can go on and on about that, but high level, Karthik, to your
question, I mean, it's customer relationship management. It's not only
external, but internal customers. And it's really about at the end of the
day, I believe sharing and leveraging information to make good business
decisions And also focusing on what I call the front end of the sales cycle.
You know that from prospecting to lead management qualification opportunity
management project pursuit pretty much everything before the quote, I
believe the quote is kind of the middle of the road. It's the front end.
It's the back end of the front end and the front end of the back end. But
it's that whole front end side, your ERP manages the back end, CRM manages
the front end.

Karthik Chidambaram: So CRM costs real money, but if it's implemented right,
it can also make you real money. Which is pretty cool. Yeah. So that's very
cool.

So Brian, tell us about your background and why are you driven with Sales
Process 360?

Brian Gardner: Yeah, I'll give you the short version. Okay. I grew up in an
industrial sales organization in South Louisiana. We were calling into the
chemical plants, refineries, pulp and paper, oil and gas marketplace, and I
grew up and worked through all roles of that business from sweeping floors
to stocking shelves to inside sales, outside sales, product specialist, and
then ultimately VP of sales.

And again, I'm going to date myself here. This was in the early and until
late nineties where I spent, you know, a lot of my time there and ultimately
in the mid to late nineties, I was the VP of Sales and I'm a huge believer
in the sales process. And I'm a huge believer in using data to make good
business decisions.

And back then, actually CRM- So CRM was not even a three letter acronym back
then. It was SFA, Salesforce Automation was the hot topic and the 3 letter
acronym. So, long story short again, compressing the story. I built some
manual processes to manage the business from lead lead management to target
account management and Excel sheets and.

You know, these database projects pursued opportunity management, quote,
quote, tracking. All those things in these disparate databases, and I said,
I want to bring all that together in one system. So, again, I started
looking for a solution to do that. Everyone that came into my office to
prevent a salute to present a solution really didn't understand my business.

And all they want to do is sell me software. I said, no, thank you. So,
again, long story short, I developed with a technology partner. We developed
an SFA CRM solution for our internal business to solve all the problems that
we had. Caught the bug, Karthik. I caught the bug. I saw what this could do
and I caught the bug.

So I got it up and running for our family business and again, compressing
the story, left the business, went out and raised some money and started a
CRM company. An SFA company slash CRM company, focused on the industrial
market. It's all we did. We stayed in our lane. And got it up and running
and, went out and did that and really focused, and I guess where my passion
is for this is. I've seen and have lived what this can do to make money.
Like we said, it costs real money. It can make real money, right? If
implemented properly. And that's not easy. That's not easy as a lot of
companies can attest to.

And so why I believe this is I personally lived a 3X sales multiplier. We
increased our business 3X top line, and six and a half years within the
family business using a CRM system back then in the late nineties. And why I
believe that is because we took and we understood where our business was. We
focused on our business. We took rifle shots, we did team selling, we shared
and leveraged information as a team.

That's what CRM brought for us. So that growth was all internal, no
acquisitions. And that's why I believe what I believe today of what this can
do for companies if implemented properly. Again, I know that was a lot
there, but that gives you a real good understanding of, I guess, where I
started and what's driving me today with this. Why, I mean, again, I truly
enjoy what I do every day with clients and helping them get over this
hurdle.

Karthik Chidambaram: No, it's really good. I mean I like the word SFA,
Salesforce Automation. I kind of think that's actually a better word to
describe Sales relationship management compared to calling it a CRM.

Yeah, but it's really interesting, right? How companies like Salesforce can
change the game, you know, with their branding, with their marketing, and
they call it CRM. I don't know if it was Salesforce was the first that
started calling it CRM, but I didn't know about this SFA thing, but SFA is
actually a better word.

What do you think? Would you agree with that?

Brian Gardner: I totally agree. Because again, what CRM focuses on, if you
take a sales cycle and you look at what I call the front end of the back end
and the front end made up of prospecting and lead management, lead
nurturing, opportunity management and some quote quoting possibly on the
front end, the back end being quote management, sales order, inventory
management, accounting, all that back in ERP.

CRMs on the front end, and that's sales. That's what's driving CRM is sales,
you know, and so that's why I say CRM is I believe there's a component, a
huge component, SFA and CRM and I still believe that today. And I, when I
work with companies, I've helped them focus on the front end of the sales
cycle, which is that SFA part of CRM.

