[007] Quality over Quantity, with Collin Mitchell

Jason: [00:00:00] What’s going on everybody so glad that you’re joining us on this scalable call center sales journey, super excited to be joined by my special guest, Colin Mitchell from monster voice, along with many other things, which we’re going to talk about. And if you tuned into my previous podcast or previous, uh, LinkedIn lives that I’ve done, then, you know, Colin, because he and I have.

[00:00:28] Many times, uh, we even did a stint there on clubhouse for a while. Colin is a four times founder, as well as the host of the sales hustle podcast, which you definitely need to check out. We’ll, we’ll give you the link at the end. Um, he is passionate about sales businesses. Podcasting supporting individuals, supporting companies.

[00:00:48] He lives in Los Angeles. He has his family there. And, uh, we’re going to have some fun because we are going to talk about call center industry. We’re going to talk about sales and everything around that, that I know he has some stuff to talk about from Mo monster voice and all of his clients. Colin.

[00:01:03] Welcome to the new scalable call center sales podcast

[00:01:08] Collin: [00:01:08] yeah, man. Jason, thanks so much for having me, uh, always glad to hop on and riff on pretty much any topic with you. Uh, I know that we’re going to have fun and I’m excited to dive into some of these topics and see some of your thoughts on them.

[00:01:24] Jason: [00:01:24] Yeah, it’s going to be a blast.

[00:01:25] And I know that you have been focusing on many different things. One of which most recently is more podcasting helping individuals and companies with podcasting and stuff like that. So anybody who’s following a lot of your recent content, they’ll find that plus the sales. And I know I’m pulling you kind of away from that for a few moments today.

[00:01:44] Uh, as much as I can, luckily, luckily. Friend, you’re helping me out here. So we can talk about call center stuff cause uh, left, left on your own devices. Uh, you know, uh, things like stir shaken, which we’ll talk about is not sexy and fun versus podcasts, which are sexy and fun. So I appreciate you being here and, uh, and, and want to talk about this.

[00:02:02] Um, Where should we start the show, many things. What let’s, let’s look at this part, because this is the most, uh, valuable that I can think of. We’re talking about a call center, owner or manager, executive somebody who’s running call center inside telephone sales right now. What are you seeing as some trends, either technology or like I alluded to with stir shaken the legal stuff that’s happening, uh, from your perspective.

[00:02:29] Collin: [00:02:29] Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things, so yeah. I, you know, help people with podcasting, but I still run a unified communications company and we’re more of your traditional PBX and we have some light call center features, uh, for your smaller call centers. Um, but you know, things are, things are very different than they were a year ago just from work environment.

[00:02:48] Right. Um, I built my first outbound sales team, uh, for my first company and we, you know, Spent $0 on marketing did no outsourcing. Uh, and we built that company to 5 million bucks in 26 months by just leveraging one tool, which was another phone. Uh, and so we actually had a lot of challenges with different technologies, uh, which led us to then.

[00:03:13] Basically figure out a way to duct tape a solution together. That was our own. And it’s definitely come a long way since then. Um, but you know, when you’re running a call center or you heavily rely on the phone, uh, there’s nothing more frustrating than the technology not working. Um, and then seeing your sales team, you know, putting their hands up in there and just say it, the phones are down and you know, every minute that they’re down, you’re losing money.

[00:03:35] Um, Now the technology has come a long way, uh, since then. And, uh, you know, a lot of things that, uh, we’re seeing, especially with now a lot of folks working from home, right. How do you keep these teams motivated? How do you, you know, keep sort of a good, um, you know, in any call center, like it’s, it’s it’s it’s you kind of feed off the dinner.

[00:03:59] Right. Yeah. Uh, you know this, um, and so how do you, how do you replicate that virtually, you know, some people are starting to get back to the office, but there’s also a lot of people that don’t want to go back to the office or have relocated, or are like, wow, Uh, you know, I now don’t have a commute and I have an extra, you know, 90 minutes a day that I’m using to, you know, invest in my physical health or whatever the case is.

[00:04:30] So how do you kind of force those types of people to come back to the office? You know, keeping teams motivated, I think is, uh, is a big thing for anybody. Who’s got like sort of a dispersed team now. Um, and there’s, you know, things like gamification and, um, you know, uh, ways to communicate and having stand-ups and things that people are doing to try to sort of replicate that environment inside a call center.

[00:04:59] Uh, I mean, what are, what are folks telling you? I’d love to hear what your. Seen is working to keep cost centers motivated that aren’t able to feed off of that call center energy that they’re used to.

[00:05:10] Jason: [00:05:10] It’s a tough one because honestly, like that’s always been the argument against. Letting people work from home and being remote is both the energy.

[00:05:18] And then the sharing of knowledge, even if it’s just over the cubicle wall, while you’re eavesdropping, listening to someone, they say something really effective over the phone. You’re like, Ooh, that’d be really good. Let me try that. That was a good rebuttal response. Like just, you know, that was a good opening line.

[00:05:34] Collin: [00:05:34] That could be a good thing or a bad.

