What do GREAT sales people do after EVERY sales visit?

What do top performing sales people do when they leave the customer? And how can spending just a little time after a visit reflecting how the meeting went improve performance and results? Steve Vaughan is joined to discuss this important topic by regulars Christian Walter and Jonathan Slasinski, and also by a special guest - Kate Sanders, Sales Manager for UK and Northern Europe for Biosero.

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche,  Jayne Green  and Jonathan Slasinski are Sales Trainers from george james ltd.  You can email the show at:  Podcast@georgejames-training.com

 The trainers on LinkedIn:

 Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/

Jonathan Slasinski https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-slasinski-449a655/

george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00.99)
Hello again and welcome to the Luxury of Choice, a B2B Sounds of Business podcast brought to you by the training team of George James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm a member of the training team here and I'm also the host and producer of this podcast. And today I have two colleagues with me and also a special guest. But first of all, let me introduce my two colleagues who are here today. Christian Valter, who's in a car park at Birmingham Airport. Hi, Christian, how are you?

Christian (00:26.952)
Hi, I'm good. Great, no problem. Love Birmingham.

Steve Vaughan (00:29.918)
Great to have you here. Hopefully we'll keep you too late for the flight. And Jonathan Zasinski, who's in his home in California right now, I think. How are you, Jonathan? Great to have you here. Well, let's speak to the most important person here today. That's our special guest. So we're delighted to have actually a real life working member of the sales team right now. And that's Kate Sanders. Kate, hi. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Jonathan Slasinski (00:38.382)
I'm doing well, Steve. Great to have Kate with us.

Kate (00:54.194)
Hi, yeah, yeah, thank you and thanks ever so much for having me on. So yeah, so I've been in the life science cells industry for nearly 30 years, so a very long time.

Steve Vaughan (00:59.151)
Thanks for coming on. We're delighted, have you? Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:09.576)
find it hard to believe.

Kate (01:13.286)
I was 21 when I started and so yeah, so basically sort of sold everything from consumables, benchtop devices, liquid handling automation, then my latest, the company I work for now being Biosero is essentially sort of end-to-end workflows, orchestration software, that kind of thing. So.

Steve Vaughan (01:14.705)
Okay.

Steve Vaughan (01:35.582)
Okay, and what's your role there currently?

Kate (01:38.536)
So I'm in the sales management side, but just have a territory. And so I look up to sort of accounts in UK, Ireland, and Scandinavia, as well as having a couple of global accounts as well. So yeah, it's keeping me busy. Yes, yeah, no, absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (01:50.394)
Okay, sounds exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Plenty of travel. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, think we all know about travel as well. We've all been doing a fair bit of traveling as well. So I know you've been on George James training courses in the past. So you know a colleague, Jonathan Cooper, very well from previous courses. So thank you so much for agreeing to come on the pub. We're delighted to have you here. And I'm sure you better give some sort real life insight from like the front of the cold face right now, because you're actually working in the business right now. While we talk about it still.

Kate (02:05.714)
Yep.

Kate (02:17.639)
Cause I'm there.

Christian (02:21.831)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (02:24.144)
So what's our topic today then? So we do a lot of stuff in this podcast about preparation. We do also a lot of course about what actually takes place in a great sales call. What we thought we'd look at today is a little bit different and that is what happens when we come out of the call. So we've had a meeting with a customer, we come out of the call, we're probably sitting in our car. What do great salespeople do when they come out of a

call, a great sales call. So who would like to pick that one up first? Anybody? Or I can pick on somebody. Anybody want to volunteer on that one? Go for it, Jonathan.

Jonathan Slasinski (02:57.984)
I'll, I'll, I'll, take it on. I, and I will say, you know, great was great was the transition of, you know, a rep in my twenties versus a rep in my thirties and forties, right? you know, to me, when I was a young rep, great was, did I get them the quote? Did I email them the, you know, the information they requested and did I get that to them as timely as possible? Like, you know, if I told him, Hey, I'm to get you the quote by the end of the day, you know, I'm in the, you know, I'm in the coffee shop, getting the quote done.