Karthik Chidambaram: Well, maybe for this conversation, maybe we will call
SFA as CRM and let's just use the word CRM because it's so widely used in
the market. But again, CRMs have become an integral part of business
operations, and yet many businesses still struggle to get the most out of
it.

How do you help people to get the most ROI out of their CRM? Or what does
the process look like? Let's say when somebody comes to you first. What does
the process look like?

Brian Gardner: First off, we need to, you know, first thing- I work with a
client's owner, I ask the question - What are you wanting to get out of CRM?
What problem is it trying to solve? What process is it trying to improve?

And so, they first have to understand that, and what are the drivers for
CRM? Why are you even doing this? You know, are you doing it because it's a
hot topic in the marketplace? You know, are you doing it because you've got
people in your company that say you need a CRM system? But what's the CRM
system going to do for you?

So with that being said, we have come up with what we call an audit or
assessment process, whether they do it themselves or whether they bring us
in to help them with this, they need to do an assessment of their, of their
situation. And that assessment is to analyze where their gaps and
inefficiencies in their sales process run into the sales cycle, right?

You know, or do they do lead management like they should, are they targeting
account management like they should, or they're doing competition analysis
like they should, where they spend it, where their gaps and efficiencies. So
we go in and, and. And work with them on an audit or an assessment.

Come up with a list of those gaps or inefficiencies. Okay, then we go, we
send those through a matrix model to determine what's the low hanging fruit,
so to speak. Where can we go get the most bang for the buck the quickest
that can produce the return and help you grow your business? And and then
once we come up with that, we come up with a roadmap for which they then can
take and implement or bring us in and help them implement that.

But now we have a roadmap, you know, we remove the feels like there was a
client I worked with that said CRM for them was removing the feels like it
feels like we're going to meet our quota this month. It feels like we're on
top of our business. It feels like we're doing what we need to be doing
well.

What does that really mean? And so this audit or assessment helps us put
framework around that and put some metrics to make sure we're focused on the
right thing to grow our business. That makes sense.

Karthik Chidambaram: No, it makes sense. So you do an audit, you assess
what's really happening, and then you propose a solution.

Let's say, I mean, this is a problem we encounter, right? So, I mean, let's
talk about CRM. So it does both sales force automation, and it's also
customer relationship management, right? But then, one thing we do at DCKAP
is, okay, we have a salesforce license and we give access to the sales
people to access the CRM, but then it would also help if everybody in the
company who deals with the customer has access to salesforce, but then it's
going to cost more money.

How do you deal with that? Right? Because these companies just want you to
get like 50 licenses or a hundred licenses or a thousand licenses. But then,
okay, you know, we are using it for sales. We're not really using it to
manage or, you know, we don't really have that many licenses. So it's like a
tricky situation. Do you have any thoughts around that?

Brian Gardner: Oh, yeah. It's a red flag for me when I'm working with a
company or in conversations and we're going through the audit and they're
saying, you know, their statement might be, we're looking at just getting
our sales, putting our sales team on this, we're going to take that Excel
spreadsheet that we've been using for forecasting and pipeline management,
and we're going to put it in CRM, and we're going to have a centralized
contact management system.

I said, okay, great. That's only- that's a fraction of the big picture of
this thing. And so they look at me and I say, well, that's because. Remember
I said earlier that CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and most
companies think of it as their customers that they're selling to.

What about the internal customers to each other? Okay, so I think you need
to think of CRM as that, that way, that conduit, the bridge of communicating
and share what I call sharing and leveraging information amongst your team.
And so, yeah, that other license for an inside salesperson, but think about
that.

Let's take that example. Okay. I believe an inside salesperson in the
industrial sales world, and all my answers are based around the industrial
market, right, that I'm seeing. Inside sales in an industrial marketplace is
maybe touching the external customer twice to three times as much as an
outside salesperson.

They've gotten those phone calls, they've got the emails, they're checking
on this. There's information there, there's nuggets leveraged, put into a
CRM system such that the sales team can benefit from. Right, so that
ultimately that will help. I think you grow your business because you're now
sharing and leveraging information that can make you And make the customer
have a better customer experience with you because you act you're acting as
a team.

Karthik Chidambaram: No, definitely right and you talked about selling to
existing customers and that's as much important If not more important than
finding new business, right? So You call it farming and hunting. So farming,
you know, so it really helps, you know, CRM helps with farming.