[00:05:36] Jason: [00:05:36] Correct. And it’s, it’s funny. Cause, uh, on a, on a side note, I remember one time I was running a call center and I was remote. So there was four offices. So I wasn’t in the office in question. And literally I heard somebody who was brand new on a recording and I heard the stuff they were saying and I literally called the manager and I was like, are they sitting next to so-and-so?

[00:06:00] And they’re like, yeah, they just moved him right there after training. Yeah. Okay. Cause they were saying the same, not good stuff that the other person was also saying. So yeah,

[00:06:10] Collin: [00:06:10] I happened to me firsthand when I first started in my first outbound, uh, you know, sales job where, you know, somebody who was always on the leader board was saying some particular things.

[00:06:22] Yeah. You know, Hey, I’m going to try to start saying those things because it must be working. Uh, and I started saying those and I started just using it on every pitch. I mean, it was part of my script and, uh, you know, older gentleman came over and he’s like, you shouldn’t be saying that. And I said, why not?

[00:06:41] Like it’s working, you know, for this guy over here, why can’t I use it? And he said, because it’s not true. He’s lying.

[00:06:50] Jason: [00:06:50] I’m laughing. Cause it’s terrible, but I’m just laughing because I can just picture poor, poor, young Colin, uh, being like, ah, but it was working.

[00:06:59] Collin: [00:06:59] Yeah. And you know, when you’re early on in sales, like.

[00:07:02] You’re more compass is not maybe as strong as you’d like to be. You just you’re like, I’m just willing to say anything to like, you know, get a damn sale.

[00:07:12] Jason: [00:07:12] Well, and you’re also just trusting other people who know what they’re doing, that it’s the right thing to do. So you just followed them. Right. So back to the question though, when people are remote, I think the gamification is huge.

[00:07:21] Uh, 30 day challenges, another type of gamification I’ve started using that with some companies and clients where we’re running a 30 day, every day type of activity challenge. Uh, and it just keeps everyone bonded and together. Uh, I think, you know, I’ve seen some interesting applications of zoom where you’ve got a sales team remote.

[00:07:41] On the phone, which is in a different platform, but then everyone’s also on zoom. Camera’s off video off, but they’re using it as a chat. And like the managers in there, it’s kind of this hub for where everyone’s kind of engaged. So some interesting stuff, I think the biggest challenge. And I’m curious what I’m going to put you on the spot.

[00:07:58] Cause we didn’t, we didn’t plan for this is what about the hybrid though? Where you’re like, okay. 30 of my people don’t want to come in. And 20 of them are going to come in or it rotates every other day or some people are like you said, relocated. Now they live in another state and you’ll never see them again.

[00:08:15] How do you manage that hybrid? It’s easier when it’s one or the other. When it’s mixed, then it’s messy. Right. Because there’s so many challenges. What do you think?

[00:08:23] Collin: [00:08:23] Yeah. Yeah. I think that you got to treat, I mean, it’s just like any good manager, right? Or, yeah, I don’t even like to say manager a good leader.

[00:08:33] Right. Because I think there’s a key difference between a manager and a leader, a good leader of a call center. Um, you know, They can’t treat everybody the same. Right? Not everybody learns the same. You can’t coach everybody the same. And you know, there’s, people have different reasons why and different things that make them tick and different goals.

[00:08:53] Right? So you, you have some baseline fundamentals of like, here’s where we’re trying to go. And here’s the process of how we get there. But as far as like motivating people, there really is no one right answer. It’s really depends on the individual. And so the people that are in the office, that’s going to look a little bit different than the people that are not in the office.

[00:09:14] Right. I mean, ultimately it really comes down to good hiring. Right. And so it, you, you gotta trust that your people are gonna, you know, you’ve gotta give them the proper tools, but you gotta trust that they’re gonna, you know, do the job right. And get it.

[00:09:29] Jason: [00:09:29] What do you think about developing those leaders?

[00:09:32] Because this is something you and I have talked about several times, and it’s good to mention here, again, as we’re talking about call center leadership is getting the right people, or how would you build that farm league or move people into, or recruit for leadership positions versus the classic model, right?

[00:09:50] Which is, Hey, you’re good at sales. You’re now in charge. Good luck with that. Um, you better win or else. Right. What do you think it takes to be?

[00:09:58] Collin: [00:09:58] I wouldn’t just hire somebody like you and not have to figure it out

[00:10:02] Jason: [00:10:02] true. You can. And I, and it’s interesting cause I have some clients like that that do that, or they hire me to fill in that gap.

[00:10:09] So now I’m the, the fractional director of sales and they don’t even have to deal with it internally and they just make me, so there is,

[00:10:15] Collin: [00:10:15] I think, hiring your leader outside of the organization and is a smart idea because there’s, they’re not there. They’re going to be more, you know, uh, It’s just when you hire somebody up and promote them, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit more of a challenge when that person was appear.

[00:10:32] And then now that they’re a leader, um, that creates some, some problems. And like, just because they’re great, just cause they’re a call center, you know, just because they’re on the leader board doesn’t mean they’re a great leader of leading a team.

