How Do You Get Sales Reps to Actually Use the CRM? [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 167]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

[00:00:00] Bob Ruffolo: If it's not in the CRM, it doesn't exist. You've probably heard some version of that in a sales meeting. Brian McVicker runs revenue at a payroll company, and he says that line is exactly why the mandate never sticks. His argument was that CRM was never meant to be a compliance tool. Ask a rep for data entry, in his words, you've handed them work that has zero closing rate and makes them $0.

[00:00:20] Bob Ruffolo: So he stopped mandating it. Their time from deal arriving to deal closing went from about 30 days down to 20. Today, Brian and our lead HubSpot trainer, Jess Palmeri, get into how he did it, how he runs his referral partners through a real pipeline instead of just a list of names, and the one question worth asking your team this week before asking to log anything.

[00:00:38] Bob Ruffolo: Let's get into it.

[00:00:41] Stephanie Baiocchi: You're listening to the Endless Customers Podcast, brought to you by the team at IMPACT. Endless Customers is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. If you want to learn the principles of Endless Customers and how you can implement them in your business, pick up a copy of Endless Customers, a national bestseller, wherever [00:01:00] books are sold.

[00:01:00] Stephanie Baiocchi: Ready to start implementing Endless Customers in your business? Talk to IMPACT about how our coaching program can help you implement Endless Customers to success. And if you want to experience Endless Customers in person, don't miss our upcoming event, Endless Customers Live, in Hartford, Connecticut, October 5th through the 7th, 2026.

[00:01:18] Stephanie Baiocchi: Registration is now open. And now, on to the show. Here's your host, Bob Ruffolo.

[00:01:24] Bob Ruffolo: And welcome back to the Endless Customers podcast, and today we have a great episode. Uh, we have Brian McVicker here from Paragon Payroll, and of course, Jess is back. We'll get to you in a second here, Jess. Brian, we're gonna kick things off with you. Um, before we jump in the episode, quickly, um, introduce yourself and your company

[00:01:42] Brian McVicker: Hi. Great, great to be here. Thank you, guys. Uh, Brian McVicker. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer at Paragon Payroll. We're a cannabis-committed HCM and payroll provider. Um, so yeah, I'm glad to be here

[00:01:53] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, happy to have you here. And, and Brian's been through the Endless Customers coaching program. They are on the Endless Customers journey, a great success story. We're gonna [00:02:00] go into all their metrics today. But today we're gonna talk a lot about HubSpot, and that's why Jess is here. And now, Jess, you've worked with Brian, uh, directly for about how long did you guys work together?

[00:02:09] Jess Palmeri: We worked together for probably about one or two years. We really refined, uh, the sales process, really focused on training the sales team on, you know, areas of HubSpot, and really working to show, you know, the fruits of that labor. How, how was that sales process, uh, improving?

[00:02:22] Jess Palmeri: How are those sales reps improving? We have some great metrics to share.

[00:02:25] Bob Ruffolo: Great. So that's why you wanted Brian on, and, um, let's kick things off. So, um, and I know, understand you guys have become best friends from working together.

[00:02:33] Jess Palmeri: course.

[00:02:34] Bob Ruffolo: So, so I'm sure you guys got a lot of stories to share today. But, um, Jess, when Brian first came in, um, what was your first observation about what was going on at Paragon and, and the situation?

[00:02:45] Bob Ruffolo: Obviously, they were thinking about switching to HubSpot. What w- what was the lay of the land from your perspective? And then Brian, I'm gonna ask you the same question as well, right after Jess goes.

[00:02:52] Jess Palmeri: Uh, well, one clarification there. Brian was actually already a serious HubSpot user when I first met him. Okay. So, uh, when I met [00:03:00] Paragon Payroll, you know, they were just diving into the Endless Customers journey. And you know that we almost always recommend HubSpot as a great way to track your success against that, uh, that framework, that program.

[00:03:10] Jess Palmeri: Oftentimes, when clients come to us on the Endless Customers journey, you know, they are evaluating HubSpot, maybe they're in a different CRM. But Paragon Payroll was this really unique use case where they were already HubSpot power users. Brian had already implemented HubSpot at a previous organization, so he was really, really knowledgeable in the tool.

