Episode 77: Technology Basics To Supercharge Your Sales With Karen Gunther
Karen Gunther
Karen has spent 25 years as a professional business development manager and brings to Stay Visible Marketing the mindset of a sales person who understands how to easily and effectively market a product or service to an identified audience. She recently expanded her offerings to include individualized sales training to help sales people tap into using technology to speed up sales enablement.
Feeling overwhelmed by tech in the sales world? Karen Gunther of Stay Visible Marketing joins Sara Murray as she shares valuable insights on the importance of mastering technology basics and how it impacts sales efficiency. From enhancing confidence to streamlining workflows, they discuss how technology proficiency can empower sales teams. Learn essential tech skills, discover Karen’s favorite time-saving tips, and gain strategies to integrate new tools seamlessly. Don’t miss out on this engaging discussion that promises actionable strategies for integrating technology into sales processes without disrupting workflow, while preserving the human element in sales interactions.
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Technology Basics To Supercharge Your Sales With Karen Gunther
Karen Gunther has spent many years as a professional business development manager and brings to stay visible marketing the mindset of a salesperson who understands how to easily and effectively market a product or service to an identified audience. She expanded her offerings to include individualized sales training to help salespeople tap into using technology to speed up sales enablement.
Karen has taught me quite a few new tricks. Before we hit record, I learned two new things from Karen. I'm excited to have her on the show. What we're going to talk about is around technology, but in a lot of ways, it's about level setting and getting us back to basics. Using technology as a foundation to help support our foundational skills, which in turn increases our productivity and sales numbers. That's what we're going to talk about. Karen, welcome to the show.
I’m excited to be here, Sara.
I wanted to start with an icebreaker because you are a technology guru, but I want to know what your favorite app on your cell phone is.
You'll be surprised to know it is the voice memo.
How do you use it?
When it comes to sales and business, it's a great way to know how things are coming out of your mouth. Let's say you want to practice a new voicemail message that you're leaving or a pitch. You can use the voice memo. You can read or say something aloud. When you push the button on the voice memo, it can put your brain in a whole new frame, like you're talking to somebody because you're going to be able to hear it again. You can go back and listen to it and say, “That sounded good, but the words didn't feel right coming out of my mouth. I'm going to change the words a little.” It's a great way to practice as a sales rep how to do things without having to practice on prospects.
Lack Of Technology Awareness
I know you're not going to disappoint because I always have these baby a-ha moments every time we talk. One of the things that you and I have talked about and the first question I want to pose to you is, and to be clear, audience, we're not getting into artificial intelligence suites. We're talking about regular technology and software or applications we should be using. I want to ask you, Karen. Why is this a problem? What do you see in your work that this lack of technology awareness is becoming a problem?
The way I look at it is that there's a human resources department in a company. That's because we're all humans and we are the resource. The word human means we have strengths and weaknesses. Salespeople are people. Some are good with tech, and others are not. If you're the type that isn't good with tech, you might feel like you're falling behind or not keeping up. It affects your confidence when you're going and doing your sales prospect.
If you're not good at tech and you don't care and you're like, “Forget it, I'm not even going to think about it. I'm going to forget that it exists.” Your process becomes longer because you're taking too much time to do things that can be done faster if you were to use some simple technology tools. As a salesperson, you need to take a look at technology and say, “How can this support my strengths? How can this stabilize my weaknesses so they don't impact my career?”
I found two big takeaways. One is the idea of the human resources side of it because I remember when we went into a pandemic lockdown, I had some colleagues who couldn't share a screen, and you could tell it was impacting their confidence. That's the other piece that I think is interesting about lack of confidence.
I have an example for you. In case you wanted an example, I had one. I was working with a prospect who's going to hopefully be signing on here shortly and he needed to share his screen so I could see some of the work I was going to be doing with him. He has a Mac. As soon as he started having the problem, I realized he couldn't share a screen. I immediately asked, “Do you have a Mac?” He said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “This is what you need to do.”
