What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business?

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What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business?

October 7, 2009 in CRM, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Strategy, Value Creation

First of all what does CRM stand for? CRM = Customer Relationship Management.

The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person’s desk or alongside them in the car. These client cards sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on their activities, personal and product preferences, buying patterns, business connections and so forth. Each card was a dossier on each client. To successful, well managed sales people, their client cards were gold.

However, often times, this vital data resided with the sales person alone. The company, the sales person worked for, did not have ready access to this important information and when the sales person left the company more often than not so did the client information, client relationship and sales did as well.

The ‘softwarising’ of CRM for businesses is seen as a major breakthrough in being able to capture important client information and better manage client relationships. CRM promises faster customer service at lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, better customer retention and ultimately customer loyalty and more sales. However many companies still believe that CRM is simply software, or technology and the full benefits of CRM are not being fully realised by business. CRM is much more than just a data-mining tool.

CRM is not (just) technology.

CRM is a business strategy!

Your CRM has the potential to and should be your corporate memory. It can be the archeological record of your business. In fact, if introduced and applied correctly, one of the most significant benefits of having and using a CRM in your business is being able to fully realise and map the true value of your clients as company assets. Besides the obvious benefits to you and your business, if ever you chose to sell your business, having a CRM with all this valuable information tracked and mapped can be valued and sold for premium.

This trail of information becomes a real asset in itself. A potential buyer can see your business in real client terms and understand the value of the client relationships to the business. Therefore instead of the wisdom and knowledge going out the door with the previous owner it can be captured and retained with the new owners to be further cultivated and developed.

NB: Not all data is good data. You must make sure you have the right information in place. Too many CRM’s are filled with rubbish data and the wrong stuff making them a liability not an asset.

As a CEO, you can’t make the right decisions if you don’t have the right data/information foundations in place. If you are going to get the best benefits from a CRM strategy and CRM tools you need to know how to you are going to align your key business objectives between your clients, sales people, suppliers and the rest of your business so every piece of relevant information and action adds value to the client fulfillment process.

The interconnectedness of clients to your business can begin to be truly mapped and you will then see how everyone in your business can affect the retention and growth of your clients, not just your sales people.

According to Mark Parker, MD of www.SmartSelling.com and expert in CRM’s and Customer Systems:

“Sales reps often represent the “face” of your company. In order for them to do their part in driving outstanding sales results, they should be empowered to put their best foot forward when representing their company. To do this, a Sales Automation or CRM needs to be in tune with their needs. Putting their best foot forward is going to mean many things.“

Further to this I would like to add that a CRM should also be in tune with your customers needs helping them have the best experience they can have with you.

What does an effective CRM system look like?

An effective CRM system should be what your strategy needs and wants it to be. These days you can get access to open source CRM software where you can configure what you want in your CRM so you do not have to be tied to proprietary CRM’s that cannot be customised to your needs. Also CRM’s do not have to be prohibitively expensive either. Many people have put off getting CRM’s in the past due to their high cost and focus on big corporations. But now good CRM’s systems are available for SME’s and home based businesses at very cost effective rates. For instance we use SugarCRM at Barrett which is an open source system we can configure to suit our business needs.
This means you need to think carefully about what you want your CRM system to do and be and who you partner with to make it work for you.
A good place to start is to:

Know your business strategy and key outcomes you want to achieve and work backwards from there.
Know your customer, their needs, wants and motives and your path to market
Appreciate the length, width and depth of the relationships between the customer and your organisation
Understand how you properly manage of all interactions with your customer
Know what your sales and service people need to do make sales happen in your business.
Aim to build a business system that manages prospects, clients and projects.

Look at what data, behaviours, and outcomes you want to track:

Client data, sales person activity data, product sales data, effectiveness of marketing initiatives including your website, direct mail/email campaigns, etc.
What behaviours do you want to encourage and reinforce in your sales and service teams as well as your clients and prospects?
What do you want to measure by way of lead and lag sales indicators?
How do you want to communicate data internally and externally?

