Welcome to The Entrepreneuring Show, where we strive to provide insights and stories for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, where innovation meets inspiration. Led by veteran entrepreneur and tech founder, here’s your host, Joe Biden.
Jill Button: Welcome to the show. Yes, I am Jill Button and I am the host, with me today. I am pleased to have, uh, Craig Poulton, VP of sales and marketing at SmartDesks Craig has over 25 years in digital media sales and marketing. Before Smartdesk, Craig was director at iBridge Consulting, delivering complex projects for enterprise clients and served as VP of online products at BoardSuite, integrating solutions to enhance the platform for business leaders.
He also founded NWebMedia, growing it into an internationally recognized firm working with top global brands on impactful campaigns and custom web applications. Welcome to the show, Craig.
Craig Poulton: Thank you. It’s nice to be here.
Jill Button: Awesome. So I’ve been trying to get you on the show for a while and, uh, I think today’s topic is going to be amazing, but before we get to that topic, the three strategies, uh, that are going to, uh, give you an unfair advantage, I want to talk about your entrepreneurial journey.
Tell me a little bit about how you become an entrepreneur. You became an entrepreneur.
Craig Poulton: Well, I think it has to be something that you’re born with. Born with to a degree, you know, this is, it’s just, it seems innate in a lot of people that I, that I’ve met and work with. And even in myself, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve worked a column, corporate, boring jobs, if you will, you know, pushing papers on desk and, and you know, in your soul, you know, what’s right for you.
And I knew in my soul that, you know, doing jobs like that were not right for me. But, you know, early, early on going way back. Um, but I didn’t know what, you know, was even possible. Like, you know, I predate the internet in terms of even trying to decide when I was going to choose a career. So, you know, as a teenager and even in my early twenties, I couldn’t even imagine what I’m doing today.
Cause it really didn’t exist. Like what I’m doing my whole life did not exist when I was trying to figure out my life. Um, so. You know, entrepreneurial insights really come from, I think, just kind of who you are. It’s not something you can pick up in school. It’s almost what inspires you too, right? You could be, uh, I’ve come across people like this as well too, right?
They’re, they’re working in a corporate job for many, many years and then they get an idea. And then overnight, uh, they’re an entrepreneur. Um, it’s depends on when it strikes you. Some people know very early on, you know, that they can’t work for someone else and they got to do their own thing. And some people it’s from inspiration, right?
They get a great idea later on in life and they throw themselves into that world.
Jill Button: So a lot of entrepreneurs say that they have an itch. They just have this feeling, this this knowing that there’s something that they need to do. Was that sort of similar story for you?
Craig Poulton: Yep. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew that when I, when I walked into the office every day, I wanted it to be mine.
Jill Button: Absolutely. I, uh, I often quote Jack Welsh, which is control your destiny or somebody else will. And I. A lot of entrepreneurs like you and I both experienced that sort of full time job, corporate life, climbing the ladder, and then they realize it’s the wrong ladder.
Craig Poulton: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a definite journey.
I, uh, you know, like it’s not for the faint of heart. You know, you hear some success stories and it’s not typical when you hear people just starting something within a year or two, they’re off to the races and, you know, they’re raising millions and stuff. It just, you know, those stories get a lot of attention.
So it’s very discouraging for a lot of entrepreneurs to read and hear those stories. Um, you know, this conversation is not one of those stories, but I think it’s, it’s in the works, like, you know, where the, the, the. The 10 year overnight success in the works,
Jill Button: the
Craig Poulton: way that I’d like to, you know, position it.
Um, but you know, often, you know, maybe in a year or two or three, when our stories told a little differently, it might seem like an overnight success with a lot of the pain, just not being covered because you know, those early years and days, um, can be very, very difficult. Right. And there’s a mindset that you have to have in order to stay, you know, through those difficult times.
Jill Button: Absolutely. I think that that’s, it’s an important thing that you, you talk about and the realities of being an entrepreneur and the, the myth, I guess, of being an entrepreneur and how, like you said, it’s sort of an overnight success. You’ve got this brilliant idea, you get investors and then it becomes a unicorn and there’s really no.
The reality of the situation is like you said, it takes years and years and years of long hours, you know, long nights, sleepless nights, um, trial, failure, trial, failure. Uh, and I think that’s why I started the show is because I wanted people to really. Get to know real entrepreneurs and to hear their stories.
And
Craig Poulton: I’ve had
Jill Button: some, some really interesting conversations. What’s been for you, one of the most challenging things, uh, that people may not know.
Craig Poulton: Um, it really depends on the type of business that you’re starting. My first business in web media. Um, it was essentially profitable from day one because it was a web development firm and this is before WordPress.