I don't have a Mac. I don't work in the Mac space. I quickly googled how to enable screen sharing within a Mac because you have to have it set up in your privacy and security settings. You have to allow Zoom to share your microphone, camera, and screen in 4 or 5 different spots. You have to check and uncheck things. We spent five minutes. He had to come in and out of the meeting several times before we could get to the part where we were talking about what we needed to talk about. Something as simple as that slows the process down. I don't think any less of him. He's wise when it comes to technology stuff. He has a Mac. Things you can do in advance to remove those speed bumps are good things to pay attention to.
You're not doing this in front of a client, boss, or team you're leading. It's not an age thing. The first time you and I met, you wanted to share your screen, but I didn't have my Zoom enabled. You're like, “Do this and this.” Now, that's my setting, and I get to skip that step every time someone I meet wants to share my screen. I like these examples because they're tangible, and we all have these areas where we stumble. Sometimes, it's finding how to fix it without banging your head against the wall.
I'm sure we'll talk about this later, but it's something that people can do as a goal. Recognize a speed bump that's happening like you with the zoom screen. Share with him the screen share creating a problem, and set aside time each week to solve one of those speed bumps. Sometimes, it takes three minutes or 30 minutes. Sometimes, you have to have the tech people involved.
Recognize the speed bumps that are creating problems, and set aside time each week to tackle just one of those speed bumps.
I have a nice microphone and a dumb microphone on my webcam. For whatever reason, my microphone and camera were going crazy, wonky, and not working. I'm like, “I have this time with Sara. I need to make sure that my microphone works.” I spent half an hour. I reran all the cords and cables. I got on a Zoom with somebody. I tested it out to make sure that it worked so that I was ready for our meeting because it was important for me to have it work properly.
Your audio sound is beautiful. Thank you for that. I love the idea of looking at the speed bumps. As you said, I thought, “I've been doing three different apps for my calendar because I haven't synced my calendar.” There are all these little speed bumps that are a great word for it. I like the idea of carving out time for tech. I've never thought about time blocking for your tech troubleshooting.
One little one a week, and you'd be surprised at how much easier your life becomes.
Essential Skills For Effective Technology Use In Sales
Let's talk about it from the lens of a sales professional. This can apply to anyone, but let's use sales individuals as our metric here. Let's talk about essential skills for sales professionals to use technology effectively in their roles.
Essential skills would be to be organized, whatever that means for you. Everybody has a different way of organizing items, time, files, and emails. Whatever it is, find a way that works for you. One quick tip that you can do is, let's say you use your phone. You're in the field, and you use it for business purposes. That's where you have your LinkedIn, Outlook, or CRM solution your company requires of you, or you have for your own company. Have all of that in one folder on your phone and have it on your homepage so you're not swiping to get to the app. You can swipe all you want for your personal apps. You know where they are, and you know how to get to them quickly.
For business purposes, you want things to be as easy as possible because you want to spend as little time as possible so you can spend more time on personal pursuits. Be organized. One way to do that would be to create a little folder, put it on the homepage of your phone, and put all your business apps right in that folder.
Another thing would be to a skill specifically would be to get into a consistent habit for education. As a salesperson, you're responsible for educating yourself on what can help you. These essential skills would be listening to podcasts, prospecting on purpose, watching YouTube, and listening to audiobooks to keep up. There are a lot of different ways to keep up and do it.
One way to do it is called habit stacking. When I'm working out in the morning, I will throw a podcast on in my ear. I'll be listening to that while I'm working out. I'm not spending additional time, but I'm spending time I already have earmarked that's something that's already part of my schedule, and adding on that habit of education. If you do that once or twice a week, you'll keep your skills up. You'll be hearing what other people are doing. Even if it's repetitive or things that you're already doing, it'll make you feel good that you're already doing it. You're going to hear it a little differently. It's a way for you to adjust to what you're doing to make it work better for you.
The last skill that I would suggest is to acknowledge who you are. That's one of the hardest ones. That's why I would say this one last. You have strengths and weaknesses. You need to understand how to support those strengths and make them amazing. If you're good in the field, you're good in front of the client, you're a good talker, you can understand the client, and you're able to connect with them, but you're bad about getting stuff into your CRM like you're supposed to, what you need to do is you need to have a buddy that will do it for you.