But how do you think, you know, industrial distributors or the industrial
companies can leverage the CRM better to nurture their existing accounts,
you know? So what are some tricks?

Brian Gardner: Yeah. This is a hot topic for me. One that I'm working with
right now with a couple of clients and that is. Wallet share within an
account. Okay, typically, typically, and again, my answers are based on the
industrial marketplace. Typically, characteristics of the clients that I
work with sell multiple products or services medium to long sales cycles.

Multiple influencers on the sale meaning there's multiple people in in the
customer they're talking with to help them get the sale Multiple team
members in their company that are touching the customer inside sales outside
sales product specialist marketing Okay, so that's the premise for my answer
here is that that that that Go to market strategy.

Okay. So if most customers, I believe most customers only know a company for
a handful, handful of products or services. Let's call ABC Supply because
they're our company. Well, they don't realize that ABC Supply has a whole
breadth of other products or services. But they, they, they know companies
for a handful of product lines.

So with that being said, using CRM, using CRM to analyze that and give you
what I call white space analysis. Such that you can see where the gaps are.
If they're buying pumps, why aren't they buying motors? If they're buying
motors, why aren't they buying the conduit from us? You with me? So it's,
it's piecing all that together and CRM can, can let you connect the dots and
see that and communicate that amongst the team.

Another trend I see in companies is they're creating specialists. So they
might have a pump specialist, so they might have a motor specialist. They
might have a valve specialist. Okay. Well, I want to make sure that those
specialists are communicating internally in the company. And again, CRM is
the conduit for that sharing and leveraging.

So it all goes back, all roads go back to sharing and leveraging information
inside your company to make good businesses and grow your business, grow
your wallet share, support the customer with that information.

Karthik Chidambaram: Specialists communicate with each other, right? So that
means that they would have access to the same opportunity and then they see
what's being sold to.

And let's say, let's click on the account-

Brian Gardner: Yes. Within a CRM, you design the hierarchy. You designed the
hierarchy for that. That's one of the things we do in the audit is we
understand that we get an understanding of the customer's hierarchy, both
externally and internally, how their data data set up, how their product and
service taxonomy is set up, which is key, you know, understanding that.

So we can tag and I might be getting too technical here. We can tag
transactions against those products or services for which then we can do
analytics and reporting off of that. Okay, so I'm a big believer again. This
is me talking. I mean, some might not agree with this, but I'm a big
believer that CRM should be open to share and leverage information and not
put restrictions on what people see.

Now, you might put restrictions on what people can export. And stuff like
that, but I'm talking our edit. Obviously, they can't edit records that
they've not that they didn't create. But sharing information is key. That's
what CRM is about when I go into a company and they say they want to put
restrictions on.

Well, this division can't see that division’s information. Well, let's talk
about the issue with that. And that is, is that creating a barrier? That is
one of the reasons why I think you should go with CRM.

Karthik Chidambaram: Well, that's really good. Sharing information is key,
and that gives access to data, and it also empowers employees, but let's say
a company is not doing that currently, and do you advise the CEO? Hey, you
know what? You've got to be doing this, and it's important that these people
get access to the information. What can go wrong?

You know, just trust your people, because I've seen instances where you're
In a lot of companies, information is not really shared. So what would you
advise and how strong would you advise the CEO or the management,

Brian Gardner: Oh, you mentioned the CEO. I want to talk about somewhere in
here, I'd like to talk about the CEO for CRM, which is another factor that
I'm a huge believer in.

But I recommend this to companies. Think about these two things. Let's boil
it down to two things. Let's make sure we improve the processes and change
culture a little bit to grow your business on these two things. Let's get
better at managing the front end of the sales cycle, that whole front end,
right?

Let's put processes procedures and visibility at the front end of your
business Okay, and then the next thing is let's make sure we put in place
processes procedures And culture on sharing and leveraging information if we
can do those two things Better than you're we're doing today You I believe
you're going to see growth and and you're going to leverage CRM for what
it's for It's real simple.

So when we go through a checklist of a roadmap of what we want to do, I
always say, is that what we're trying to do here. I'll give an example.
Let's say we want to do a better account, account profile, understanding the
account better, make sure we're getting more wallet share. Okay, what does
that address?

