Maximizing Salesforce for Sales Teams

Sep 23, 2022

Maximizing Salesforce for Sales Teams

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00:19:37

Maximizing Salesforce for Sales Teams

Episode Notes/Resources:

On this episode of “Salesforce Simplified,” the topic is “Maximizing Salesforce for Sales Teams,” and our guest is HexArmor’s Director of Sales, Geno Lechuga.

HexArmor:
https://www.hexarmor.com/

Geno Lechuga on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/geno-lechuga-518a446/

How to Convince Your Stakeholders it’s Time to Get a CRM:
https://www.advictoriamsolutions.com/blog/how-to-convince-your-stakeholders-its-time-to-get-a-crm/

The Seven Stages of a Sales Pipeline:
https://www.advictoriamsolutions.com/blog/the-seven-stages-of-a-sales-pipeline/

Transcription:

Speaker 1:
This is Salesforce Simplified, the podcast from Ad Victoriam Solutions. Here’s your host, Mike Boyle.

Mike Boyle:
Well hello everyone, and welcome on this episode of Salesforce Simplified. The topic is how a sales team can leverage Salesforce. And our guest today is HexArmor’s Director of Sales, Geno Lechuga. I just want to say a big old welcome to Geno. How are you today?

Geno Lechuga:
Hey, Mike, I’m doing well. I appreciate you having me on here and I’m super excited.

Mike Boyle:
Well, we’re thrilled that you’re with us. Before we get into today’s topic, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what you do at HexArmor and what HexArmor does?

Geno Lechuga:
Yeah, I’m a sales director like you’d mentioned. HexArmor, we’re a medium-sized private PPE manufacturing company based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And really our goal, Mike, is to help our customers accomplish a safety environment that they desire. We want to help those companies bring home their employees every single day injury-free. And so every day we wake up and that’s what we do. That’s how we do it. My philosophy is serving something other than yourself. So serving our customers, serving my sales team, and then serving my company as well.

Mike Boyle:
Well, Geno, you’ve been a Salesforce user for a little while. As a director of sales, I know it’s a big part of your day. How have you had to do your own “selling” of Salesforce to your team at times and explain to them why they need to embrace a tool such as Salesforce CRM?

Geno Lechuga:
Change is difficult, Mike, for any person as you can imagine. If you come to our company as a new employee, let’s just say, and you become a new employee in our sales department, it’s likely that you have not used Salesforce the way we do. But the way we use Salesforce is a part of the reason why we’re so successful. If you come to our company, most of the time leaders like myself, we do promote the way we do things and how we do it. We do it through trust and respect. So trust and respect, in my opinion, are the pillars of any particular team. Those two, trust and respect, they’re earned. They’re not granted to anyone nor should they be. But once the trust and respect is there, now the sales team can see the company vision, and then they can buy into the way we do things, i.e., Salesforce. And all that comes a little easier with that trust and respect.

So, I’m fortunate enough to be at HexArmor for just about 12 years now and have used Salesforce the entire time I’ve been here. And to mention, I’ve been in the trenches and I’ve been in the trenches with my team, “earning” that street cred. So really the ingredient of trust and the ingredient of earning that from my team and earning the respect is there just because they see every day what I do for them. And also to mention, my team is filled with a bunch of rockstar sales people. I am so fortunate to work with this team. And so they definitely understand the importance of Salesforce and how do we utilize that as a tool here at HexArmor to generate revenue.

Mike Boyle:
Geno, can you talk a little bit about how Salesforce has improved lead generation for you at HexArmor?

Geno Lechuga:
Absolutely, Mike. Leads are costly. They’re costly for really any company. For us, it’s no different. And we want to see the ROI for our leads, whether they’re marketing generated leads, trade show leads, or even leads generated by a rep. With Salesforce, we’re able to track the ROI and determine really if the leads make sense from a company aspect. So in other words, if we track specific leads to a specific trade show and the ROI is favorable in our favor, then looking at our budgets for the following year will be helpful knowing that, “You know what? We need to invest in that trade show again.” And again, all of these results are tracked right there in Salesforce. So these types of results being tracked from here, companies can really decide what type of lead generation they want to invest in. So really the overall efficiency and knowing where to put your dollars, it all comes from the data that’s generated through Salesforce.

Mike Boyle:
You talked about tracking there, specifically customer tracking. How has that improved at HexArmor with Salesforce and through Salesforce?

Geno Lechuga:
I always tell my team that in order to be a good salesperson, you have to be a good business person first. And I firmly believe this, Mike. In order to be a good business person, you got to know your numbers. You have to know your territory data. Who are your top customers? What are they buying? Where are they located? What are their buying powers? What are their buying patterns as well? Why are they buying? What’s the attrition rates? I mean, the list goes on. And all this type of data that’s tracked is right there in Salesforce. The tracking feature is something that I personally use a lot as a sales leader. Without it, Mike, I really don’t know what we would use. Maybe we would use Google Docs or some type of spreadsheet. And that’s fine if you want to use that, but if you want to be accurate in your tracking, Salesforce is definitely the way to go.

