As companies (and nonprofits) grow, the products and services and the customer support required to deliver them can race out ahead of the sales operation.
We naturally hire the salespeople first who have a rolodex (there's an old term) of contacts already and they reach out to their relationships to move sales ahead.
As time passes, two big things happen:
1) We start to run out of the natural leads in your network.
2) We bring in younger salespeople who don't have a network already.
If you were operating on a spreadsheet and bailing wire sales system (or for some a notepad and email inbox approach), it gets harder and harder to keep track of the leads that you are now PAYING for.
Leads get lost in the cracks
Leads fall in between the cracks - sometimes literally down the back of a desk because they were on note cards.
And training new salespeople with a mish-mash system is pretty hard.
Those who are naturally highly organized do OK, but those who are just good with people might have just as many leads in a pile somewhere as they are working.
All of these realities eventually push most organizations into a CRM for sales.
While you might try one of the DIY or solopreneur sales tools at first since they don't scale or produce the kind of reporting or efficiency you need you look beyond those tools.
Many are still stuck
It's not uncommon for organizations with substantial revenue to still be wrestling with the challenges of being stuck in Spreadsheet land.
-
That means that salespeople are having to research their reports each month.
-
It means that no one can look at an accurate pipeline or forecast.
-
It requires multiple research, data, quoting, and tracking tools.
-
The natural workflow of prospecting, calling, and meeting isn't automatically creating the kind of tracking, reporting, and data that you need to improve.
Being stuck in spreadsheet land might make you good at Excel, but it shouldn't be cause for embarrassment.
Moving to a modern sales CRM
The CRM pain of 10 years ago doesn't reflect the CRM realities of today. You can have an easy-to-implement and still powerful sales CRM that cuts down on frustration and wasted time and increases productivity.
If 40% of sales team time is spent on administrative tasks, unleashing those hours is a sure way to increase sales outcomes.
Here's a simple guide that will walk you through what a seamless move to a modern sales CRM can look like. It's a quick read and will provide you with a path to plan your move forward.