[00:10:46] Jason: [00:10:46] Yeah. Yeah. And what you said is interesting, cause it’s very subtle and a lot of times.

[00:10:53] That challenge might not present itself, um, as clear, but that the fact that you promote somebody, they, everyone was their peer and now they’re in charge. And now that like everyone is supposed to respect them and listen to them, if they were respected, Beforehand. That’s one thing where everyone kind of went to that person, saw them as a leader.

[00:11:13] It was kind of like the team captain, whereas like, Hey, we’ve all elected you as the team captain. Anyway. Then they get promoted. It’s like, okay, cool. Cause we all liked you and we listened to you anyway and respected you and trusted you versus, Hey, you’re good at it, but I don’t really like you and now you’re in charge and I’m not listening to you.

[00:11:28] I remember when you were sitting next to me and what you used to say, so I’m definitely not going to listen.

[00:11:33] Collin: [00:11:33] Yeah. Yeah. And it’s a, it’s a case by case there’s no like right. Answer a hundred percent of the time for every, you know, call center out there. It’s going to be, it’s going to be unique to, you know, what their situation is.

[00:11:46] Um, but I would say a majority of time promoting, you know, great sales producer to a sales leader is not the right answer. And I think frankly, a lot of people turn to that because it’s the easier path they know what they know they’re comfortable with that. Maybe even get them at a bit of a discount. Um, but you know, I think seeking outside for leadership or even, you know, getting somebody to consult on that or getting a fractional person, if you’re like a call center, that’s just not quite there to get a full-time person is smart move.

[00:12:15] Jason: [00:12:15] Yeah. I want to, I really want to know, do you have any stories that you’ve seen internally or externally of promoting someone like even before maybe you realized it where you.

[00:12:26] Collin: [00:12:26] I’ll give you my own experience. You know, I took my first sales job and worked my way up to the top and thought I wanted to be a manager and got pissed off because they didn’t give me the manager position that I was promised and left and took a VP of sales position, building another outbound sales team in franca.

[00:12:42] I was ready. I was great at sales, but I was not great at managing people. And it threw all kinds of curve balls at me that I was not prepared for and did not enjoy.

[00:12:53] Jason: [00:12:53] Wow. Interesting. I think that’s fascinating. And, and I think that highlights what happens to all of us, right? It’s like, there’s that leap to that next level.

[00:13:02] And you think you want it because you’re good at this and you just don’t know what you don’t know. And you’re like, oh, of course. Right. I can do that. And it’s like, people who start their own business, like, oh right. I’m a good technician. I could build websites. I should start my own web agency. It’s like, yeah, there’s a bit more to the business than just building websites.

[00:13:19] Collin: [00:13:19] Yeah. Yeah. And so, and the thing is, is the reason that most great sales PR you know, top producers don’t make great sales leaders is because they have their way that works for them. And they’re really set in their ways of their way of doing things. And now there’s some basic fundamentals and things that are within your sales process that you need to do, right.

[00:13:40] There’s a L there’s there’s more than one way to get there. And a lot of great, you know, top producers that get promoted to cost center manager or whatever to lead the team, uh, typically are very, you know, one track. You had to have a one track mind of their way of doing things, and that might not be the best way suited for everybody on the team.

[00:14:01] Jason: [00:14:01] Makes sense. So let’s transition a little bit because let’s talk about the technology piece, which obviously you have a bunch of experience with, uh, you know, with monster voice, which is, you know, technology for call centers on the telephony side and other things.

[00:14:17] Collin: [00:14:17] Go ahead. Yeah. Yes. So, so surprisingly, uh, there’s still a lot of people that are not, you know, fully cloud, right? So there’s a lot of people that are just now transitioning to the cloud or have taken this work from a home, you know, scenario too, to really figure out like, oh, we’ve now been forced into the cloud.

[00:14:37] You know, I don’t know why. Kind of it’s still in 20, 20, 20, 21, then reluctant to just go full cloud versus like an on-premise solution.

[00:14:48] Jason: [00:14:48] I have, I have a company I know of that. Basically they have like VoIP phones, but their desk phones. And when things happen, they actually sent everyone home and made them plug in their desk, avoid phones, uh, which is like that hybrid thing.

[00:15:04] But it’s just so weird to think, like, why not just, you know, fully close. Fully remote fully.

[00:15:10] Collin: [00:15:10] Yeah. I don’t know. And we’re seeing more people too, also, you know, getting, getting rid of the clutter on their desk, especially working from home, maybe on a smaller desk, it’s no desk phone. Right. Fully software based solutions.

[00:15:20] Um, and so, you know, just kind of from the work that I do, I would say probably, you know, and not everybody that we do business with is, is a call center. Um, we cater all kinds of different businesses, but, uh, I would say probably it’s about 60 to 70% are going fully software based, you know, no hardware.

[00:15:39] Jason: [00:15:39] Wow.

[00:15:40] And that’s when you, with what you’re seeing with people who are signing up with you from a full hardware, or just in general.

