Why Proactive Relationship Management is Going to Kill the Traditional CRM – In Just 7 Minutes with Adam Honig

Check out episode
  • Discover how having a solid follow-up system still is the best way to increase sales
  • Know the areas, and actions you need to focus on as a salesperson, rather than that soul-crushing entry typing of your client’s CRM data
  • Learn why proactive relationship management is going to kill CRM

Resources/Links:

Summary

As Spiros CEO, Adam Honig is focused on the company’s overall market strategy and vision. He is passionate about helping sales teams make more money using artificial intelligence and is the driving force behind Spiros’proactive relationship management.

In this episode, Adam shares how he helps sales teams make more money using artificial intelligence and shares their mission is to help sales teams spend more time selling rather than spending time in sorting out their CRM manually.

Check out these episode highlights:

  • 01:16 – Adam’s ideal client: We work mostly with small and medium-sized businesses who have a sales team. And often the sales team is field-based, meaning that they travel from client to client.
  • 01:32 – Problem he helps solve: A lot of business owners would like to understand what their sales teams are doing, their own activity, but doing the manual work of data entry in a CRM is just a soul-sucking experience
  • 02:11 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Adam: Well, there are usually two symptoms, either you don’t know what the sales team is doing, or they’re spending too much time updating CRM.
  • 02:52 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: Well, the traditional way to solve this problem is to bring up everybody who’s involved in the sales process or perhaps have a large meeting. Where you force every person in the company or in the group to sit around and talk about all of your different potential customers, and it’s a big waste of time. And the sales team hates that and everybody gets really bored.
  • 03:39 – Adam’s Valuable Free Action(VFA): The advice that I would give, which relates to that is to make sure that people are doing enough follow-ups. I know it feels like when you have a lead coming in that you’re reaching out a lot to somebody. But reaching out a lot, even more, is really required to convert them into a customer. So, don’t feel like you’re not reaching out too much. You push through that and reach out more.
  • 05:44 – Adam’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): Download The 44 Best Sales Tips of All Time: https://spiro.ai/blog/
  • 06:24 – Q: “what’s the number one thing that I can do to increase sales?” A: Really trying to be authentic with people is super important. And when things are not right for your company, qualify people at quickly, but just really, you really want to make sure that people understand that you’re coming from a point of view of trying to help them the most. That’s, in my view, the best way to increase sales.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Make sure that your sales people are doing enough follow-ups.” -@spiroai Click To Tweet

Info about our correspondent host: Travis has a background in sales, marketing, and strategy, and left the corporate world several years ago to start his own agency. As a copywriter by trade, his biggest skill is putting the right words, in front of the right people, at the right time. Travis has developed go-to-market strategies for grassroots apps to Fortune 500 and helped optimize up to $50k per day in Facebook Ad spend for one of the biggest startups in Asia.

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Travis Bennett: 0:09
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Travis Bennett and I’m rocking it to you out of Yangon in Myanmar, proving that you can build a successful business anywhere in the world. I’m joined today by Adam Honig. Adam, a very, very warm welcome.

Adam Honig: 0:23
Thanks, Travis. Great to be here.

Travis Bennett: 0:25
It’s a pleasure to have you. And where are you coming to us today from, Adam?

Adam Honig: 0:28
I’m in sunny Boston, Massachusetts, today.

Travis Bennett: 0:31
Awesome. Awesome. And for those of you who don’t know Adam. I just like to introduce him really quick. He’s the CEO of Spiro. And his whole focus is basically on the marketing strategy and vision for the company. And his whole passion is about helping sales teams make more money using artificial intelligence and is basically the driving force behind Spiros proactive relationship management. Adam, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show today.

Adam Honig: 0:55
Thank you.

Travis Bennett: 0:56
Cool. And so, we’re going to be talking about “Why Proactive Relationship Management is Going to Kill the Traditional CRM”. And Adam is going to explain everything to us in just seven minutes. So, Adam, our time, let me find the timer, I’ve just lost that one. Our time is going to start now. And question number one, who is your ideal client?

Adam Honig: 1:16
So, we work mostly with small and medium-sized businesses that have a sales team. And often the sales team is field-based, meaning that they travel from client to client.

Travis Bennett: 1:27
Okay. And then what’s the problem that you’re solving for these field-based sales teams?

Adam Honig: 1:32

Well, a lot of business owners would like to understand what their sales teams are doing, their own activity, but doing the manual work of data entry in a CRM is just a soul-sucking experience.

So, the solution that we provide is something called Proactive Relationship Management, which is designed to replace CRM.

Travis Bennett: 1:50
Perfect. Perfect. As someone who’s suffered through a lot of CRM data input in the past, I can tell you, that’s a very big problem to solve. So then question number three, we’ve got six minutes on the clock, we’re doing very good for a time. What are the typical symptoms that business owners experience when they’re using a CRM, they’re having this problem of managing their field sales teams?

Adam Honig: 2:11
Well, there are usually two symptoms, either you don’t know what the sales team is doing, or they’re spending too much time updating CRM. And so, you know, what we’re trying to do is make it so that artificial intelligence can do all of the updating for them.

And so that they can focus their time on selling and not doing this mind-numbing data entry business that they need to do. Imagine if you had the forecast and the activity report, automatically updated, that’s what Spiro is all about.

Travis Bennett: 2:39
That’s very cool. So then, if they were trying to fix this problem, but they weren’t using Spiro, what are the kind of mistakes that they might make or the challenges that they’d hit, trying to do this without a solution like yours?