Steve Vaughan (03:08.062)
Show.

Steve Vaughan (03:17.202)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (03:26.718)
Thank

Jonathan Slasinski (03:27.214)
And then all of a I was, you know, as, as you, as you get a little bit, you know, kind of more tenured on you, you're like, wait, wait, wait, it's not just about that. It's, literally about the call. It's about qualification. It's about the next steps.

Steve Vaughan (03:39.73)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (03:40.3)
And it's more about reflection. And I will say, you know, as my career come on, it was more about, Hey, what was good about that? What was bad about that? What could I have done better? And if something was really good, I used to love sharing it with my team. If something was really bad, I'd call one of my team members just to vent about how horrible, you know, the call went, or probably blame the customer. but yeah, that's kind of it. You know, it's, it's just more about the.

Steve Vaughan (03:50.522)
Right.

Steve Vaughan (04:02.342)
you

Jonathan Slasinski (04:05.218)
the day to day getting the admin done at first versus more of this reflection of the holistic way of the call and how it went.

Steve Vaughan (04:12.189)
Okay, so I think there's a few things to unpack there, which we'll do as we go along. But Kate, what do you do when you come out of a sales school? What's the first thing you do?

Kate (04:20.718)
Yeah, no, definitely. I think a key thing is also the prep beforehand so that then you can actually align then what it was you wanted to get out of the meeting and then also, you know, the summary of the call and so forth. But during the actual call, I think if we kind of step back a tiny bit and actually think that as you're getting towards the end and it's all about that conclusion and kind of next steps and things like that, that you can actually put into that.

Steve Vaughan (04:27.046)
Of course.

Steve Vaughan (04:48.421)
Yeah.

Kate (04:50.812)
that input into the process anyway. And then when it comes to straight after, you're then following up with sort of you've already touched on what the next steps potentially are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and then, you know, follow up with that email, follow up with, you know, the action points from their perspective, from our perspective, finding out internally who, you know, ultimately, you need to get on board from

Steve Vaughan (05:01.051)
Well, hopefully, yes.

Steve Vaughan (05:19.761)
That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate (05:20.752)
different jobs and so forth. So yeah, it's acting on it immediately as well.

Steve Vaughan (05:28.497)
Yeah, yeah, while it's still hot in the memory. What about you, Christian? You've been on calls today, actually. So what did you do when you came out of your calls today?

Christian (05:35.837)
Yes. So, know, a wise man once said you can only learn by the people you meet, by the books you read and by the habits you form. And I think it's kind of true. And if we form a habit of analyzing each sales call immediately afterwards, you know, by maybe sitting in the car and reflecting back on the call, what went well.

How did I do there? Did I find out what I needed to find out? If we make this a habit, we can continuously become a little bit better. And I think that's in a way necessary because the targets always get a little bit higher. So unless we get a little bit better, we will not hit the target that is becoming higher. So self-reflection, how it went.

Steve Vaughan (06:22.279)
Funny that, yeah.

Christian (06:33.989)
what did I miss, what did I catch, what else do I need to find out to make this call or this sale a little bit more likely. And if we do that habitually after every call, I think we can really move it forward.

Steve Vaughan (06:41.201)
Right.

Steve Vaughan (06:47.633)
Okay.

Steve Vaughan (06:57.341)
So thank you all for that. Self-reflection came out of all of your input there. And I just want to explore that a bit more because sometimes we can be quite euphoric when we come out of the core, particularly if we think we've won the sale. We can be really, you getting in the car, feeling really great about ourselves. And sometimes we can get out of the core and you think, oh no, that was a bit of a disaster. And we've all been there, let's be honest. So how can we make that self-reflection?

fair, analytical, if you like, really, without getting too high or too low. Is there a way that we could think about how do we make sure we're really honest with ourselves in terms of what went well and what could have gone better? Any ideas?

Steve Vaughan (07:41.917)
Apparently not.

Christian (07:42.525)
You could use a... No, no, there are... Sometimes I need to think. I'm getting older, I'm becoming slower.

