Having trouble getting your sales team to accept and/or use your CRM system?
As a sales manager you know why CRM is important not only for you as a manager but for the team as a whole- but they may not see it that way.
Perhaps in the eyes of your sales team who has been successfully selling without it, CRM presents itself as more work, not their job, taking time away from selling, etc. As a manager it is your job to show them how CRM can benefit them as individuals and as a team—Time to sell.
As a sales person you know that the key to a successful sale is to touch on pain points and prove to your audience , in this case your sale steam, that what your selling (CRM Software) is beneficial and will give them something they want or need as the result- in the case of your sales team maybe that means larger commissions and/or simplified tasks.
Here are a few points to get you started:
Seven Ideas for Selling Your Sales Staff
- Saves mental energy for what’s important: The main function of CRM is to manage and organize contacts, relationships, and communications. Without CRM the sales team has to put extra effort in remembering where that spreadsheet went, if it was updated recently, etc. or they are trying to pull all of that information out of their heads…with CRM all of that information is at their fingertips & always in the same place! Now that your sales team is not wracking their brains for information or sifting through piles of spreadsheets, they can quickly access it and use all of that brain power towards making a sale
- CRM is like having your own personal assistant: Your sales team is made up of a lot of busy people with a lot of busy calendars; full of reminders for follow up calls, emails to be sent, collateral to go out at just the right time and a ton of other activities. Your sales team may have their own personal system for keeping themselves organized, or you may have a home-grown system the entire team uses. What happens is these personal or home-grown systems tend to get quite tired as your team’s load gets heavier and more prospects enter the funnel. CRM is a great way to build task reminders into daily processes and standardize the sales process
- Reporting made easy: CRM helps streamline reporting and make those sales meetings a little less stressful. Rather than scrambling to gather data and produce a report on status and forecast updates- the data is already in the CRM system, automating this all for them. Having the data and reports ready to go at any time saves the team a lot of last minute frustrations, and gives them back all that time spent putting reports together so they can use it to sell.
- CRM allows the team to compare notes: Your team may be the type who likes to keep their trade secrets to themselves or you may have a team that is all about collaboration (who will love this benefit and not need much convincing) For the team who likes to keep their secrets to themselves…your team is only as good as your worst salesman, right? Once your team realizes that sharing sales tricks is only going to help the group they can begin sharing and tracking selling patterns. Tracking this information publicly allows the team to better itself by seeing what is working for them, what works for others, and what doesn’t work for anybody- from there the team can work together to develop their own set of best practices.
- Internal shifts won’t slow down productivity levels: If there is a change in responsibilities, if a sales territory shifts, or if a new sales team member is hired, etc. the CRM system will already have on record the sales patterns and behaviors of buyers in the region or industry- now whoever needs to jump in can without having to ask for too much help, pull others away from their work, etc.
- Social data all in one place: CRM systems are becoming more and more in touch with social media such as LinkedIn and other intelligence tools. Your team may already take the time to look prospects up on LinkedIn or other social media sites- now they can do it from within the system! Some CRM systems such as SugarCRM already have sales intelligence tools such as InsideView that will automatically provide social media data every time a record is opened. This automation allows for the elimination of manually searching through the social media world every time, it is now quickly and easily accessible, allowing salesmen to get the information that is important to them rapidly so they can devote more time to selling than to digging for info on the internet.
- CRM is useful for all: Sales will get instant benefits from using CRM, but other parts of the company will benefit behind the scenes, a few examples:
- Customer support will be able to use the data to better understand the customer’s relationship with the company to provide better service.
- Marketing can present more targeted messages and get qualified leads for the sales funnel.
Your team may balk at this saying that support and marketing are not their problem but the better experience customers have with all parts of your organization the more likely they are to stay with your company and continue to buy your products and services. By starting the process of documenting customer relationships, sales people are laying the groundwork for success across the entire organization for today and the future.
Try This:
- Use real results: keep an eye on early wins that were directly related to the use of CRM. Using real information on how CRM helped close a deal is a great way to show the team that you are not full of hot air and will help coax those who may be a bit more reluctant to change their ways.
The benefits of CRM software truly are endless, hopefully the above points get you started and on your way to showing your sales team how much stronger they can be if they take the time to use it and use it correctly.
Happy Selling!
About e2b teknologies:
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Chardon, OH, e2b teknologies provides ERP, accounting applications, custom cloud-based software development services, AR collections management software, and calibration services through its three business units – e2b anytime apps, e2b enterprise, and e2b calibration. e2b enterprise develops custom cloud-based business applications and resells leading ERP accounting software, CRM, HRMS, and other enterprise business software applications from Sage Software, Epicor, Intacct, Sugar CRM, and other publishers. e2b anytime apps is the publisher of Anytime Collect, Anytime Assets, Anytime 500, and related Anytime brand products. e2b calibration is an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited calibration laboratory
Our goal is to provide customers with great products backed by world-class support, development services, and business consulting to help them achieve their goals – on-time, and on-budget. Contact us today for more information or to speak with one of our software experts.