[00:03:28] Jess Palmeri: So it was really, really fun from day one to nerd out with him and say, "Okay, this is a software that you know and love. Now we're gonna use it in a completely different way to track the success against this new framework that your organization is implementing."

[00:03:38] Bob Ruffolo: So Brian, then why the heck do you need her?

[00:03:43] Brian McVicker: Well, I mean, we, we came into IMPACT 'cause we were looking to really find some fuel for growth in the organization. So we felt like we had a message in a very crowded market, and we wanted assistance in helping to consolidate that. Um, you know, I was a big believer in HubSpot. I've been using HubSpot at two [00:04:00] different organizations.

[00:04:01] Brian McVicker: I built it in my prior organization and brought it here to Paragon. When I arrived here, we were using Zoho, and, uh, it just wasn't the tool that I was hoping it could be. Um, I gave it an opportunity, and I said, "You know, I'm gonna go to what I've, I've been accustomed to." I self-implemented HubSpot here at Paragon for sales.

[00:04:19] Brian McVicker: And so when we came over, we ... You know, I'm a big op- uh, adopter of the tools. I felt like HubSpot to me, from the time I did my first demo of HubSpot, I guess this was in maybe 2020, I saw it for myself as a tool that would help my salespeople be, uh, more organized, more efficient, put automation. It was all the things that if I go back and think about, you know, when I was a, a individual contributor and I was in my three-sided carpeted cube, I had all these little processes, all these sticky notes, multiple systems I was using to stay organized so that I could be a top producing seller.

[00:04:54] Brian McVicker: And when I saw HubSpot, it felt like everything was in the box. And now, w- as a leader, [00:05:00] what I was always looking to do was build a scalable and repeatable process for my team, create some structure, make the job easier, build some repetition. I always say, salespeople, they work and they're most effective when they're less thinking and more doing.

[00:05:12] Brian McVicker: It's not like I wake up and it's like, "Who am I gonna call and what am I gonna say?" HubSpot enabled me to build all those tools in the system so the team was inf- infused with, "I'm gonna call these people. This is the message. Here's the tools I'm going to use," and nothing's gonna slip through the cracks.

[00:05:27] Brian McVicker: Everything's in the system. One, uh, the steps are there built for them one by one, and then they could just, uh, follow the process along to success

[00:05:35] Bob Ruffolo: So, so Brian, so, so let's walk through this a little bit. So you had Zoho, and then you're saying it, we- I gave it a shot, it didn't work. And there's a lot of other CRMs out there, and I'm sure a lot of people listening here, uh, maybe there's more budget CRMs, or maybe they're on Salesforce or whatever it is.

[00:05:50] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and you said, "I have to get this company over to HubSpot. I'm used to HubSpot. We're missing out." What were, like, the three or four things that [00:06:00] HubSpot offered that Zoho didn't give you or, or maybe other platforms don't give you? Like, this is the reason why HubSpot works for companies like us.

[00:06:10] Brian McVicker: Yeah, and I, I'm an interesting use case 'cause, you know, I, I'm a salesperson at heart, but I do have some operational blend and I love technology, I love tools, I love automation. Um, you know, and candidly, I was a big Salesforce user at two other organizations prior to that. Um, the challenge with Salesforce is that it's really difficult to manage and, uh, implement, and y- I mean, you need to have an expert on staff.

[00:06:34] Brian McVicker: I don't have those types of resources as a small organization. Um, I felt like HubSpot, I could build those, those things within the tool, and I could get it to scale much quicker. Um, you know, we had some internal resources that were dedicated to Zoho, but it was already built out when I got here. I don't think it was built to my use case.

[00:06:54] Brian McVicker: It wasn't built... It was built to be an internal, like, customer relationship management, but for operations and for [00:07:00] operations workflows, but not for sales and not for marketing. And so I saw HubSpot as an ability that I could quickly and effectively get my team running. Like, you want the sales team running.

[00:07:13] Brian McVicker: Like, every day that a salesperson isn't selling something, they are a drain on the organization. That's why I felt that, um, you know, as I looked at it, I also believe, uh, that with HubSpot, you know, to me it was about trying to... I wanted to build a, a system, um, a single port, single source of truth where all of our metrics would be.