So this is really the early days of building websites. And I was a web developer, so you get a contract, you know, what’s my overhead cost is my computer that I’m working on. Really? That was it. I was working in my apartment at the time and then I got busier and I hired somebody and then another person.
And then, you know, got the office a little bit bigger type of thing. And it just, You know, we grew organically without having to make a capital investment into the infrastructure to grow the business. So it was really just about becoming a good manager and growing that business. And it did quite well. My second business, it was, you know, it was, it was handed to me on a platter, so to speak, right?
I got somewhat recruited by a former client who was, um, looking for talent and I had a, you know, a good resource of talent. And then I started consulting and providing. people to this organization to build out these projects. Instantly profitable. Okay. Now, SmartDesk the company I’m in right now, software development, you need software developers, you know, you, we’ve had office space.
So trying to build a team, you know, so we’re all working collectively in the room. Uh, we’re a SAS company, so we’re charging a very small amount of money back in the web days. You get a customer, you might get a four or 5, 000 client. You do it in a month and a half or so, you know, it’s, it’s pretty good money.
That was good money. Maybe 20 years ago. Um, you know, we’re charging 50 a user, right? And of course there’s other revenue items with our, with our company, but you need a lot of customers and it takes time to build that up. And we’re not entering our space with our company, um, in a brand new market where.
Every little feature we’re offering people is something they never had. We’re entering a market where we’re competing against very feature rich CRM applications, software applications, and I’ve seen their engineer teams. You know, I, I can’t even imagine what I could do with a team of 65 software developers, right?
Um, but we’re trying to compete against them. So it’s like, Oh, this is going to take a little bit longer cause we can’t solve it with money. Right. We’ve tried the whole, you know, raising funding and we had some success in 2019 doing like a friends and family round. Um, but because of events that happened after that, the landscape became very, very difficult, uh, for a number of years.
Um, but we struggled through, we struggled through and we, we came out, you know, on the other end, I guess you could say we have a growing number of clients now. And, um, You know, it’s getting less challenging, but you have to choose the type of company that you want to start and understand early on. I’d never done a product led company before, so I didn’t know how much investment I would need, uh, how much it would cost and how long it would take.
So in a number of years, I think it’s taken. Us to get to here was the inexperience in building a software company. I knew how to run a company. I had to set one up. I knew how to find talent. I knew how to find great people and all that stuff. I had lots of experience doing that. Um, but it’s like, Oh, okay.
Things take time here. And Oh, this company has this feature and then customers start using it and they start telling you all the things that they need. And it’s, it rabbit holes. And it, it, it is a challenge. It’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on in my life.
Jill Button: So in that challenge, is it. Not understanding the, like, how do you grow the business given the monetization model and continue to support the infrastructure, the office, the developers needed?
Is it, is it that piece of it? Or. Like give me a little bit more to understand in terms of what did you find most challenging for me? Like i’ll be honest. I’m a procurement and supply chain person. I do not know marketing. I do not know sales But in 12 years i’ve had to learn and that for me has been one of the biggest struggle struggles Um, is it the sales piece of it?
Is it understanding the monetization or help me understand a little bit more?
Craig Poulton: Well, it’s a different sales strategy because when you’re doing a consulting type of business, you can, you know, you know how to hustle to a certain degree. You can do LinkedIn, you can do trade shows, you can do, you know, uh, business events and you can get your customers and you network, you get referrals, but.
For a SAS company, it’s, it’s success is gauged in hundreds or thousands of clients, you know, in a short period of time. So you don’t have that personal relationship or, and if you’re trying to, and this is maybe what I tried to do a little too much or still do, um, I developed a very close personal relationship with a lot of the customers that come on board, you know, I have a stake in their success, not just because they’re using our software, but because, you know, I want to see them succeed to a certain degree.
I have to detach myself from that. It’s a software that has to do most of the work and I’m not used to that. And that’s been a bit of a learning curve for me. The strategy of sales or marketing, like I’ve got a plan, you know, a budget and everything all set aside. Um, And it’s a much bigger budget. It’s a massively bigger budget because if you’re a consulting type of company, you can be very focused.
You can reach out to certain people. You get a contract. It’s probably enough to sustain you for a little while. But with this type of a product, the SAS company, you’ve got to reach a wide audience and you’ve got to convince them to self subscribe and invest their time. And hopefully your software makes it an easy process.
So it’s a. a totally different marketing strategy than what I was used to in practice. Fundamentally, I understand what needs to happen, right? It’s like, it’s the whole, you know, sales pipeline, right? You get the engagement and you work them down to conversion. Um, and then, you know, you want to reduce your churn.