[00:15:49] Collin: [00:15:49] They’re coming from either like, uh, they’re coming. So typically, uh, it’s, it’s kind of a big jump to go from. Say you’re having like a, on-premise sort of, you know, contact center solution, um, to going to a cloud solution and getting rid of your desk phone that’s sometime is the, the adoption rate for that is, is, is a little bit of a big leap.

[00:16:10] Uh, so sometimes if they’re going from, from an on-premise solution, To now a cloud solution, which is something we offer in many others. Um, they still want to have a desk phone, right. So it’s still a phone that’s connected through the internet. Um, but they still want their hardware, you know? Um, but if it’s somebody who’s typically already adopted the cloud, um, they’re, they’re much more open to it.

[00:16:34] Full software-based where, you know, they’re, you know, their chat, their SMS, their phone, um, you know, their call queuing there, you know, reporting their dashboards. Everything is, you know, just a piece of software that’s sitting on their Mac or PC.

[00:16:50] Jason: [00:16:50] And, and I agree. I mean, that’s all great. Especially when you have that, omni-channel with the chat, with the SMS, all in one platform for the agent to make.

[00:16:59] The reporting and all that stuff. Um, but I’ll tell you every once in a while I see a desk phone and, or like use one, like I think of, you know, usually you see it, like when you’re in a hotel and pick up that phone and make calls, it’s like, ah, something. So I dunno, satisfying and like, okay, here’s what I do.

[00:17:16] I got to make some calls, like no distractions. I’m just gonna.

[00:17:22] Collin: [00:17:22] No, I don’t get that same amount for a desk phone. Like you, uh, I love a software based solution, uh, especially when you’re, you know, really leveraging a solution that, uh, that has all the bells and whistles, you know, like simple things that surprisingly, some people still don’t have like click to call.

[00:17:42] Click on a number and call, you know, not manually dialing and ups dial the wrong number, cause I fat fingered it or whatever. Um, or even things just like, uh, you know, you have your software on your phone and you know, somebody actually calls you back. Or if you’re inbound, like rather than asking them a million questions and wasting that first.

[00:18:03] 10 15 seconds of your interaction with them, trying to figure out who they are. Um, you know, the system actually serving you their record within the CRM when they call, you know, so things like that can just really deliver a better customer experience. You can be more efficient. Um, and we have a lot of these other, you know, solutions that are, you know, tying into the phone solution, these predictive dialers and these power dialers and these parallel assisted dialers.

[00:18:27] Now, a lot of those are going to have, you know, kind of. With some of the laws that are changing and things like that, some of those are going to go away are going to have to change the way that they’re doing things. Because you know, the FCC is really starting to crack down on a lot of that stuff where they want a human actually, you know, connected to that call, you know?

[00:18:45] So some of them. Call blasting, you know, where you’re dialing, you know, 10 people simultaneously to serve you. Somebody who calls a lot of that stuff is, is, is going to go away or, or, you know, it’s probably still going to be around, but it’s going to be harder for them to pull some of those things off, especially the fly by night solutions that are spoofing numbers and switching numbers, every, you know, every other day and things like that.

[00:19:08] With stir shaken and, and these, you know, protocols that are coming in place, you know, to tie better relationships between the originator and the interconnects, um, you know, to stop a lot of this robocalling and spoofing and things like that, that should just really pissing people off. There’s a, there’s a hard deadline on that, you know, June 30th.

[00:19:28] You know, if you’re in the telecom space, you better have, you know, your, your, your T’s crossed and your I’s dotted. Um, or you might, you know, wake up surprised on July 1st with, with no, you know, no capability to do anything.

[00:19:42] Jason: [00:19:42] Yeah. Now, obviously we’re recording this. It’s going to come out, live, uh, with the podcasts.

[00:19:48] And I know this is going to be a topic definitely in the short term on many episodes. So, but for people listening, who might not know, and I’m just learning about it on my side, you know, because my clients usually they’re involved with that, or they’re using other parties for that compliance side.

[00:20:03] Explain a little bit of stir shaken and what that is at the high level, from a, let’s say a strategy or affecting call center. phone calls standpoint.

[00:20:14] Collin: [00:20:14] Yeah. So, so the FCC is, is, is really trying to stop a lot of these robocalls. Right. So, um, and you’ll see a big ramp up of them right now. Like, I don’t know if you’ve maybe just experienced it even on your personal cell phone.

[00:20:26] Right. I’m gaining a ton of them. Like I would say I’m getting five bucks more than I was. You know, previously and you know, a lot of times it’s a recorded voice, you know, Hey, we’re calling from the social security department and we have a warrant out for your arrest, like this type of stuff. Right. And these calls are typically coming from other countries.

[00:20:47] Um, they’re typically spoofing numbers. So if you call that number back, um, uh, it’s going to go nowhere, um, or it might go somewhere who never even called you in the first place. Um, another thing that’s happening is they’re also spoofing the caller ID, right? So it’s actually saying social security administration.