[00:07:34] Brian McVicker: HubSpot's not about me, to be honest, as a sales leader. It's about my people. I want them to be effective and efficient, and I want them to look at the variables that are necessary that affect them to make more sales. Wanted to focus on revenue-generating activities. And in HubSpot, I was able to build that through the sales automations.

[00:07:51] Brian McVicker: We use... It's very easy to build dashboards in there, it's very easy to build reports so that we're all speaking the same language. We all understand what metrics are necessary for us to [00:08:00] produce the results that we need to be successful

[00:08:02] Bob Ruffolo: So if I'm repeating back to you what I think I just heard, it was, one, we have to have a customer hub that's accurate and, and up-to-date, and everything, the source of truth lives there. And that was the exact words you used, the source of truth, which meant that you had to have better integrations, so wherever the information's coming in, it could all live in there.

[00:08:20] Bob Ruffolo: Um, obviously the team has to use it so it's up-to-date, so it's gotta be user-friendly from their perspective so that they wanna use it. And even more importantly, you can build the reports and dashboards that you needed. And I'm guessing that was probably more difficult in Zoho for you than, than what it is in HubSpot?

[00:08:36] Brian McVicker: it was. And, you know, one of the things that makes me cringe is sales leaders, I hear this all the time, they're like, "If it's not in the CRM, it doesn't exist." You will never hear that out... Yeah, you'll never hear that in my mouth, because that's not why the CRM exists. It's not for compliance, it's for organizations, for effectiveness of the salesperson.

[00:08:52] Brian McVicker: So if I come to a salesperson and say, "You need to do all this data entry," all of a sudden I'm giving them extra work that has a zero closing rate [00:09:00] and makes them zero dollars. However, if I show them that, "Hey, by putting this in HubSpot, I can show you automation so that when you closed-lost a deal, we can set a task so that in 90 days you get a reminder."

[00:09:11] Brian McVicker: Because a salesperson will hold onto a dead deal forever, because they're like, "No, boss, I'm gonna forget it. I'll forget to call them back, and when I need, need it, I can't find it." Well, there's automation for that. Or if there's some sort of workflow that I can build. So tell me what your problems are, what are your challenges as to why you may see this as not being the right solution, and I'll help you build automation and technology and efficiency so that it makes it easier for you.

[00:09:35] Brian McVicker: You sit down at your desk and you have what you need to do for the day

[00:09:37] Bob Ruffolo: Now, now Jess gave me a whole bunch of questions that she wanted me to ask today, but I think I'm just gonna go like this right now. Um, 'cause I think we're gonna just continue going down the, the road we're going down. I think this is, uh, a, a better way to go. So, um, there are automations that we set up, um, but obviously we're now living past the automation age and the workflow age.

[00:09:58] Bob Ruffolo: We're now living in the AI age, [00:10:00] and I know we had to get some, some of the team getting all bought in, and we've got the CR-- uh, the CMS we're gonna talk about here too. Um, but let's really stick on what was your journey like to getting automation set up? Um, and then Jess, I'll let you just definitely jump in here and, and, and say, "We worked on this too," if you, you know, fill in the gaps for him.

[00:10:20] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and then where are you today in terms of like how are you using the AI functionality to even make your reps' lives just so much easier, get you the information that you need? So, so it is in the CRM, so it does exist, and it is a source of truth, which is still true, but it shouldn't be labor to make that happen, which I agree with you on.

[00:10:38] Bob Ruffolo: So, so walk us through your journey there

[00:10:40] Brian McVicker: Yeah, and probably the f- you know, I'm a, I, I review all the betas that are available and find the ones that I think are effective for my team that I can implement and, uh, that we can use at scale. I think one of the biggest ones that was AI related that I found at first was at IMPACT Live. Jess introduced me to some of the HubSpot folks who were there, and, uh, [00:11:00] in that conversation, they were, uh, beta testing the meeting note taker.

[00:11:04] Brian McVicker: Meeting note taker, I was one of the first people to jump on it. I said, "This is something that we can do." So we started using the meeting note taker. Uh, for those that aren't using it, it's an easy connection to Microsoft Teams. I was having the issue that we were asking the reps to record their discoveries in Microsoft Teams, and then we would go back and try to view them, and they'd be like, "Oh, I forgot to push the button."