Well, that addresses, let's share leverage information as a team so we can
all understand that. You know, so everything you do when you want to do with
CRM, ask the question, does it address the, does it help us better manage
the front end of the sales cycle and, and, or does it help us share and
leverage information as a team.

Karthik Chidambaram: It's awesome. So, it's pretty cool, Brian. So let's
talk about the CEO of CRM. I was reading, I think it was MDM. You had
written an article. I was reading about that where you talked about. Being
the CEO of a CRM or it's good to have a designated leader for a CRM. Was
that MDM? And can you talk about the CEO of CRM? I really love the term.

Brian Gardner: I actually think it was DSG. I think who picked up that
article that was written on this, but this is something I'm doing right now.
It's top of my passion list, so to speak, on this.

And that is, companies need a CEO for CRM. And what do I mean by that? They
need someone in the sales leadership role, sales leadership role, that's
driving the CRM initiative from the beginning through the process. And it's
not just getting it off the ground or taking, getting left with it.

It's after the fact, which is really when the hard work starts after you've
implemented CRM. So, It's so important to have that. And, if I look at
companies that I've been working with or that have brought me in that I'm
doing a redo on, so to speak, they're calling it CRM 2.0 or 3.0. The common
denominator is they don't have a CEO for CRM, you know?

And so if I could tell you a quick story and I'll be short here, but it's
just, the light bulb went off for me and the other person. So I was doing an
audit for a company. And I finished the audit. We had dinner. I was with the
CEO of the company, he was taking me back to the hotel. I was flying out the
next morning.

And he was actually in his brand new Tesla and, you know, my head's going
back and forth. He showed me how quick you can go. And he asked me this one
question. He said, Brian. He said, you've been with us for a day and a half
to two days, you've gone through a lot of questions, and what is the, and by
the way, they were on CRM 2.0, this was a CRM 2.0 project, they were doing a
redo. He said, what is the one thing, he wanted one answer, what is the one
thing that you're seeing of why we weren't successful the first time, and
why did we have to bring you in here to help us?

And I'm like, okay, to myself, as again, as my head's going back and forth
in this, in this Tesla, right? And I said, he's wanting one answer and boom,
a light bulb came off. And I said, I don't see, and I still don't see, who
your CEO for CRM is. Just this, just like that was the thought that came to
my head. And when I said that- perfect, I could see a light bulb go off in
his head. I mean, it was like an instant connection.

He's like, Hmm. And I explained what I meant by that. And that is, you need
to have someone in a sales leadership role, who's been driving your seat CRM
project for the last four years has been an operational person, you know,
not that they're a bad person, but they've never been in the sales
management or sales role. And this is a sales tool SFA, right?

And so. We don't have anyone in that position. You got the person driving
the bus. CRM bus is not in sales or sales management. There needs to be a
CEO for CRM in the sales management role driving this initiative. And
instantly again, I got he got it and instantly I got it that he got it and
to that point That night, true story, that night in the hotel room, I went
online and bought the domain name CEO for CRM. Because I said, there's going
to be something here. I think there's something here So yeah.

Karthik Chidambaram: I didn't know that you had the domain name ceo for crm.
I like it And yeah, I mean at dc cap we say, you know think like a ceo and I
also think everybody is a ceo in their own Right And you know, it's really,
really interesting.

I mean, yeah, everybody's a CEO in their own right.

Brian Gardner: And with that, I'm sorry. I want- you just made me think if
another thing. So with that, I was promote- And again, I go back to my life
prior when I was a sales management and we're working with SFA CRM. I told
that same thing, what you said, to our to the sales team.

I said sales team, you are the ceCEOo of your territory. You are the
manager. You're the owner of your territory. Okay, we are supplying you
tools and and augmenting that with things you need to make you successful
But at the end of the day you need to manage your territory And so I'm
serving up I want to serve up to you with crm data information Front end and
back end that can help you make good business decisions as the CEO or the
owner of your territory.

I used to tell our sales team that all the time. And that was 30 years ago.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yes. So it's pretty cool. So let's talk about this for
a second. Right? So let's say, you know, you have the CEO of a CRM and CRM
also needs customization. You need to have technical knowledge. To customize
the product and make it get the reports you need and all that.

Right. But this is a question. A lot of companies have where let's say I
hire a sales leader, or I run. I hire somebody to run the sales
organization. Should I expect him to customize and run. Salesforce or
whatever CRM I'm using, or should that be done by another person? How
important is it for a sales leader?

