Less Clutter, More Deals - The Advanced Selling Podcast

Summary

The Advanced Selling Podcast: Episode Summary – "Less Clutter, More Deals"

Episode Details:

Title: Less Clutter, More Deals
Hosts: Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale
Release Date: February 26, 2025

Introduction

In the February 26, 2025 episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, hosts Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale delve into effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategies aimed at decluttering sales processes to enhance productivity and close more deals. This episode, titled "Less Clutter, More Deals," is a solo edition presented by Bryan Neale, focusing on two pivotal CRM tools: CRM Cleanup and CRM Clean Out.

CRM Cleanup: Organizing Your Sales Data

Timestamp [00:00 – 07:40]

Bryan Neale begins by emphasizing the importance of maintaining an orderly CRM system. Drawing an analogy to cleaning a garage or closet, he explains that just as physical spaces can become cluttered over time, so too can digital sales environments. This clutter can hinder a salesperson’s ability to act effectively on opportunities.

Routine Organization: Neale recommends a monthly CRM Cleanup session, scheduled for the last Thursday of every month from 4:00 to 4:30 PM. This session should involve a small group of two to four people who work together to ensure the CRM remains organized. “Everything’s got a place,” Neale states (04:10), highlighting the necessity of having all data accurately placed within the system.
Purpose of Cleanup: The primary goal is to review and update all open opportunities. This includes adding forgotten information such as recent emails, technical specifications from sales engineers, or any other pertinent details that may have been overlooked. By doing so, sales professionals can maintain a clear and actionable pipeline.

Notable Quote:

"Everything's got a place. Everything's got a place." – Bryan Neale [04:10]

CRM Clean Out: Eliminating Stagnant Deals

Timestamp [07:57 – 16:30]

Following the cleanup, Neale introduces the concept of CRM Clean Out, a complementary process focused on identifying and closing stale or inactive deals that no longer hold potential.

Identifying Stagnant Opportunities: During the Clean Out session, sales teams evaluate their open opportunities to identify those that have lost momentum. Indicators of stagnation include missed meetings, lack of recent contact, prolonged inactivity (e.g., opportunities open for over 400 days), or repeated unresponsiveness from the client.
Action Steps: Once identified, these stale deals are addressed by sending "close the file" emails to the prospects. The email typically states, “We seem to have lost a little momentum here. Haven’t heard from you… I’m going to assume you’ve found another solution, so I’m going to close things out on my end.” This approach respectfully acknowledges the end of the sales pursuit while leaving the door open for future re-engagement.
Benefits of Clean Out: By regularly performing Clean Out, the sales funnel becomes more manageable and realistic. Neale explains, “It shrinks. It always shrinks,” underscoring that a leaner funnel reflects a more accurate representation of active opportunities. This decluttering process not only improves focus on viable deals but also creates space for new prospects to enter the pipeline.

Notable Quotes:

“Voids get filled. Create space. Voids get filled.” – Bryan Neale [11:30]

“Your house is clean.” – Bryan Neale [16:00]

Benefits of Regular CRM Maintenance

Neale outlines several advantages of adhering to the Cleanup and Clean Out routines:

Enhanced Focus: A streamlined CRM allows sales professionals to concentrate on high-potential opportunities without being bogged down by inactive deals.
Improved Forecasting: Accurate data leads to more reliable sales forecasting, aiding in better strategic planning and resource allocation.
Increased Productivity: Less time wasted on managing cluttered information translates to more time spent engaging with active prospects and closing deals.
Positive Perception from Leadership: Consistently maintaining an organized CRM system demonstrates professionalism and efficiency, which can impress supervisors and executives. Neale encourages listeners to share these practices with their bosses, asserting that leaders “will be elated” by the realism and clarity it brings to sales projections.

Philosophical Underpinnings: Abundance and Detachment

Central to the CRM maintenance strategies are the philosophies of abundance and detachment. Neale stresses the importance of letting go of non-productive opportunities to make room for new ones. By detaching from stale deals, salespeople can embrace an abundance mindset, believing that new opportunities will naturally fill the gaps created by cleaning out the funnel.