Important point: you do not want you CRM to turn your salespeople into glorified desk jockeys. We need to make sure any CRM is easy to use, doesn’t take necessary time away from vital interpersonal sales activities. If you think your CRM can replace your sales team you will fall short in your efforts. If your business needs to be in personal contact in some way with your clients you need your CRM to enhance these relationships not replace them.
Here are some ways a CRM system can serve you well:

Provide immediate insight into prospect and customer leads originating from any channel
Provide deep visibility into the sales pipeline and opportunity details which quickly produce accurate sales forecasts.
Allow for a consistent, informed, and personalised customer communication approach i.e. automated emails relevant to the specific customers
Give sales people and everyone in your business access to a consolidated view of the customer across your organisation – this will allow everyone in the organisation to know how they can help play their part in taking control of every opportunity and managing it to a successful conclusion
Encourage, enforce and track best-practice sales methodologies you want in your sales teams i.e. logging of Lead Indicator Activities such as: # of prospecting calls made, # of client meetings had; # of real deals in the pipeline, # of sales made: # of cross sales made, # of sales made with new clients, # of sales made with existing clients, # of follow customer service enquiries, # of service calls, etc.
Encourage, enforce and track best-practice service methodologies you want in your customer service and support teams i.e. logging of Lead and Lag Indicator Activities such as # of follow customer service calls made post sales, # of service calls made, # of customer service calls and complaints received, etc.
Monitor and map effectiveness of have automated sales and marketing activities that are specific to the customers and markets
Steamline and automate those customer activities that can go online i.e. confirmation emails, automatic emails sent out at periodic intervals for things like renewals for instance
Map work in progress with clients and staff allocated to client projects
Have the ability to integrate with your website and keep track of web activity
Support your entire frontline sales and sales lead management team with the right information they need to quickly and efficiently fulfill all of their daily requirements.
Deliver knowledge at the point of action
Keeps vital customer data in the business whether the sales person stays of leaves thus creating a valuable company asset.

Word of caution: Before you even think about integrating Twitter or Facebook into your data mix and CRM, which is a hot topic at the moment, make sure your current data is clean and relevant because if it is not then you will be piling more garbage on an already big garbage heap and there’s no value in that.

Remember CRM systems are tools that should support, enhance and grow the customer relationship by giving your sales team and others in your business access to vital information they can act upon with purpose and in the easiest manner possible.

A CRM should not be an imposition on anyone, a CRM should be a part of your vision to continually improving the relationships with your customer, your sales team and everyone in your business.

CRM is a strategy and way of life not a piece of technology.

Remember everyone lives by selling something.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT Pty Ltd.

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You don’t have to make Negotiation a part of every sale

February 2, 2009 in Negotiation, Sales Skills, Value Creation

I often get requests by sales mangers for negotiation skills training for their sales people when in fact upon further investigation their people usually need consultative selling skills training first. You cannot negotiate effectively if you cannot sell effectively first. Both are processes which need to be learned and applied in the correct order. However over 90% of sales people follow no logical process when selling or negotiating leaving their sales at risk.

So to clear up the confusion between selling and negotiation I thought it might help to examine when you sell and when you negotiate.

It’s important to note that when you are selling, negotiation is not mandatory. You do not have to negotiate at all if the customer’s issue is very serious and outweighs the cost of your solution and they to buy outright

Everybody negotiates all the time, at work, at home, and as a consumer and as a sales person. For some people it seems easy, but others view the process of negotiation as a source of conflict to be resisted and avoided if possible.

Negotiation is a process and a skill that can be developed. Negotiation can be described as a process that involves two or more people dealing with each other with the intention of forming an agreement and a commitment to a course of action. In a sales environment, negotiation often involves a series of communications between two parties to form an agreement about the details of a sales solution.
In many cases, it is possible for a proposal to be generated that satisfies the needs of both parties. However, sometimes one or more parties may have to accept less than they had hoped for when they entered the negotiation process. And finally, in other situations, the fulfillment of one party’s wishes may come entirely at the expense of the other party’s.

Therefore, negotiation is the process of navigating your way through each of these alternatives, ideally aiming to come to an agreement that is complimentary to both parties’ needs.