Kate (07:43.422)
You

Steve Vaughan (07:46.845)
Ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Kate (07:53.999)
I think because it is, it does, you are forming a habit so essentially I just do it automatically without even thinking so you know it's always yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:00.539)
Right. Yeah, that's your experience, Kate. Yeah.

Kate (08:05.116)
Yeah, yeah, so it's always about, you know, what went well, what didn't go well, and just being factual and true to yourself that actually you're not, you haven't come out thinking that you've got the order until you actually get the order, you know? And it's like, you've always got to have that in your mind because you just never know, yeah, what can happen, so.

Steve Vaughan (08:10.887)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:18.713)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:23.025)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jonathan Slasinski (08:25.228)
love that. I love how Kate's unconscious, unconscious competence with this skill level, right? So she's just boom, you know, doing it. But I think it's it's not rocket science. What went well, what can we improve upon, right? And I don't think you need to go that much deeper or that much like into the weeds of a conversation. And that's kind of where my career as a sales rep progress. What did I do? Well, cool. Keep doing that. What could I have done better? All right, next call, or next time I interact with this customer.

Steve Vaughan (08:51.165)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (08:54.402)
I got to make sure I take care of that. But I will say that took a while for me to get to, know, it was normally just checking the boxes of, you know, those little next steps and not even thinking about the call itself. So I love that Kate's already there automatically. So this is great.

Steve Vaughan (08:56.231)
go.

Steve Vaughan (09:04.369)
Mm, mm, mm.

Kate (09:07.614)
It's years. I think it's having Jonathan Cooper in my head quite a lot of the time.

Steve Vaughan (09:08.145)
Hahaha!

Steve Vaughan (09:14.429)
What a scary thought that is.

Jonathan Slasinski (09:15.532)
Hahaha.

Christian (09:17.198)
Yes, indeed. Hey, but be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself with a self-reflection, you know, because I think habitually we focus on the negative as people. This is even an evolutionary reason for it, because if we focus on the negative, we're safe. We can be safe from wild animals and enemy tribes and what have you.

Steve Vaughan (09:20.093)
Sorry, Jonathan Filistig.

Steve Vaughan (09:30.379)
that's right. Yeah.

Christian (09:45.085)
So that's why we tend to focus on the negative, but that's not helpful because as sales guys, we need to be positive. So we should, for every negative we write down, we should write down three positive. And that, I think it's really important to do that and to also, you know, give yourself a pat on the shoulder if something went really, really well, because that makes you that more successful and more positive and more passionate.

Steve Vaughan (09:49.745)
No.

Steve Vaughan (09:58.472)
So I love that, yeah.

Christian (10:14.308)
in the next sales call.

Steve Vaughan (10:14.503)
Yeah, that's a super point.

Jonathan Slasinski (10:18.122)
I think it's a fantastic point because I'm just thinking back to again, the evolution of a sales rep. When I first started doing reflection, it was always, what did I do wrong? Right. And, having this pit in your stomach when you'd walk out of a meeting saying, I didn't do this. And, I really didn't connect on this level. And then of course you're chatting with your, your, your colleagues and you're just talking about everything that was bad.

Kate (10:31.07)
Hmm.

Jonathan Slasinski (10:40.494)
And I think it was a man, it was Patrick, my manager at times. Like focus on something to good. He's like, I don't, he goes, keep calling me with everything you did bad. He goes, focus on something you did good. And that kind of switched it. And I love Christian, your little ratio, like three to one, let's focus on the positives. Cause that's really going to start that vibe and just getting that kind of positivity going in your head.

Steve Vaughan (10:53.426)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (10:59.419)
Yeah. And I think it applies whether the call was an absolute success or an absolute disaster. think the thing still applies. What three things went well, what one thing could have done better. Yeah. I guess that's what you do. As Jonathan said, Kate, you do that sort of unconsciously really from your experience really.

Jonathan Slasinski (11:04.334)
true.

