JT Rimbey 00:02
Welcome to the Field Sales Leadership Guide podcast where we discuss with experienced and successful sales leaders what works and what doesn't in the sales professionals Join us as we tap into high performing sales leaders and their passion for field sales. We've lined up for you some of the smartest movers and shakers in sales leadership to share their formulas for success and the tricks of the trade. Join us as we pull back the curtain giving you actionable insights and strategies that you can use with your sales team.
Hello, we have another exciting episode of the podcast for you here today. Have you ever met someone and just know that they're genuine, they're sincere, they're kind, and they have their ducks all lined up in a row. What I mean by that is they know their priorities. This is Michelle Shepard, VP of Sales for Systel. Her last name, Shepard spelling might be slightly different. But she leads and protects her team so well. She leads and protects and cares for our customers so well. She's got a great story that validates one why she was even hired in the first place with Systel, but I think it was largely due to her last name and how she exemplifies being a Shepard. Michelle, I'm so excited to have you join us today. I'm a huge fan. And I know that you know that. Welcome to the podcast.
Michelle Shepard 01:24
Likewise. Wow.
JT Rimbey 01:27
I've got you speechless right out of the gate. This is great. That's a great thing.
Michelle Shepard 01:31
You left me speechless, and that doesn't happen very often I must say. Thank you. It's so kind of you to say those wonderful things. Very thankful to be here. And it's been a pleasure meeting you. I would say much of the same thing about you as well, JT. It's been a fabulous meeting.
JT Rimbey 01:49
Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. I will say for our listeners all over the country here, you can clearly tell that Michelle is from the North. I'm joking. She's a North Carolina girl for you, for all you you southerners out there. Alright, Michelle, let's dive in. You have a couple of great stories. Let's start out with how did you get into sales? Share that story, please.
Michelle Shepard 02:09
It's such an odd and so we'll just say purely by happenstance. So prior to Systel, so I came in 2001. But prior to that, I worked as an AS 400 administrator. So I worked in the IT industry. That's what I did. Really worked for an organization that I loved. I plan to retire there and had a wonderful future. And unfortunately, they had some financial difficulties. So I found myself laid off and during that time, got a great severance package from the company that I worked with. And as part of that, they gave me an opportunity to meet with a consultant to just sort of assess what I could do. And sadly, I will say, you know, somebody in the IT industry in the early 2000s, I found myself at sort of a career plateau, unfortunately, and it was scary. I found that I could either move into programming. I'm not a programmer. I don't sit behind a desk. Not my personality at all. I could move into management, and I just didn't really have the education that could take me into a level of management position that I'd be happy with. So during an assessment with this personnel agency, she said, have you thought about sales? I hadn't really ever thought about sales, but I had a good severance package. So we talked a little bit about that. And I thought I could do it. So they set me up with an interview for competitor, went to the interview. Liked it and would you believe I was driving home from that interview and drove by the Systel Greensboro office location. So I saw this really nice big sign that had the same thing from the interview that I had just left and walked in the door and the rest is pretty much history.
JT Rimbey 03:59
Did you pull in then?
Michelle Shepard 04:02
Yes, I walked in the door and said, hey, I just interviewed down the road. What do you guys have open? And I fell in love with the people, many of whom are still here. They report to me now. The man that hired me actually is one of my employees. But we have a great relationship. And like I said, the rest is history. I fell in love with the business. I fell in love with the company, the culture, the employees, our customers. We truly are an organization that really takes care of our employees and our customers.
JT Rimbey 04:37
Do you leverage that a bunch like who ever says that prospecting and cold knocks don't work? That was the best close of your life. You knock and you close the deal?
Michelle Shepard 04:47
Yeah, it's been an amazing career as well. I will say that I've often been the only female in the room because this is a male dominated business very much so, but it's been a great career for me. I love it. And it's funny for probably the first 15 years of my career, I tell the owners within the business, I don't say this as much, but I do still feel it, they can fire me, but I'm still coming to work. I will be here. And I really believe that I was made for this business. I was made to be here every day.
JT Rimbey 05:21
Awesome. So tell us just a little bit about Systel, what they do, who you guys serve.