[00:11:24] Brian McVicker: And you know me, I don't... You know, uh, let's make it easy, and then it just gets done. So we automated it. Uh, that meeting note taker enabled me and my, my sales leader also to be visible in every single meeting that we couldn't be in, 'cause it was easy to go back and view them, right? So that was good for us, and then I showed my team how, you know, you have the consolidated notes.

[00:11:45] Brian McVicker: We're always trying to send back an executive summary. The salespeople are always looking to pick out, like, what are the one, two, three things that I need that are based on this? The meeting note taker put all that information right there in the CRM, in the HubSpot for them. Um, this gave the ability that I could turn [00:12:00] over all those AI notes to my implementation team was calling me like, "Hey, was, was that meeting in there recorded?

[00:12:06] Brian McVicker: I'd love to review the meeting." I said, "Well, here they are. Let me show you exactly how you can find them all in there. I don't have to send them to you. I don't have to store them on our server." Now you have all that in- information at your fingertips for them to view the meeting. So they saw tremendous benefit that they could now very quickly analyze what, what really did occur on that, um, on that discovery call?

[00:12:26] Brian McVicker: What occurred on the demonstration that was important to the person that they're now talking to? And it wasn't the salesperson's voice and message that they're hearing, it was our client, and they could see the frustration, they could hear the emotion of what it really did in their day-to-day lives and how they would like to change that.

[00:12:43] Brian McVicker: Now, what that meeting note taker took to the next step is that I did embrace some of the other AI, uh, agents that are in there. I implemented the customer agent. What that did is it took not only those meetings that were recorded, but all of the email conversations and put it in one consolidated view.

[00:12:59] Brian McVicker: So [00:13:00] now that the moment I hit closed won, the AI agent runs and it sends an email to the implementation team, in addition to the, the paperwork, you know, documents that we gathered. But they're now getting, uh, what I'd call is like they're getting the literature on that. Now they can quickly read and get the cliff notes of not just, "I gotta view this meeting and figure out what's, what's important to them."

[00:13:21] Brian McVicker: But now I have the cliff notes of who are all the players, what did they say? How can we help them? What should we focus on on that next step? So it just took that efficiency and effectiveness to the next level, and it was beyond just the scope of my team on the sales side. It really helped the entire organization to start to embrace that.

[00:13:37] Bob Ruffolo: Awesome. Now, so Jess, you were along this journey with him, maybe not so much of the AI stuff 'cause that, that's probably even more recent, but, but what were, from his journey and, and your perspective, what were the things that they did and did really, really well that got them to the outcomes they are today?

[00:13:52] Bob Ruffolo: I 

[00:13:52] Jess Palmeri: I mean,

[00:13:53] Jess Palmeri: Brian is the ideal customer that I personally love to work with. Uh, I mean, there's a reason that we have quarterly nerd-out HubSpot [00:14:00] sessions to this day. Uh, so even, even though , you know, we haven't, uh, you know, been actively inv- engaged in a coaching relationship, it is important for me to, to stay close to, to folks like Brian because they are living and breathing that Endless Customers journey of saying, "I really want to always embrace that next great thing, that next technology, that next way that my buyers want to buy from me- Yeah

[00:14:22] Jess Palmeri: to create that frictionless buying experience that we know every single person wants." So working with someone who's willing to not just embrace that type of pace, but also come to the table with his own ideas, his own, you know, crazy cockamamie, uh, schemes for how to accomplish that in your HubSpot portal, I mean, this was a dream to kind of get to work with Brian, to say, "Hey, let's w- let's see, by our powers combined," you know, working with someone who has implemented HubSpot at two organizations and really, you know, had a real perspective for h- what he wanted to see, and then bringing that together with myself as a HubSpot trainer that's worked in hundreds of HubSpot portals and kind of seen really great [00:15:00] implementations and really bad imple- mentations, and seeing, you know, how can we bring these two, you know, brains together to come up with really crazy ideas, and then go implement them and make a, you know, a sales rep sell better or a customer service rep, you know, answer

[00:15:12] Jess Palmeri: questions 

[00:15:12] Bob Ruffolo: we, could have a big, like, love fest with Vic and Jess, you know, loves Brian, Brian loves Jess. We all love HubSpot. We get

[00:15:18] Jess Palmeri: I want to Yes

[00:15:19] Bob Ruffolo: and I don't want this to just come off as a giant commercial for HubSpot because it's not perfect and, and that there's certainly things that are challenging with it.