Kate (11:13.97)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Christian (11:16.604)
And I think it's true for calls, even if you walk out of the call having just received the purchase order. Even then you should think about what could have done better, what went really well. Of course, that's kind of obvious. And thank God forbid if we lose a sale and the customer is courageous enough to tell us in a sales call, I think, you know, then of course we walk out with a frustrated feeling and that's perfectly natural.

Jonathan Slasinski (11:24.526)
Yeah.

Kate (11:29.16)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (11:30.481)
Yeah.

Christian (11:46.332)
But even then we should think about, okay, so that happened, bad luck. What were the reasons for it to happen perhaps? And what did I do well and what could I have done better? The questions remain the same.

Steve Vaughan (11:52.157)
sure.

Kate (11:57.352)
Hmm.

Kate (12:02.706)
Yeah, and I think if you move on then to the next opportunity you have, you can then embrace it with new ideas as well.

Steve Vaughan (12:02.886)
super points.

Steve Vaughan (12:12.631)
Absolutely. I remember saying when I first took over, think it was back in, oh gosh, 2003 now, when I took over as sales manager for Shibatsu in the UK. And one of the first things I said to the team there was they didn't lose enough orders and they all thought I was bonkers. But what I meant was they weren't competing enough.

Kate (12:24.381)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (12:27.324)
for other people's jobs really, other people's projects, or other manufacturers projects even. Because we learn from losing orders, don't we? We learn as much as we do from winning sales. What about when we get back in the car and we sit down and we do our reflection on our three to one and then we go, oh, naughty word there, flip. I didn't ask that question. I meant to ask that question. I didn't ask it. How do we do it?

Christian (12:31.964)
Steve Vaughan (12:55.91)
handle that. What did we do? What did you do? Because I'm sure we've all done that.

Kate (13:00.158)
I would either get straight on the phone and just sort of ask for clarification because while it's hot topic for me, it's hot topic for them. So yeah, as soon as possible, get that information. If you can't get them on the phone, follow up with the email and be very direct and need to just have this information to be able to move forward. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:06.692)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:21.308)
Yeah.

And I guess be honest to say, I meant to ask this, you know, we've all got so carried away with to go to us. Is that what you would have done Jonathan? What you do do? Yeah.

Kate (13:29.629)
Hmm.

Jonathan Slasinski (13:29.795)
Yeah.

Exactly. I was just thinking, it's just, hey, I, you know, follow up an email or, you know, there's even times I'd walk back to the lab, Hey, I totally missed asking you about this. This is really important. And I think the sooner you can do it. And again, just

Cause otherwise just eats at you. man, I forgot this. I forgot this. I forgot this. So try to escape was saying, try to get that clarification as soon as possible. But then the other thing is, all right, don't do it the next time you're on a call. Right? So you go, this is where the learning comes in and this is where we have to, you know, try to be, try to grow. You know, when, we realized we didn't do something ideally next call, let's be a bit, let's be better.

Kate (13:47.781)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (13:48.709)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (14:08.102)
What would you do, Christian?

Christian (14:11.733)
Yeah, I think I would follow up depending on the customer immediately by phone. Yeah, fine. Sometimes maybe if they're really busy, probably by email. think both are acceptable. It's a bit more tricky when it's a tricky topic. know, people forget to ask about competition sometimes. I've done that, you know, and that's maybe something.

Steve Vaughan (14:33.968)
Yeah.

Christian (14:38.295)
There I would use the phone rather than email because people don't tell you straight away. You have to ask maybe in a roundabout sort of a way. Or if you don't know the budget, it's also not something I would maybe ask by email because that's again a little bit a sensitive topic. Maybe I would also, you know, hopefully you have a next call scheduled.

Steve Vaughan (14:41.402)
I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (14:54.084)
No, agreed.

Christian (15:03.587)
I mean, we should never walk out of a customer meeting without having the next call in our diary. And so you can also, you know, when you prepare for that next call, make sure you talk about these two questions then right at the beginning, perhaps.

Steve Vaughan (15:09.604)
Ideally.

Steve Vaughan (15:19.77)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you bring up a really important point actually, which is, and I agree that we should always agree a next step while we're in them with a customer, what happens next? But what about when there's things that we need to do and there's things that they need to do for that next step? How do we make sure those things happen?