To have the CRM experience, the customization and the technical experience
running reports and all that.

Brian Gardner: So, I believe they need to have the CO for CRM needs to have
the business acumen, so to speak, of what it needs to do in the experience
from a sales management perspective. They do not need to have the technical
expertise.

They're not, they shouldn't be building their reports. They should have a
team that does that, whether that's internal or external. Whether it's Power
BI or whether it's taking data from UERP and CRM or whatever, you know, you
build, you build the dash, you give the specification for what you need and
let your, let the people who are good at that do that.

That's not the CO for CRM. The CO for CRM needs to paint the picture, the
vision. They need to motivate the team on why we're doing this to help us
grow our business, but they're not, in my opinion, they're not the, the
technical side or the, you know, that side, they, they give the
specifications, they give the why, and they make sure it is executed.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, it also depends on the size of the company,
right? But let's say if it's a large company, then that makes sense. But if
it's a small org, then you have to have, you have to wear multiple hats.

Brian Gardner: Yeah, again, you might, you might get deficient at building
certain reports and all exactly right. But, you know, what I found is some,
again, they've got to, they've got to remember, I believe this, they have to
remember and that's what is their responsibility every day and they're,
they're made to grow the business and give direction to their team.

Right. And sometimes they have to step away from that. They might like it.
They might get interested in building reports, you know, going into Power
BI, but that's great. But that shouldn't be your full time job. Maybe that's
your nighttime job. You know, you got to, you got to run your business. You
got to look at ways to grow your business, let people help you with the
data.

But you're, I don't know. That's just my opinion.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah. You've got to be selling. Yeah.

So, Brian, integration is our primary offering at DCKAP. We make systems
talk to each other. And I strongly believe that CRM's need to be integrated
with the ERP or the marketing automation software or anything. Right? So
even at our company at DCKAP, so let's say, you know, we use HubSpot and we
also use Salesforce and getting these two systems integrated, you know, it
actually offers a lot of value.

Otherwise, you know, we would not know who's doing what or let's say if I'm
writing an email to the customer, I'm able to write a better and an
intelligent email. So what do you think about this? You know, what are your
thoughts here? Can you share some examples on why you think integration is
critical?

Brian Gardner: I'm in alignment with you there for sure. Maybe not phase
one. Okay. But at the end of the day, you need to strive for integration
between CRM, ERP and other third party systems you might have in your
company. But let's just, let's focus on CRM and ERP to start with. Remember
I said there's a front end and a back end to a sales cycle, right?

CRM plays on the front end, ERP on the back end. The holy grail is to have a
complete system, one source of the truth for both front end and back end
data. Okay, something I strive for with every client that I work with is
ultimately shooting for a 360 view of the business. And I'll give you an
example of that.

Let's take an account 360, which is a hot topic. I mean, every company I
work with, we need to design the spec and build and go the goal of having an
account 360. What do I mean by that? I want to see the front end the back
end for that account even down the site level You know, there could be Shell
or Dow or Exxon is the company, but then their sites, what you have going on
at Baytown. It's different than what you have going on at the Houston, or
Geismar Louisiana or Baton Rouge facility. So you need to build your CRM.
That's another whole thing about building the CRM, is you need to build the
CRM at the site level. A lot of times the ERPs don't think like that. They
think about the order being to shell. Well, what shell facility?

They might have a ship to, but that ship to might not be the actual site,
Deer Park or Baytown or whatever. So, I strive for an account stays on the
site 360. I want a salesperson or anyone in the company, anyone in the
company to be able to go into the system, click on- I'll keep using Shell,
Deer Park, let's say- site and I wanted them to be able to see all the
contacts that are linked to that site I want them to see all the activities
phone calls meetings emails.

All the touch points by anyone in the company that has had contacted the
contact that shelled your part, I want them to see all the leads that we're
working at. I want them to see all the opportunities that have been
qualified that work in that front end of the sales cycle. I want them to see
all the quotes. Could have been done in erp could have been done in a third
party might be a hybrid. And then I want them to see all the orders that are
coming from ERP.

So the ultimate goal is- and again, why you say, okay, well, we can do that
in some third party power BI. To see that. That's great. But guess what? The
salespeople I'm talking, salespeople are not in power BI. And they're not in
ERP. Most companies don't even let the salesperson in the ERP system. Right?