Um, and that’s, it’s, it’s, It’s different when you understand it on paper and then you have to kind of realize it and you do a small campaign and it’s like, Oh, it’s not working. Why? Oh yeah. It’s a requires, you know, 100, 000 budget to reach our audience in a competitive market. Okay. That makes more sense now.
Jill Button: So I can, I can relate, uh, having been in consulting for almost 12 years now, the, the, Launch of procure hub, which is a completely different model. Like you said, uh, was something that was quite foreign and still continues to be. And it’s very elusive, especially given it’s a two sided marketplace and you’re trying to build both sides at the same time.
And like you said, it’s a different relationship. Um, so I can relate to that. What about, um, you know, everybody talks about the. The income potential of an entrepreneur, but that isn’t why a lot of entrepreneurs start their businesses. What for you has been that sort of, uh, catalyst for, you know, creating your business?
What is it that makes your heart sing? I’ll call it to be a little bit soppy.
Craig Poulton: Yeah, uh, great question. Um, you’re right. The money is, is there because, you know, if you can build a successful software company, you know, the exits on some of these things are staggering. So, you know, that’s always in the back of your mind as an entrepreneur, but I think if it’s driving you, it’s probably, it’s not going to, you know, lead to the best product because you really have to focus on what people’s needs are, um, in order to kind of get to those big numbers.
But, you know, the thing that really makes me. The most excited about doing this is, is to know that this product was created by us at SmartDesk We just see our vision for CRM and it’s things that we’re accomplishing. And when I do sometimes a demo or an onboarding with a customer and they are just like, this is incredible.
I cannot believe how easy this is. Or, you know what? Oh, with Salesforce, you know, you don’t understand this was like. 18 steps and it costs X. It’s like, it’s included in and it’s like three steps and it’s super easy to use. So to hear that, you know, we collectively work on this as a team, we come up with really great ideas and to see some of your own ideas implemented.
And then to get real world feedback that this is an incredible product that you’ve created, it’s probably what fuels me the most. It’s a bit of an ego thing. It’s like, I want to, you know, Make the best CRM on the market. I want people to be like, you helped my company grow. We got 10 new customers because we used, you know, your sales strategies with implemented in this infrastructure that you’ve built and you’ve made it easier.
And it’s, those are the things that really motivate me when I. Get off a call with someone like, Oh my God, I cannot believe how great this is. That’s it. That’s, that’s my high for, for the day usually. And then I do take it really personally. I’m like, Oh, you don’t have this, or it’d be great if you had this.
It’s like, it goes down right away and in our, in our JIRA program. And we, you know, Track it and try to get it implemented as quickly as possible. Uh, in some cases, customers say, Oh, it’d be great if it could do this or whatever, and then the next day we’ve got the feature in there, you know, not always for people listening, that doesn’t always happen.
Um, but if we can do things like that, you know, we do it right away. Uh, because one customer’s happy, but two, we just instantly made our product better for everybody else. I absolutely love that. That. That kind of feedback and growth and building is what really drives me the most. The money will, will come later.
I’m not worried about that. Um, that’s not what motivates and drives me. It’s really clout and building something unique in the market
Jill Button: and satisfying customers. And I think it’s that customer centric. Focus that most entrepreneurs thrive on in that they know what they’re building or what they’re doing or what they’re delivering is helping somebody in my consulting business.
I love that I can take my decades of experience and help somebody achieve a result that is better than what they could do themselves. It’s, and you know, getting somebody who says, you know, we couldn’t have done this without you, um, is great. For me, it’s like utopia having that kind of client satisfaction and on the procure hub side, kind of like you, where somebody, when they get it, they go, Oh, this is great.
Like, I can’t believe this doesn’t exist. Like this is a huge gap. We need this. It’s getting to that end result and getting and helping those clients achieve something that they couldn’t achieve on their own, solving, solving real problems. I think I hear consistently from a lot of entrepreneurs.
Craig Poulton: Yeah.
We’re able to leverage. Uh, technology now that, you know, maybe some of the more established companies will have a hard time because, you know, we’re, we’re integrating things that weren’t even available four or five years ago, but you know, the, the sales forces and the hub spots of the world, like they built their core application, like, you know, over decades ago, decades ago.
Uh, so, you know, it’s a little, little more difficult, you know, they got big teams, but still a little more difficult to integrate new things, uh, without, you know, causing. Problems and, you know, issues with people seeing all the changes. Um, so, you know, we, we can adapt to new things pretty quick.
Jill Button: So have you ever heard the term builder versus farmer?
