Linda Fanaras: 0:00

Welcome to the B2B Brand180 Podcast, where we’ll discuss branding and marketing strategies for your business. Our goal today is to help you make transformative, innovative changes that can give you that 180 degree shift in your marketing efforts or complete reversals and brand strategies. I’m Linda Fanaras and I’m the owner of Millennium Agency, a branding and growth strategy firm and host of the B2B Brand180 Podcast. Today I am excited to bring in Dawn Grooters. She has 20 years of expertise and relationship driven B2B sales. She started as a successful field rep before mastering her own power of inside sales after the tragic loss of her son. She has developed a great hybrid sales approach that helps her sales colleagues really reach more customers, grow their business, and create that work life balance. That eliminates burnout. So great to have you here, Dawn. I’m super excited to have you share some of your insights. It looks like we’ll be covering maybe some of the differences and benefits of internal external sales teams and really how B2B companies can scale their Salesforce. So if you could just take a quick moment and introduce yourself. We could get started.

Dawn Grotters: 1:18

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me today, Linda. I’m excited to be here. So, yeah, so I’ve been in the gift and home industry for about over 20 years now, and, started as a buyer. So I worked for a chain of Hallmark stores and then I moved into the sales world, as a field rep going door to door for retailers, selling products in the territory that I had. I did that for about three years, and then, one of my children did pass away. And so when that happened, I knew I didn’t want to be out on the road anymore. And so the agency that I was working for had said, we’re thinking about starting inside sales. Do you wanna do that? So I thought, at least I can be at home with my other kids. I’ll go ahead and give that a try. And when that happened, they kind of gave me a computer, a phone, and a list to start calling. So I started calling those customers, made a lot of mistakes, got hung up on all the things that happened to us. But I started to kind of think, what if I could make these phone calls more like when I was in person, so what would I do in front of those customers that I could kind of translate over the phone? And so, I started asking a lot of questions, which led to building relationships, understanding the retailers more, and then, ending up writing a million dollars just over the phone every year. That’s so great. Yeah. So did that. And then now I have my own company where I help other businesses with inside sales and hybrid sales strategies.

Linda Fanaras: 2:47

That’s great, Dawn. That’s exciting to hear. So yeah, the door to door, those with the good old days, right? Yes. Yes. That definitely can’t happen today too often, but things have changed quite a bit. Yes. Awesome. Well we can get right into it. So I would love for you to explain, there’s a lot of differences there. A lot of things that have changed since. Do it going from door to door, making phone calls, having a Rolodex card and having tools like Salesforce and other strategies, and hard sales versus sort of a soft casual sale. What do you think the biggest differences and benefits are of, like, if you’re looking at an internal sales team versus maybe an external sales team? How do companies kind of get the best of both worlds with a scene like that?

Dawn Grotters: 3:29

Yeah. Yeah. So I think there’s benefits to both, like inside sales and outside sales. I think there’s benefits to both. I think it’s more of a strategy. You need to look at more of like the customers that you’re working with and that you’re going after. What’s the best strategy for them? So there’s definitely customers that want an in-person appointment where they want to see the product, they wanna meet the salespeople, they wanna have those meetings. That’s very important for some of those customers. Then there’s some of those customers, and a lot of the times right now we’re facing that if you are a field rep where they’re like, I don’t want an appointment. I don’t have time to see you. want you to come into my store. I don’t want you to come into my business right now. I just don’t have time. And so that’s where more of an inside sales approach is better. They still need your help and your guidance and they still need for you to tell them like, here’s best sellers. Here’s maybe where the best products are or services that we need, but we wanna be able to share that information with them. But it could be through phone calls, it could be through virtual meetings, it could be through sending emails with like top sellers, things like that. So it’s using both of those approaches for the right customers. And so that takes a little strategy.’cause not right, everything is right for everyone, but it does take some figuring out where you need like those field reps, where you need those inside sales. And then even those field reps need more of those skills to be able to make the phone calls to use email appropriately. Right? Like all of those skills to kind of blend. And that’s kind of where that hybrid comes in, where you need to blend both strategies to really make a difference in your territory or, your book of customers that you work with. That makes sense? Yeah. Yeah.

