SFA and CRM technologies and platforms, will on average generate benefits which are roughly 5-10 x their overall total cost of ownership, or TCO. TCO is the deployment of the software and platform, license fees, customisation costs and on-going maintenance and operational costs. Benefits are usually tangible, including cost reductions and increased sales and market share. Usually, as a rough figure, the ongoing functionality improvements, infrastructure management and operating costs are 5x greater than the original deployment costs, including deployments that are customised or even green field. (SFA = Sales Force Automation, CRM = Customer Relationship Management)
Cloudifying the SFA, CRM system and using a SaaS and mobile approach is vital for most firms, from the largest enterprises to SMB.
Often both ‘systems’ can be found within the same platform. Main areas discusssed in this post are:
Pro Tip: Don’t build or buy systems which are over-engineered, hard to change at the code level, or will entice your salesforce to waste time with features and modules, versus selling. You don’t need to spend millions on an initial deployment to have a streamlined, efficient and relevant sales automation platform.
Pro Tip 2: Reusing material is also a vital part of IP management and consistency – a fact lost on many firms. Management will need to get involve standardising information sharing, document sharing and make the SFA-CRM system interactive and compelling.
SFA- CRM tooling is software that enables a company to manage and improve its relationships with prospects and customers. For our purposes, it is focused on sales, including forecasts, realising actual sales, cross selling and sharing intellectual property within the company that is relevant for the sales process.
Why do we need it?
By automating repetitive and error-prone tasks, sales CRMs enable your team to put in more face time with prospects and eliminate mistakes. With a strong CRM, your reps aren’t busy with busy work—they’re busy closing deals.
Very difficult. Sometimes an art of networking and luck, not just social media and email campaigns.
With a centralized database of customer information, marketing and sales teams can stay on the same page about prospects. You can customise marketing programs as well (some platforms have a marketing integration at the API level with SaaS based marketing platforms, or inbuilt marketing modules).
In the prospecting stage, a CRM will:
Some leads are better than others. Our sales process training comes into play at this point. We need to filter them and not spend time with the tire kickers or the confused. A good lead management process helps sales reps easily see where leads are in the sales pipeline including realistic and good opportunities.
Being organised:
Automate and repeat:
Build your pipeline and monitor it:
The software keeps your contacts organized, up-to-date, and accessible while also providing a central contact database for all reps.
For complex cases, a quality demo is crucial to proving why your product or service is the best investment. As given above it is worth repeating. Reusing material is also a vital part of IP management and consistency – a fact lost on many firms.
In summary, being organised and professional:
The software will help with timing, reminders and brainstorming ideas to help close and manage an account:
After sending the quote and getting back a signature, we will need to:
The platform automatically compiles customer information into real-time reports, which provide insights into how your sales department is functioning as a whole.
This report shows you where prospects are currently sitting in the sales pipeline and how many are dropping out of the pipeline.
These reports assess how well individual reps are moving prospects through the pipeline. They can also reveal general conversion rates across your sales team.
This report predicts expected revenues by analysing the value, estimated close date, and win-likelihood of sales in your pipeline.
These reports provide a breakdown of your team’s activities, including the number of calls made, emails sent, appointments held, and tasks completed.
These reports track your team’s movement toward revenue goals. They can be customized and filtered by pipeline stage, sales activity type, or individual rep.
It’s up to you how granular you want to get with your reports, but one thing’s for certain: If there are any bottlenecks in your sales process or performance issues with reps, your sales CRM will find them.
CRMs provide:
Sales management CRM software improves efficiency, engagement, team morale, and productivity—all of which ultimately contribute to higher lead conversion rates.
This platform is hosted on the provider’s servers. It is used as a SaaS or Software as a Serivce. You use the platform, and the vendor manages all of the infrastructure, code deployments and functionality changes. It moves the expense to an OpEx model usually in the form on monthly charges. No capital outlays with this model.
A mobile CRM is a channel into the SaaS platform that allows convenient phone based access. There is less functionality than with the SaaS but it is still valuable and important as a data channel and read access for key reports and client information.
A customisable system is an out-of-the-box platform with customisable features designed to fit most business models. This means customizable dashboards, pipelines, reporting, call analytics, and more.
It’s important to note, however, that a customizable platform is different from a green field built SFA CRM which is built from the ground up to exacting specifications and runs at a much steeper price point.
Your reps will be happier and more productive if the sales CRM software you choose is easy to use. A clean, user-friendly interface is important for functionality, and it also fosters a positive user experience. The real highlight of intuitive software is the shallow learning curve—it results in faster time to value.
Key apps including data sharing, should integrate seamlessly with the platform so you can transfer data instantly from one platform to another. For example, a valuable source of customer data can come from the customer service team—such as a buyer looking for a complementary product or more comprehensive features—which can help a salesperson cross-sell and identify common pain points. Every customer interaction with customer support results in actionable data, and a good CRM makes that information easy for sales reps to access.
This relates to the section above as well. There are several factors to consider. You will need a business strategy and requirements document with an ROI or reason to invest. Track the investment and its benefits.
A CRM software system may be the most high-tech on the market, but that doesn’t mean anything if it’s too complicated for your staff to understand and operate effectively. CRMs are meant to save time, not cost your team time while they struggle to find the right window or run a report.
Assess how user-friendly the CRM is, and if possible, ask for a demo so your sales team can try it out. Are they picking it up quickly and intuitively? If so, then that solution might be a great fit for you.
Every company is different and will have specific needs and requirements when looking for the right platform. No software will come perfectly set up for your business; however, the best CRMs are customisable, so you can adjust them to fit your needs.
Look for a system that allows you to add custom fields and lists, set up individualized dashboards, modify the projected sales pipeline, and tweak the general settings.
Ensure all your client information is available on the cloud. This is ideal when your team needs centralized data access, but it also means sensitive data could be at risk. It’s very important to pick a platform that exemplifies strong security standards and adheres to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Scalability could be important if your business is changing or expanding. Cloud systems more easily scale and should be a primary consideration in this regard.
Support will usually be a blend of the company’s internal front line support and the vendor.
ROI assessments should include future license, upgrade or customisation costs. Identify the things your software must do for you. Does it need to be mobile-friendly for sales reps on the go? Does it need to integrate with other software? Focus on the features that you want as well as your budget. Spending less is still spending too much if the product can’t do what you need it to do.
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