Scott, you have 30+ years of B2B sales experience, both in production and leadership. You’ve worked with leaders from the C-Suite to the SMB owner, including start-ups to more mature enterprises. Your client roster is impressive and includes FortifID, Intelligent Technical Solutions, Republix, Oodle, geoAMPS, and so many more.
You founded M Sales Growth Advisors with a single mission: Empower Small Businesses to Achieve Greatness. We are excited to hear more about how you’re using your impressive experiences to help SMBs thrive.
Let’s get started…
Table of Contents
A Little Background
M Sales Growth Advisors
AI in Sales
Insights & Services Offered
HubSpot Review
Content Strategy
Problem Solving
A Little Background
Q: Tell us about your early career… What pulled you in the sales direction in the first place?
A: Honest answer is that I had no other place to go upon graduating from college. No kidding. My first gig was a stock broker in a bullpen like you see in the movies. Dialing for dollars. In that setting you have no choice but to hit it hard and hit it often.
I had some success, not much, probably because I hated calling people at home during dinner asking them to entrust me, then 22, with $10k on the stock of the day. It was a great experience though and really taught me how to ask for the order, which many sales people still can’t do.
M Sales Growth Advisors
Q: What led you to launch M Sales Growth Advisors?
A: After being in financial services for the first few years of my career I transitioned to corporate B2B sales and worked my way across a few industries and into some amazing sales leadership positions.
By the time the century turned, I had a pretty good resume and wanted to give the tech industry a try. Start-ups were really intriguing to me and I felt my entrepreneurial spirit would provide new and rewarding opportunities. And it did.
So I helped grow a handful of start-ups and was doing that for a fintech company when COVID hit. Needless to say, their VC pulled their funding and I had a decision to make. Find another company who needed an experienced sales leader or launch my own. So I launched.
AI in Sales
Q: The use of AI in sales is a hot topic these days… How are you seeing it being used effectively?
A: I get that question from clients frequently. My answer is always the same. Use it as a tool to help get your thoughts onto “paper.” Then edit the heck out of it so that it has your voice and sounds like a person, not a bot, wrote it.
In my opinion, AI in sales is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Q: How is it being used ineffectively?
A: In sales it’s being used as the final output of thought and oftentimes that output plays like a synthesized sound instead of the real thing.
Insights & Services Offered
Q: What are the services you offer to SMBs?
A: I help companies develop and implement their sales operations playbook so that they have a defined, repeatable, and scalable process to drive revenue growth year over year.
I also provide fractional sales leadership to ensure sales team accountability to KPIs and CRM optimization for effective and easy usage by the sales team.
Professor’s Note
Inquire about Scott’s services as a collaborator on a Sales Funnel Professor-led project.
Q: How important is a CRM for an SMB to manage their sales pipeline?
A: Without an optimized CRM, SMB’s put themselves at a significant disadvantage in terms of operational efficiency, leads funnel management, deals pipeline visibility, and overall sales effectiveness – i.e. closing new deals.
Q: We use the term “CRM Hygiene” in coaching up both sales and marketing professionals to better manage their funnels…what is good CRM hygiene in your mind?
A: A CRM should be the sole voice of truth for the sales organization. Good hygiene means that the data is accurate to the point where anyone on the team can view a lead and get a clear picture of the exact state of that lead’s past, present and future in terms of its navigation down the sales funnel into a won deal.
Q: What are some common areas that companies need to clean up?
A: Most companies need to be realistic about what they tag as an opportunity. I’ve seen it time and time again when I take on a new client that they have opportunities in the deals pipeline that haven’t been remotely qualified as closeable.
They really need to focus on being deliberate in marshaling leads from one stage of the client lifecycle to the next without rushing the process. Rushing simply breeds missed chances to add value and thus increase conversion rates.
Q: Is there a sweet spot for your services, when it comes to the businesses maturity level or size? Are you best suited for start-ups or more developed businesses?
A: I’ve worked with boot-strapped start-ups all the way up to $100M per year enterprises.
Q: What are some of the most common challenges you see SMBs face that you get excited to help them overcome?
A: The common thread is that they all have had challenges with sales process, KPI accountability, CRM integrity, and having a pinpoint focus on acquiring clients that match their ICP.
Q: Are the SMBs you see needing sales help using the right technology stack to be successful?
