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 profession. 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, and welcome to another episode. Glad you're joining us today. We're gonna dive right in with today's guest. Number one, she's absolutely awesome. A great communicator, a passion for helping others succeed. She also has the uncommon ability to get things done and make decisions while still making meetings and work actually enjoyable. Pleasant, kind, purposeful, intelligent. Andrea Eckberg VP of North American sales for Thibaut Design. She's got the heart of a teacher, which spills over really nicely, because she leads all customer facing teams across Thibaut. Andrea, welcome to the podcast, and thank you for joining us today.
Andrea Eckberg 01:24
Thanks for having me. This is exciting.
JT Rimbey 01:26
It is. it is what our listeners don't know is it took an act of Congress to get on Andrea's schedule, and you'll find out why she's so incredibly busy, and it's very purposeful. So thank you again for carving out time for us. Starting out for our listeners, how did you get into sales?
Andrea Eckberg 01:44
Well, that's a long, interesting story. My degree is actually in education. I taught school for a couple of years, loved every moment of that, but at some point realized I would be a better mom if I wasn't being a mom to other people's children all day long, and had a initial opportunity in pharmaceutical sales many, many years ago. So I spent the first probably half of my career in sales in the pharmaceutical industry, which was fantastic. I made a shift over to the home furnishing industries, actually on the contract side working for Mohawk contract selling flooring, which was a great experience. We were living in Washington DC at that point. So major metro markets with very large architects and design firms. I left Mohawk and went to Cravat, I was on the residential side managing the Mid Atlantic region. Awesome company, fantastic family. Really fell in love with residential sales, I think at that point in my career, and then was approached about this opportunity at Thibaut, which I did not jump at right away. I was very, very happy where I was. Ultimately, when I came to realize was that there was a maybe once in a career opportunity at Thibaut to jump in, roll my sleeves up and really impact change in a positive way. I had the opportunity to cover our sales team across the country, our corporate showroom network. It was really exciting the idea again, to just make a difference in a positive way out and I've been here now for about three and a half years.
JT Rimbey 03:22
That's awesome. I will tell you Andrea. I love it whenever I hear somebody make a pivot specifically for the family. So congratulations, your priorities and your ducks are lined up appropriately. So I love that. Help us understand Thibaut. What do they do? Who do they sell to. A little background there.
Andrea Eckberg 03:40
Thibaut is a very special company. It was established in 1886. At that point, strictly selling wallpaper. We are the oldest wallpaper firm in the United States. Today, we sell high end wallcovering, fabrics and furniture to the interior design community. Very special in that we have beautiful, amazing products that are applicable, no matter what part of the country you live in, or what your design aesthetic may be.
JT Rimbey 04:15
Real quickly just to give the listeners a small semblance of the size of team that Andrea oversees how many reps how many managers, and then we need to talk at least briefly about the service team as well.
Andrea Eckberg 04:26
Yeah, I have 35 sales reps. I have three managers. We have a showroom network of about 25 employees, a director of our corporate showrooms. On the client experience side, we've got 30 associates that our first line defense or first line communication to our designers via phone, via email. So it's a pretty large team, but fantastic team across the board. Very motivated, very talented people who challenge each other and challenge me to be the best that we can be every day, no matter what the situation may be,
JT Rimbey 05:02
Let's chat a little bit about the opportunity at Thibaut. So rewind three and a half years ago, what was most exciting for you to come into Thibaut?
Andrea Eckberg 05:11
We had a lot of challenges. At that point, our service wasn't stellar, we have frustrated design our clients in the past. We definitely had an opportunity to really define what the client journey should be, with the idea that the client is the most important person here in in our equation. There was opportunity to grow on the sales side. There was opportunity to grow on the showroom side. There was really opportunity for growth. And that ultimately, is the goal, to continue the growth trajectory that Thibaut has been on for some time now, while honing in on the quality side to make sure that again, the client experience is the first and last thing we think about every day.
JT Rimbey 05:59
So a lot of companies that say their customer first, there's very few that actually execute on that. So in prior conversations, I think back I used to have a had a mentor that would tell me that some of the best leaders view challenges as just a massive opportunity to come in and say, Oh, this project is here. Let me impact this, and then look back with pride and say, look where we brought this to, and I think you guys are already seeing the fruits of all those labors.
