Putting points on the board, “scoring” sales and posting results to beat the competition — sales teams are the key offensive players at every organization. And not unlike star forwards on the basketball court, they require sufficient tools and training to be successful in this role. Unfortunately, sales teams are expected to put up big numbers without access to the tools that they need. After 20 years, the top sales performance management tool used by organizations is still Excel.
The biggest issue we have seen in doing our analysis of the CRM space is that most CRM software simply collects data. No data is given back. Your story highlights a very basic level of human behavior - people don't like putting effort toward something that doesn't give something back to them. And so it becomes natural to augment a CRM with something like Excel because at least Excel SEEMS like an easier way to visualize a lot of data.
The key to getting people to use a CRM system is to have that CRM provide useful data BACK. Meaning that the salesperson can, at a glance, see information like website traffic, email interaction (reads/clicks/etc), event attendance, project involvement, tickets submitted, etc. All of these are useful pieces of information that the salesperson should be able to see automatically. In this way, the CRM provides useful information back to the salesperson.
Every relationship is better when both parties give. The relationship between the CRM software and the sales staff should be viewed the same way. If CRM software is able to provide value without the salesperson doing something with it, that software is giving effort back to its relationship with the salespeople.
Affordable software exists on the market today that does this. As your article suggests, salespeople should have access to the tools they need and they should demand that their CRM tools fulfill that need.
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You're Going to Need More Than a Spreadsheet to Make That Sale
Posted by: Jim Burleigh July 2, 2012 05:00 AMPutting points on the board, “scoring” sales and posting results to beat the competition — sales teams are the key offensive players at every organization. And not unlike star forwards on the basketball court, they require sufficient tools and training to be successful in this role. Unfortunately, sales teams are expected to put up big numbers without access to the tools that they need. After 20 years, the top sales performance management tool used by organizations is still Excel.
The key to getting people to use a CRM system is to have that CRM provide useful data BACK. Meaning that the salesperson can, at a glance, see information like website traffic, email interaction (reads/clicks/etc), event attendance, project involvement, tickets submitted, etc. All of these are useful pieces of information that the salesperson should be able to see automatically. In this way, the CRM provides useful information back to the salesperson.
Every relationship is better when both parties give. The relationship between the CRM software and the sales staff should be viewed the same way. If CRM software is able to provide value without the salesperson doing something with it, that software is giving effort back to its relationship with the salespeople.
Affordable software exists on the market today that does this. As your article suggests, salespeople should have access to the tools they need and they should demand that their CRM tools fulfill that need.