Kate (15:40.433)
I think that would happen at the, you you'd summarize everything in any case, and make it clear in terms of what their action points are and what my action points would be. And then following up, it is literally sort of defining everything very clear and just confirming it again. And I actually find what, you know, if you're following up with all the necessary information to be as concise as possible.

Steve Vaughan (15:44.156)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (15:57.873)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kate (16:07.496)
There's actually, you know, there's this software around where you can actually see if they look at stuff straight away as well. So you can see their intent and you can really tell, you know, if somebody doesn't bother looking at this information that you've sent, you know, it might not be as top priority as what maybe you thought. But yeah, it's extremely useful. But if they are literally downloading, sharing, you don't know who they're sharing to and stuff, but at the end of the day, you can just tell if they're busy on this

Steve Vaughan (16:12.814)
All right.

Steve Vaughan (16:23.684)
As you thought it is. I've never come across that before. Yeah.

Kate (16:37.602)
one then now you know that you've hit the spot right.

Steve Vaughan (16:38.62)
Yeah. Are you guys familiar with that kind of software? Come across it.

Jonathan Slasinski (16:42.678)
yeah. You know, check, checks the box a bit that they opened up the email. Did they read the email? Did they click on something? And then I also love seeing the ones where they forwarded it to somebody. Cause that to me, it's that's the real signal that something's going on, but I'll, I'll take us back to even kind of Kate, Kate start consumables, right? So when I was selling consumables, a lot of the times the next step was we're going to get them a sample and they're going to try it, right? They're going to run it. And then all of sudden it's like, okay, well,

Christian (16:43.536)
Yeah.

Kate (16:46.835)
Hmm.

Kate (16:52.104)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (16:55.356)
Absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (17:07.354)
Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (17:11.224)
cool, I've got my next steps, call went well, positive that they want to try this. And then you go back to the lab. No, we haven't tried it yet. Then you go back to the lab. No, we haven't tried it yet. Right? No, we haven't tried it yet. So I think those are kind of like the things that that reps really need to kind of especially from a consumable side, if they're still, you know, so to me, it was always just a follow up, right? You know, I mean, I was three, four days a week, I was in my account. So the follow up was never the issue. It was

Steve Vaughan (17:27.022)
Absolutely.

Jonathan Slasinski (17:36.194)
What's the actual plan to get them to run this? And there were times when I would actually go in and pipette out an essay with them just so they can kind of see the way, you know, the way the assay would run or the gel would run or the, you know, the reverse transcriptase we were selling would work. It's, you know, that's, that's the key to this kind of follow-up, which happens after the call, you know,

Steve Vaughan (17:55.898)
Yeah, good point. Christian, your thoughts on this one?

Christian (18:01.094)
So I think it's good habit to send minutes and I think it is extremely professional, comes across very professional. I would even attempt to use AI tools for these minutes. There are gadgets available that help you write minutes and of course you need to ask permission if you're allowed to use such a tool. But I believe it's extremely professional.

Steve Vaughan (18:10.277)
Yeah, agreed.

Steve Vaughan (18:27.301)
So these are devices that listen to the conversation and pricey the conversation and summarize.

Christian (18:31.983)
Yeah. And the quality of those minutes is amazing. I'm actually quite impressed. it makes the customer remember stuff as well. think, you know, any meeting we do should have minutes. It's a problem of most companies that have too many meetings without minutes, without actions. And the same is true for our customers. And if we can do it better, then that's already...

Steve Vaughan (18:52.067)
Yeah, including us. Yeah.

Christian (19:00.591)
We stand out already.

Steve Vaughan (19:02.777)
I guess you would obviously, as you say, have to confirm that the customer's happy for you to be using a recording device during the call. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, of course. Yeah.

Christian (19:07.373)
Yeah, otherwise you just take notes, but you still do minutes, I think.