Get an assistant to do it for you or find somebody to do it for you. You need to find a way to use tech to make it easier, such as putting the CRM on your phone and hitting talk to text. As soon as you get out, while you're in the parking lot, talk to your phone and get all the information in there to move on and do the parts you do well.
I love those three tips. I want to go through them again real quick. Organize whatever that means for you. Karen, you might kick me when we meet in person one day, but sometimes, I would save my files where I thought the future Sara would look for them. I know she's shaking her head.
No, I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
Where will I look for this in the future? I've gotten much better at my organization on both of those things, time management files and emails. I appreciated your comment about having a consistent habit for education. In all of our roles, we work with a lot of different people. I can look at the people that I think are rock stars and the people that maybe think they're rock stars and could use a little finessing. I can say this because they've told me they don't listen to podcasts. It's almost like the arrogance is high. That's driving their sales. No, that shines through when you talk to people. I appreciated that comment because we all need to read and find ways that there are limitless resources. Thank you for that.
Acknowledge who you are. That was like holding up a mirror. That's okay because I was bad at percentage math, and your sales manager's percentages are a part of your daily life. I got good at bookmarking my percentage calculator app. I knew how to do the calculations on my computer. I’m doing them sneaky, but I could not do mental percentages. I appreciate you giving those guardrails to us. I thought that was great. I loved the example of you're out in the field, and you put a folder on your home screen. What are some other bare minimum technology tips you can share with us?
I would start with Zoom or Teams. It's different on whatever platform that you or your company uses. I shared the example of the Mac creating the problem with a screen share. That's an inherent thing. Another thing that you can do on Zoom to make your life easier is to have a set meeting that's not time-bound. It's something easy that you can put into an email signature and send to people quickly if you want to meet with them. It's quick. You don't have to create a meeting, copy the code, or have the password. You set it up in advance on your Zoom. You also do it on teams because I've done it on teams and sent the person a link quickly.
In addition to that, you want to make sure your settings and Zoom are set. Others can screen share, so they don't have that problem. I like to make it. If somebody enters a waiting room, they don't have to have a password. I try to think of if your 90-year-old grandmother is trying to access, what's the easiest way for her to do that? That's what you want to do for your prospects, clients, and anybody else you might be meeting with. I've been doing Zoom with my parents and their friends. The person who did the best Zoom so far was a 95-year-old, and I've had people of all ages.
If your 90-year-old grandmother is trying to access Zoom, what's the easiest way for her to do that? That's what you want to do for your prospects, clients, and anybody else you might be meeting with.
These are silly little examples, but we are talking about speed bumps for us and our own technology skills. Where can we eliminate obstacles or speed bumps so our clients can work with us? If it's easy to talk to our competitor Jerry versus me making someone jump through three hoops to have a Zoom call, little things might steer them towards somebody.
If you're easy to work with, they'll want to work with you. You want to make sure that you have a background set up or use a live background that looks great. You want to make sure that one day, you go and figure out all your Zoom stuff or your virtual platform stuff. You want to make sure that you're watching videos.
There was a great video that happened at the beginning of the pandemic where a newscaster explained how to set up a good virtual space at home using books to put under your laptop so that the camera is at eye level with you as opposed to being set back. You touched on making it easy for clients. Another thing that makes it easy for clients is whether you are using Outlook email signatures to your best advantage.
Talk to us about that.
When you have an email signature, I see people that have an image. People use an image that has their headshot and their data information. What happens is people can't click on that to call or email you. Sometimes, it doesn't even come through because their email system is set up to not allow for images to download. They don't even see it.
You want to make sure, at a base level, that you have basic things in your signature. You have your name, position, company name, company website, email address, phone number, or cell phone if you're willing to provide it. What I also do is provide a calendar link so people can set themselves up on my calendar. I've had people set themselves up on my calendar. I don't even know who they are.
If I'm talking to somebody and I'm sending them an email, they say, “Let's get together.” I said, “It sounds great. Let's do that. Go ahead and use the link in my signature below.” It's already there. If you want to add your headshot, you can. That would be the image that you could add. The important stuff is there because if somebody is on their mobile and they want to call you, they're going to hit the phone number. If it doesn't work, they're going to be annoyed.
Any time I would see a peer who didn't have their phone number in a sales role, I knew it was not in every role.