Implementation Tips:

Consistency is Key: Perform Cleanup and Clean Out sessions monthly to prevent the accumulation of clutter.
Collaborative Efforts: Engage with a small group to maintain accountability and share insights during the organization process.
Use Prescriptive Tools: Leverage the Blind Zebra Sales Operating System’s tools for step-by-step guidance in both Cleanup and Clean Out procedures.

Conclusion and Call to Action

In wrapping up the episode, Neale reiterates the transformative impact of maintaining an orderly CRM system. He assures listeners that following these practices will not only enhance their sales effectiveness but also garner positive feedback from their leadership. Additionally, he invites listeners to explore the Blind Zebra Sales Operating System for more in-depth tools and to consider certification programs available through their website.

Final Notable Quote:

“If you do the CRM clean out correctly, what happens to your funnel? It shrinks. It always shrinks… It just got real.” – Bryan Neale [15:45]

Neale closes by encouraging listeners to adopt these CRM maintenance strategies to achieve greater sales success and personal growth within their careers.

Additional Resources:

Blind Zebra Sales Operating System: blind-zebra.com
Advanced Selling Podcast Insider Program: [advanced selling podcast.com](https://advanced selling podcast.com)

Transcript

A (0:00)

Foreign.

B (0:04)

Welcome everybody to the advanced selling podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in the history of podcast. My name is Brian Neal and this is a solo episode, the Two Minute Drill. The longest two minutes in podcasting because it's not two minutes at 20, but we'll make it go fast. It seems like it goes so fast. I'm coming to you live from my home studio. When you see Bill and I record, this is my home studio, high top world headquarters of Blaine Zebra. We're set. We're certifying people in the Blind Zebra sales operating system and we've got podcast listeners being certified and it's kind of blowing up on us in a good way. So, uh, get in touch with us. Our first call is called a coin toss, called 15 minutes. It's just a real high level them, high level you, high level us what it is. And then we see if we want to engage in the process real quick. Panelists, mostly for a sales leader, VP of sales CRO. So if you're listening to this, you're a salesperson, you'd love to like bring this into your group. Get your CRO, get on the phone, zoom, whatever we call it these days, and we'll chat with you blind-zebra.com you'll see all about the Blind Zebra sales operating system. And if you're not in Bill's insider program, if you're an individual contributor, you want to invest in yourself at all, go right now and go sign up for the insider advanced learningpodcast.com insider. Gotta go there. I actually should know, I'm wearing now. If you're listening, you're not going to see this, but if you're watching, I have my little 11:11. I'm kind of a number like a woo guy. And 1111, if you look at numerology stuff, it's a good number. So I've got 1111 hat. And it's funny when people see it, they're like, hey, I love your hat. One woman, she's like, I, I, I saw her at a hotel. She was with her husband, but kind of drunk, I think. And she's like, I need your hat. I'm like, oh. She's like, no, no, no, I need your hat. You got to give it to me. I'm like, no, no thanks. Okay. They're on Amazon. They're 13 bucks. You can buy one. But anyway, so 1111. I'm like, I like that stuff. So last episode, solo episode, two minute drill, I went through us learning to love CRM. That's what it was about today. I'm gonna go tactics on you and give you a couple tools, light version of tools that we teach in the Blind Zebra sales operating system that will help you mechanically work through your. Your relationship with CRM, if you will. And again, if you're a CRM junkie, this is an easy one for you. These two will help you. These probably some. Probably something you're not doing would be my guess. And if you're still on that path, like trying to love your CRM, keep it. Keep at it. This will give you some to do. Produced. Okay, so I'm going to delineate two different tools today for your CRM activity, and I'm going to be very prescriptive. So this one is very tactical for all of you listening. Okay? So the. And they sort of go together, but they're different. All right, so the first one we're going to go is. We're going to go CRRM cleanup. The CRM cleanup tool we have in the Blind Zebra sales operating system. Step by step instructions. I'm just going to take you through a high level of it today, though. CRM cleanup. So let's talk about what cleanup is, and here's how I want you to think about these two things. If you have a garage or a closet, it gets a little sloppy on you sometimes. And you clean it