Mike, as I mentioned, I’ve been here at HexArmor for a while now and really have worked in almost every region we have. So looking at the tracking data in Salesforce is really essential when I’m helping a rep prioritize a trip or help them plan for their year. Again, hands down, it’s probably one of my most favorite features of Salesforce. And the last thing I’d like to say is at HexArmor, we sell through distribution, but a lot of the times we’re solving those issues at the end user level. So tracking this type of success in Salesforce really allows us to grow and build new products and implement new innovations and train not only our sales people, but our entire organization. Marketing, operations, everyone is all tracked with Salesforce.

Mike Boyle:
We talked about tracking. Let’s talk about order fulfillment, which happens to be one of the most important elements of a sales flow. How has that improved, order fulfillment, with the use of Salesforce?

Geno Lechuga:
Yeah. We sell and we manufacture a lot of different PPE products really from head to toe categories. So we do gloves, eye wear, hearing, helmets, body protection and more. So Salesforce will allow us to understand even our own products’ sales cycle and will help us leverage that data to make informed decisions on development and strategies. Salesforce also allows us to have reliable data to give to our product development team, which helps us develop products. And they need this type of information to know, “Hey, which products are we going to make and which products are we going to down slow?” In today’s world when a lot of various suppliers are struggling to fulfill orders, I personally feel like we have a leg up here at HexArmor because over the years we’ve collected such great data and collected such great data that we can organize that in Salesforce and fulfill our orders.

Mike Boyle:
One of the great things about Salesforce that people talk about are the dashboards that can be created for quick information. How valuable has that been for HexArmor? And how does your department, how do your individual team members use those dashboards?

Geno Lechuga:
Yeah. Mike, from a management standpoint, it’s been incredibly helpful. I currently manage let’s just call it 20 states, okay? So it’s really nice for me to have a snapshot of each territory within those 20 states that helps me analyze which territories are up, which territories are down and why. It’s helpful from a product standpoint and knowing your high sellers and low sellers.

Mike, I’m a basketball guy. I love the game of basketball, okay? I think it’s a beautiful sport. I mean, when you’re swinging the ball and everybody’s in stride with one another and you’re breaking these problem zones and you get a free layup and you slam it home, I mean, that’s a beautiful thing. So I’m going to give you a little basketball analogy here for the dashboard. With our company, we have various departments. These departments are like team global accounts, team distribution, team category management, and the list goes on. So part of my responsibility is to work close with those other departments so that we’re not all shooting on a different hoop, that we’re shooting on the same hoop, okay? Dashboards help us with this. It helps us to stay in sync with one another. It helps us to read one another so that we can swing the ball, make the right passes and get a fast break and an open layup slam dunk right in the face of our competitors, okay?
So, if we’re not all working in sync, then maybe we just might be shooting on the wrong hoop. And when you shoot on the wrong hoop, there can be problems. So dashboards help us to shoot on the right hoop.

Mike Boyle:
Love the analogy. Let’s talk about how you and your team analyze and share customer data internally via Salesforce.

Geno Lechuga:
Yeah. The nice part about Salesforce is it’s all right there on the same platform. If I run a specific report for a specific region, I can easily do that right inside Salesforce and allow that region to see that report as well. So we utilize this data daily and it helps our teams drive more business. And as a company, we’re big on data and we make big company decisions based on the data. My team specifically, we can even get on a Team’s call and review various reports from the data that we’ve collected in Salesforce. For example, just last week, some of my regions and I, we reviewed pipelines and specific meetings they had in a given month and reviewing that opportunity size, the stages that those opportunities are in along with the probability ratios of each opportunity. Now we’re able to draw a line on a monthly quota number and use that as a measuring tool to whether or not we’re going to hit quota, we’re going to be above it, below it, right at it. It really gives us good look into analyzing our revenue.

Mike Boyle:
Geno, we all know that once the sale is made, that’s not the end of things. I want to talk about retaining customers. How have you been able to leverage Salesforce to help you retain your customers at HexArmor?

Geno Lechuga:
Retention really is an area that I can say I am very proud of the job we’ve done here at HexArmor. Now, partly it’s because we offer certain technologies that are proprietary to our company that our customers need and we know what they need, but a lot of it is the type of data that we’ve tracked inside Salesforce that really helps us to stay in front of these customers and communicate what’s important to them and what they need. So all the way from setting future tasks or reach outs, organizing a detailed sit down meeting, all this information is right there in Salesforce. Although we’re big on acquiring new customers, I mean, we’re hunters for sure. By heart, we’re hunters. We never lose sight of our current customers just because of the information that we’re able to track in Salesforce. And really, I mean, it helps us to go beyond the field. It helps us to go beyond the office and really develop these relationships with our customers.