Adam Honig: 2:52

Well, the traditional way to solve this problem is to bring up everybody who’s involved in the sales process or perhaps have a large meeting. Where you force every person in the company or in the group to sit around and talk about all of your different potential customers, and it’s a big waste of time. And the sales team hates that and everybody gets really bored.

Travis Bennett: 3:11
Yeah, we used to call those the Monday morning sales meetings and I feel that hate.

Adam Honig: 3:16
Exactly. And in today’s day and age where, you know, artificial intelligence can literally listen to the phone calls, read the emails, it can just do all that work for you. It’s just not necessary anymore.

Travis Bennett: 3:26
Gotcha. So then question number five, what piece of advice would you give to the listeners out there that they can start better understanding the problem and maybe taking some initial steps to start fixing this?

Adam Honig: 3:39
So even though we’ve introduced a product, which is designed to replace CRM, our mission is really about helping sales teams make more money. And the advice that I would give, which relates to that is to make sure that people are doing enough follow-ups. I know it feels like when you have a lead coming in that you’re reaching out a lot to somebody. But reaching out a lot, even more, is really required to convert them into a customer. So, don’t feel like you’re not reaching out too much. You push through that and reach out more.

Travis Bennett: 4:07
Okay. And what would be a good amount of reaching out? Is that like a follow up every few days or four or five emails, or is it more? Is it less?

Adam Honig: 4:16
Well, we prefer the phone because a lot of selling is based on relationships. And I think this is, but it’s exactly a good point because so many people are like, well, I sent them an email. Well, so what? Ring the person on the phone, call them at eight o’clock in the morning, call them at 5:30 at night, follow up with an email. You know, I would say every day, I wouldn’t wait every other day. If there’s a lead that comes in and somebody has expressed interest, that’s gold, I would say go for it.

Travis Bennett: 4:41
If there’s an opportunity, you need to capitalize on it and make sure that that lead doesn’t disappear.

Adam Honig: 4:46
Well, a lot of the statistics show that the very first person who makes contact with a lead is the one who wins the deal. And often that’s because people aren’t actually following up enough to actually reach the person.

Travis Bennett: 4:57
Gotcha. Gotcha. They’re just losing in their 1000 emails that come in overnight. They’re just one of those and they’re getting lost in the mass.

Adam Honig: 5:05
Exactly. One of the things that Spiro does, which can be found at Spiro.ai, is it automatically remind you to do this follow up based upon all of the activity that it sees in. We got that built right into the product.

Travis Bennett: 5:16
Yeah. So, it kind of knocks you out of the habit of not following up and tells you, hey, look, maybe you should be reaching out to them because it’s time.

Adam Honig: 5:24
Exactly. And then just with one click, you can call them a bunch of times, and you need a different approach.

Travis Bennett: 5:29
Gotcha. That’s it. So, we’ve got two minutes and 30 seconds on the clock. We’re doing really great. Question number six, what is one valuable free resource that we can direct our listeners to, and they can maybe get some more advice, some more help with this particular problem?

Adam Honig: 5:44
Well, so I mentioned the need to push through and follow up a lot. That’s really just one of 44 sales tips that we put into our eBook, which is called The 44 Best Sales Tips of All Time, which is available for free on our website. And so, you can download that under the resources section of Spiro.ai.

Travis Bennett: 6:01
Perfect. So Spiro.ai, head to the resource section and get The 44 Best Sales Tips.

Adam Honig: 6:08
Ever.

Travis Bennett: 6:09
Ever, ever. Sorry, I missed that part, ever. Perfect. And then question number seven, what’s the one thing that I should have asked that might give some more extra value to our audience, but I haven’t had a chance to get to yet. We’ve got a minute, 30 seconds on the clock. So, I’ve got plenty of time.

Adam Honig: 6:24
Well, you’ve been doing a really great job asking questions. So, I would say, you know, one of the things that people ask me a lot is,

…what’s the number one thing that I can do to increase sales?

And I think this is on a lot of business owners’ minds. And this is my third, Spiro is my third company. I started two other successful companies, and I’ve been in sales my whole career.

And I would say that you know, really trying to be authentic with people is super important. And when things are not right for your company, qualify people quickly, but just really, you really want to make sure that people understand that you’re coming from a point of view of trying to help them the most. That’s, in my view, the best way to increase sales.

Travis Bennett: 7:00
Okay, so it’s not so much focused on selling, it’s more focused on helping. Understanding where they’re coming from, understanding their pains, and building that kind of authenticity through kind of a shared understanding, before actually trying to jam a sale down the throat.

Adam Honig: 7:16
Absolutely. Really trying to put yourself in the shoes of the person that you’re talking to and make sure you can figure out how to help them.

Travis Bennett: 7:22
Gotcha. Okay. So, the key, help them first and then everything else kind of takes care of itself.

Adam Honig: 7:27
It should. Yes.

Travis Bennett: 7:28
Perfect. Perfect. Adam, it’s a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Anyone that’s listening, Spiro.ai, head to the resources section, grab that book, and you have 44 new ways to improve your sales process today.

Adam Honig: 7:42
Well, hopefully, you’ve been doing some of them, but you know, maybe one or two should be new.

Travis Bennett: 7:46
Perfect. Perfect. You should get there one or two new ideas to get the ball rolling and hopefully bring in some more sales. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And thank you, Adam, again for joining us today.

Adam Honig: 7:55
Great talking with you, Travis.

Travis Bennett: 7:56
Cheers.

Tom Poland: 7:49
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.

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