[00:15:25] Bob Ruffolo: So I think we're gonna take a different swerve here with the episode and let's, so let's try something here. Um, I would love to see some live HubSpot coaching happening

[00:15:33] Jess Palmeri: Oh, God ... right here

[00:15:34] Bob Ruffolo: on the spot. They were not prepared for this. No. But, but, but, but Brian, um, you guys obviously are still meeting regularly because you are still trying to do stuff with HubSpot.

[00:15:45] Bob Ruffolo: What is your biggest HubSpot challenge you have right now or something that you're trying to figure out? And let's see how Jess would help you work through that

[00:15:54] Brian McVicker: Um, well, the project that I'm working on today, uh, is I'm building, uh, cust- [00:16:00] custom objects. So, um,

[00:16:01] Bob Ruffolo: loves custom objects

[00:16:03] Brian McVicker: Yeah. So in addition to, um, managing obviously the sales team, marketing folks that are in there, I also have a business development team. Uh, the problem that I saw is that, um, you know, you have companies and contacts in HubSpot, and they're owned by the sales rep sometimes.

[00:16:20] Brian McVicker: Sometimes they're owned by, like, an operations person. Um, but it, it became challenging today for my business development folks to, uh, understand, like, uh, I guess see their information without cluttering HubSpot. I, I also wanted to build out, for me, a leader, um, an effective pipeline. What I was looking to accomplish is that, uh, we have channel partners.

[00:16:42] Brian McVicker: Um, most of our business comes through referrals. I wanted to be able to understand what makes a good referral relationship and how, what are the steps that are necessary to take someone from, um, someone I just met at a show, at a trade show, to a referring, uh, uh, partner in our program. And so one of [00:17:00] the ways I, I did that is I built a cust- uh, a custom object.

[00:17:03] Brian McVicker: I built pipelines in the custom object so then now I have analytical to understand, all right, how many new partners do I need to talk to in order to find one that is willing to be part of my program? And then once they become part of my program, how long does it take for them to actually refer, and how do I keep track of all these metrics?

[00:17:21] Brian McVicker: Meanwhile, I mean, we have hundreds of partners, and some of them are awesome partners. You know, I'd high-five them as I see them down the road. And some of them are ones that, like, you met, you thought it was gonna be the greatest thing ever, and it never went anywhere. Now, anec- anecdotally I could make some guesses as to why those people don't refer me or they chose to refer others, but I need data.

[00:17:41] Brian McVicker: To make good decisions, I need data. So today I don't really necessarily have that. I don't have my finger on the pulse. That makes me nervous. Um, so what I've been working on is building out that custom object which I have built out, um, today two of three pipelines that I'd like to have in there. Uh, one is for what I'd call a channel partner, and that's someone that's evaluating, [00:18:00] um, both Paragon, and Paragon's evaluating them.

[00:18:02] Brian McVicker: Are they a good fit for our program? Does it make sense for us to have a business relationship? So built out the pipeline for that. And then the third pipeline that I'm building, then there's more along the marketing side so that, uh, my marketing leader knows and understands the variables that are necessary for them to also take someone through.

[00:18:19] Brian McVicker: You know, because we were having the challenge where we'd meet with a, uh, a potential partner and in that first meeting we basically just throw up on ourselves and we're like, "Hey, we can do joint blogs. We could be on your website. We could have a, a, a form built." And it was like we could do a thousand different things, but at the end of the day, like, let's take the basics and understand what's step one?

[00:18:42] Brian McVicker: Uh, we need to evaluate are you a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you? And so we used this, we built a scale in there that understands, like, are they objectively someone that we see connecting with that f- is a fit for Paragon? And then it's like, okay, we've evaluated that. Now we'll take them to the next step.

[00:18:58] Brian McVicker: Um, and then the next step [00:19:00] obviously is going to be how do we get that individual to be- To go from being part of the program to actually sending us leads, which ultimately is obviously the, the end goal result that we have. It was difficult for me to do that in the, the traditional account company trajectory in HubSpot.