A: Actually they are all pretty close in that regard. The issue more times than not is that they’re not using the technology stack in the right way to be successful.
HubSpot Review
Q: Like many sales leaders, you’ve worked with a number of sales stacks over the years but you prefer HubSpot at present. What do you like about HubSpot?
A: Yeah, I’m big into HubSpot. I just find it so damn easy to use and configure for my clients. And truly, the best CRMs and the ones that are the most usable.
On top of that, HubSpot has great reporting and automation features that my clients love.
Professor’s Note
Proper HubSpot configuration provides a huge go-to-market advantage.
Running a consolidated sales and marketing stack saves enormous time and gives various teams the clarity they need to move quickly.
When we audit HubSpot implementations, it’s remarkable how many users don’t realize they are still running redundant software like Calendly or SalesLoft, which can be eliminated completely.
Q: How does the client experience of HubSpot differ from other platforms?
A: You really don’t need significant training to be able to use it effectively. It’s just so damn intuitive.
Content Strategy
Q: How important is a content strategy, when it comes to SMB sales pipeline management?
A: Content, in the right context, is king. Without it, any company, regardless of size, has no way of demonstrating subject matter expertise or thought leadership.
And if you can’t demonstrate that, then you don’t have a right to earn a prospective client’s trust and then their business.
Q: You’ve done some writing on a topic that doesn’t get enough coverage: reviving prospects who have ghosted. At what point is it fair to say a prospect has ghosted?
A: From my perspective, if a prospect has not responded to sales outreach for 30 days after having engaged in meaningful dialog over a few meetings/calls, you’re being ghosted.
The exception is when they’ve let you know in advance that they’ll be going dark for a bit and that it’s not an indication of their level of interest.
Q: What are your recommendations to get conversations and relationships rekindled with those folks?
A: For true ghosts, it’s best to try to reconnect with “something” they will find valuable in their job and thus worthy of re-engagement. “Checking-in” has no value.
There’s also no harm in simply asking them the best way to reconnect. Inquiring about how the project you were discussing turned out is also totally fine. Just don’t be tricky or disingenuous in the effort. No one likes that and it’s easy to recognize.
Q: How does an SMB know when a lead is truly dead?
A: Same as any company really. Silence for 30 or more days, actually getting a “no,” or when your contact says something like it’s just not the right time and can’t give you an idea of when that time will come.
By the way, when the lead says they’re slotting the project higher on the priority list for the next fiscal year, it’s dead, move on. And if in a year, they reach back out, awesome but you shouldn’t devote time to it other than an automated monthly email newsletter.
Problem Solving
Q: More broadly, what types of problems are you solving for SMBs?
A: Broadly, it’s solving for accelerated and then sustained revenue growth year over year.
Q: How do you work with their teams?
A: I’m very collaborative in my approach. My main point of contact is typically the CEO or CRO depending on the company’s size.
Open and honest communication is critical and clear expectations from both sides make for a true partnership.
Professor’s Note
CRO used this way means Chief Revenue Officer, which is the most senior sales officer within an organization.
When used in marketing, CRO means conversion rate optimization, an activity focused on increasing throughput within sales funnels. People who specialize in this type of work are sometimes called CRO experts.
Q: Are there any client stories you can share that speak to the impact of your advisory services?
A: I’ve been really fortunate to work with so many super people at really interesting companies that I like to think I’ve had a positive impact on them all in various ways. Hopefully, they feel the same.
What I hear most frequently though is how I’ve helped their sales teams mature and develop professionally in their approach, accountability, and sophistication.
Q: Are there industries that are a better fit for working with you?
A: My sweet spot is with companies in IT, digital marketing, SaaS, web, and software development.
Professor’s Note
Sales Funnel Professor is currently codeveloping a Software Architecture Maturity Assessment in partnership with Doug Mulkey.
Think of it as similar to our sales funnel audits but instead focused on surfacing all the potential points of failure in a tech stack instead of opportunities to shorten sales cycles, increase margins, etc.
Q: What are you most excited about for the future of M Sales Growth Advisors?
A: I’d say transitioning from a lifestyle business to a high growth business.
Q: Lastly, we’re always expanding our sales and marketing jargon encyclopedia. What term would you like to add?
A: Ghosted prospect – A prospect that has engaged in meaningful dialogue in the past and then doesn’t respond to outreach for 30 days or longer.
Thrilled to provide this information to those who need it.