[00:21:06] When the call comes through now, the social security administration would never call you to handle any math. They would send you a letter in the mail. Right. But unfortunately, there’s still a lot of people that are following for these tricks. Um, and or else they wouldn’t continue doing it. Right. So they’re really trying to crack down on that stuff.

[00:21:26] And, you know, there’s, there’s always been this, you know, the DNC list, right. But it’s been really hard to monitor that. Um, most people, a lot of people don’t follow that the way that they are supposed to. Um, and unless you really, really, really abuse it and you’re doing super high volumes, which is the fines are pretty significant.

[00:21:47] Um, you know, if you’re not following that, but, but this is going to stop a lot of this stuff that has been. Very difficult to monitor and to track. So stir shaken, it’s a framework, um, of inner, uh, of the interconnected standards. So as a. Uh, in April, April, April, 2021, you see required that providers certify in the robocall mitigation database.

[00:22:14] So they’ve got to sign up and basically comply with those standards. Um, and, and, and then have it fully empty, uh, fully implemented by June 30th. Okay. So this means that calls that are traveling through interconnected phone networks. Would it have to have their caller ID signed as a legitimate, um, by the originating character or else to call it.

[00:22:39] Jason: [00:22:39] Yeah, which is pretty wild. So what that means is, is that if it’s not signed and I think there’s three buckets, there’s like a level B-level and C-level so depending on what it is like when it’s signed and certified as your phone number, then it will go through the carrier and it will make it to the end result.

[00:22:57] If it’s like a B. Then there’s like a C and then basically what happens is there’s a chance that if you’re running outbound calls, if you’re doing anything like that, if what you’re doing, isn’t set up in the system properly, or the end carrier or any of the carriers decide to not certify you or push it through, you will be making calls.

[00:23:16] That will go nowhere. And you won’t know it.

[00:23:19] Collin: [00:23:19] Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s going to be interesting to see, uh, what the, what, you know, how many people don’t do, what they’re supposed to by the timeline. I mean, this is something that they’ve been working on for. I think about two plus years. Right. And, uh, and now there’s a hard, there’s a hard, you know, um, date set here.

[00:23:43] And in order to, to make sure that you’re compliant and you’re not doing any funny business, which, you know, nobody likes getting these calls and, and there’s, there’s, uh, more than a few, but there’s people that have, you know, um, really kind of ruined this, uh, by abusing it. Uh, and so now, you know, there’s probably going to be some, some people that are actually.

[00:24:05] You know, using the phones properly, uh, but maybe just didn’t get their ducks in order that that could suffer because of this. But, you know, there’s still time now and, and hopefully whatever carriers you work with, you know, have the proper things set up and which, which they all should. Um, and so it’s, it’s a big thing.

[00:24:23] And I think it’s top of mind for a lot of people in telecom, in call centers right now.

[00:24:28] Jason: [00:24:28] Yeah. And if you’re, let’s say, just say it, one of the good players in the space, and you’re doing things legit with opt-in data and TCPA compliant, contacts and permission, and you’re doing that it’s is kind of scary because it’s possible.

[00:24:46] If anything in that process doesn’t happen. Like it’s supposed to. You could be basically dead in the water. Right. Obviously it’s a good thing to get rid of the bad players who have ruined it for everyone else. Um, but the scary part is if you know, what’s going to do, if people aren’t prepared.

[00:25:01] Collin: [00:25:01] Yeah. And it’s also gonna, uh, it’s also going to help solve another problem that, that some people have too is, you know, a lot of times when these people are making these types of calls, you know, they’re just picking a random number a lot of times, and they’re just outpost theme that number, uh, and people get calls back pissed off.

[00:25:19] You know, upset that, you know, somebody was, I don’t know, calling telling them that there was a warrant out for their arrest, from the social security administration office. Right. And there’s really been nothing to solve that these people have to deal with those calls. This is a number that they’ve had for, you know, their entire life of their business.

[00:25:40] They’ve really just had to deal with those calls. And there’s been nothing in place to not allow people to spoof numbers.

[00:25:49] Jason: [00:25:49] Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty wild. Is there any other, from your experience, either from the telecom side or just in general, cause you work with a lot of sales people, sales teams, organizations, uh, any other technology that you’re seeing, any other interesting things that are providing tools for, you know, telesales.

[00:26:08] Collin: [00:26:08] Call centers. Yeah. I mean, I think a big thing is, okay, number one, cloud people are moving to the cloud. You know, people are getting away from hardware going, you know, strictly software based solutions. Um, I mean, there’s all of these, you know, programmable voice options now where you can just totally custom build.

[00:26:27] Anything that you possibly want? Um, yeah. And now it’s, you know, it’s gonna be expensive to build a solution, uh, but anything that you could possibly imagine, uh, you, you can build, you know, and now they’re using AI for voice and options, and a lot of things can be accomplished, you know, before you’ve been talking to a human, uh, where once they talk to a human, uh, you can, the human can be in a much, much more informed place or, you know, things that.

[00:26:53] Um, you know, can be accomplished without a human, like, you know, checking their accounts, status, or checking, uh, paying a bill or, uh, you know, speaking options rather than, you know, hitting them into, you know, your numeric keypad, uh, tons of things. Um, on that front also, I would say the big one is, is more people using more of an omni-channel approach.