Linda Fanaras: 5:16

So you have a hybrid sales advantage that you speak about quite a bit. If you can break that down for me just so I can understand like why it’s so powerful with B2B firms in particular.

Dawn Grotters: 5:29

Yeah. So it is taking what I had learned as a field sales rep, adding the inside sales skills to it. So basically with that, what we do is we teach in hybrid sales advantage. It’s a training program. We teach you how to use the phone, know how to call your customers, what to say, what questions to ask. You know what that approach is. We have a four step phone call process that we make to help. Keep engagement with those customers that we’re calling. And so, we teach you that and those inside sales skills so you can leverage that, right? Then our second step in that process is we are looking at how do you blend both of those, so which customers do you go visit? We look at your list of customers and we say, which customers should I go visit? Which customers can I call, and which customers do? I maybe do both, where maybe I only visit them twice a year, and then I do phone calls in between. So we really look at how to strategize with your list of customers. Who belongs in which bucket, basically you say, okay, which bucket? So then we know how to approach each customer in the best way.

Linda Fanaras: 6:36

Yeah, that makes sense.

Dawn Grotters: 6:37

And then the third part of that process is we’re setting you up with a CRM. If you’re not using one now, you should be. And so how do you create that CRM and customize that CRM to fit your specific sales needs. Who should be inside sales? Who should be outside sales? And then who should be in as a hybrid customer? How do you set that up in your system? And then how do you leverage that system with the customer engagement data that happens through a CRM and knowing how to set up follow up tasks, all of those things. So you’re using that system to the best of your ability.

Linda Fanaras: 7:11

So when you’re looking at different types of prospective customers as an example, how would you break that up? So, if you were to handle Prospect A, certain way versus a Prospect B, can you give some examples to the audience on how that list may get? Split up, is it based on company size? Is it based on title?

Dawn Grotters: 7:28

If they have existing volume, that’s a sure tail sign. It’s a sure sign looking at the volume. So obviously your higher volume customers, you probably wanna have more of that in-person appointments with them. And then, some of the lower volume customers. That would be great to start with phone calls. If they came, if they said, Hey, we would love for you to come in and set up appointment with us, great. We can move them into a different bucket. But, we start by looking at volume. We look at the number of customers on your list, and then we look at kind of location. So if you are a field rep and a customer’s nine hours away from you and they don’t do quite as much volume, does it make sense for you to put them in a outside sales bucket where you wouldn’t be able to really, that’s not a great use of your time. Maybe it’s once or twice a year you go visit them, but not four times a year. So we look at some major factors in that to say these are the right places to go, but then obviously it’s communication with those customers to see how they want to be worked with and if they, you could have a top volume customer that doesn’t even want you to come into the store. True. So we wanna find out, you know, that’s where we start, is looking at some of those factors, but then we obviously work with the way the customer wants to work.

Linda Fanaras: 8:47

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So there must be some real key foundational pieces that have to be in place before you decide, okay, we’re gonna add reps, we’re gonna use an outside firm. What are like some of the different items or pieces that need to be in place before you start making those calls or doing outreach or email marketing or whatever the strategy may be?

Dawn Grotters: 9:09

Yeah, so you definitely wanna be ready for it. You don’t wanna just start and not have resources and assets in place. So if you have either digital or a hard copy catalogs. Those are important for field and inside sales reps. Making sure you have, price lists if that’s what you need if it we’re talking product here. But if you have price lists, if you have, bestseller lists, if you have, other like starter packs. You know, so sometimes like a starter pack or a bestseller pack, those are great things to have. You wanna have all of those kind of assets ready. Okay. Whether that it’s for field or whether it’s for inside sales, because they’re gonna both need those. So you wanna start with that? And then again, it’s looking at the customer and if there’s anything else that they need. And then also making sure your CRM is set up correctly too, because you wanna keep track of all of that information with the customers as well.