So, you know, you’re built, you, you get joy and you, uh, really enjoy building something, but then when it’s, you know, it’s built and you have to actually maintain it or farm it, you’re, you lose interest is like, wouldn’t you say you’re A builder or a farmer?
Craig Poulton: Well, I’m both. I am both because, you know, I am very involved in the building process.
Um, and I am engaged in work, working with, uh, just about every customer that’s coming on, on board. So I am kind of in that, you know, production line as it goes forward. Um, maybe at one point I will wear one hat more than the other. Um, but like right now I’m, I’m, I’m really wearing both hats and, uh, I really wouldn’t want it to be.
Any other way, because as a builder and I’m working with the growth of the product, I’m seeing it develop in real time and I’m able to kind of change its course or focus on different things because, you know, we’re, we’re farming and building at the same time.
Jill Button: I would say that for me, I lean more on the, the building side.
When I get into steady state of anything, I get really bored and it’s always, you know, the next shiny object. Um, I do think that You, like you said, you need to have a bit of both to be successful because then you don’t finish things right. You can get to a good enough state on the build side, but you need to actually get it across the finish line so that people can actually use something that’s in production and live.
Um, so if you had to. You know, look at your career because you’ve had a, you’ve had quite a successful journey. Is there any sort of insights that you think if I could only tell my younger self or if I could share my knowledge and wisdom with entrepreneurs or people who are thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, is there anything that you think from a lessons learned is important to share?
Craig Poulton: Oh, yeah. Um, this one depends, because I’ve heard two schools of thoughts on this, right? There’s, you keep your job, build something on the side, and when your side thing becomes enough to kind of cover your costs, quit your job, and then do your passion, right? I’ve heard that. Okay, that’s fine. Uh, then there’s the other strategies when you’re going to war, when you get to shore, you burn your boats.
Burn the boats. Right. That’s me. So, um, I’m gonna go with the latter because, um, one, I’ve, I’ve done a lot of research on that mentality. And if I would have had an exit or an easier exit, or I could fall back on something over the last few years. And I would have probably taken it like there’s just, there’s too many logical reasons to abandon the ship when things are tough.
COVID happened and it made things difficult. We lost customers, we lost revenue. The outlook didn’t look good. You know, you could definitely justify exiting your dream at that point because of circumstances. And it wasn’t your fault because this happened, right? But if your ships are burnt and you have nowhere to go, you have to stay the course.
Jill Button: Right.
Craig Poulton: And I love where we are right now. Like, this is the thing. And it’s been, you know, maybe, you know, you, you alluded earlier that I was putting you off. It’s just because, you know, we’ve had this really great momentum and like, I wanted, you know, maybe it was just a feeling thing. Like, you know, I was just landing a few things a few months ago and, you know, we’re still kind of struggling with a few things and, you know, we’ve been adding a really healthy number of customers recently, and I’m really enjoying that, that process.
So it was like, I’m, I’m very excited for, for 2025.
Jill Button: So tell us a little bit about Smartdesk, like for the listeners who may not know, tell us about Smartdesk and we talked about, you know, being in somewhat of a crowded market. What’s the real differentiator for Smartdesk? Let’s talk about that.
Craig Poulton: Uh, yeah, I can talk about it being a crowded market and what makes us different.
different. I think the fact that it is a crowded market is, is benefit to us. It’s a multi billion dollar industry. It’s only, it’s growing at 13 or 14 percent a year, so it’s not slowing down. It’s the number one software purchased in the world. Like it’s the biggest of all softwares out there. So, you know, I think we’ve chosen the right space, but you gotta be competitive in that space.
And what makes us different? Well, um, We looked a lot of complaints and pain points for people in CRM. And you know, the, the issues were, uh, scaling or escalating costs, uh, integration, um, and the team using the application. So learning curve, we addressed all of those issues. So SmartDesk is actually a four in one software application.
Okay. All around. CRM. Okay. So it’s a, it’s a lead generation system. So, you know, it eliminates your zoom info. You know, I don’t want to name too many of my competitors, but it eliminates those guys. Um, it’s a marketing application, so you can do campaign tracking dashboards to see how your campaigns are performing.
And of course, email marketing. So that’s email automation, e blast drip campaigns. All integrated into one application. It’s a sales application, so it’s your complete sales funnel, you know, your workflow, your rules you set up around that, your automated triggers, what happens to follow up reminders. I mean, you know, the whole kit and caboodle, it’s got integrated voice, um, Integrated text messaging, and of course, integrated email.