[00:27:13] Right? So having a solution that supports not just phone calls, but email chat. SMS WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, depending on, you know, if you’re in B to C you know, those are channels that, you know, a lot of your customers are comfortable communicating on. Uh, so started to see a lot of, you know, contact centers really adopt, you know, more than one channel with their approach, whether it’s inbound or outbound.

[00:27:40] Jason: [00:27:40] I love it. So. You’ve been around the call center space for a long time. You have been in there plus you have the monster void. And then also you’re doing a lot of stuff on the sales side, kind of playing many different games with the things that you’ve found in start, especially with your podcast. Right?

[00:27:55] So you’re talking to a lot of sales, awesome salespeople on the, your podcasts. If you were running a call center now, Right. Think back to when you were running one, but now, you know what, you know, from a sales perspective, is there anything that jumps to mind that you would tell, like your new salespeople or salespeople

[00:28:17] on the floor?

[00:28:20] Yeah. What would the

[00:28:20] Collin: [00:28:20] First thing I tell them to do? Pick up a copy of authentic persuasion.

[00:28:27]Jason: [00:28:27] See, now you make it sound like we set that up, but I appreciate that.

[00:28:30]Collin: [00:28:30] I know. I honestly. Recommend that book all the time. I go on podcasts all the time. It’s on my recommended reading list, along with, with a few others, like, uh, um, uh, uh, so your, your book, uh, Larry Levine selling from the heart, um, uh,

[00:28:50] Jason: [00:28:50] probably by go givers in there.

[00:28:52] I’m sure.

[00:28:53] Collin: [00:28:53] Ah, yeah, there’s one. That’s just slipping my mind right now. Combo prospecting from Tony Hughes. I mean that book. Every page is packed with that. You got to read it like 10 times to absorb everything. Um, so yeah, I mean that, that’s, that’s honestly, that’s, that’s an honest answer is, is, is get the reading material, you know, follow these people and consume their content.

[00:29:15] Like anybody who’s in sales, whether they’re an individual contributor or a sales leader, you know, running a context center, like there is so many people out there putting out so much free stuff. For you to consume, to be a better leader, uh, to be a better individual contributor, you know, to, you know, kind of adopt to this new way of selling where it’s more serving and empathy and, and, uh, you know, not just your, you know, all about your commission check, you know?

[00:29:45] So, so that’s, that’s a big thing is, is following the right people, consuming their content, reading those books. Um, and then the number one thing, like if I had one tip for anybody. Out of anything or everything that you do in sales. Like the number one thing that I is just mandatory is review your calls, review your calls, and review your calls and review your calls and then review your calls again.

[00:30:11] And you should.

[00:30:12] Jason: [00:30:12] I hate, I hate hearing my own voice Collin

[00:30:15] Collin: [00:30:15] Get over. Then get out of sales. Maybe you’re an order taker, which is fine, which is fine, which is fine. You know, there’s I heard they’re hiring customer service, you know, they go over there.

[00:30:28] Jason: [00:30:28] No problem. And I, and I love that. I mean, that’s so valuable to review it.

[00:30:32] If you want to play a better and better game, if you want to work towards and, or become a professional at anything, you have to analyze what you did and then figure out how to get better

[00:30:42] Collin: [00:30:42] And look. It takes time. It’s, it’s consumed. Like it takes a lot of time to review your calls. It does. Um, if you’re, you know, it doesn’t matter what size context center you are.

[00:30:56] I would hope at the very least that you’re recording the calls. Um, obviously, you know, with two party consent in the states that require it. Um, and so if you’re recording them, The second part of that is what are you doing with them? Are you reviewing them? You know, send me your five best calls and your five worst calls every day.

[00:31:18] If you’re new, you know, your five best calls, five worst calls, let’s dissect them, go back. What could we have done different? You know, but also give the, the, the person on the phone, the autonomy. Yeah, come up with some of their own answers or Hollywood handled. Don’t just force, you know, don’t just feed them the answers on the spoon.

[00:31:36] Like you got to, you know, allow them to build that muscle of thinking on their feet to be creative in those situations. The next time they come up. Right? Yeah.

[00:31:45] Jason: [00:31:45] Yep. Great. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:31:48] Collin: [00:31:48] Yeah. And so then that’s one part. Now let’s say you have maybe a little bit better of a technology that you’re using for your contact center.

[00:31:57] That yeah. It records the calls. Great. Now does it transcribe it? Right, because that makes it a little bit easier. We can transcribe the calls, right. And we can look for keywords and things like that. Right. And we can put them into, you know, a nice report and review them, things like that. Um, but there’s also tools out there that, uh, can make this a lot easier and there’s tons of ’em popping up, you know, chorus and gong or kind of like the first ones.

[00:32:22] Uh, but now. Tons of competitors to chorus and gong, um, that are less expensive. That pretty much do the same thing. For the most part, they kind of just were first to market and have the biggest brand recognition, you know, decent products. I’ve seen both of them, uh, but there’s also some other ones, you know, uh, coming up that I would say are equally as good and, and, and a little bit less expensive.

