We were stoked to be joined for Lately LIVE by Nimble founder and one of our fave people, Jon Ferrara. For Nimble novices out there, it’s a super sales app that helps you manage customer relationships and grow sales - we use it right here at Lately. In fact, Jon says using Lately and Nimble together is just like peanut butter n jelly, yum 😊
Jon’s a pioneer in CRM tech, so we sat down and chatted about start-up life, Nimble and what’s important in life.
Using your energy to grow others and help lift people around you is what it’s all about, according to Jon and we whole-heartedly agree.
When you’re present and truly connecting with others in business, there’s no better high.
Listening, learning and adding value doesn’t happen in an instant – committing to conversation and the long-haul with someone is how you can both grow. During our chat, Jon got his smartphone out and said that we feed more and more into our phones to generate validation when we’re starved of it elsewhere, but that shouldn’t be what life’s about.
99% of CRMs aren’t built for the user, it’s basically for the person that manages you, cos it mainly acts as a reporting tool. So, Nimble is more of a contact management tool to get you connecting with customers, which should be at the heart of CRM!
And that’s why Jon built Nimble. To help people connect and dream-build. Nimble’s philosophy is very much built on the power of people – heck yeah.
People buy when they trust people and that’s at the heart of the company. Nimble is fixing CRM.
Because Jon has “suffered” through being a salesperson, he knows what’s important. Most CRMs are a dead database and make you do the hard work anyway – Nimble helps you foster and build thousands of connections and gives you that nudge to reach out.
It unifies business apps into one system and gives you a 360 view of your contacts, wherever they are in your business.
Jon takes us back to the beginning. He worked in aerospace tech after graduated in computer science. He didn’t enjoy it much, so started working at a start-up and quickly moved to sales, where he’d cold-call IT professionals to sell software and would make detailed notes about customers and schedules along the way.
Jon spotted a gap in the market for a CRM and quit his job to start up his own company, Goldmine. Jon likens launching a business to jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down! He was pretty good at it though and Goldmine got super successful and bought out when Jon was 39, but he’s passionate about the fact that money isn’t what fulfils you, it comes back to helping others to grow.
And being in the moment and present is a big part of being happier too. If you accept that life has highs and lows, you won’t always be “winning or losing” then you’ll be happier.
If people are gonna buy off you, they need to trust you. Jon always taught salespeople that if they want to know about someone, look at their walls. And in 2019, that means your digital footprint – someone should be able to see what you’re like and all about from a quick check online.
Social selling is really just selling. “When something becomes ubiquitous, it disappears”, so social selling will be a bit like the internet…it’s so big, it’s everywhere and loses its definition.
“Life is social and business is social” and everything’s still based on the promises we make and the experiences we deliver.Make sure you listen to the end of the talk as well and you might be in for a super cool surprise from Jon 😉