So I want to put that data at the fingertips of salespeople so they can make
good business decisions. Understand what quotes and RFQs just came in today
at that site that were handled by inside sales. Understand what orders just,
just got booked. This week, you know, so they can make, again, good business
decision.

So I'm a huge believer in this integration. I see what it can do for
companies that have implemented it. I'm working with a very large 34
business unit conglomerate in the industrial sector that has 34 different
business unit companies for different business units, and we've integrated
CRM and ERP, and it's a game changer.

It is a game changer from the sales person's perspective to have that data
at their fingertips and even on their mobile phone, right there. You know,
they got their laptop. They got the mobile app. And now before they walk,
before they walk into a customer, they're sitting in a lobby. Before they go
into the back of the facility, they can see everything that's going on by
any one in the company that's touching that customer slash site. For front
end and back end.

Karthik Chidambaram: Totally. And you have a great conversation, right?

So let's say I look at all that data and I prepare, you know, sitting in my
car, and look at all the data and then I go in and have a conversation with
the customer. I can have a better conversation and I feel like I'm better
prepared talking to the customer and it actually helps the sale.

Brian Gardner: No question. And then it's all about what does the customer
feel? How are you leaving the customer? Do they feel like you wasted their
time or do you feel like they came in and brought value? You know, so here's
another area that to think about for integration. When I work with a
company, if I find out that they have a service team, whether in external
service people or internal service people that do service work, a lot of
times that department is pushed off to the side and they're not thinking
about that department for CRM.

I say, they're the golden ticket for CRM. That information, that service
information should be in CRM because why it's valuable to the sales team and
be a service person can get more information than any salesperson can get.
Let them get information, training them on getting information and training
them on putting that key information CRM to be shared and leveraged.

Karthik Chidambaram: So in a recent article you wrote on MDM, you
strategically outline how to avoid the common pitfalls of CRM systems. Let's
talk a little bit more about that, right?

So what are the top three tips to get the CRM businesses actually need
right? So what are the top three tips to get the CRM, right? What CRM do I
need?

You know, let's say I'm an industrial distributor. How do I decide, you
know, which crm to go for?

Brian Gardner: Well, so great question. Okay. First off I never start again.
This is just me talking might go against the grain for some people. But this
is what I believe I should- I think you should never lead with, which crm
system should I buy, because at the end of the day today's market now?

I couldn't say that back, you know 20 years ago or whenever you know 20
something years ago when SFAs There's so many crm systems out there right
now Okay, and for the most part every CRM system out there that you're
probably looking at or know about can exceed everything you're wanting to do
Okay, you're most companies only use a fraction In the beginning of what a
crm can do for them.

So let's not focus on- I tell, guys, so let's not focus on which CRM to go
with. Let's first focus on what are you trying to solve? What are your
needs? Okay. What's the, where are the areas that can bring value to your
business and ultimately bring growth to your business? That's what that
audit or assessment, whether you do it yourself or whether you bring us in
to do it.

That's what the goal of that is. Let's get our arms around that. And then
once we get that, we then build a scope of work. Okay, which then drives the
day in the life expectations of the team for which now when we go and go and
look at CRM vendors, we now have a road map that we give the CRM vendor to
say, here's what I need you to show me how your CRM does.

If you don't have that, what's gonna happen is the CRM vendors are gonna
come in. They're gonna try to wow you with all their technology and
overwhelm you. Where if you now become on the offensive and give them a
script of, okay, Mr. And Mrs. CRM vendor, here's what I want you to show us
today.

Here's the day in the life. Here's our roles, here's what we want our team
to do. Now, if you want to tell us after all the nice things and whiz bang
things you can do, that's great, but you must show us how you're going to
solve this problem or how you're going to bring value to what we want to do
with CRM.

So it should, in my opinion, always start with you as a company getting your
arms around what you want to do. Create a scope of work to give to your CRM
vendor.

Karthik Chidambaram: I really like that. I think that's great practical
advice. So thank you for that. So can you talk about your book? You also
wrote a book, ‘ROI from CRM’.

It's about the sales process, not just technology. What does that teach your
readers and why is it important? Tell us about your book.

