When sales teams underutilize a CRM, it shortchanges the sales team and the company management of the real value that a modern CRM should provide to a growing organization. If you'd say that your team "barely uses the CRM" or that it operates like a big address book, then you're missing out on the real impact of a CRM that delivers as it supports sales enablement.
CRM vs. Sales Enablement
CRM and sales enablement are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. A CRM is a tool that helps businesses manage customer relationships, while sales enablement is a strategy that focuses on empowering sales teams with the resources they need to close deals. A CRM is just one piece of the sales enablement puzzle, and it's up to the organization to leverage the tool to its full potential.
By integrating sales enablement into a CRM, businesses can increase efficiency, improve customer relationships, and drive revenue growth. So, while a CRM may be a valuable tool on its own, it's not enough to fully enable sales teams to reach their potential.
The CRM serves as the foundation for sales teams to build upon, providing a single source of truth for customer data and interactions. With all information stored in one centralized location, sales reps can easily access and update customer records, track progress, and collaborate with team members. This not only saves time and reduces errors, but it also allows sales teams to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and tailor their approach to meet their specific needs. By starting with a strong CRM foundation, sales teams can effectively leverage sales enablement strategies to drive revenue growth and exceed their targets.
With a CRM that is equipped with sales enablement tools, businesses can elevate their sales strategies to a new level of success. Sales enablement tools can include features like lead scoring, predictive analytics, and personalized content recommendations. These tools allow sales teams to work smarter, not harder, by focusing their efforts on the most promising leads and tailoring their approach to each individual customer.
Additionally, sales enablement tools can help businesses gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing them to optimize their sales and marketing strategies for maximum impact. When a CRM is combined with sales enablement tools, organizations can unlock the full potential of their sales teams and drive sustainable growth for years to come.
Sales enablement requires the following resources are CRM-integrated to effectively empower sales teams and drive revenue growth:
1. Content management:
Sales enablement content should be easily accessible and organized in a centralized location for sales reps to access anytime, anywhere. This includes marketing collateral, case studies, product information, and more.
How your CRM should be supporting content management: An effective and modern CRM should include a variety of content tools that should consist of
- a record of the content viewed by the prospect,
- easy-to-use email that links to templates with frequently used content,
- documents that are tracked,
- digital quotes,
- sales videos
- all to make effective communication with the right content quick and easy for the salesperson.
2. An effective and modern CRM should be able to support sales communication in a variety of ways.
This includes providing sales reps with the ability to easily communicate with prospects and customers through email, phone, and video tools, all while keeping track of their interactions in a centralized location.
The CRM should also provide access to frequently used content and templates, making it quick and easy for sales reps to send the right message at the right time. Additionally, modern CRMs should offer collaborative tools, allowing sales reps to work together on deals and providing visibility for managers to see progress and provide support as needed.
By supporting sales communication within the CRM, businesses can increase efficiency and reduce the amount of time sales reps spend managing multiple tools, ultimately leading to greater sales success.
It's important to step beyond viewing the CRM as a glorified address book because it short-changes the time-saving and effectiveness-boosting characteristics of modern sales technology.
3. Analytics and reporting:
Analytics and reporting tools enable sales teams to track their progress and identify areas for improvement. This includes monitoring metrics such as lead conversion rates, pipeline growth, and revenue generated. A modern CRM will provide visibility on the pipeline, activity, and outcomes for the salesperson to support accurate and accountable coaching. Having to research or spend hours pulling data is a waste of sales time and makes coaching difficult.
An effective CRM will be integrated with analytics and reduce the time to create reports and analyze sales performance as needed.
4. CRM integration:
Integrating sales enablement tools with the CRM enhances the capabilities of both tools, allowing sales reps to access customer data and insights in real time and tailor their approach accordingly.
Data integration is key to the modern CRM. Duplicating data, or having to refer to information in multiple tools reduces sales time and adds to the substantial amount of time that is not being spent selling.
CRM as the single source of truth and sales technology
The CRM should serve as the hub of all of the various tools that the salesperson needs for research, outreach, content delivery, analysis and communications. Task management, collaborative tools, and fully integrated digital, phone, and video tools make this effective.