In every role, any client- or employee-facing role, which is every role in a company, a set signature is required. Business can happen quickly.
How are people supposed to call you with their money if they can't find your phone number? They're going to call Jerry our competitor. Another little piece on that is if people have extensions, that kills me. People have their extension numbers. If I am an outside employee, how do I call you?
You also want to make sure that you reply to that email. I speak to Outlook because that's what most business companies use. They give you the opportunity to make as many signatures as you want. Those signatures could be used as email templates. You can set what signature you want to attach to that email. Your primary signature could be the big one with all the information on it.
You can also set a reply signature that has half the information on it but your phone and email address. You would say to me, “Karen, why would you give them your email address in your signature? They're emailing you because what if they wanted to forward your information to somebody else? What if they want to click the button and start an email afresh?
I don't know if I do that or not. I'll have to think about it, but I don't think I've put my email in my email signature in the short one. What else can you tell us? Let's keep going.
You mentioned something about your calendars. Your calendar must sync across all devices. When I started my company back in 2012, in 2014 and 2015, Google stopped having their Google Calendar connected to Outlook and Microsoft products. All of a sudden, I started missing meetings. I couldn't understand what was going on because I kept setting meetings, but they weren't making it to all of my devices. I ended up not being able to show up to places where I needed to show up to places.
I made a decision back then. I've been delighted with it since where I chose one platform. I chose the Microsoft platform to move my email to that. I'm not here to say that you need to sell your soul to Microsoft the same way I have, but there are reasons I do that as a small business owner, specifically that I do that support through them.
More importantly, because I've done that and I have my email address in a centralized location with a large company, I'm now able to sync my calendar across every single device I have. It doesn't matter what device. I have two iPads, a phone, a computer, and a laptop. I did say I had two iPads. They serve two different functions, which is cracking me up.
Tech is here to serve me. That's something I do want to say. Tech is here to serve us. If you're frustrated by tech and it's not doing what you want it to do, you're serving it. You need to turn the tables, and it needs to serve you. I have two different iPads for two different uses. Every single calendar has the exact same information. I can know where I'm supposed to be and who I'm supposed to be talking to, or I can make plans for the future.
Tech is here to serve us. If you're frustrated by it and not doing what you want it to do, then you're serving it. You need to turn the tables, and it needs to serve you.
You probably have multiple calendars feeding in.
No, I don't, because I have my own business. I use my professional calendar. For sales reps out there that work for other companies, I would not put anything personal on your professional calendar. I counsel the salespeople I work with to always have a personal email address and always separate their personal from their professional every single step of the way. If you want to do that, you can. There are ways to have it set up so that you can see both calendars on your devices.
I'm thinking about our booking link. What a brilliant piece of technology the calendar booking link is instead of the back and forth 95 times and do these times work. I love the calendar booking link. That could check your multiple calendars.
I was wondering if you were speaking to that. Those types of platforms do offer the opportunity to feed in multiple calendars. It can crosscheck. I got a crown to put it in my mouth. I had to take two hours to pull it out of my schedule to go to the dentist. I also put in drive time. That's another thing you need to do on your calendar. I went to the dentist for an 8:00 AM appointment. I figured it would take me until 9:00, so I put it from 8:00 to 9:00. I added another half-hour time slot for driving. Not that it takes me a half hour, but what if the appointment goes over? What if I want to grab a cup of coffee when I get back to the office? That way, there's room in my day for me to live and breathe.
If you're in an outside sales role, your colleagues on the inside don't always have that perspective of, “Sara might be driving. She can't take this meeting and screen share.” People can't tell what we're doing. If we're trying to make it as efficient as possible, that's a great tip.
If you work for a company, you can put it in as busy. I use the word busy to segment it off the calendar because people within an organization can see each other's calendar. You put the dentist in as busy.
That's the personal stuff. I like that. Are there any other examples before I move on to my next question?
That's enough to get people going.
Adopting New Technologies
One of the things that I would ask you, in your experience, what are some of the most common challenges that sales teams face when they're adopting new technologies? That's part one. How can we overcome them as part two?
