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subject: The Sales Leaders Crm Point Of View [print this page]

Connecting the dots in your customer-facing process.

Every company aspires to connect the dots in its processes to grow and

be profitable. Because sales is the most direct line to revenue, a great

deal of the burden to perform rests on the shoulders of the reps in the field

to close more deals, faster.

No matter what steps your company is taking to energize your sales team,

they probably map to the following key sales objectives:

1. Focus on your customers.

2. Grow your organization to keep pace with the changing marketplace.

3. Align your organization to be an efficient selling machine.

The goal of this guide is to deconstruct the key objectives of sales today.

Abstract

.Objective 1: Being Customer-Driven

Focusing on your customers is about being able to deliver more professional, more engaging interactions that

hit the mark more often. When your sales team follows proven steps to increase efficiencies, they keep focused

where they should beon the activity of selling, rather than on details and logistics.

A mandated sales process is the key to customer focus, and provides consistency to drive business results

faster.

1.Establish a common selling framework

2.Provide a constant connection to deals-in-progress

3.Use proven sales methodologies, step-by-step

Objective 2: Keep Pace with the Changing Market

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result each time.

Companies need to make sure they continually identify and address what works and what doesnt, so that they

have an ongoing sense of what needs to change.

The economy can have an impact on how sales teams operate, both internally and within deals:

Sales people compete on price, not value

Increase in administrative workloadsales reps focused on details rather than selling

Resources are diluted among various quality opportunities

Call reluctance is at an all-time high

Shifting the focus: building new opportunities

1. First, prioritize your activities. Focus on business that is ready or about to close. Then concentrate on

bringing in new opportunities.

2. Next, take care of current opportunities in progress that are earlier in the sales cycle.

3. Finally, manage your existing client base and automate as many administrative tasks as possible.

Current market conditions make it necessary to concentrate on bringing in those additional opportunities, so

this may take more of your time. It is more important than ever to qualify prior to investing in meetings. Outside

sales people need to look at how many of their time-intensive, face-to-face meetings could be conducted as

effectively with a phone call, especially in regard to managing current clients. Are the benefits of meeting faceto-

face worth the investment in every case?

By giving your sales team a clear, consistent sales process through CRM, you create for your company a more

comfortable competitive position.

Putting a CRM system in place now ensures your team and your company will be poised to be even more

successful when the economy is strongrather than struggling with performance and efficiency issues.

Objective 3: Align Your Company to be a Selling Machine

Sales organizations are ultimately held accountable for driving revenue. But nearly every department in your

company impacts sales success.

Aligning your company means building an underlying framework that will drive effectiveness and help improve

relationships between key customer management departments, specifically between sales and marketing.

Optimize leads with marketing

Establish what an A or hot lead looks like for your company

Determine your ideal customer profile

Assess modes of receptivitywho is ready to buy?

Segment leads based on quality of opportunity

Distinguish sales vs. marketing activities, and set a process in place for the two to work seamlessly together

Benefits of lead optimization

Improve resource allocation

Identify and capture interested sales prospects

Convert sales suspects to sales opportunities

Ensure salespeople engage the high priority sales opportunities

Identify opportunities to involve senior sales executives

Reduce administrative work required of salespeople

Reduce call reluctance

Retain and nurture sales opportunities not ready for sales

Track and analyze campaign/sales results, while calculating ROI

First, sales needs to clearly tell marketing what their growth plan isnot just how much they have to sell,

but where it will come from. How much will come from new business? How much will come from existing

customers? How much business will go away that we have to plan to replace?

If marketing doesnt know these things, how can it support the sales team? If sales needs help identifying

new opportunities and marketing is focused on maintaining existing relationships, then the two teams are not

aligned. This baseline understanding of where the business is going to come from is key to a productive working

relationship.

Marketing is fundamentally tasked with accelerating sales, so alignment is critically important and useful for

each team. Some of the marketing activities that have a direct impact on sales include:

Brand Developmentwith a strong brand, the positive reputation of your company precedes the sales

rep in a deal. Ideally, prospects within your target market should be familiar with your company and its

differentiators. This means that once a selling dialog begins, reps dont have to spend as much time building

credibility.

Direct-Mail Campaignsthis common marketing vehicle is a communication to prospects within your target

market (including existing customers) with a call-to-action that is designed to spark a discussion. For instance,

an e-mail goes out to your customer base advising them of a new product, with an offer for a free business

paper discussing the benefits and favorable reviews of the product. The prospect visits your company website

to sign up to receive the business paper and learn more.

Customer Intelligencemarketing can assist sales to segment and target the customer base, by identifying,

for example, Most Valuable Customers.

When your sales team is integrated to your marketing team through CRM, forecasts become more accurate and

the business process of selling becomes more efficient and proactive.

Summary

Your company aspires to grow and be profitable. Despite fewer people and smaller budgets, the pressure on

Sales is still to inspire prospects and derail the competition.

Youve learned some practical steps to help to introduce repeatable process to your sales team. With proven

sales methodology integrated into your CRM system, you can connect the dots in your customer-facing

processes and focus on taking the most proven approaches more often.

Focus on your customers to be more customer-driven. Establish a common selling framework, provide a constant

connection to deals-in-progress and use proven sales methodologies, step-by-step.

Grow your organization to keep pace with the changing marketplace. Focus on opportunity identification and

creationfigure out how to get the top line moving again. Align your organization to be an efficient selling

machine. Optimize leads with marketing. Determine your ideal customer profile, and identify those who are

ready to buy. Set a process in place for sales and marketing to work seamlessly together

Pivotal CRM

CDC Softwares Pivotal CRM is a customer relationship management solution for organizations that want to

use CRM strategically by modeling, enhancing and streamlining their unique sales, marketing, and customer

service processes. Built with the users experience in mind, Pivotal CRM offers significant configurability,

enabling organizations to tailor the system precisely to their users needs. Pivotal CRM embeds Microsoft

Outlook and SharePoint and tightly integrates with the Microsoft Office suite, bringing data to the user when

and where they need it.

by: CDC Pivotal CRM

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