Michelle Shepard 05:28
So we're a $50 million company. We're headquartered here in beautiful state of North Carolina. We have 12 office locations throughout North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. We service multiple states throughout the United States. And when I say that, we have partnerships, so the dealership community in the business equipment space that we're in is a beautiful community. We really rally together and support each other. So when you hear about North Carolina based business equipment dealer, so we're a business equipment company, and we're considered a dealer because we don't manufacture equipment. So we partner with manufacturers of hardware and software solutions, managed IT, managed voice, and those kinds of things. So we deliver white glove service to our customers, and provide quality hardware, software solutions, etc. So any business that needs things to operate would come to us and we'll help them.
JT Rimbey 06:33
So you just mentioned white glove service, I definitely want to hang out and veg out on that, but not yet. Walk us through the go to market strategy of Systel. A little bit about your sales team members, and how you go and find and engage with prospects and customers.
Michelle Shepard 06:49
Okay, so we're a traditional sales organization. And what I mean by that is we have sales team members. We have just under 40 sales representatives. That doesn't include the managers, but just under 40. We have some specialists, but the vast majority of our sales team are hunters that go out on the street. They walk into businesses and solicit for the services that we offer. They also do that by picking up the telephone. There's a telephone they pick up on occasion. We also have a new business development team. You and I haven't really ever spoke about that. But we do have a new business development team that sits and they are office employees. All they do is telephone calls, to help us find net new opportunities. So 40 sales reps, there's about five people on our new business development team and then we have seven sales managers in different varieties.
JT Rimbey 07:54
So what differentiates Systel from your competitors? And you gave us a sneak peek already with the white glove service line?
Michelle Shepard 08:03
So that's a great question. And I can tell you, everybody in this space has very similar products, right? Let's be honest, it's just like when you buy a television, they're very similar. So what sets us apart? A number of things. First of all, our employees are 100% committed to total customer satisfaction. And that's not just one employee. It's every single employee. It's our delivery driver. It's our service technicians. It's our corporate headquarters who take care of our customers who take care of the billing. It's everybody within the organization. They really care about quality customer service. In our space, in order to maintain business, you really have to provide quality service, right. To be able to maintain your presence, especially for as long as we have. So we started in 1981, you have to be great to continue that never once have we laid off an employee. And that's really why I'm here in the grand scheme of things. I know I'll have a job at the end of the day. I know that as long as I do the things that our ownership has identified as mission critical, and that is providing quality service. Making sure when you talk to a customer that you let them know that we sincerely appreciate their business. But our service technicians do a great job, too. So they're really the backbone of our organization in the grand scheme of things. So we deliver white glove service to our customers. Not everybody really understands what that means anymore. But we take our equipment out, we set it up we test it in every single way that can possibly be tested before it's ever delivered to the customer. We update firmware. So many of our competitors are out there, trying to figure out how to do things more cost effectively, I guess. And we're always looking to do that as well, but not to eliminate or limit quality of service. So we just have never abandoned that customer service mindset that we were built on day one.
JT Rimbey 10:21
So there's a bunch to unpack there, one never laid off an employee. That's fantastic, and how unbelievably relevant compared to what's going on in the world right now. So like, wow, that's fantastic. That speaks volumes. With the white glove service. I think you've referenced that's Mr. Allison, that customer service is not a one time goal or a one time event.
Michelle Shepard 10:46
So our culture really began with our owner, Mr. Keith Allison. He's trained every one of us those that started and during his tenure that customer service is not a one time goal. It's a continuing commitment to innovation, quality and attention to detail. He instilled in us that quality as employees when we began. I won't say it was baked into us. We had a strong desire, and we believed in him so much that he created. It's just a beautiful organization.
JT Rimbey 11:24
Right after undergrad, I worked in the golf industry. And the PGA would teach that each interaction with somebody is a moment of truth, where you're either going to build trust or erode trust. That's really what was just playing over and over in my mind whenever you were talking through that. So from the hunter, establishing a relationship to the delivery employee dropping off a piece of equipment, it sounds like you guys have a really sound culture centered on moments of truth.