The answer to the first question, what is the most common challenge, is that the new technology that's rolled out is built by people who don't use the product. It's built by people who do not use that tech and that application or platform on a daily basis. We're all human. It's okay to be human. It's okay to have strengths, and that's fabulous. We all have different strengths, and it's okay to have weaknesses because we all have them. If you look at anybody in your office or in your life, you know what their weaknesses are. Trust me. Board in a meeting, that's all you think about. They're thinking the same about us.
We all have our weaknesses. You have to figure out what your speed bump is to that technology. You have to look and say, “Okay, fine.” Some of the people I've trained and gone through say, “I can't get logged in.” How can you use a piece of tech if you can't log in? They had to go and talk to their IT department. It took a week of going back and forth in several different meetings. As soon as they got logged in, they were fine. It’s a simple problem, but they got it solved. I have another client I work with who needed to add some import and contacts to her Salesforce. Her company has been locked down. She's incapable of importing contacts to Salesforce. She has to take time to put in 200 contacts and key them in. I feel bad for her that she has to do that. That's the way it is.
How do you work around it? The best way to work around it is if you're on your own and you're an individual sales rep, find somebody who knows tech, have them get on a screen share with you, and show them what you're doing step-by-step. They'll be able to see where the problem is and help you iron out the problem. It doesn't need to be a tech department. It could be a friend or a family member that's good with tech.
If you're a sales manager and you want to make sure that whatever the new tech platform that is now being required and you as a manager are being judged against whether people are using it or not because that's a thing that happens, you have to make sure that you spend time individually with each sales rep and ask them to walk you through on-screen share or in person. Screen share is better because it doesn't feel micro-managed. If you do a screen share, the person is driving their own computer without you over their shoulder. It's easier to coordinate a screen share than it is a live-in person sometimes.
Have them walk you through this. This is what I do. This is how I log in. I had this question. I forgot I needed to ask you this. That's what normally happens. All of a sudden, the questions will start coming out. You'll be able to answer them as a sales manager or take them back to the powers that be and get the answer to that question. It's important. That's why I do individualized sales training, seminar sales training, and speakerships. I've done and attended a lot of that. I find that the best way for sales enablement is to work individually to help the person get past their speed bump, whatever their speed bump is.
What's cool about that is it forces the leader to know the technology. That's where some contentment can come from. I'm being asked to do something that the boss doesn't understand or know how to do. Is that why there seems to be a disconnect? I like the idea of having them watch you because that's where you find where you get stuck. Doing is what illuminates that.
I liked your advice about talking to a buddy. I have a couple of tech-heavy friends that will help me. I keep a running list. It's like Brett's technology help list as my list. Whenever I come up with something, I'll throw it in that file, and I keep going. It helps me knock out a lot of those speed bumps when I get a Brett on the call. I think that's great. Let me ask you this. I like the idea of the individualized thing. Have you ever seen a team do a show and say, “We have the CRM?”
I worked with a new sales rep. He started out using HubSpot. I transitioned them over to Salesforce because I'm a Salesforce baby. I'm not saying one is better than the other. They have different capabilities. If they wanted me to help them, which they did, they needed to use Salesforce. He's a young new sales rep. He took it like a duck to water, and he was delighted by it. We fixed it up the way he needed it to be fixed up to be able to use it. We got him past all the speed bumps.
What he's doing is on Monday mornings, when they have their sales meetings, he puts his screen up on the projector on the screen, goes through, and explains, “This is how you do this.” I train the trainer. He then trains them. He becomes the person that they come and talk to when they have questions because he is one of them. It's easier to go to him than it is to go to IT, who may not understand how it's being used, or to the boss, who may never log into it.
It gives him more ownership and something he is comfortable with, as well as an opportunity to lead as an “individual contributor.” That's a great story. Can you share another case study or example where technology has significantly improved a client's performance or revenue?
A couple of years ago, I had a client who asked me to work with one of their sales reps. He had been there for several years. He was doing okay. He was not a great sales rep, but once he got with the client, he was fantastic. There are hunter sales reps and farmer sales reps. I remember those words from a million years ago. I don't even know if they use those terms anymore.
I'm a hunter. What are you?