Linda Fanaras: 10:08

So if you were to look, if you were to compare field sales to inside sales, can you give me a couple examples or maybe a few steps that our audience should actually take to get each one set up properly?

Dawn Grotters: 10:19

Yeah. So if you look at field sales, if you are a product based company And you haven’t ever had sales reps. Starting small is always the best policy. Maybe you find a couple independent reps in channels that your customer, you know, you would have great customers. So maybe it’s spas if you have a wonderful beauty care line and you start with spas, maybe you look for some independent reps that sell into.

Linda Fanaras: 10:47

Okay.

Dawn Grotters: 10:47

Get that, get their feedback on what’s working, what’s not working, what kind of displays you need to have, all of those kind of things. So start small with a couple independent reps and make sure you have the inventory to support whatever they’re going to sell. So I would say that’s where you would start with. Field reps Okay. For inside sales reps. Again, you wanna have all of your things, all of your resources available to those inside sales reps, but they’re gonna be making phone calls, so what are the questions that you want answered? So you would know the right products to direct to them? Because on a phone call you don’t have a lot of time, so what are those few questions that you need to know? You know, if it’s, let’s take spas again. I’m calling into spas. I would wanna know, like, do you have a go-to face care line that you already work with. And then you would wanna say, well, does it include an exfoliator? Do you have moisturizing? Do you have sunscreen to go in that line? And then based on those questions, you can say, okay, well maybe you don’t have a makeup line to go with that. Right. This would be a great makeup line to introduce to them. And then having a couple key selling points for them to share. Like, did you know this is gluten-free? I didn’t know that was such a big thing, but it is, we don’t test on animals, so what are the three things that you would want to portray to a customer on that phone call? So again, having that information ready for whether it’s field or inside sales is gonna be very important. Whatever direction you decide to go.

Linda Fanaras: 12:18

Yeah, that makes sense. At least getting some of those initial steps in place. I think for the audience to start small with maybe these one-off ideas, I think it’s a great opportunity for them to take advantage of that. Yeah. So I’m sure a lot of businesses make sense. They drop the ball, you start out all excited. I know companies will bring in these CRM systems, get them started, then they fall by the wayside and depends who’s there and who’s not. And everybody has their products that they like or dislike. So where do you see companies really dropping the ball?

Dawn Grotters: 12:52

I would say what with the, like a CRM or anything that they’re doing, it’s the follow up. That’s where I think the ball gets dropped a lot. Maybe they call a customer if they’re gonna do inside sales and they have it in their CRM, they call them three times and they’re like. Right. They’re not answering. They’re not responding and then they just let it go. Well, typically it takes like six to eight phone calls to be able to get a customer to be engaged. Right. And so you have to push past that. You have to follow up, you know, more. I’m not saying follow up every other day. That’s not a great cadence, but. Right. What, like you would continually keep that customer in your funnel and follow up with them until you did get a no, and then maybe you would wait a little bit longer after that. Right. So I would say the follow up, whether it’s emails, whether it’s phone calls, whether it’s follow up to a meeting that you had and you didn’t, the follow up that happens. That’s where the ball gets dropped the most, and the CRM can help you with that if you schedule the tasks and then you complete them. That’s a big part. Completing those tasks.

Linda Fanaras: 13:56

That makes sense. Yeah. And I think that’s probably the hard part is really using that system in a way that is consistent because companies, or if it’s a B2B, other companies may not buy exactly when you wanna sell. But six months from now, if you have those reminders set. That might be the time where you’re actually, making a connection or they’re ready to make a change, and that, that takes time. It just takes time. And then it’s all about timing and need. Yes, absolutely. Awesome. So, as far as marketing and sales working together and sort of the speed of brief strategy, how do you see them best working together?