Jonathan Slasinski (19:12.14)
love, I love the whole idea of the minutes. And I will say as these tools become more ubiquitous, you know, we were just, I was just with a company who had a note taking tool and then it summarized the notes and automatically put them in Salesforce for the, for the, for automatically put in the CRS. So the call was logged with the notes. And the cool thing is it would say,

Steve Vaughan (19:27.119)
Wow.

Jonathan Slasinski (19:33.464)
there are no next steps were identified or these were your next steps. It was kind of cool. But I, Christian, I love the minutes. I would kind of send like a little recap, but I do kind of like being very specific with kind of what was covered.

Steve Vaughan (19:37.477)
Gosh.

Steve Vaughan (19:47.547)
Is this something your companies can explore and talk about these kind AI tough jobs?

Kate (19:47.869)
I think... sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. In particular, for, yeah, basically just writing transcripts and a call and then, and then utilizing that, putting it straight into the, into the platform and then, and then it can summarize everything. And as you say, Jonathan, next steps and so forth. But I also think, you know, trust, you need to gain that trust from the customer straight away. And if you are showing that you know exactly what they're looking for.

Steve Vaughan (20:07.323)
rising.

Steve Vaughan (20:14.404)
point.

great point.

Kate (20:21.28)
what their pain points are, what their objectives are, in this first email, first summary, then you're on that path for success. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (20:31.643)
I that's such a great point. Because it just shows that you've listened to them, that you're interested in them. You've understood them, or if you haven't understood them, there's a chance there to actually clarify, I suppose, a key point there really. But it just shows that you're not just turning up a pitching product like so many salespeople do really. You've actually took an interest in their world and what they're doing. All right, so let's talk about everybody's favorite topic. And Jonathan, you hinted on it there.

Kate (20:40.147)
Yeah.

Kate (20:49.394)
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (20:59.819)
CRM. So what do great salespeople do when they come out of the call with regards to their CRM guys? And I know it's your favorite topic, Christian.

Kate (21:11.326)
Fill it in straight away! Just get it filled in!

Steve Vaughan (21:13.179)
But do people really do that? Let's be honest.

Christian (21:18.276)
So.

Look, I have different roles in my life. I'm a sales rep myself for George James with extremely good CRM discipline, as you all know. But then I'm also a sales manager for one of my clients, an acting sales manager for one of my clients. And I really appreciate if there is a short summary of a customer meeting in CRM, because when I go through the opportunities,

Steve Vaughan (21:24.709)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (21:28.601)
Yeah, aren't we all? Yeah.

Absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (21:46.592)
Absolutely.

Christian (21:49.165)
I can understand where we stand and if I only see the emails in the run up to the meeting and not what was discussed in the meeting, I'm actually missing crucial information. And I know every sales rep hates doing it, I'm the same. So I can really empathize. And that's why I'm also using these tools because these tools make my life easier.

Steve Vaughan (22:01.453)
It's so important. It's so important.

Steve Vaughan (22:14.16)
Yeah.

Christian (22:14.455)
And even if the notes aren't perfect, there's something and something is a lot better than nothing.

Steve Vaughan (22:18.075)
Hmm.

Yeah. Jonathan, will you? Sorry, go on, Kate, after you. Go ahead. Yeah.

Kate (22:22.342)
I always think... sorry.

I always think, you know, when someone, it's always like you've got to put in stuff so that essentially someone else can read it. And I've been, you know, and I was sales manager as well and kind of having that issue of people not filling it in, then I don't understand what's going on. I have to then make phone calls to find out exactly what it is. Or you have a new person start and the CRM hasn't been filled in properly. So then it's almost like starting at the beginning again. And that can take so much time as well. So, you know, it's

Steve Vaughan (22:51.659)
Absolutely.

Kate (22:55.866)
of always thinking what would other people want you to do and that's the way that I always kind of like frame it really.

Steve Vaughan (23:03.661)
Is that what you did Jonathan? I'm sure it was.