up, you straighten it up. Right. Put things in their place. Yeah. One of my friends was just telling me he did some garage work and he moved all this stuff in his garage. And this. All the stuff is still in there, but it's just organized. Better just need or spend some time doing that. All right, Some of you never have to do this because you're so neat. Everything's got a place. Everything's got a place. How many of you are married to someone who says, everything's got a place? Send this to your spouse or your partner, whoever, whatever it is. Everything's got a place. Oh, my God. This podcast. I listen to that. Brian Neal just said that, what you always say. He said, everything's got a place. So if you're that person, this is usually easy for you. If you're not that person, this is a little less natural. Okay, so we're just going to talk about first CRM cleanup. Now, in the last episode, I did give you a little tactical thing to do, which I said a lot of you wait to batch your CRM activity to the end of the day or the end of the week, and you tend to do those in the afternoons. And I suggested to move it earlier into the morning. So if you're doing morning work, you're sort of done with it. And it, it makes sure that the day doesn't get away from you, that you do that first. That's why we do that. Because, you know, days get away from us. You get busy, then you don't do this stuff, then it piles up on you. Okay, so this is one that I would recommend doing at least once per month. It's prescribed to be done. Now. This one is in the afternoon, this clean up, 4 to 4:30 on the last Thursday of every month. 4 to 4:30 in the last day of every month. Okay, now what the cleanup is and why we do it in the afternoon. We do it on Thursday, not Friday, because I told you about the Friday checkout in, you know, June. It's really nice. Said that last time. The reason we do this in the afternoon is because if you're doing the input stuff, all we're doing now is we're going back and looking all the inputs. Like, are we clean? Is everything clean? Okay? We're just straightening is what we're doing. And so you just go down and you look at all your open opportunities and you're just looking for small, little modifications, little bits of info that you maybe forgot to put in there. Maybe you got an email between the last time you talked to the customer and you forgot to update something. Maybe one of your sales engineer partners gave you some technical specs that you haven't put in. You're just tidying up. Think of it that way. Garage, closet, little out of hand. We're just straightening everything. That's called a CRM clean up. Okay, we recommend that that happens once a month. Last Thursday, 4 to 4:30. And in a small group of two, three or four people. So you're cleaning up together now. Remember the other things we talked about last episode? That was just putting the stuff in. Now this stuff's in. And just, just like think about that. You're putting your stuff in your. We're going to unload the truck and put it all in the garage. Okay? That's the morning stuff. Put it in the garage. Now once it's in the garage, man, there's a lot of crap in here. We got to straighten this up now. We're going to straighten it up. Everything's got a place. Everything's got a place. So we want to get everything in the right place. That's CRM cleanup. If you do that once a month, it never really gets away from you. If you never do that. This is what happens with garages and closets. If you never do that, you get creep, don't you? And it creeps and creeps and creeps. And then all of a sudden you open your garage, you're like, oh my God, someone call hoarders. I qualify. If you don't know what that is, that's a show. It's kind of a sad show, but it's a show Hoarders, where people like they, it creeps on them. And all of a sudden it seems like out of nowhere all this stuff has piled up. If you don't clean up your CRM once a month and then you go four, five, six, eight months without doing this, it can become a junk drawer of data. And it's no good for you because we talked in last episode. I did my solo episode. Agent of action, not agent of record. You can't act on it. Kind of like you can't get into your closet because there's stuff everywhere. You can't park in there. How many of you have a garage? Two, two and a half car garage. And you can only park one car in the garage. This has all of a sudden become a personal therapy podcast, hasn't it? We have it right. It's part of the deal. Two car garage, two and a half car garage should hold two cars, not one car and a whole bunch of stuff that I can't get rid of. So we're going to clean it up, tidy it up, neaten it up. Okay. We're going to make space for another car. We're just going to make sure all the stuff is neat and tidy. That's clean up. Okay. That's the first thing we do.