Andrea Eckberg 06:30
Yeah, no doubt. At the end of the day, I think you're right. There are a lot of companies who say the customer comes first. We live it, and maybe that's what's different. You know, I started managing just the sales team. And our, of course, our showroom network. After about a year in the role, I was asked to take on our client experience, our customer service department as well. We at Thibaut as an executive team really believe that every client facing our customer facing part of our organization should have the same goals should have the same culture should believe in the same things. And I think that that's been one of the things that's made the biggest difference is we are all strictly aligned to that client, first customer first approach. Now having everyone who actually speaks to the customer to the designer, under the same umbrella, knowing that we all believe that that client journey is what we should be hanging your hat on, has made a huge impact in the way that we engage with our clients every day.
JT Rimbey 07:32
I appreciate the way he said many companies say their customer centric customer first, but we live it. I think I've heard you say in the past that culture starts with leadership. And really the way leadership viewing interacts with the customer sets the tone and the bar for how everyone else at Thibaut treats and interacts with each and every customer as well.
Andrea Eckberg 07:52
Yeah, no doubt, you know, that's something I think we're all very proud of. We're a very approachable leadership group. Our leadership team interacts on a regular basis, every part of this organization. We have an open door policy and an open idea policy. We encourage every colleague every associate every person at Thibaut to share their ideas. It helps make us better, ultimately,
JT Rimbey 08:19
Okay, customer centric, open door policies, open idea policies, let's discuss the customer centric customer engagement model. How do you go to market with so many interior designers as your total addressable market? What does that look like from a sales team perspective?
Andrea Eckberg 08:37
So that was definitely an area of focus to begin with, and continues to be. I think most companies feel like that's an ongoing challenge to stay nimble and to stay present. And the world that we live in, it's a very transactional selling process. The more you show up, the more you're in front of a designer face to face helping her source for her project boards, the more successful you are, the more sales that come your way. I'll tell you that when I got to Thibaut, there was no CRM. I had never worked for a company that didn't have a CRM for their sales team. I had no idea what to do without a CRM to organize and to keep, you know, our team on task. And it was a challenge. From day one. I said, my number one goal is to get a CRM in place. So I started very early with the vetting process met with several different CRM companies, those that I've used in past lives. I didn't know Map My Customer at that point, and ultimately found that for us, Map My Customer was going to be the easiest to adopt. I was adamant that we needed 100% adoption from day one. There was not going to be any other way for it to ultimately lead to our success and efficiencies on the road. So Map My Customer was an easy choice for me. I knew that it would be something my team would embrace from day one, which they did.
JT Rimbey 10:08
As you well know, I come from Salesforce.com. I know the CRM space really, really well. When I made the switch to map my customers just over two years ago, I've been blown away at the sheer volume of really successful or large companies that have 10 years or, or have been in business for 100 plus years that have no CRM. It flabbergasted me. Did you have cultural challenges sharing with your executive team as to why you needed a CRM or was that a very easy conversation to have with them?
Andrea Eckberg 10:44
Easy conversation, something you have to plan and budget for, there was no doubt that I had initial buy in that it was needed. It was about timing and about choosing the right CRM for us at the time where we were. There were some things that really stood out with Map My Customer. I think that I was very passionate about a crawl, walk run approach to a CRM implementation. We gave very little direction except for get in and get used to it for the first six months. Some expectations have been put in place since then. Ultimately, what we found is a CRM, especially one as simple to use as Map My Customer, gives our reps time back in their day, and anyone who's been in sales knows, it's the most valuable thing we have is time and we never have enough of it. So to be able to give back some time during the day to help make our team more efficient to help their ability in the market to make quick decisions to be in the right place at the right time with the right information at their fingertips, again, has just given them back time. And my experience is that if you can't be very clear, with a sales rep on the benefit to them personally, of using a CRM, the adoption won't be where you need it to be. So that was the approach I took.
JT Rimbey 12:07
Let's give a picture to the listeners of how many days a week are reps in the field. Do you have any expectation a number of meetings? Is the vast majority of customer interaction face to face? What does that look like?
Andrea Eckberg 12:22
You know, COVID threw us off our loop. So I'm going to pretend that COVID never happened and tell you what it's like in a perfect world. Yes, we do expect somewhere between 15 and 20 face to face interactions a week. Again, we didn't have this expectation that it should be documented in our CRM early on. It was something that we wanted to grow into. So after the first six months coming into the next year, we did put some expectations in place as to what the interaction quantity and quality needed to be through the CRM. One thing I haven't mentioned, which I think is important is a call out for Map My Customer is the lead generator. We've had a big focus on acquiring new designers. I think most in our industry do. New designers pop up every day. They leave bigger design firms, start their own design firms. So it was super exciting to me to hear that Map My Customer had such a robust lead generator, so that when the team is actually out in the territory, they can see potential new clients that are around them that they may not know. We've got some expectation around how we react to those leads, which has been highly successful for our folks. Not just new folks, but tenured reps as well.