Jonathan Slasinski (23:05.934)
I wish I, you know, I was, I was really good with getting everything into the CRM and, you know, it's the only way he's for your, it's for you to manage your business, for you to, for your boss to manage you.

but I will say I didn't do it after every call. was usually at the end of the day, or maybe even the next morning, you where I'd have my notes and I would, you know, to me, if I had a call, the last thing I wanted to do was stop, create an opportunity, put in notes, do all this stuff. I wanted to go to our next call. And I think that was just my personality and how I took on sales was CRM at the end of the day, which

Steve Vaughan (23:38.351)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (23:43.406)
tended to get pushed to the next morning, which sometimes tended to get pushed to Friday when I was in the office. So I'm not going to lie here. Um, but I will say when I, when I was the head of global enablement at 10 extra no mix, we tried to, we put in mobile Salesforce mobile where, Hey, three clicks, you can start things. And, you know, you've, you've got all of these kind of tools that we were starting. And I will say it didn't help with CRM cleanliness or getting that hygiene.

Steve Vaughan (24:04.483)
Yeah. It didn't. Interesting.

Jonathan Slasinski (24:09.388)
reps are reps. mean, I just think reps are reps, right? I think you're so focused or at least in my experience, you're focused on the calls that day. You know, what the habit to me, I wanted to grow was at the end of the day, make sure everything's logged, right? Like if, if by the end of the day, everything was logged, I was stoked, but you know, right after the call, don't I think there's a lot of goodness about right after the call, everything's so fresh in your mind. It just wasn't, wasn't my style.

Steve Vaughan (24:34.841)
No, and I think that's a fair point.

Christian (24:37.39)
I think you're right, Johnson, reps are reps, you know, and they end up in sales not because they are perfect administrators, but perhaps they end up in sales because they have other qualities. However, however, I'm not finished. However, I think for all the reasons you guys mentioned.

Steve Vaughan (24:51.867)
And I agree, but however, yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (24:54.764)
However.

you

Christian (25:01.178)
for transferability to a new person, for transparency to the sales manager, for information about forecasting and all that sort of stuff. It is important that we have the essence of the call in the CRM.

Steve Vaughan (25:14.861)
It's crucial. It's crucial. I was with a company I was training this week and

Jonathan Slasinski (25:18.881)
without a doubt.

Steve Vaughan (25:22.799)
They were all to a, there's 20 of them and to a person, they were all complaining about the CRM. They hate the CRM. And I've never met a salesperson that loves the CRM platform, no matter what one they use. And there were loads of them out there. There's always something that's terrible about it, but that's not a reason for not doing it really. And, the, and as you've all said, really, you know, we could be on vacation, we could be ill, hopefully not, but we could be, and somebody else has to pick up the opportunity. The customer rings in and says, I'm waiting for somebody to do something for me or get back to me.

And if we haven't got some kind of record that has that person's post to cope with that inquiry or that call, you know, cause she literally working in the dark. then from the customer's perspective, he feels like he's dealing with a different company or she's dealing with different company. So it is that important really. know sales managers bang on about it and I was no different by the way.

Jonathan Slasinski (26:08.952)
Well, I will say, like, so I think what, you know, what you and Christian bring up is like, it's about getting the basics in there, right? If somebody were to look at this opportunity, can they grab a picture of it? So, you know, what I instituted with Salesforce was, you know, our qualification till the time was band C. So there was a whole band C that they had to fill in. And next, if you had your next steps.

Steve Vaughan (26:17.07)
Yep.

Steve Vaughan (26:26.084)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (26:29.708)
And your band see filled in. if a boss comes in and looks at an opportunity and maybe only three things are filled in, okay, now they know it's not fully qualified, but what was the next step that those are the two big things. I think that, you know, from a CRM cleanliness, then you could put the notes in and all that kind of good stuff, but it's about making sure that the basics are in there.

Steve Vaughan (26:45.38)
Yeah.

Absolutely right. Yeah. So we've got about five minutes left of the pod. What other things do great salespeople do when they leave the call? Is there anything we've missed at all?

Christian (26:58.595)
So I think Jonathan was going on about it earlier. You know, after the call, it's also maybe good practice to talk to somebody about it, particularly if it's a very important customer meeting, something that means a lot for your next project or for a particularly big project. Even if you can talk to your boss. And Steve, I remember years ago when you had a sales team at Metlotoledo.