Possible outcomes
There are five possible outcomes of negotiation:

Compete = Win:Lose
Avoid = Lose:Lose
Accommodate = Lose:Win
Compromise = neutral
Collaborate = Win:Win

In my experience when I negotiate I aim for #5 and get either #5 or #4. I know that I do not want #’s 1-3 to happen. However too often I see sales people end up with #’s 2 or 3. This is no good for anyone and can train clients to expect things they do not deserve like unnecessary discounts.

Rule of thumb for negotiation in sales:

Unless you have the power or authority to change or modify terms, create new product solutions, you cannot negotiate.
Negotiation should never be a substitute for selling. You need to be able to sell well first and foremost.
Negotiation is an effective strategic tool that you use ONLY when you need it.
The earlier you give away concessions in the sales process the less impact they will have.
Be aware of giving sales people the authority to discount. All too often this is a licence to give away your margins too soon and too often. We see this when people ‘cave in’ on price too soon for fear having to deal with potential conflict which usually doesn’t eventuate if the sale is done effectively. However they never let the sale run its course to find out.
Discounting is a negotiation tool that should only be applied as a last resort and should have a trade off in it for your business so can you benefit from the deal as well. This is different from volume pricing which rewards people for buying bulk from you.
If you postpone tough negotiations whenever possible you will miss learning about new things, getting new ideas, new ways of pulling your offer together as well as creating potential conflict down the track.

You sell when you:

Identify clients’ real needs and priorities, create viable solutions that are of value to the client and outweigh the cost of purchase and gain agreement to move forward to close the deal and do the work.
Can’t vary the terms. If you can’t vary terms and negotiate and the client won’t agree to move forward with you on the current plan then it is a ‘no sale’. Move on rather than give it away. Giving it away is not negotiating it is just giving something of value away which costs you.

You negotiate when you:

Both parties can vary the terms
Resources are scarce
Agreement and conflict exit simultaneously

Value versus Cost

To help you avoid unnecessary negotiations when selling first of all find out what people really value and what is most important to them.

If you and your sales people are having trouble doing this then you need to improve your and your sales teams’ ability to have quality business discussions with clients and prospects, in particular, their ability to thoroughly understand their customers priorities and business needs and how your products and service can be crafted into relevant solutions that will address specific requirements and create value for the client.

This would include developing their questioning, creative problem solving, up selling/cross selling and solution selling skills.

Effective negotiation in a sales situation requires people being able to:

Be Assertive
Challenge every assertion
Get the real facts before offering up anything
Uncover real needs and issues
Negotiate late and negotiate little
Manage conflict and not take it personally
Analyse the situation and the demands and weigh them up appropriately
Keep the customers’ needs in mind at all times as well as your own
Aim high
Respond to demands for concession
Develop a proposal with guide-lines and trade-offs (if necessary)
Prevent the customer from ‘fragmenting’ your proposal
Present a total proposal that ‘adds up’ to a win/win solution
Focus on achieving satisfaction for both parties
Don’t make the 1st move
Don’t’ accept the 1st offer
Are willing to walk away
Use all their most effective communication skills (listening, paraphrasing, questioning, problem solving, etc.)
Apply a process
Don’t avoid negotiations
Have a ‘negotiation consciousness’

When do you need to negotiate instead of sell?

When a client demands an arrangement which is different from what you are able to offer
When you are dealing with a tough client who wants to ‘win’
When a client and you disagree on some aspect of the proposal
When the client will not agree to your initial offer (find out why because some people just like to win and want to bargain as part of the process. This is quite common is some cultures as part of the ritual of the sale)
When we are unable to reach agreement, even after many discussions
When you can’t move forward unless you change your approach some way
When you can’t deliver from you current suite of resources or you need to step outside of what you normally do to win the business (take care as this can be very costly)

I hope this helps put some perspective to selling and negotiation. I have found Neil Rackman’s Major Account Sales Strategy book is a good resource on this topic.
Happy selling and success to your sales negotiations.