He's a farmer. Farmers and hunters are necessary. They're both necessary and have value. He's a good farmer sales rep. He was good at tending to clients, but he had many technology problems. I said, “Share your screen.” That's the first thing I always do. Share your screen. I got across the screen. I looked at it. There was something about it that I was sitting here watching him type out a response to an email. He kept making certain errors. I'm like, “That's interesting because I know he's smart and capable. I know he knows how to spell that word.” I asked him, “Are you dyslexic?” He said, “Yes, I am.” I said, “We're stopping right here. We're changing everything.”
Google dyslexic if you don't understand what it is, but it transposes letters and numbers in the brain. When you're looking at something, even though it's spelled correctly, it doesn't look like it's spelled correctly. When it's spelled incorrectly, it looks like it's spelled correctly. He would spend so much time agonizing to make sure that everything was spelled correctly because he didn't want anything to go out spelled incorrectly. There's all this time being wasted. I said, “No, we're not doing that anymore.”
He was using the Salesforce app on his phone to do all of his notes. He had already started doing that for talk-to-text because it was so much easier for him to do it like that. We don't care for notes if things are properly spelled or if the talk-to-text gets it right or not, but it's close enough. For clients, I said, “What we need to do is we need to set up a series of email templates that you can use. You're adding in certain things, not everything.” It is a good practice in any event, but it helps if somebody has something like dyslexia.”
The third thing we did was I said, “Let's see if there's an app for that.” There's an app for everything. Let's see if there's an app for that. While we're there in session, I googled because he uses Chrome, “Is there a Chrome app for talk-to-text?” There was. It was $40 a year. We downloaded and installed it. He started using it. It transformed his sales. He made double income because his speed went up. His ability to increase his speed to market and reply. He has more time to call on more people because he is no longer hampered by dyslexia weakness, but it is getting in the way of his sales. That's a common problem.
When I talked to his boss, I said, “Did you know he’s dyslexic?” He said, “No, that explains why such and such is slow.” I said, “Yeah.” That's another reason why it's important to know each person on your team, yourself, your sales, and your strengths and weaknesses individually. There's an app for everything these days. It can be solved. Somebody solved it.
Let me ask you a question about that. I love that story, and I'm happy to hear that he's kicking it. As we're talking about all these things, if people are reading this and they're like, “I need to figure that out. I should do that.” Is it a Google search? How do people find the answer? YouTube.
It’s a Google search, or you can go to ChatGPT. It knows a lot. How do I solve this? It'll tell you, or at least give you some ideas of some words to Google, if nothing else.
I asked ChatGPT how to replace a battery on an Apple Airtag. It was like, “Turn it counterclockwise.” I was like, “That's way easier than going through YouTube videos.
Sometimes, you have to Google it in a variety of ways. I personally use Google specifically. I find it provides more holistic results than the other search engines. I have the little things I've sold my soul to.
We're getting a little technology care and avatar of your Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google. It's okay if it works for you. It's almost assembling your technology toolkit. You have your go-tos for things.
It's already all set up the way you need it to be. That was a good example because it allowed him to increase the sales. He could close more leads, and more importantly, he was able to respond to people more quickly. There are studies that have been done that suggest that if you respond to somebody. Think of your own life. You're calling to see a pest control company. If you call and have to leave a voicemail to three different companies and you don't get a live answer, that's a bummer.
The live-answer person, unless they sound stupid, is going to get the business because they answered and the other people didn't. Let's say all three voicemails were left. If you have to wait fifteen minutes for one person a day for another person in a week for another person, who are you going to give the business to?
It's funny because now everything is AI-heavy. I don't know about you, but I use Squarespace for my website. Whenever I have to chat with them, they respond right away. I know it's a real person. They don't point me to an article that I go read on my own. They'll tell me how to do it. I am building this weird loyalty to Squarespace because a real human talks to me versus navigating through a bot. A lot of entrepreneurs are reading this blog. There are a lot of people in positions where they can help make those decisions for their companies. One easy way to differentiate ourselves is by being quick to reply like a human. Why wouldn't we do that?
I have another example. I work with new reps, like people who are brand new, like Gen Z, 23, 22, 24, and 25 years old. I'm going to state this as clearly as possible. One of the things that sales managers and sales business owners do is, “They're young. They know how to use technology.” They don't. They do not know anything about business. They do not know anything about your business. They do not know anything about business technology.