Steve Vaughan (27:10.734)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (27:17.53)
think that's a great idea.

Christian (27:27.167)
a few ladies, they spoke to you regularly when they were driving home, you know, that was their daily ritual to download their day to their boss and I think it helps.

Steve Vaughan (27:27.428)
was a long time ago.

Steve Vaughan (27:33.903)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (27:37.24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. wouldn't encourage people to do that when they're driving along these days, folks, to do pull over and do it safely. But it's a great point. Is that something you used to do, Kate? we still do.

Jonathan Slasinski (27:39.534)
without a doubt.

Kate (27:39.688)
Mm.

Kate (27:48.573)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. yeah, everything from frustration to a difficult customer to a rejoicing a particular moment or something. all that. that really encouraged it. So very much.

Steve Vaughan (27:52.856)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (28:01.53)
And I think it's really important because we can be super euphoric and sometimes we perhaps just need to be let down a bit or two or we can be super down about what the call is and perhaps somebody needs to say, actually, you know what? It wasn't that bad from what I hear. And having somebody you can call, whether it's your boss or a colleague, that you can just talk through what's went on.

Christian (28:23.373)
I love it, Kate, when you said rejoicing. Sales rep can be a lonely job. You're out on the road on your own. so actually this touch base, rejoicing together when something went really well or complaining bitterly when something didn't, I think it's good for mental health as well. And I would think that's important. We need to be resilient.

Steve Vaughan (28:28.068)
I love that word. great point.

Kate (28:45.715)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (28:45.806)
Yeah, that's a point.

Kate (28:49.97)
Mm. Mm.

Jonathan Slasinski (28:50.766)
Yeah, I think I think you both summed it up really well. I mean, to me, those are some of the best calls that I would always have would be with my colleagues. And again, whether every sales team I was on, the camaraderie and the culture that that builds when you do have this kind of free flow of sharing emotions and sharing feelings. Again, we all have this shared, you know, interest as a sales rep, but it's like, okay, you had a frustration too. you had a failure too. Just so that you know, as you just said, you're not alone. And, you know,

Christian (29:06.872)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (29:17.678)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (29:20.076)
My sales colleagues are still some of my best friends. They're at my weddings or, you know, there people I text. There's people I call and talk to all the time. Like it's, I do see those sales teams where they don't do this. And I'm just like, Ooh, that's to me. That's just so strange to the way that, that, that I've operated, but I love it. I think that's one of the most important things to do share positives and negatives as well.

Kate (29:32.52)
shame.

Steve Vaughan (29:32.804)
Yeah, great.

Steve Vaughan (29:37.536)
Absolutely. Is that what you do as a team Kate? You talk to each other regularly?

Kate (29:39.208)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. It's really important.

Steve Vaughan (29:46.97)
Great stuff, great stuff. Well guys, I guess we'll wrap it up there then really. So thank you all for your thoughts on what great salespeople do when they come out of a call. So dear listener, if you're listening to this on your way to a customer, on the way out, try and do some of the things that we've suggested here today. And who knows, it might just be something that might be habit forming or game changing for you moving forward. Kate, thank you ever so much for coming on the pod. Please come back again. Yeah, great to get your insight. Thank you, Christian and Jonathan as well.

Jonathan Slasinski (30:09.709)
Thanks, Kate.

Christian (30:10.787)
Thank you very much.

Kate (30:12.936)
Yeah, thank you.

Steve Vaughan (30:15.642)
If you have enjoyed this episode, then make sure if you use Apple or Spotify that you give us a five-star review. We'd love that. does help us in lots of weird and wonderful ways. If you would like to come on the podcast or you have a suggestion of a topic, you can contact me or any members of the George James training team through our socials, through the LinkedIn page, or if you know us directly, just give us a call, drop us an email. We would love to hear from you. We'll be back again in a couple of weeks time with another show. In the meantime, happy selling and we'll talk to you soon.