Michelle Shepard 11:53
Solid foundation. It was built on it, and we've never steered away from it. Our customers appreciate it. They are our best advocates. They give us great references. But they also mean, it's not uncommon for a customer call and say, Hey, I just learned you're not doing business with XYZ down the road. You really need to call on them. So they give us a lot of referrals, it's a great thing to be a part of something so wonderful.
JT Rimbey 12:20
I really want to focus our time right now on the sales hires, because you have hunters. And by definition, a hunter typically finds and secures a new customer, and they wash their hands and they go and find the new one. So there's a fine line with a white glove service mentality and got a new customer go on to the next one. So does my question even make sense there?
Michelle Shepard 12:46
It does. It absolutely does. So what we've put in place is a customer service experience, I guess is the best way to say it. So our sales reps are tasked with going out finding net new opportunities, finding good quality opportunities, and then once they find the opportunity, we have specialists in place that help them with specialty products with our solutions and hardware. It's impossible when you have such a vast portfolio to be everything for your customer. Like none of us can know every single thing about every single component and widget and offering that we have. So we've done a really good job having the right people in place that can be specialists to support that call. There's a lot of team based selling. Nobody feels abandoned or alone, including the customer. So our employees can't feel that they're abandoned or alone. They have to know that when they go out and they talk about this service or this solution or this piece of hardware that they're going to potentially sell to an opportunity. They have to be able to do it with confidence, and they can and that's what's beautiful about what we've built here. So we've got everything in place for our customers to be successful and our employees to be successful.
JT Rimbey 14:10
It is a great thing. And it takes a special type of rep to fall into that culture and to earn a role within that culture. How do you go about recruiting and hiring? Maybe just speak to the hiring process of what does that look like to make sure they have those values that Systel wants to present to all their customers?
Michelle Shepard 14:31
That's a great question. So we're looking for somebody with good listening skills with good communication skills. Those are probably the two core components. We're looking for people that are willing to learn new skill sets, someone's willing to work hard and strong communication skills is really our biggest thing. You know, when we interview candidates and we have somebody that's really great. We do a couple of things as it relates to just testing for skills. I have a couple of assessments that help us understand sort of what they would be bringing to the position. We go through multiple rounds of interviewing and multiple people interviewing the candidates. We want them to fit into the culture. We want them to see the opportunity that they have. There's a great deal of opportunity for them to make money, and a great deal of money if they fall into a position here. So it has to fit in every direction.
JT Rimbey 15:31
That's awesome. Sticking along the topic of culture. I have followed Systel for about a year now. And one of the things that I'm absolutely sincerely enamored with is your team's energy to encourage each other to build each other up, to celebrate wins, to call out to customers, all on LinkedIn. So I'm the guy on social media that like, I’m the silent scroller, and every now and again, I like something, everyone. So I'll congratulate somebody on a job well done. I get really terrified, putting myself out there to the masses. Which is ironic, because I'm on a podcast. But I'm absolutely blown away with the team groundswell that you guys have in adopting a LinkedIn strategy. You've worked with Steve. How did you get your team to get on board with that? Well, you just speak a little bit to the LinkedIn approach.
Michelle Shepard 16:30
Absolutely, I'd love to. And it's a beautiful thing to see even more beautiful to be a part of, I will say that, and thank you for recognizing my team and how great they do. It's impressive. So we were introduced by somebody in the business to a man by the name of Steve Nudelberg. And so last March, he came to one of our sales events, and he shared with our teammate, the importance of connections on LinkedIn, and how it can help you in your career. Our team absolutely embraced it. They're encouraged by it every day, they understand the importance of sharing wins. You know, when you're in sales, celebrating the difficulty of sales is probably the biggest thing that people miss out on. And I would say, if we've lost people over the years, it's been because we didn't do enough of it. We didn't celebrate the wins enough, because they are unfortunately, especially early in your career, they are infrequent. For some, you know, some people just come in and they get it. But celebrating wins is probably one of the biggest things that he helped us with. Not only that, there's a lot to the Steve Nudelberg training model. I certainly highly recommend LinkedIn training with him. It can't be the only thing that your business does. You can't build a business on LinkedIn. I firmly believe that now they have. But when you're in a geographical region, LinkedIn makes it hard. So you have to in our industry still knock on the doors. You still have to do those things. But LinkedIn just brought another possibility to our teams that they just weren’t tapping into previously. So great big fan of Steve Nudelberg and all of his training.