JT Rimbey 13:36
Okay, one of the things I really appreciate about you is that you’re VP of North American sales. You still commit to ride alongs each and every month with your reps. I know how busy you are. I am unbelievably respectful for your commitment to continue to do that. Share reasons why, who you choose and what you get out of those.
Andrea Eckberg 14:01
I was a sales rep for many, many years. And so I know how important it is as a leader not to get too far away from your customer base. I am not on the road to rate or score the sales rep that I'm with. They have managers that do that. I'm on the road to really interact with our customer. It keeps me grounded. It helps me to be able to bring back to corporate to our design team, to our service team, areas of opportunity areas of improvement that may be needed. It keeps me close to the industry, and I think really ultimately close to the designer. It helps me to understand what her issues may be and how we can become a better partner for her.
JT Rimbey 14:48
Yeah, better advocate. I've heard that across other really great sales leaders where they're able to really interact not only with their team because they understand what the team is hearing and facing while in field. One of my favorite sales leaders Joe McDonald says it's sharpening the saw and keeping his saw sharp as he continues to interact with those customers. So that's great.
Andrea Eckberg 15:10
I point back to the kind of open door policy, open idea policy. When you walk the walk and you know, a sales rep or showroom staff member sees you, and you really are engaged, it certainly helps to create that culture where they're willing to share and wanting to be part of the decisions that we make moving forward.
JT Rimbey 15:31
You spoke so highly of the director on the service side, give the director a quick shout out and there was some system that he or she may have implemented.
Andrea Eckberg 15:42
I brought in a new director for client experience Carey Butinski. Carey is a very, very talented motivating leader for that team. I think one of the biggest things that he and Evie, his quality assurance associate rolled out was a quality rating system for our associates. Sometimes customer service, in general with other companies can be pretty stale. If you think about the fact that you're answering the phone, all day long, you're you're answering emails all day long. It could be stale. They challenge each other. The rating system is in place to make sure that we are delivering best in class customer service. But they also have fun. They compete with each other. And maybe that's the sales competitive side of me, you know, showing up in the client experience department, but I think it keeps them on their toes. It keeps us on our toes. And ultimately, I am confident that, again, they're thinking of the client first and doing what they need to do to make sure the client is delighted.
JT Rimbey 16:46
Awesome. I'm sure Carey and Evie will appreciate the shout out. So measuring success, I love that you continue to beat the drum of a crawl, walk, run two adoption, all centered around value and ease of use for the reps, but KPIs all being centered, specifically around customer engagement. Speak to the KPIs speak to your deployment of my customers and what you're after there.
Andrea Eckberg 17:12
I think that that's so super important with the CRM. Map My Customer makes it really simple for us to track our KPIs. You are correct, we are very much tracking indicators that we think will lead to success, and they very much are based on the interactions that our team has with our customers. We didn't have that before. You know before Map My Customer there was really no visibility that a manager may have into what interactions, how many interactions, to which customer? Was it the right customer with the right frequency? So all of those measurements became possible and something that we could coach around once we had that visibility through Map My Customer.
JT Rimbey 17:54
Just referencing our earlier point about how many businesses there are that don't leverage data at all. I get blown away with some of the sales that are so like, oh, yeah, we've got reporting, we'll find out in April how we did in March. And I'm like, how do you pivot there, you can't do anything. You can't respond proactively and say, Oh, this isn't trending well, we need to do more of something to increase those revenue numbers.
Andrea Eckberg 18:22
It's not just that, that's important. It also is, if you're a salesperson by nature, you compete against yourself. You need a goal and you need visibility into the attainment towards that goal. You need to know if you're on track every day and the best salespeople want that information and that visibility every day. It's what motivates them to make that next call to see that next person to make that one extra call before they're going to get home because they've got 30 extra minutes. So it is extremely important to have visibility and clarity around your KPIs which of course then help to lead to sales success.
JT Rimbey 19:02
Okay, let's dive into this. And this is kind of a surprise question for you. But the way that you just said, competing against yourself? If my memory is correct, the Thibaut process is that you hire designers, not sales folks.
Andrea Eckberg 19:18
Yeah, we've dabbled in both. What I find is when we hire a designer, she may or may not love the idea of sales and working on the road and dragging around heavy books samples, but she definitely knows the process. She knows what a designer's challenges are, what the designers needs are. So often she can speak to the designer at the designer level. She also can source in a inspirational kind of way which designers certainly enjoy seeing. The hiring is a challenge. Period. And it's really only intensified post COVID. It's a strange world that we live in if you are someone who has to hire. I think ultimately my goal is to build the strongest, most competitive, most aggressive sales team I possibly can. I try to get that right 100% of the time.
