The Psychology of Sales | Nikolaus Kimla at Pipeliner

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Nikolaus Kimla 0:00
The more you are really growing and you see there will be not one single system in the future who can live without the CRM system we are in the digital age.

Alexander Ferguson 0:17
The art of sales requires not only a market knowledge, but also deep understanding of the social dynamics of the company you’re selling to. This was the realization that inspired Nikolaus Kimla to found Pipeliner, a company attempting to rethink the purpose and the implementation of CRM systems for sales forces. In this episode of UpTech Report, Nikolaus tells me how his experiences reading the body language of his potential clients brought him to pipelines current product, which he says can help salespeople visualize the social complexity of their targets. Nikolaus, thank you so much for joining me I’m excited to learn more about your company if you if I asked you to describe your business in five seconds. What would you say

Nikolaus Kimla 1:00
are the only effective CRM system for salespeople in the world

Alexander Ferguson 1:05
Love that and it started about eight nine years ago the company began

Nikolaus Kimla 1:09
our Yes While our yes we can say I came eight years ago immigrated legally to the US was a lot of money.

Alexander Ferguson 1:17
And obviously that wasn’t the beginning of your of your journey. How many businesses have you led before this

Nikolaus Kimla 1:25
are a couple I was an entrepreneur my whole life even as a young boy was even I think it was our five six years old when I was selling our town where my mother and I lived or at the flat or in downtown Vienna I was selling or some lottery our tickets are to get our some beer from my mother because she wanted to have a beer in the evening

Alexander Ferguson 1:54
always an entrepreneur writer already from there I love that was

Nikolaus Kimla 1:57
that was not really a successful business

Alexander Ferguson 2:02
so now fast forward to where you are today this the the current business sales pipeline, the market segment you’re focused on is you have a particular industry that you’re focused on.

Nikolaus Kimla 2:11
Yes, definitely are so first of all, we are really only a b2b solution. We’re not for any transaction sales, although we are more geared around our bigger companies or I would say when there’s really a sales manager in place and he has a couple of people because then he has these pain points that we are addressing the need that he has are that really hurts him under the fingernails and we just addressing that was our solution.

Alexander Ferguson 2:37
So let’s dig into that what is that real pain then that you’re that you create the solution for that you say it’s the world’s best sales solution? So what is that pain?

Nikolaus Kimla 2:46
Well, it’s it’s not one or it’s a combination as always it is it is not the one only it’s a combination is everything to doing our and our the number one thing is definitely that are the adoption of most CRM systems from the sales people were not there. And so are most sales manager thinking oh my goodness, our will my people use the system. Number one there are the other is about how you effectively and efficiently really manage a team with their prediction, the predictability of the pipeline, and how you take out the risk factor because it’s important that you take out the risk and leverage the opportunities and how you can do that. And, and are so it’s a combination of we have I guess it’s about certain of really little product or features or but it’s more than a feature they are unique that no one else has or give you one example that is probably the most visual Are you and I are right now seeing each other and you have contacts and I have contacts These contacts are not visible. We call that the intangible value, your value is your network and this is our really intangible value. I was my tool create and visualize in many areas like say in the bank center, because when you today we know that are in bigger companies, at least seven seven people are are involved in a sales situation. So how do you know what kind of role they are playing in the buying center? So we make the invisible the intangible, tangible visible, and we try to do that in a very nice way so that you immediately visualize Oh, this is the naysayer, there is always a naysayer in that company. Or this is the budget holder. Sometimes our The idea came out of our real experience in my life because I had a big deal in my life and everybody was sitting around or to table it I mean the Enter and our end or I thought okay, what is was this one guy? At the end? Always the people were looking at him. But he had not the title. So it was not it was not the official person. Yeah. But everybody was at the end when they were talking look at them him. And then he was the real guy who made the decisions. Yeah. And so if you don’t know that you can talk sometimes in a company to the people and you feel Ah, that’s a great deal. And, and then the people say, Oh, I have to put it to someone else. If you know all of that, if you visualize that, you minimize your risk.

Alexander Ferguson 5:33
Your customers they may have come from other solutions do you find often are they coming to yours first? Are they coming from another solution?

Nikolaus Kimla 5:42
Good question. I would say it’s a mixture or we we figured it out we are very good in 43 or 48 I cannot exactly say it industry so but one industry where we’re doing well or manufacture we have seen a lot of manufacture you wouldn’t believe still working the sales team big teams even with our with old technology like an Excel file. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. And then there’s other our where we say okay, there is competition, our and sometimes we have to replace or some competitors, whoever that is, yeah, I’m not naming your run me what I feel are the market is so big. So that are the more you are really growing. And you see there will be not one single system in the future. Who can live without the CRM system, we are in the digital age,

Alexander Ferguson 6:37
what are some of the backbones of what is like everything lays upon that is both people would know and expect that you have or also differentiators that wouldn’t be found elsewhere.

Nikolaus Kimla 6:49
I’m there originally idea came our way nine started 10 years really the program in that area by pure coincidence that our html5 was not as advanced as it is today. And so I started with Adobe AIR, it was a perfect environment. And Steve Jobs was still alive. And then they killed or, as you remember, more or less did technology and so are pushed more the HTML stuff. What are because Adobe AIR was a good framework, it was really a lot of games were programmed. Now you could do more. This is how I ended up individually station. Because with Adobe, you could create more visualization effects. Yeah, most people say they have some visualization. But at the end, it’s just a dashboard. Yeah, the rest is line based. Yeah. But the point is we visualized more in that area. And then we realized, okay, we had to bring everything over in the new technology in HDM. Five, or we use Angular, but our back end, and everything is written in byton a web we have so many different technologies, but it’s are in that area. So it’s Angular, our latest technology, and we use a lot of components. And I was always a big fan of our open source technology and are definitely we contribute and we do and we we just engaged in that area Matcham

Alexander Ferguson 8:15
building off then that switch now to html5 and going forward. Do you see new technologies you’re currently working on implementing or utilizing to help people manage their data and their customers?