[00:19:15] Brian McVicker: That's why I went with the custom object. It obviously didn't fit into our g- our general sales pipeline, so this gave us the ability to work somewhere else, build some of those efficiencies. Uh, and then around that, I did what I'd call, like, the wraparound of, like, understanding with the, with my business development team where the frictions lie for them.

[00:19:35] Brian McVicker: One of those frictions are we bring on a new client, new client says, "Hey, I work with XYZ CPA firm." Well, since they work with my client, I mean, the old days of I would pick up the phone and say, "Hey, you work with my client, we should probably talk to and determine does that make sense for us to, to evaluate a partnership?"

[00:19:53] Brian McVicker: Well, sometimes they would just slip through the cracks, right? The- they get added to HubSpot, but because the implementation, the... They ask [00:20:00] the implementation person to get them access to our system, but there's really no, like, nothing happens from there. I saw that as a potential opportunity. Those are, they're the quarters in the cushions to me.

[00:20:10] Brian McVicker: I'm, like, looking through the sofa cushions trying to find the quarters. Where can I find an extra nickel, an extra dollar? And that's one that I felt was missing, so we built some automation so that, uh, if, if the support team or myself, we identify someone, we add them to a segment. The segment automatically, uh, enrolls them into a sequence.

[00:20:29] Brian McVicker: Built out the sequence with the templates of the emails, the call scripts, the LinkedIn connections that would be necessary to hope to hopefully get a name and an email address to engage with us and potentially come into this partner pipeline.

[00:20:43] Jess Palmeri: I love that approach because so often those partnership relationships, they're just different than how you traditionally, you know, see a company in your organization. And an object inherently means ownership. You can assign that partner relationship t- for someone to own, and then [00:21:00] inherently there's accountability.

[00:21:01] Jess Palmeri: Plus, you can tie leads to that partner object. You can t- tie potentially deals to that partner object so that you can actually quantify the value of that potential partner in your partner network. 'Cause there's always gonna be winners and losers. There will always be partners that you love to see at events, to high-five, as you said, because you know we are mutually, you know, in a beneficial relationship where they make you money and you make them money.

[00:21:25] Jess Palmeri: And then there are those partners that you're like, "Oh."

[00:21:28] Bob Ruffolo: like,

[00:21:29] Jess Palmeri: "Are we still friends? Are we still in a mutually beneficial relationship?" And to your point, Brian, you have to be able to quantify that. So

[00:21:35] Bob Ruffolo: did... No, Jess, did he set this up the right way? I mean, is, is that the way you would've constructed it, or is there anything that...

[00:21:41] Bob Ruffolo: 'Cause, uh, Brian, are you still struggling on this or is this all solved now? It sounds like you, you figured it out

[00:21:46] Brian McVicker: I'd say I'm 75% of the way there. So I built a custom object. Uh, we started to implement it, um, a little while back and then, you know, we got away from it, to be quite honest. Um, I don't know that it was built in the way that everyone [00:22:00] embraced it, and so, you know, I'm, I'm reflective of myself, I'm not perfect.

[00:22:04] Brian McVicker: Yeah, so I went back, I rebuilt it. Um, I did that next draft with, um, with my marketing team and with my business development team and showed them. I said, "Here, here's what I built. Does this help you?" And they were like, "Yes." And, "What else do you need?" W- and so I'm in that, I guess, assessment period of building it out, organizing it, understanding the efficiencies.

[00:22:27] Brian McVicker: We had some conversations last week about, you know, how do you associate companies and contacts and then building association labels. So that's the next project is like, "Hey, give me a list of all the association labels that you'd like to have so we have an understanding." Now we can report out like this is an A partner versus a B partner, or this is a partner that maybe, uh, referred us clients versus didn't.

[00:22:50] Brian McVicker: So we're building out some of those other things 'cause then we are able to report on it, because, you know, I feel like in business development, a lot of [00:23:00] times, uh, you know, they're, they're graded on, did you give me a lead and did it turn into a sale?

[00:23:07] Jess Palmeri: Mm-hmm

[00:23:08] Brian McVicker: 1,000 things that need to happen before that actually occurs, and if, if I don't have organization efficiencies in place, then I'm not helping my team to, to be better and more effective in ensuring that they're able to produce those ultimate results, and that's critical to me.