They know how to use Gmail or Mail. They know how to use social media platforms that are based on personal back-and-forth interactions, such as Instagram, TikTok, and things of that nature. They know how to use all that. They are familiar with the tech, and they're not afraid of it, but they do not know how to use anything else. If they were trained in school, most of the time, they would have them work in Google Sheets, and most businesses would have them work on Microsoft. They work on both, but it's important to know that Google Sheets and Excel are similar, although not quite the same.
Canva versus PowerPoint. Businesses use PowerPoint.
You have to understand that they may not be afraid of tech, but they still have to be trained in tech. One of the things I like to train my new trainees and brand new salespeople is to train them quickly how to use the CRM that's provided or get their own. If one is not provided, I tell them to go sign up and use one on their own, whatever the lowest level dollar amount is. Twenty dollars a month for Salesforce, free for HubSpot in some respects, or low price for HubSpot in other respects. There are a lot of different programs and platforms out there.
Manage your CRM not because your company's making you do it, but manage it for yourself because that CRM will now become your brain. Things are moving fast because of technology, even faster now because of AI. Each salesperson needs to take responsibility for what they say they're going to do. It's easy to forget from moment to moment. If you use the CRM and you say, “I'll call you back next Wednesday, Mr. Smith.” Make sure to put it in the CRM as a flag or an activity. It'll tell you that you need to call Mr. Smith now.
That was an area that I needed to work on, such as how to maximize the CRM tools to take stuff off of my brain and make the CRM use it. That's a great example.
You have to remember that the CRM is your brain. Offload as much data as you can to that brain so that you're free to do the parts that you're strong with.
What's cool about that, Karen, is if you look at it that way, it's not, “This is another thing I have to do. I don't want to have to learn this.” No, this is my brain. It's here to help me, and I can focus on other stuff. That's a great reframe. I needed to hear it. I want to also ask you. Let's say a company rolls out a new piece of technology, or people are reading, and they're like, “I want to hit my speed bump and fix some of the stuff Karen and Sara are talking about.” How can individuals integrate new technologies into their existing processes without disrupting their workflow? A different way to say that is, how can people find time to learn and do it?
That's a great question because many people say, “I don't have time.” Nobody has time. I go back to what I said at the beginning. Start small. Do one little thing. Make one little change. Set up a calendar link, add it to your signature, see what happens, let that sit there for a few weeks, and do another thing. Play with the dictation that's on Microsoft Office. You can do it for Outlook. For Word, you can do dictation.
Things that are already on board are already available to us. You want to make sure that you start with one small thing, find one small speed bump, solve for that, let a little time pass, and solve for the next one. If a new tech is introduced, use it a little bit. Get acclimated to it. You have to be in the space. Anything that's new is difficult. When I was introduced to ChatGPT, it was March of 2023. For somebody who does tech, I was behind eight ball by a few months, but I finally got there. By the time I was done with my flight home from the conference that I had learned about it at, I had already figured out what lodge in Fairbanks, Alaska, I wanted to go to see the Northern Lights.
That's a fun way to use and learn it.
Do it. It's fun. It's personal. You're not trying to use it for business purposes. Make it interesting to you individually to do something. In addition to that, I was training salespeople on how to use it. I was doing a seminar. I learned it in March, and I was already doing a training seminar on it in July. I would get on the phone with the individual sales reps that I was working with and say, “Show me how you're using ChatGPT.” That's the reason why I do the individualized sales training. I find that people learn a lot in seminars, but not all the information gets downloaded correctly.
Working with somebody individually helps. Let's try it like this. We use it for one application that they need to use. Find one thing to see if it'll save you time. I personally had a hard time finding ways to have ChatGT help me. I leave it open on my browser and my phone. I'm in it 10 to 15 times a day because I have figured out that it can do so much more than I thought I could. I did one little fun thing for myself. Little by little, I started learning it.
I asked it for a piña colada recipe. It gave me a cream day coconut or something I didn't have. I said, “I don't have this ingredient.” It gave me a different version of the recipe. I was like, “This is cool.” For my business, I've been using it quite a bit. I know we aren't spending time on AI, but it's a cool example of if you take some time and chip away at it, now you start to see, “I know I can ask it this. I can do this.” I like your comment about there's an app for everything. There's an episode for everything. The information is out there.