Brian Gardner: It just goes through a lot of what we talked about here so
far today And that is, it's about a process. It's not about technology. So
ROI from CRM was the catchphrase for the book, okay, but the real meat of
the book, or that is the subtitle, it's about a process not the technology.
So many companies focus of CRM is, oh, this is technology. This is software,
you know, let's turn it over to the IT department or let's get our- no, it
needs to be driven from the sales process side first And so it needs to be
driven back to that CEO for CRM. So it's full circle here. I mean, we're
talking full circle stuff here. You know, but that book was meant.

What was the goal of that book? The goal of that book was to walk companies
through the process that I went through when developing a CRM system for the
family business that I was in. Like I said earlier, right? That was the
goal. And hopefully provide some nuggets of information and remove some
speed bumps for companies as they go through that.

And ultimately, get ROI from CRM. So the book is not a long book. It's right
to the point. A lot of examples. But it's meant to help people remove the
speed bumps that the journey that I know they need to go through and it is a
journey, which is a marathon, not a sprint.

It takes time. It's not easy. The book was meant to help companies through
that journey.

Karthik Chidambaram: And how long did it take for you to write the book?

Brian Gardner: Good question. I mean, I don't know. Probably eight months,
let's say. You know, it wasn't my full time job, obviously. What I did was,
I- There was, here was an advice that a friend of mine who wrote the book
gave me. And it was the best advice that I had that anyone gave me through
this.

He said, Brian, when you want to focus on writing your book, first off, lay
the chapters out and all that, and then start putting bullets and start
putting meat on the bones. But he said, what you need to do is when you have
your book focus time, remove yourself from where you normally do work. Go
find a spot that is your book focus, meaning don't write your book at your
desk that you do your normal work. Go find somewhere else to write your
book.

For me, it was a back room. I had a back room, a house that I converted from
a kid's room to my man cave with a big TV that was that, or there was the
local coffee shop. Those were the two, but it was not at my desk. You know,
it wasn't in my bed with my laptop on, you know, it's laying down on my
laptop. It was truly a focused room or place. That was my book writing and
it got me in that frame of mind. That was great advice from a friend of
mine.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, I mean I like doing that too, right? So sometimes
you've got to get some work done, you just go somewhere else and just you're
able to focus better. Maybe you can even go for a walk, get your thoughts
in, and then come back and write it down. Yeah, I mean, I like doing that.

So, Brian, on this podcast, we interview a lot of leaders and one question
we like to ask them is what is the question they would like to ask the next
guest we interview?

And we recently interviewed Frank Heenan. He's the Group Vice President of
Distribution and LBM at Epicor. And the question he wanted to ask us. What
is one thing you would want to get out of your technology partner? And I
think you're a great person to answer that question, right? So what is one
thing you would want to get out of your technology partner?

Brian Gardner: It comes to mind again, I- Well, the first thing that came to
my mind was, challenge me. Challenge me. What I want out of a partner is not
someone that just agrees with me, so to speak, or says, yeah, that's a good
idea. Challenge me. Challenge me on why that- why I need to think about that
differently as we go forward on whatever project we're doing or whatever
we're doing as a partner, whether it's a technology partner, whatever
partner. It's challenge me. That's what came to mind first. I don't know if
that's-

Karthik Chidambaram: I like it actually. No, I think it's simple, right? So
challenge me. Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. Actually, I think that's-

Brian Gardner: You know, I mean, again, I've got my, you know, I see things
through my lens, so to speak. You see things through your lens at the end of
the day, one and one, one and one working together should equal four or
five, right?

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, when you work with the technology vendor, you
know, they're just not working with one customer. They're working with tens,
if not hundreds of customers. So, yeah, obviously, right. So they know the
ins and outs, and they should really challenge the customer so that they get
the best out of the relationship.

Thank you, Brian. I think that's well said. So, Brian, it's your turn to ask
a question. What question would you like to ask the next leader we
interview?

Brian Gardner: So this is something- I guess I've adopted this. It's a
Covey, Stephen Covey process called WIGs - Wildly Important Goals. I've made
that part of my life so much that I've- My neighbors, my kids, they all,
like, they all know what WIGs are. You know, what are WIGs? Why are they
important goals?

I'm a believer that you should, you should, every day, every week, you
should come up with a list of wigs, a handful, one hand rule, no more than
maybe five wigs that you want to accomplish. Because what happens is life
gets you off course, life gets you reactive, you have all good intentions to
be proactive and then eight o'clock rolls around and the phones ring, the
text messages, the emails, and you get reactive.