So you’re basically communicating with your customers all from one platform, and all the logs of those conversations are in one place. Now, other CRMs do this, but it’s an integration process. You’ve got to go get a RingCentral account or a Twilio account, and you have to do the integration and make it work.
And if there’s an update and it doesn’t work, you’ve got to figure all that out. We do all of that for our customers. You want a phone number, you could be using a phone number and calling customers within 10 minutes of setting up an account with Smartdesk. And the final component is a customer service application.
So, this is your ticketing system, so customers can fill out a form or email you. It goes into a ticketing system, it gets assigned to a rep, and you can have workflows and canned snippet responses and all the things that makes that process easier to manage so you’re not missing out on customer inquiries or complaints.
So it’s all those things in one application for one price. And another thing that makes us a little unique, and we’re trying to be different is as you grow with Smartdesk, okay, you know, your costs are actually from a cost perspective reduced. Okay. So if you add more users, your cost per user goes down.
If you’re sending more emails at a certain time, your cost per email goes down. So as you’re growing, you’re spending more money. But you’re actually getting better value and we don’t do what they all do, which is feature gating. So it’s like, you’ve got three or four different entry prices. You know, you choose one, you realize it’s not good enough.
Well, you got to upgrade to another feature. And then, oh, well, you want this feature, this, you know, campaign management feature, you have to unlock that. And that’s another 800 a month. We don’t do any of that. Every feature and every function that we add to Smartdesk, we add it for all of our users. Um, if there is a component that like is a cost to us, then it will be on a per use basis.
Okay. So that’s one of the things that’s very, I think, unique about us. That’s setting us apart from our competitors. Cause I haven’t come across any, um, that really do it the way that we do it. And, but we’re offering mostly the same type of features. Like people expect, you know, your CRM to have voice. in there now, I find at least the ability to integrate it.
And, uh, you know, we have all those features.
Jill Button: So because I do this for a living and I actually assess technology and help businesses select the right technology, I’ve had exposure to many different CRM systems. And for me, if I can, I would say, From a user perspective, one of the greatest advantages that I see in SmartDesk is those components that you’ve described.
But the real game changer, I think, is that front end capability to actually identify potential leads. Today, if you are using a traditional CRM, something that is an older generation, And I won’t name your competitors, but they don’t have that built in capability. There’s the integration that’s necessary.
Whereas you already have that native. So what I’m talking about for, for the listeners is if you need to identify potential leads and. Under the traditional model, you would have to subscribe to a list agent. You already mentioned zoom info, and you’d have to set your parameters and you’re paying a separate subscription.
You’re lucky if there’s an integration to download it into your existing CRM. Most often you’re doing a manual import. It’s all in one. I think this is for me. And I think people don’t truly appreciate, uh, how seamless it is. The ability to actually run those queries, identify your identity, your ideal leads, and then seamlessly create campaigns, outreach, monitor the performance, all of those features.
It’s such a rich. Application. I just feel like that for me is your secret sauce. And I may be biased because you’re, you and I’ve known each other for a little bit. I’m also, we’re also a user, uh, and you’re also in procure hub. And I think that you have one of the best offerings out there for sure.
Craig Poulton: Well, thank you.
I don’t think I could have said that better myself, but, uh, you’re echoing essentially, yeah, we’re, we’re trying to make this as easy for people to grow their business as possible. And. Our, um, lead generation, uh, application within SmartDesk is a pay as you go model too. So, you know, with zoom info, since we’ve mentioned them, you know, like they, they, I mean, I don’t know exactly what their price is.
There’s different discounts, but it’s upwards of 20 grand a year to get a zoom info account. So you make that investment and you, you better make good use of it because you’ve, you’ve committed yourself to that, that payment up front. Um, but what, what happens when the small business wants to reach out to a hundred Or 300 people, you know, it’s, it’s, you have to make a pretty big investment in a monthly cost with another provider, or you have to make that zoom info cost with us.
You pay, uh, a set fee per lead that you acquire and you get 10 free a month. So if you want to just, you know, I don’t know if this is good. Let me see if the phone numbers are good. Am I getting through or the emails, you know, bouncing, you can do 10 a month and just see if, you know, you’re getting some connections into the, uh, the people that you’re speaking to.
And if it works, you can buy a hundred. You can buy 500. You can see how many are available in your query results within SmartDesk. Um, and that’s the small business friendliness of SmartDesk because that doesn’t exist anywhere where you can pay as you go for your leads. And we don’t charge another fee again to have access to that feature in SmartDesk.
It’s native to the application. As long as you’re a SmartDesk user and you could be a single user, 49 US per month. And you have access to it. And if you want 20 leads that month, you can buy the extra 10 cause you get 10 for free.