Mike Boyle:
It’s no surprise that Salesforce has a really amazing mobile app. Talk a little bit about how that’s helping your team better serve your customers.

Geno Lechuga:
Well, I mean, as you saw prior to us getting on here, I’m a little tech challenged. But like many other mobile apps, even for individuals like me, the Salesforce mobile app is very simple to use. Us, field folks, we’re on the road a lot, so having the luxury to sit down in a nice comfortable chair and prop open your laptop on a nice clean table and connecting to good wifi, that’s just nonexistent, it really is. And so with the mobile app, we can pull up Salesforce pretty easily in just about any situation that we find ourselves in as a salesperson.

It’s really nice when you’ve worked a full day and you know that some of your logging of your meeting notes have been completed and some of your phone calls have been updated in Salesforce. And some of these tasks have been completed because if we didn’t have that mobile app, well then going back to your hotel room at [7:00] at night and knowing that you have two hours of work to be accomplished, that can take a toll on somebody and really the life cycle of a salesperson could dramatically go down. So taking some of that brunt work and putting it into your day through the mobile app is a necessity for us.

Mike Boyle:
Well, lastly, through the eyes of HexArmor, talk a little bit about the overall growth and scaling you’ve seen at the company by using a Salesforce solution.

Geno Lechuga:
Mike, our growth goals here at HexArmor are very aggressive and they always have been. And with Salesforce, this allows us to capture the data that we need in order to make those growth goals a reality. And as we grow and we implement new and improved ways of doing things in technologies, the great thing about Salesforce is it seems like the platforms we use and we continue to grow with, they improve with us and they are innovated with us. So this makes it a lot easier for a company like us to use Salesforce as they grow with us.

I’ll give you an example. Our sales reps are good, and I mentioned that before. They bring a ton of revenue to our company. Hands down though, this is the best group of sales people that I’ve ever worked with. So keeping these folks aiming in the right direction is crucial. In other words, ensuring they’re visiting the right customers, that’s super important. With the capabilities of Salesforce, our reps can pull up their calendars on a monthly basis and just ensure themselves and our company that they are aimed in the right direction and then they are meeting with the right customers. And again, this data shows that in Salesforce we can collect that and move forward.

Mike Boyle:
Geno, the last question I have for you centers around things that you might like to see built into your Salesforce CRM that may not be there right now. Anything pop into your head?

Geno Lechuga:
All right, Mike, you opened up a whole can of worms here because I’m an outside thinker, okay? So don’t judge me too much because I know this is a long ways away, but hear me out here, okay? Hear me out.

Mike Boyle:
Okay. All right.

Geno Lechuga:
So I’m thinking shooting for the moon here, okay? So for some odd reason, when I talk to Siri or I talk to Alexa, they just don’t know all the time what I’m saying. I could say, “Call Fred” and they call ed, right? And I’m like, “No, man. I said call Fred.” So first and foremost, it would be really interesting if we could activate some type of tracking system inside the mobile app that would, A, understand me as if I’m sitting next to you in a car and I could say something like, “Hey, Alexa, open Salesforce app on my phone,” and it open it up. “Now, go to opportunity X, Y, Z, and type in the following notes. ‘Met with Fred, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Now send me a task in about an hour to call Alyssa because I need to update her on this,” right?

So, something that’s voice activated that is so good that it’s as if we’re sitting here talking on your podcast or really just driving down the road in the same car and you’re able to hear me that well and that easily. Something like that would be amazing. And again, I know that’s shooting for the moon here, but Mike, you open up a whole bag of worms when you asked me that question.

Mike Boyle:
I did. One thing I can guarantee you, Geno, is that there are Salesforce engineers and developers out there who do listen to this podcast. They may probably, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all, if they were already working on such a thing. So stay tuned is all I can say about that.

Geno Lechuga:
Love it. Love it.

Mike Boyle:
Geno, I want to thank you for joining us today and talking about how you and your sales team at HexArmor leverage Salesforce. I want to wish you continued success as you and your team at HexArmor continue to deliver innovative and effective PPE solutions to keep workers safe.

Geno Lechuga:
Well, Mike, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for your listeners for listening to me. We will continue to use Salesforce and continue to drive revenue through Salesforce.

Mike Boyle:
Right on. And for the audience, if you would like to learn a little bit more about today’s topic, as always, I’ll be placing some links inside this show’s episode notes to help you. Is this the first time you are listening to our podcast? If it is, just a big old thank you from me. And I’d be honored if you’d make it a point to follow us on your favorite podcast channel. You can also just mention this podcast to your colleagues. I’d appreciate that as well.

I’m Mike Boyle from Ad Victoriam Solutions. Thank you for joining us for our latest Salesforce Simplified Podcast. Our next episode as always is just around the corner.

Speaker 1:
You’ve been listening to Salesforce Simplified, the podcast from Ad Victoriam Solutions.