When I was doing my seminars, I had this one thing where I needed to train people on manufacturing space. I went and found a podcast that's all about the manufacturing facility. Who would've thought there was a podcast about that? There's something for everything out there. The question I would ask at this point is, where do you start?
If you're not being given a piece of technology to work on and you're reading and going, “I want to do something. I want to try this. Where do I even start?” I would get honest about your weaknesses and figure it out. I can't fill out a form for myself. I filled out a postal service form to send something to Australia, and I clicked Austria. That was something that needed to get to Australia.
I'm terrible. It put me in front of a FedEx forum, and I broke out in a cold sweat, but I can get behind a microphone. I can get in front of 1,000 people being mic’d up and talking to them. There’s no problem. It’s something that would make anybody want to run for the hills and hide to be in front of that many people speaking. I love that.
If you asked me to do the math on the spot, I'm like, “I don't know.”
Figure out what your weaknesses are and say, “I need to solve this.” Use ChatGPT and say, “I have this weakness. What are some ways to solve that?” That'll tell you, “Ask your friends. Everybody's got an opinion.”
What's a good takeaway, Karen, for the readers is whatever question you have of resources out there for you, that's something where it's like we can all take comfort in the fact that if we don't know how to do something, we will be able to figure it out. The more you do it, the more you realize, “This is not hard. I could figure this out.”
I was watching something about how they put the man on the moon. I'm sitting there going, “How the heck did they do that with the technology they had at that time? That's amazing.” It's almost miraculous if you ask me. Here we are with all of this technology around us. We all have the ability to make transformations.
I was watching a show. It was called Black Sail on Starz. It was okay. It was about pirates. The new pirate captain was designing his pirate flag for his ship. I was like, “I wonder how they made pirate flags in 1770s Nassau.” The answer was they had extra sail cloth, dyed it black with tar, and would use whitewash to paint the skull and crossbones. I was like, “ It’s interesting.”
That's a perfect example if you work with what you have.
The Human Element Of Sales
We're living in such a special, unique time. Even though it can be intimidating, it's amazing to witness this huge human shift in technology. We talked a lot about how technology can enhance rather than replace the human element of sales. I want to give you that as our final question, Karen. As we're using all this tech and making ourselves more efficient and easier, how can we keep the human parts of ourselves?
We're going to go back to where I started with the human resources. We are human resources. We have strengths and weaknesses. Sales is all about knowing and trust. You and I can both tell when we're getting an AI message. Everybody reading this knows when they're getting an AI message. If I can use technology to free up my time, that means I have more time to personally connect with people, which is all about sales enablement. It’s getting right down that road faster.
It allows using technology to save you time and creates an opportunity for people to know and trust you because you have time for them. One thing that is precious in this world is that nobody has time. If we can make time for a client or a prospect, they're going to feel that. They're not going to feel like you're rushing to move on to the next thing and that you're a number to them.
I love that, Karen. I thought that was so beautifully put. Thank you for sharing that insight. Thank you for all of the technology wisdom you dropped on us. I'm already going to change a couple of things after this interview wraps up, but before we close, I want to ask you two things. The first is anything else we didn't mention that you want to leave the audience with.
If you lead a sales team, get honest with yourself about your own strengths and weaknesses and that of each of your salespeople. Don't hold their weaknesses against them. Figure out a way to support them. If you're an individual salesperson reading this, continue the process of self-education. Focus on that. If you find that you don't have time to do anything, find a way to have somebody help you make the time.
Where can people find you if they want to connect or learn more?
The best place to find me is on LinkedIn, Karen Gunther. This is the best place to find me. I post all sorts of great tech tips on there. I have all my information on there.
I follow Karen. We are LinkedIn buddies. We've never met in person yet, but it's going to happen. We've had more free time on our hands to build this relationship because we leverage technology. I want to thank you so much for coming to the show and sharing your wisdom, Karen.
Thank you so much, Sara. I appreciate the opportunity.
Important Links
Karen Gunther – LinkedIn