Dawn Grotters: 14:33

Yeah, so marketing I think is really important for providing those resources, right? The catalogs, the digital assets that they would need best sellers. Marketing is really important in that, but then even if they’re sending out like marketing emails to customers. When we send those out as a brand, you can send those out and then you get feedback. Who’s opened? Who’s clicked on that? Well, a lot of times. Companies don’t do anything with that, right? They’re like, oh, I had a 20% click rate. Well, that’s a great click rate, but if you don’t do anything with that, then it doesn’t matter. Right? Right. And so using that, to be able to say, Hey, maybe I should call this customer that had clicked on that, and this would maybe be a great place to start, that these customers have all clicked on it. They’ve, shown, expressed some kind of interest. Maybe I should call them and see what they were interested in. You know, we sent out this email, maybe it was some top selling products. Hey, what, caught your eye with that email? and then getting some feedback from them. And you could actually turn that into a sale just by using that marketing information. And then following up with those customers and generating sales from that.

Linda Fanaras: 15:41

Yeah. That makes complete sense. Are there any other strategies or insights that you’d like to share with the audience today?

Dawn Grotters: 15:47

Yeah, I really think that, it’s really important to take what you have. Whether the products and all that you have and continually just work with your sales team and your customers to figure out what is the best direction. Right. I think right now in the way things are, in the economy and stuff, we really have to level up on what we’re good at. Yeah. And so what are those customers saying that they’re like, I want more of? We’ve been working with a client and we’ve been calling some of their customers for them, and the customers were telling us that, we purchased this more in the fourth quarter, more in the fourth quarter. So then that, client went to a trade show and they said, they were hearing from the customers. We purchase your line more in the fourth quarter. Okay. We’ll take that information then and say, if you don’t wanna just be purchased in the fourth quarter, what kind of products can we innovate and create that would be purchased, in other times of the year, not just the fourth quarter. Right? So taking that information from those customers and leveling up on it to really expand your line or grow your line or be innovative in your line to figure out the best way to do that.

Linda Fanaras: 16:57

Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of strategies like that, that are out there that companies don’t really take advantage of.

Dawn Grotters: 17:02

Yeah.

Linda Fanaras: 17:03

And this is that opportunity. Whether it’s partnerships or like you said, tactics that maybe they just haven’t really looked at. Yeah. I think it’s a good opportunity especially to reach out and really get insight. Yeah. No, that’s great. Any other things that you’d love to share or.

Dawn Grotters: 17:18

Yeah, no, I, would love to work, I love working with B2B companies and so if anybody’s interested in learning more about hybrid sales or hybrid sales advantage, or how we do inside sales, you can always book a connect call with me, and I’m happy to talk through where you’re at and if we would be a good fit for you.

Linda Fanaras: 17:36

Great. Yeah, if you could let the audience know how they can get in touch with you specifically, that would be fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.

Dawn Grotters: 17:43

So, you can go to my website, brokenvesselsales.com and then, there you can connect with me and then we can schedule that call and kind of talk through. I do like phone calls, so it’s a good time for me to learn more about you and you can learn a little bit more about me, and then figure out the best foot forward. So definitely there. And then I’m also on LinkedIn, Dawn Grooters there and then also on Instagram @dawn_grooters.

Linda Fanaras: 18:08

That’s, fantastic. Awesome. Well, thank you Dawn for coming in today and joining us for the B2B Brand180 Podcast. And, it’s great to have your insights around sales and marketing and really some steps to get the process going in a systematic way to help companies grow. So for our audience, I just wanna thank you for joining me today and listening in. If you need to get in touch with Dawn, you can go to brokenvesselsales.com. If you’d like to reach me directly, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or visit lindafanaras.com. Thanks so much and have a great day. Thank you.