What do you do, what do you have in place to get you back proactive to make
sure you're building and you're, you know, advancing, so to speak, what you
want to do. So WIGs are that, wildly important goals, you write them down,
and it allows you to stay focused on the things you want to do.

So the question I asked from the business leader perspective, I challenge
myself on it every day, every week, is am I focusing on the WIGs to help me
grow my business? And I reassess that regularly, but I make sure that I'm
focusing on the things that I need to focus on to truly grow my business. So
I asked, I challenge myself is- And again I'm, no big company by any
stretch, but I work a lot. I work with a lot of big companies and I promote
that to them as well. And it's actually part of the process, think about
this. Remember, I said CRM is a journey and I believe in phases. Phase one,
phase two.

I use the term the one hand rule. Do no more than five things per phase.
Okay, lead management, opportunity management, code follow up. I typically
do three to five, but one hand, no more than one hand, one hand rule. WIGs
are the same thing. It's like, hey, what are the things you really want to
focus on? It's manageable.

You know, you don't get overwhelmed, it's manageable. You know, at the end
of the day, you can feel good about yourself, but you can put check marks
by, yeah, I did that, I did that, I did that.

And then another thing that, where I am at the stage of my life, you know,
as I said, I've dated myself with some of the three letter terms I've used
like Salesforce Automation in the nineties. Right?

So is to maybe share some insights that have helped me and, and through
this. And that motivates me, so to speak, with leaders. But another thing I
ask leaders to think about is, are you caring for the future leaders in your
company? Are you preparing the future leaders? Have you identified who those
are and are you providing them the education and the continuing education,
the training and the mentoring?

Maybe that should be one of your WIGs. You know, mentor the future leaders
of your company. It's so, so important. It's so important for the bigger
cause of good, so to speak, you know, is to prepare our company, our
society, everything else for the future leaders of going forward.

Karthik Chidambaram: Oh, these are great questions.

So I took a course with Michael Hyatt. He's a big thinker and he said the
exact same thing, right? So you call it the WIGs. I really like the term,
wildly important goals. He called it, he calls it the daily big three and
you don't have to do too many things a day. Just focus on two or three
things and do it really, really well.

So you have a long term goal or, you know, what's your life plan and think
about it 25 years from now, but then shorten it down to 10 years and then 5,
1, and then break it down by the day. Right? So, I mean, you don't have to
do too many things. Just focus on two or three things. And what are your big
wins, you know, document that and that goes a long way. And yeah, so that's
a great question. And also, it's a great time. So thank you for sharing
that.

So, Brian, I would like to end with this question, which we usually ask our
guests, what book are you reading right now?

Brian Gardner: Caught me off guard with this one, Karthik. I have to admit,
I'm actually not reading a book right now, I'm actually writing a book right
now. I've started the journey of writing another book. You can probably
guess what it's maybe titled - Who's your CEO for CRM - and I'm doing a
whole series around that.

And that's where my time is spent. You know, for reading, again, I try to,
you know, I follow the associations and the blogs for the MDMs and the DSGs
and other associations. I try to read, but I'm not, again, you might say,
Brian, I'm not going to have you on this interview. You're not reading a
book. I'm not reading a book right now, but I am, I have started writing a
book.

Karthik Chidambaram: No, I think writing is- I think that's great. I mean, I
think it's, it's really nice. I mean, we say writers are leaders too, right?
So readers are leaders and writers are leaders. And thank you for writing
the book. I'm also looking forward to reading that. So thank you so much.

And so Brian, I just want to say thank you. You know, it's been great
chatting about CRM and I really enjoyed this conversation. Especially, you
know, when I asked you, hey, what CRM platform should I choose? And you told
me, you know what, it's not about what platform you need to choose, it's
really about why you're doing it and outline the process and outline the
needs. And then pass it on to the vendor.

So that way, you know, it's actually- you're equipping the vendor with the
right information. So they can make the right recommendations for you. And
also you talk about challenges, right? So the technology vendors challenge
you. I think that's great advice too.

And also the WIGs, right? So wildly important goals. So thank you so much,
Brian. I really enjoyed this conversation. Great chatting with you and
thanks for joining Driven by DCKAP.

Brian Gardner: Thank you. I enjoyed it. And again, hopefully there's some
nuggets of information that can bring value to your readers and subscribers.