Sales Systems
This is generally referred to as Prospecting Systems or CRM (Customer/ Client Relationship Management) and is usually some form of software or electronic record keeping of Prospects and Customers. There are a number of CRM systems on the market today, some more sophisticated than others. The problem with all of them is garbage in, garbage out and poor accountability. No one would allow their accounting department to produce only 40% of the payroll each week.
No one would allow the manufacturing division to work in an unsafe environment. No one would allow their employees to show up at the old office after they had moved to a new location. But time after time after time, employers let the sales staff get away with breaking the rules to suit themselves.
When used correctly CRM’s have many great benefits including:
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Pipeline Tracking and Reliability
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Organization and Ticker files
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Templates for –emails and proposals
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Vital Customer and Prospect information
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Forecasting information
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Customer/Client and Prospect/Suspect history.
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Tribal Knowledge that can be passed from one salesperson to another
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Accounting / Historical Sales Data
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Reporting and Accountability
Many of the problems arise from the misuse of these programs. Generally, there is a lack of upfront thought that goes into setting them up and rolling them out. Or there is too much dependence on the wrong information derived from these types of systems. I don’t really care what system my clients use as long as you use something and track the most important information. What’s important is based on the client and through our work up-front we will assist or build it from scratch.