[00:32:44] Um, so, you know, find a tool that’s and these tools are you’re using AI to, you know, look for certain tones. Key words. And are you using empathy and things like that, and just tagging and marking them and making it easier for, so you can just go about your day, make your calls, and then it’s really nicely got you all with the stuff that you need to right.

[00:33:05] Jason: [00:33:05] Yeah. And, and the one thing to add to that, going backwards from the AI driven stuff that just kind of serves it up on a platter to the manual, listening to those recorded calls. If you have them amazingly, how shocking to me, how many call centers just don’t have it. They have telephone sales teams and they’re not recording those calls.

[00:33:24] Um, but the key is, is that a lot of management

[00:33:27]Collin: [00:33:27] They’re not recording.

[00:33:29] Jason: [00:33:29] Not recording the calls they just don’t like, and you know why

[00:33:33] Collin: [00:33:33] it makes sense either one,

[00:33:35] Jason: [00:33:35] I know it’s one of two things because in my experience, right. And if that’s you, and you’re listening to see if either one of these resonates, uh, the first one is, is like, they just don’t want to deal with the technology.

[00:33:45] They’re thinking it’s a big deal, the storage, the management of it, like blah-blah-blah like everything on the technology side. And then there’s the other part, which is what I generally see, which is they know they don’t have the time energy or. Bandwidth or care to put into the review of those recordings.

[00:34:04] There’s

[00:34:05] Collin: [00:34:05] there’s a third part too. There’s a third part too. There’s some people that just, for whatever reason, recording calls just doesn’t feel right to them. Okay. It’s sort of like a, I don’t know, it’s like a moral thing. Like, oh, that’s, you know, we shouldn’t be doing that. I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t be running a context center, but, uh, But, but it, you know, if it’s like, it’s the equivalent of somebody, a football team go to the super bowl, losing and then never watching the game tape again.

[00:34:38] Jason: [00:34:38] Yep.

[00:34:40] Collin: [00:34:40] Never if you, if you’re not, in

[00:34:41] Jason: [00:34:41] course hoping that the next time they show up, they will

[00:34:44] Collin: [00:34:44] play better. Yeah. I’ll, I’ll give you a little hint. Good. There’s a really good chance. You don’t show up to the super bowl again, if you don’t review that tape.

[00:34:52] Jason: [00:34:52] Yeah. Uh, and you probably wouldn’t have made it in the first place.

[00:34:55] Cause the only, the only way you’re going to get there ahead of everyone else is by optimizing everything. Yeah.

[00:35:00] Collin: [00:35:00] And it’s small things. It’s little small things. Like maybe I could have said that maybe I shouldn’t have said that maybe I could have used this tone there. Uh it’s those small adjustments and, and, and hearing it and talking through it is the only way to improve and make those adjusters.

[00:35:20] Jason: [00:35:20] Yeah. And that’s the interesting thing I love that you mentioned is that it’s not always the big things. It’s not always the, I really screwed that up, but I’ve listened to enough recordings with enough reps and I’m like, okay, let’s listen to this. They’re like, I don’t know why they didn’t want to buy them, listen to this.

[00:35:32] And you can hear the slightest pause. Or, or issue from the perspective buyer or you hear like the raw, just the wrong word or wrong sentence that just triggered the other person by the sales person. And that was it. You just hear it and go. That was it, it was an hour long call, but there was right there.

[00:35:53] That’s all it

[00:35:53] Collin: [00:35:53] took. You could even hear when the prospects checked out done getting here in the prospects, like they’re there, they’re on the call or listening to anything. And you’re saying, I mean, that’s a big one. Or, or, or also another, another interesting one that you find in these call recordings, uh, is, is things you missed.

[00:36:15] You know, you were so, you know, on the phone, you know, it’s, it’s, you gotta be on, you know, you gotta be listening intently to everything they’re saying to then quickly deciding what you’re going to say next or where you’re going to take the conversation, right. To get to whatever the end goal is. Uh, and sometimes it’s very easy to get caught up in your head of what you think you’re going to maybe say next or where you maybe want to take this, or they said something that you wouldn’t want to forget.

[00:36:43] Right. Uh, and then they say something that’s huge. That could totally change the whole direction of the call and you just missed it.

[00:36:54] Jason: [00:36:54] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that happens a ton. So let’s shift here for our last bit of time here together. One of the things you had mentioned to me that, you know, you’re seeing a shift or to chat about it, Companies finally, starting to focus more on quality instead of quantity.

[00:37:15] You’re talking about leads, you’re talking about technology, you’re talking about people, all of it. What are you seeing?

[00:37:21] Collin: [00:37:21] Uh, mainly, you know, for the longest time everybody has says the phone games and numbers game. Right. And I still believe that’s partially true. You know, I don’t. Totally disagree with that.