Jill Button: So the other thing I wanted to touch on is the, you know, the difference between the U S and Canadian, um, regulations around privacy.
So castle as an example in Canada, um, there is specific and very rigorous requirements around, you know, Outreach and who you can and can’t reach out to. And I researched this, um, extensively because I can’t, um, I cannot be on the wrong side of the, the regulation. And so when I researched what you’re doing and understanding how that.
You know, richness of the feature around, you know, identifying leads. You’re following all of the requirements in the U S and Canada publicly available information in terms of leads. Um, and that whole seamless platform, I think makes it really a. Uh, incredible value for people. Cause I know a lot of people who are in Canada have concerns about it.
And so I want to just make sure and stress for everybody that this is compliant so you can reach out. You can be, uh, on the right side of the, the, the regulations and compliance. I see, we got a question coming in, uh, from Nigel. It says, I love that flexibility. Pay as you use, uh, absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about, um, what your customer’s reaction has been around the flexibility of your platform?
Like you said that aha moment, what’s the feedback been?
Craig Poulton: Well, that is a very popular feature. Um, actually, when I show people, you know, that they could, you know, almost instantly add prospects to their pipeline and their pipelines not empty on day one, it’s it’s a pretty exciting kind of moment for them.
And they, they play around with it. And they start adding, you know, I’ve, I’ve had customers tell me that they’ve more than paid for the cost of smart dash just by the customers that they’ve acquired through, you know, reaching out and connecting. Um, you know, the US, it’s a little easier to, to kind of, you know, Uh, follow the rules.
Canada does make it a little more difficult in terms of who you can reach out to, um, all the data that, you know, we’re not scraping the internet for this data. We’re not taking personal data like this is all professional business databases. We’re partnered with a very large company in the U. S. That, you know, is compliant and we get all their data from them and actually quite a few companies to get their data from them.
Um, so we’re not scraping the internet for this information and making it available to our customers. So. It’s all, you know, very good quality at its source and updated. Um, but that is one of the features that I think I get the most aha, like moments in SmartDesk where they’re like, this is, this is a winner for us.
Jill Button: Absolutely. So I have to take a break. I can’t believe we have, uh, Run through so much time. Um, we’re going to take a break with a, for a word from our sponsors. When we get back, we’re going to be talking to Craig about the top three sales strategies that give you an unfair advantage. We’ll be right back.
As a small or medium sized business owner, you have a lot on your plate. Finding the right supplier to help you grow your business. Shouldn’t be a headache. And the school. Google searching and asking for referrals can be time consuming, wasting precious time and money. That’s why we created ProcureHub, our B2B marketplace.
ProcureHub is designed to connect you with pre qualified suppliers who have been rigorously vetted using our stringent procurement expertise and best practices. You can have peace of mind knowing that you’re working with trusted and reliable partners. Our marketplace saves you time and money by providing a one stop shop.
Stop shop for all your back office needs.
Jill Button: All right, we are back and we’re talking to Craig Poulton vice president of SmartDesk. This segment is actually brought to you by SmartDesk and it’s SmartDesk delivers innovative marketing automation solutions tailored for small and medium sized businesses focused on driving business growth.
SmartDesk helps companies enhance lead generation, Optimize their digital presence and effectively utilize social media platforms with its cutting edge tools and technology. SmartDesks CRM empowers SMBs to streamline operations, engage audiences and achieve measurable success in today’s competitive market.
So we’re talking now about the. Top three sales strategies that give your business an unfair advantage. So what, what are the top three strategies, Craig?
Craig Poulton: Well, there’s, there’s more than three, but I will talk about three. Um, um, and you know, a lot of these things are interconnected. Like you can’t do one without the other.
Like the success of one is kind of dependent on the other, but knowing these statistics, if you will, and what the, the strategies around them are. are, um, should be very compelling to people who are in sales. So number one, you know, you’re not gonna have any success unless you’re using a CRM. That’s not just biased information.
You need a way to organize yourself if you’re focused on sales. I’ll just get that out of the way. Okay. Um, and a lot of people probably heard this before, but. And almost every statistic that I look at, it’s persistence, okay? You have to have consistency in what you’re doing, and you have to have a certain volume of what you’re doing.
So, if you’re going to try a campaign, and you put a lot of work into it, and it’s a well crafted email campaign, and you launch it for like a week, and you get no customers, you know, is that a success or is it a failure? You say, oh, it’s a failure, you know, like, it was a great campaign, but nobody liked it.