[00:23:23] Brian McVicker: So that, that's... So I'm, I'm still on that journey. I'd say I'm maybe 75% of the way. What I'd like to do is build the rest of that out, and then I'll start to build out dashboards to look at the metrics that we already have in place. We have KPIs in place, but I just felt like the KPIs would get lost in the other, like, glut of KPIs that we've already built off of meetings and calls and so forth.

[00:23:46] Brian McVicker: So this now has a place for it to live, and we can effectively build it, and someone has a place to go, and hopefully we'll see some strides in that program.

[00:23:55] Jess Palmeri: When I'm working with sales teams, I always talk about lagging indicators and leading indicators. Lagging [00:24:00] indicators to me mean lo- closed-won revenue. But to your point, Brian, you know, especially in a business development type of relationship where you're trying to, you know, develop new channels, you know, actually seeing closed-won revenue can take a full year, if not more, to really nurture that channel to get to the point where you're actually closing revenue.

[00:24:15] Jess Palmeri: So you need to motivate your team with leading indicators to say, how many new conversations are we starting? How many-- What phase of the process are we in? How are we moving people along through this potentially long process to really form this partnership? So by quantifying those leading indicators and holding people to those KPIs, you can motivate a team that would otherwise be- potentially become discouraged because they're just waiting for that final check to come in the mail, and it, it might take a while to get there.

[00:24:42] Jess Palmeri: That doesn' t invalidate the early work that you're doing to lay the groundwork for future growth. Yeah. But you need to find ways to give people a separate space that allows them to track their progress against their KPIs, especially those leading metrics, so that they feel like the work is meaningful, the work is [00:25:00] valuable.

[00:25:00] Jess Palmeri: And that's how you kinda combine the psychology of understanding what's gonna motivate people to do their best work with the technology and the tools and the workspaces to allow them to see that work come to, come to life.

[00:25:11] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. Awesome. All right, so last question for you, Brian. Um, you obviously are geeking out on HubSpot.

[00:25:18] Bob Ruffolo: You guys still have your reg-regular meetings, and you're seeing everything come down the pipeline, and you probably have a pretty good idea where HubSpot's product is going at this point. What's the most exciting thing for you, um, when you look at the HubSpot roadmap or anything that's probably coming down the pipeline or the new tools that are coming out right now that you think are going to have the biggest impact on Paragon over the next couple of years?

[00:25:43] Brian McVicker: Um guess I'd say just continuing to, to lean into the automation tools that are, that are available to us. So, you know, I... And, you know, the interesting part for us is that I told you my journey within HubSpot, [00:26:00] and eventually my implementation and support team, they followed me into HubSpot, uh, maybe a year or two later.

[00:26:06] Brian McVicker: So they re- they moved from, uh, Zo- Zoho over to HubSpot. What I see as most valuable is that the way their team is starting to embrace, um, you know, they saw me using, uh, the customer agent and how that was beneficial to them. Next thing you know, I see in there now when there's a handoff from our implementation team to our support team, they're also using those, that AI agent.

[00:26:27] Brian McVicker: You know, and we're obviously very sensitive to the critical data that we have for our clients, so it's important that it's a closed ecosystem and that we're not sharing any data outside of that system that puts our clients or anyone else in jeopardy. So I, I, I like and trust the way that that's, that's going and, uh, you know, we'll continue to embrace the tools as we see them as opportunities to build more effective, uh, you know, uh, opportunities for our team.

[00:26:52] Brian McVicker: So,

[00:26:53] Jess Palmeri: Excellent. Well, if, but Bob gets the last question, I get a last question. So my last question is, I [00:27:00] know how much time and energy and effort you've built into, you know, putting HubSpot in place for your team. So Brian, tell me, I know you like metrics too. Was it worth it? And how can you tell it was worth it?

[00:27:11] Bob Ruffolo: was worth it?

[00:27:11] Brian McVicker: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I, I, I wouldn't be where I am today as an organization without HubSpot. So, you know, uh, both organizations that I implemented HubSpot, they were under sub $1 million in revenue a year. Um, once I implemented HubSpot and was able to use some of the tools, um, you know, we consistently do $2 to $3 million in annual sales.