JT Rimbey 20:11
I appreciate that a ton. I don't want to go down this too deeply. But you reference to get it right 100% of time. What does your recruitment and hiring process look like? I read a lot of things on LinkedIn right now about too many steps in the interview process. Can you just walk us through the Thibaut way real quickly on that?
Andrea Eckberg 20:32
I think we're a large company who still has a small company mentality. And maybe that's just me, and my personality and my style, my management style. We are pretty quick at identifying talent. And we don't like to waste time in the world that we live in today. If you waste too much time, that great candidate is going somewhere else. So we have sort of a two step interview process today, we don't hire any salesperson that I haven't talked to. So I make time for that for sure. I think that that's a big part of my role is making sure that we have built the strongest sales team we possibly can.
JT Rimbey 21:11
So new hire comes on board with Thibaut. Walk us through a little bit of what the onboarding looks like, and how do you ensure that a new rep hits the ground running for Thibaut.
Andrea Eckberg 21:23
We have sort of a multi-layered training or onboarding approach. They spend some time in our corporate showrooms. They spend some time at our corporate offices. They visit our distribution center where all the magic is made getting things out in a timely manner, but then they hit the territory. You know, after all, the product training after learning who Thibaut is, and why Thibaut is so fantastic, you know, we have to put them on the road. Really two very important aspects of Map My Customer for new hires specifically are, we have pin colors that dictate the sales volume of any individual designer in whatever territory you may be in. So it's very easy for new folks to target A accounts first, B accounts second, you know, just kind of stratify and prioritize their time. The pin color that denotes sales volume is very helpful. Secondly, Map My Customer offers a routing tool, which basically pretend like you don't know the geography, but even if you do, you may not know the fastest, easiest way to get from designer A to B to C to D, whatever your appointment schedule may be. So especially our newer reps who don't know the territory, would enter their day into the CRM. That CRM will then shoot back around that will help them with traffic, help them with the easiest geography that may be out there, the fastest way to get from point A to point B. So the CRM makes life and makes the time needed to get up to speed much smaller than it would be if you didn't have those particular things at your fingertips.
JT Rimbey 23:04
One of my favorite pieces of feedback from one of our customers is, we've dramatically reduced the time to first dollar for new hires. When you think about it, it's a retention. It's a motivation for the new rep to have quick success. And to really avoid administrative stuff of ok I’ve got this list? How do I go see the people on this list? So thank you for the feedback. That's very kind.
Andrea Eckberg 23:31
It's true. So one tap, I mean, that's literally what it takes to log in interaction. It couldn't be an easier tool to use. And I'll tell you a couple of the more recent hires that I've brought on board, who used other CRMs in previous jobs or with previous companies, I've been part of the CRM training with Map My Customer, and you just look at their faces and their smiles. And the last gentleman we hired in Alabama, I said, Why are you smiling? And he said, This is the best tool I've ever had. It is so easy to use, so intuitive. So that's really great to hear. It doesn't feel like additional work. It feels like a tool that makes your life easier, no doubt.
JT Rimbey 24:18
Fantastic feedback. We're grateful for that. That makes us just burst with excitement. So thank you for the feedback. Andrea, thank you so much for your time today. We're grateful for the insights. We're grateful for the heart of the teacher of leading your team for putting a customer engagement strategy in place and deploying a way that you just care about customers first and foremost. So thank you for joining us.
Andrea Eckberg 24:41
Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for all the support you guys have given along the way. It's a great fit. We appreciate the partnership.
JT Rimbey 24:47
Andrea, thank you very much. It is wonderful serving you and the Thibaut team.
Thank you again to our listeners for joining today. Thank you to our sponsor, Map My Customers as well. Remember traditional CRMs never designed specifically for outside sales reps. Think of SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, HubSpot, Pega, the list goes on. They're too complex, too cumbersome, and way too administratively time consuming, along with a glaring lack of mobile friendly options for outside sales reps. Remember that 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 specific specifically for outside sales reps with a mobile first platform, helping to strategically segment accounts along with routing and mapping, activity logging, and much much more. Remember, the ease of use drives adoption. Adoption delivers data and data delivers the insights. Visit MapMyCustomers.me for more info. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends, your colleagues and your family members. If you do have additional questions or comments for Andrea or myself, please shoot us a message. We'd love to hear from you and answer any questions that you may have, and certainly hear what you think about the episode. Come join us again soon. Thanks for listening.