Um, it might have been great. And you might have reached the right people just at the wrong time. And this is where persistence is incredibly important. Okay. So you cannot do a campaign of any sorts unless you’re going to give it, uh, some legs. You’ve got to give it months. And whether that’s an AdWords campaign, uh, especially a search engine optimization campaign, um, If you’re doing a cold calling or cold outreach campaign, no matter what activity you’re doing, you’ve got to give it time and small businesses have a hard time with this because what they do is they’ll, they’ll look at their budget very carefully and they’ll try it for a month and they get no sales for whatever activity they’re trying to say.
I didn’t work and they abandoned it. Um, Success is typically going to come in the second, third, fourth, and fifth month. And this is where a lot of businesses and people make mistakes is not sticking to a great idea or a good idea with what you’re trying to build, but having a 12 month strategy with it.
Okay. Budget is always a factor for small business and I understand, but it’s that persistence. Uh, it allows you to learn along the way too, because if you see what’s People are responding to you can now change your strategy, but don’t abandon ship. Okay. That’s a very very important um strategy, uh number two is Um, what was I gonna say here number two is The, uh, structure that you’re putting together, okay?
So it’s, it’s kind of letting your, your campaigns die, um, without having a whole strategy around it. What do I mean by that? You do a great email campaign, okay? You launch it. But you’re not thinking of the follow through. Where are people going or what do you want them to do? Do you want them to call you?
Do you want them to click on something? Do you want them to buy right away? Or do you want a demo? Okay. Often what I see is people will do some sort of a campaign and they direct them to their homepage and their homepage is everything. And people might have. Clicked on something that you said in your communication in your ads.
But when they go to the source that you want them to do, there’s no action. There’s no call to action that you’re trying to get them to do. Okay. So that is another thing that I see people do. So this is the whole strategy around, you know, a strong call to action. A strong landing page or destination page continues to sell them and reinforce what it is that they’re interested in when they’re looking at an ad or a campaign, or they’re taking a phone call and you happen to get them, you’ve got seconds to capture their attention is what you do after that, that is going to be another indicator of success in allowing people to kind of come up with the strategy for, you know, what, what to do next.
Um, and you know, these, these are things that are often overlooked. Um, and, and they miss out because they’re spending a lot of money on different marketing platforms. And verticals and they’re not getting the results. Um, and that’s, that’s something I’ve seen many, many, many times. Um,
Jill Button: I really liked the, the, I wanted to just jump in and say like the, the first, um, point obviously CRM is.
Is table stakes you’ve got to have that in order to organize, but I do agree with you that that persistence that consistency I think is um is really a Failure of a lot of I mean, i’m i’m guilty of it myself. I think that Um not having immediate results Um, and realizing that it really does need, uh, and require consistency, I think is probably one of the biggest challenges I think a lot of SMBs face.
And then to your, to your point, you know, your second, your second, um, strategy around, you know, now what, or, or the call to action, I think that’s something that people. Through trial and error, kind of learn over time. If they’re, if they’re, if they’re utilizing the analytics and they understand what’s being clicked on, then you need to understand why you’re not getting the conversion.
That’s such a tricky thing. A knowing, knowing, um, what the right call to action is. Um, yeah, totally, you
Craig Poulton: know, there’s, there’s no right, well, there is a right call to action. The one that works is the right one, I suppose, but you know, you’re not, you’re not going to land on it. And, you know, you have to do AB testing in different trials to see what works.
Um, that is something that, you know, I, I don’t see a lot of. companies do. I really don’t see a lot of people doing this because it requires, uh, one, a good understanding of it, but then a team to execute it, right? You’ve got your website. So it’s easy to kind of run like an AdWords campaign and then just drive leads to your website, right?
Cause you don’t have the time or the budget, but no, you really have to have a strong landing page, a strong Capture mode in order to capture those leads, like a, you know, an easy to fill out web form, you know, it’s nice to have, you know, size of company and industry and you ask 30 questions in a form. So you get a really qualified lead.
No, you really just want it as easy as possible for people to put in as little information as possible and quickly get the information to you. Now the other thing is really important and it’s kind of a, I guess, uh, in a, an addition to, you know, strategy number one and two is, you know, response time. The company that gets back to the customer first is most likely to win.
Okay. Your response time is a day or two, you’re missing out on too much business. Your response time needs to be in minutes. Okay. So you think, Oh, it’s too much, you know, like we’re too eager. No, not at all. People are searching the internet. They’re probably filling up two or three web forms for companies similar.
The first one that gets back is going to win like 78%. You 78 percent more likely to win the lead if you’re the first one to reach back to the customer. Okay. So these are some things that’s really, really important to know. How do you do
Jill Button: that though? Like what’s, how do you practically do that? excuse me.