Nikolaus Kimla 8:28
Oh, yes, we are coming in one and a half weeks with our biggest release ever. Our we were programming for a very long time. Our we call it our, my my, my team and I and especially Chung golden I’m working closely and we are really are finding always the right word, the right term for everything we call it the auto Monetizer we automatize it yes, yeah, you remember that. So what we do is we bring a new form of workflow builder where you can hook up a web hooks and stuff and everything in that and you create your automated automatic our workflows and this is why I called it automatised

Alexander Ferguson 9:13
seeing a huge trend in automation across the across every industry and it’s it’s great that now you’re able to launch this because manual entry should hopefully slowly reduce over time or we can use have technology

Nikolaus Kimla 9:27
that that is an argument that is over since a couple of years when people say oh I have to hack in in the CRM systems we have technologies grab technology, they can go and grab their or the profile picture and everything from LinkedIn. It’s in our you have a business card scanner where immediately you just have all the data digitalize, you can speak to the phone today and record that R and R and it’s immediately transformed

Alexander Ferguson 9:53
optimizer then describe the use case for that is it a workflow within the program to be able to automate it routine,

Nikolaus Kimla 10:01
yes, but this goes beyond that it goes not only in the program, it can mix up with every other application. That means with every application let’s say over API’s arm find a way our pipeline is very move forward, we have not only REST API as the as the majority as we have already Graph QL, because it’s much more advanced, yeah, but the point is, let’s say you are connected with our zoom or what we use right now or you connected with Slack are for communication, internal collaboration, yeah, that can be all mixed in a workflow. But in an automatic process, that is giving you an asset for instance, you are having leads coming in these leads have to be distributed maybe to regions to people, they automatically get not only the lead immediately to their our system, but are automatically they are creating a task, the task is created for them with an automatic email sending out to the customer. And he is getting the information to notification Hey, call this guy right now. Yeah. And so you tracked it for and it can be endless. Right? The whole customization I am I’ve just to add to this, or I’m a big believer, because automation, many people say automation is replacing No, I’m a big R and I take overs Apple as an example. And this is more b2c, Apple has stacked up his whole staff. When the virus is over, the doors are open again. And we can go okay, but are the shop where I go regularly when I need something. I go to Santa Monica to the Apple Store, and then working 400 salespeople in different time zones. Definitely. Yeah, but so our automation will not replace it will support and that’s the the main message or that is important. It’s not replacing it gives us a way it’s like we have not stopped eating was the dishwasher. Yeah. Yes, it’s just not doing the dishes anymore. Yeah, or

Alexander Ferguson 12:18
indeed. So what other API’s or integrations do you have with other services and solutions with your software?

Nikolaus Kimla 12:27
I would say first of all multiple caters and what is the multiplicator? Like sup here? Yeah, some years are great and they have 2000 integrations are and some of them you can have even for free or it depends how many or how many data you have to send back and forth. So we have our our we have our connector to sop here you can just book that and it’s easy and you just have that and immediately you have access to 2000 application to same as we have recently HubSpot was buying or Bob are wising are and we have a perfect integration with piesync where you can update are all their account and contact data perfectly easy bom bom bom yeah if you have to dinner your ERP whatever boom done yeah. So this is today not any longer than we have connected to tray IO. Also boom done. And then we have direct integration that we do by ourself like what we do we do that too many we have a perfect wonderful integration to one of our preferred solutions I like it also the CEO is a cool guy, PENTA doc it’s a quotation system now when you have or a quotation system CPQ systems cool integrated as beautiful as it does

Alexander Ferguson 13:50
describe or share now, a little bit further out five years from now where where do you see your company?

Nikolaus Kimla 13:58
That is our good question. Our I think right now everything is going more and more how we can basically our support better our customers. I feel it the number one thing that I’m really working hard is their experience that our customers have or I give you an example. Right now I’m feeling really sorry for the airlines but normally our experience to fly in the US is sometimes not really the best one Yeah, because it could be that you have maybe are the onboarding when you come to the airport everything is fine then the checking is is maybe fine and then even let’s say the food for I’m not so big fan of the food on their plates is not that good? Yeah. So but let’s say it’s good and then the stewardess are nice and everything is fine. And then you have to wait for let’s say one and a half hours of your luggage. Come on. What is your experience of the whole you will say to your Friends oh my goodness, this was a flight I’ve waited. But you see all the points were good only the last one. And this is what the brain is doing as a customer experience. So how you create a holistic customer experience that the customer is feeling? Wow, this is a cool guy everything. Yes. That is the challenge number number number one, the technology. I don’t see the technology is further than the human being. The technology will be so progressing in so many ways or of machine learning in automation but we spoke before and we will go one step after another with our immediately maybe Are you have not any longer to type anything anywhere. Yeah, and stuff like that. So I’m not worried about technology. I’m more worried. Can the human being keep up with all of that in a in a in an efficient way?

Alexander Ferguson 15:58
Where can people go to find out more information about you and your company?

Nikolaus Kimla 16:02
Yes, please go to www pipeline of sales.com or Pipeliner crm.com

Alexander Ferguson 16:11
Be sure to check out part two of our conversation with Nicholas in which he shares his rare but refreshingly humanistic attitude towards salespeople and how he came to view them as a necessary forces of good in this world.