[00:37:35] Um, but a lot more people are starting to focus more on quality over quantity. Like, you know, I don’t need to make 150 calls to have 10 good conversations. Maybe I need to target a little bit different. Maybe we need to market a little bit different. Maybe I need to get really super clear. On who our ideal customer is and go deeper on that and focus more attention on those types of people.

[00:38:04] And people are even starting to go into psychographics and demographics and all kinds of things to identify who their customer profile is. And this is a new thing to me that I just learned. Uh, I have, I had Steven Schmidt on, uh, on, on sales hustle, uh, just a few episodes ago and, and there’s technology out there.

[00:38:23] Um, to really take, you know, really go deep on building your customer profile. Right. So people can get a good idea of like, Hey, here’s the types of people that actually buy from me. And what’s interesting about it is it’s not your typical like, oh, They are in this industry, they make this amount of money.

[00:38:45] Um, and they live in this particular area that like, those are kind of surface level, basic stuffs, right. That you could build fairly easily. Um, but it’s more like their interests and what type of people they are. Right. So, so what those psychographics for are going to look very different for each class.

[00:39:03] And because it’s more, you know, who you’re going to jive with. You know, here’s the type of people that want to do business with Jason. And those people are probably people that have very similar interests to adjacent

[00:39:17] Jason: [00:39:17] and down to real least small levels that now there’s the access to, with AI and data and social info and all of these various things that can be.

[00:39:28] Harnessed and kind of grouped together to find where those common points a week. Cause I, I love what you said. I’ve never been a fan of the quantity dialing game, right? Like, oh, you want to make more sales, just call, you know, 500 people a day. Just keep dialing and, and going that route. Cause you’re going to burn out either the consumers or the salesperson because you lose, you’re still losing at a high rate.

[00:39:52] It’s just hard. That’s a hard game to play.

[00:39:54] Collin: [00:39:54] Yeah. And, and so, and, and this there’s people that are just still going to be foam warriors. Like that’s just, and the phone is a powerful though, cause there’s people that are on the other side of the spectrum of, of, of this, where it’s like, I only do social right.

[00:40:07] Social selling, you know, and, and, and not that it gets social selling, um, but you need. To be using all of the tools, right. I I’m a believer of using multiple channels, social email, phone, and Larry and the men together to compliment each other, rather than being all in or one or only using two. Yeah,

[00:40:26] Jason: [00:40:26] I think that’s great.

[00:40:27] Well, I appreciate you coming on here now. I think this might be the third podcast I’ve had, uh, if we don’t even include the lives and the clubhouse that you’ve been on. So you’re the most,

[00:40:40] Collin: [00:40:40] you’re the most chatty we’re we’re recovering. We’re recovering, uh, clubhouse. Moderators. Yeah,

[00:40:47] Jason: [00:40:47] yeah, yeah. That was a fun little experiment in stint, but I appreciate you once again.

[00:40:52] You know, answering the, uh, the call to come on here and chat about anything, sales, anything sales business related. I appreciate it

[00:41:01] Collin: [00:41:01] very much. Talk about context Senator, but we snuck some sales conversation as well.

[00:41:08] Jason: [00:41:08] Well, and I think that’s important, right? Because that’s running a contact center, that’s focused on sales, which is what this podcast is about.

[00:41:14] Involves that sales side. So I knew what was going to happen. I knew I could only control you to talk about podcast or a call center stuff so much. And, uh, so before we go, where, like, I know the main thing for you right now is the podcast. That’s a great avenue for people to find out and pick up so much content and just, you know, pick up all this stuff that you’re doing, which I love.

[00:41:34] It’s just such a great vehicle. Right? Cause it’s not salesy, just podcast. They’re so good. So tell people where they can find the podcast what’s about.

[00:41:42] Collin: [00:41:42] Yeah. Yeah. So if you run a contact center, have a sales team, uh, you can check us out on any podcast platform that you could possibly think of something that I don’t even know, never even knew existed.

[00:41:54] We’re on their, uh, sales hustle. Um, My buddy, Jason Harrell dropped the link in the show notes so you can easily find it. Um, and yeah, we just hit like 105 episodes and it’s a ton of fun. We dropped three episodes a week. Spoiler alert. We’re talking about bumping that up to five or seven days a week, maybe seven, maybe seven.

[00:42:16] We’ll see. Um, but it’s, you know, 20, 30 minutes super tactical, um, to just level, you know, level up in sales, uh, whether you’re an individual contributor, whether you’re a sales leader, um, we keep it super tactical, um, and yeah, check us out. And, uh, we’re on all the podcasts platforms.

[00:42:35] Jason: [00:42:35] I love it. And again, the show is this, uh, sales hustle.

[00:42:38] Uh, if anybody’s listening to this, they want to go there to check it out online. You can go to pod.link/sales hustle, or I call and said, just go to any platform and put it in sales hustle. It’s there. So that’s awesome. Once again, Colin, thanks for joining me here on the scalable call center sales podcast.

[00:42:55] Once again, I appreciate you and everything you’re doing to, uh, to help the world from the perspective of selling.

[00:43:03] Collin: [00:43:03] Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.