JT Rimbey 18:30
I'm impressed because it's not been a flash in the pan. I've seen consistent posting of your field reps, just when they're starting the day when they're about to hit windshield time, hands on the steering wheel, just celebrating, they're ready to go and get it. So it's a really awesome culture that you have. They're very exciting.
Michelle Shepard 18:50
It's so great to be a part of.
JT Rimbey 18:52
Okay, so let's twist this tactically, as a sales leader. Let's take a turn to what metrics are important to you. We get the culture, we get caring, we get strong listening skills, strong communication skills. What metrics as a leader do you use to guide and lead the team to land new business?
Michelle Shepard 19:12
Yeah, so we hold them to several different metrics. But if it's a net new employee, they have no or very limited customers. We ask that they do about 30 cold calls a week. We do like about 20 hours of field prospecting out in the field. But we don't dictate that it has to be a phone call nor a hard knock. Now our managers will do a really good job of identifying and providing feedback on what's most effective. And we also have our reps ride along together and do calls together so they can see other people's styles. So when I came to Systel, I had no sales experience. So becoming a sales rep for me was very difficult in the very beginning, I couldn't close the door behind me when I walked through it most of the time. It was awful. So I'll stole from eight sales reps that trained me in my first year. I was a thief. I took everything that they did great and absolutely threw away all the things that they didn't do well, right. So and that's what our reps do. But we do have metrics. And so the field prospecting, we say about 20 hours a week minimum, and we'll hold every one of our new employees to that. We ask that they do net new follow up. We asked them to pipeline and forecast. The set of a net new employee should have five times their quota quoted, every month. We do ask that they give us a one hour on LinkedIn every week. That's a requirement in our activity and expectation wheel. And then we ask that they go and visit existing customers at minimum 10 a week. So there are metrics in place that really lead to their success. So in our wheel, we say that the success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. And that's a flow that we have right in our will of expectations.
JT Rimbey 21:20
Did I hear that you just dropped in that even new reps are slated for 10 existing customer visits a week?
Michelle Shepard 21:28
Yes, yeah.
JT Rimbey 21:30
Okay. So that matches unbelievably well with white glove service, knowing your customers consistency, getting ahead of future needs that maybe that customer doesn't even know about yet. And I really like it too, because you call them hunters earlier. But there's some farming in there as well, because you've got a great relationship.
Michelle Shepard 21:52
Right, exactly. And so it is easier to sell the other products that we have in our product portfolio. Obviously, it would be easier when you already have an existing relationship. But when you have a customer that's been with us, we have customers that have been with us for over 30 years that have never left us, right. We have some that have been with us for 40. So starting in 1981, the first businesses came to Systel. And so what we found ourselves doing is constantly re-educating our customer base.
JT Rimbey 22:28
So lots of validation of the white glove service right there. Also lots of validation as to why it's necessary and critical for your reps to be in front of not only new customers but really tenured customers to educate them.
Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. What an absolute blessing you are. A breath of fresh air. Love the experience. Love the sincerity. So thank you for joining us on it.
Michelle Shepard 22:55
It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
JT Rimbey 23:01
Thank you again for listening today. Thank you to our sponsor Map My Customers as well. Remember traditional CRMs were never designed specifically for outside sales reps. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, HubSpot, even Pega. They're too cumbersome, too complex and too time consuming, along with the glaring lack of mobile friendly options. Half of our customers leverage Map My customers as the CRM of record, and the other half use Map My Customers as the tip of the spear for their existing CRM. Designed specifically for outside sales reps were a mobile first platform, helping to strategically segment accounts, along with routing and mapping, activity logging, and much much more. Remember that ease of use drives adoption, adoption delivers data and data delivers insights. Visit mapmycustomers.me for more info. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Share with your friends, your colleagues, and your family members. If you do have additional questions or comments for Michelle or myself, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you and answer any questions you have and certainly learn about what you think of the episode. Come join us again soon. Thanks for listening.