Well,
Craig Poulton: it’s back to CRM because you don’t want to trust the lead coming into your inbox because there’s nothing that maybe notifies you or, uh, pushes it too far down, you know, the, the system and there’s nothing kind of reminding you. Obviously a CRM and SmartDesk is no different. Um, it’s going to capture that lead.
It’s going to send you a notification. It will send you a flag after a particular period of time that the lead hasn’t been You know, acknowledged if you will. So there’s different triggers that will allow you to set that up. And then you’ve got a list of them. So if you want, you check your list every day.
You don’t have to scroll through your inbox to see if you missed something. You’ve got, you know, a system that’s got it all laid out for you. Um, so that’s a very important feature as well is to be able to capture those leads and then have a system to kind of. automate what needs to happen with them while they’re, while they’re there.
You know, if you’re blessed with getting a hundred leads a day, um, then you could do additional things to kind of sort them and prioritize them. But, you know, uh, that’s. Not a gift. Most companies have.
Jill Button: Yes. And I think your point around getting back to them right away is, you know, that is when they have the problem and they’re looking for the answer and being able to respond to them immediately when that problem is top of mind is so critical.
I again, think that’s something that a lot of. Small businesses, my company included struggles with, right? We’re all working on small budgets, small teams to be, to be able to utilize the tools, to be able to support that is so critical. And that’s why I think SmartDesk is such a great solution.
Craig Poulton: And, uh, the third point I want to talk about is something that we, we do well, and we have a significant update coming to SmartDesk that’s going to allow us this even better.
Okay. It’s around structured data and I’ll call it. Okay. If you’re a MailChimp advertiser, typically what you have is a whole. Bunch of customers or prospects in one bucket. And your message goes out whenever you’ve got the time to send it out. Meanwhile, you could have all this structured data around industry and geography and in special interests or, or things that you’re, you’re flagging your customers with.
So if you want to send out an, Email to people who are interested in cars. Well, that’s a great general category, but it would be great if you can say well I want to send an email. Let’s say you have a database of a thousand people I want to send out an email to everybody who likes Japanese cars, particularly Honda and Four wheel drive and if you have all this data structured in your CRM You can literally go through and go click click click click and whittle down a list of a thousand people down to let’s say 75 now that message is going to be really specific.
Hey, we’ve got a new inventory of, you know, Honda CRVs, um, that are red in color or whatever other metrics you put in your database to target that particular person. So you’re not boring someone who likes sports cars with an SUV opportunity because it falls in the bucket of cars. So structuring your data As early on as possible in a CRM will pay you a lot of dividends later on when you’re like, well, I need to do a campaign to, you know, people who buy eyeglasses, who have green eyes, because now you can be a little bit fun, you know, as a green eyed customer of ours, we want to offer you this special 15 percent discount on our new colored lenses, you know, it makes the person receiving the email.
Like, wow, they actually know I have green eyes. Like that’s, nobody knows that, or very few people. So it makes them feel really important. If you can capture that kind of data, when you can personalize. Your data structured within the CRM. You can do a lot. You can wish people happy birthday on their birthday because you have that data in there.
So this is where, uh, structuring your data within a CRM is a very, very important feature if you really want to kind of go that extra level to make customers feel like they’re, they’re heard and we all know what customers do when they feel like the, the, the company understands who they are and what their needs are, they’re more likely to buy.
Jill Button: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s, it’s really that differentiation again in us in a really noisy, noisy market. Um, I get inundated by email messages, LinkedIn messages, you know, Every platform, people trying to sell me stuff. Um, and it’s such a, it’s such a noisy, um, environment that the ability to actually cut through and personalize is so critical at the person who gets my attention because they suddenly understand me and know what my pains are, uh, and what challenges I’m facing.
Those are the ones who are going to get my business because they can relate and understand. Fantastic. Uh, Craig, I can’t believe a 45 minutes went by so fast. Oh
Craig Poulton: wow. So
Jill Button: it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, you can continue to discuss sales and marketing. It’s top of mind for everybody, especially the entrepreneurs and small businesses out there.
Uh, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.
Craig Poulton: I, I’m thrilled to have been on. Thank you so much for having me.
Jill Button: I hope you’ll come back.
Craig Poulton: You can guarantee it.
Jill Button: Fantastic. All right. So if you’d like more information about SmartDesk you can check out smartdesk on ProcureHub.ca If you’d like more information about the entrepreneuring show, have an idea for the show, or want to be a guest on the show, check us out.
You can visit us at TheEntrepreneuringShow.Com or you can send us an email to info@procurepro.Ca until next time, entrepreneurs just keep swimming.