[00:27:33] Brian McVicker: Um, and that's something that I would attribute to HubSpot and the ability for us to be effective in that tool and that system. Um, the other thing is I, I monitor closely our days to close, and so, you know, if I look back, uh, you know, 2022 prior to implementing HubSpot here at Paragon, we probably had a 30, 40, 60-day days to close.

[00:27:51] Brian McVicker: There were so many, uh, deals that were just lingering and stale when I got here that were never going to really make it to that next stage. And so [00:28:00] today I, I, I looked and, you know, every year we've reduced our days to close. Um, and now we're down to 20 days in 2026 that it takes from a lead being created to a deal being closed won, which is great.

[00:28:13] Brian McVicker: That's

[00:28:13] Jess Palmeri: That is fantastic.

[00:28:14] Brian McVicker: Yeah.

[00:28:15] Bob Ruffolo: Oh, uh, and you started at about where? Did you, I mean, even have clear data in the beginning or

[00:28:21] Brian McVicker: we were over 30 days, uh, the first year that I was in HubSpot. Prior to that, I had no idea. Like, days to close in the prior CRM, I don't know, I'd probably have to export it to Excel,

[00:28:31] Jess Palmeri: Oh, no one wants to do that

[00:28:33] Brian McVicker: yeah, yeah, with some, like, timestamped, you know, date timestamp that would never convert to a, to an actual, uh, uh date field that I could actually build off of.

[00:28:42] Brian McVicker: Yeah, none of that. So it's all in there, and, uh, yeah, it's easy to pull up on a dashboard and take a look at the progress that we're having

[00:28:48] Bob Ruffolo: Great. Now, Brian, are we gonna see you at an upcoming Endless Customers Live?

[00:28:52] Brian McVicker: I, yeah, hope to attend. I've been to, uh, one or two of them already. I think there's tremendous value in being able to spend time, [00:29:00] see people in person, understand the messaging. You know, I tell you, like I, you know, I try to listen to your webinars when I can. Life comes into play. Sometimes you miss those.

[00:29:10] Brian McVicker: It's nice to go to an event, reserve two, three days, be able to, um, you know, network with others, hear what people are actually doing,

[00:29:18] Bob Ruffolo: That's right. That's right

[00:29:20] Jess Palmeri: right

[00:29:20] Brian McVicker: I try... You know, the things that I've done in HubSpot are great. Things that have elevated some of that is spending time with Jess because it was someone I could bounce my ideas off and say, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking.

[00:29:30] Brian McVicker: What have you seen? What works? Help me to try not to fall into a trap." There's so many holes. There's things that I've built in HubSpot that I've gotten all the way to the end and realized, I gotta scrap that. That is not gonna work, and it's not the most efficient, effective way. Let me call someone and see what they've done and how I might be able to do this differently.

[00:29:47] Brian McVicker: So it's just, it's just nice to have that camaraderie of individuals that you can rely on, and they can help you, um, and understand, you know, what you're going through. Everybody probably has been at that journey and in different various ways. [00:30:00] You know, am I an expert on HubSpot? I don't know. I'm pretty good at HubSpot.

[00:30:03] Brian McVicker: I feel like I'm, I know what I'm doing in there. But there are

[00:30:06] Bob Ruffolo: say you're in the top 5%.

[00:30:07] Jess Palmeri: I would, yeah. I would also echo that

[00:30:09] Brian McVicker: but, but, but are there some things that I'm probably not great at or that I still need to work on? Yes. And I'm willing to look at that, understand, talk to others, try to find a way, evaluate it, see if it works in my, my business and then move forward

[00:30:22] Bob Ruffolo: That's great. Awesome, Brian. Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. It, it was great seeing you again, and, uh, I hope, I hope to see you in Hartford at the next e- next event.

[00:30:31] Jess Palmeri: Yeah, see you soon. Awesome.

[00:30:33] Bob Ruffolo: All right, well, this has been another episode of the Endless Customers podcast. Until the next episode, we will see you there

[00:30:39] Stephanie Baiocchi: If you liked this episode, please take a minute to leave us a review. Thanks for checking out the Endless Customers Podcast.