Contact us to improve your selling and negotiation skills on 03 9532 7677 or You can reach me via http://www.barrett.com.au/AboutUs/ContactUs.html?ONEPAGE=TRUE.

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Seeing the world from your client’s perspective can make for easier sales

December 17, 2008 in Communication, Value Creation

Each week we meet and speak with a variety of prospective and/or existing clients who have problems they need solving in our area of expertise. It is more than likely we will deal with a mix of clients: some with little or no understanding about what we really do and those with previous experience, knowledge and opinions in our area of expertise. And then there are those clients who are in between. Whatever their level of sophistication, how well we understand and identify our clients’ key priorities and problems, and what they value about working with a credible business partner is crucial to developing, attracting and retaining healthy client relationships and growing sales.

However, most businesses tend to view the world from their own perspective and not from their clients’. This means:

They often produce marketing and sales materials that talks about themselves and their products using company jargon rather than talking about their clients’ priorities and problems in language the clients can understand.
Their sales people tend to still drift toward product discussions, not solution discussions.
And when a sales person is put on the spot to validate their credentials with a new prospect they usually get lost in a sea of product information and company spin, not client centric information and clear Value Propositions.

I learnt a long time ago that it doesn’t matter what I say, it is what others do with what I say that is the most important thing. Therefore I learnt that whenever I communicate with a prospect or client I need to speak to them in language they can understand, about things they can relate to.

Here is an example of what I mean. And it works every time.

Whenever a prospect asks me “What do you do?” I answer them by initially saying “We are best known for our work in building high performing sales and service teams”. And then I go on and hand them a checklist titled:

‘People and business problems we help you solve’

which has the following headings and their corresponding problems:

Sales & Service
Self, Values, Culture & Communication
Selection, Training& Performance
Management, Coaching & Leadership

and then say “What we really do is help people fix things like this..”

For instance under the heading Sales & Service I have these items listed

o    Sales people making more excuses than sales
o    Losing clients to competitors
o    No sales plan/ strategy, too reactive
o    Discounting prices to win business
o    Adhoc or reactive sales approach
o    Lots of client visits – few sales
o    No prospecting for new business in new or existing accounts
o    Not meeting sales budgets/targets
o    Unaware of value & potential of clients – hitting wrong targets
o    Plateau in sales production
o    Team of Professional “Visitors”
o    Talking too much & missing needs
o    Too busy having a ‘chat’
o    Poor interviewing & problem solving skills & no follow up
o    Relying on CRM – team of sales clerks instead of sales people
o    Too product focused not solution
o    No understanding of financial impact of their decisions
o    Too ‘nice’ or too ‘rude’
o    No proactive sales & service culture
o    New sales recruits taking too long to get productive

Now when most business people read this checklist they say they can immediately relate to the statements mentioned.

When our prospects read the checklist they begin to nod their heads and start to tick those items which are most important to them. This helps direct the conversation where the client wants to take it and establishes their priorities.

In approaching the question “What do you do?” in this fashion I have answered the question legitimately and succinctly. I have also validated myself without a product or benefit being mentioned. That will come later after I have properly understood how my client sees the world and what they deem to be important. It works every time.

However, this approach has not been well received by several, so-called, advertising and marketing experts who say that I’m nuts doing this. ‘It’s so negative” they say. And all I say is “This is my client’s reality and this how they see their world. They are looking for someone to help them fix their issues and prevent them from happening again, so I will keep telling it like it is.”

What I have found is that we all need to understand that our products and services sell because they solve problems for our clients. A ‘problem’ can be interpreted as an issue, opportunity or priority a client wants to address. By understanding this, you can deliver value to your client rather that just selling to them based on price and product. So to ensure that you do not miss valuable business opportunities, always think about your business in terms of problems you solve for your clients.

If you have a little bit of spare time over the next few weeks you may like to take stock of your marketing and sales materials and ask yourself:

“Who’s your brochure written for? You? OR Your clients?”

And then make adjustments if necessary. It might just help you make more sales.

Final note for 2008.

Thank you for reading my blogs over the year, it has been a pleasure writing them for you.

New topics: If there are any topics you specifically want me to cover in 2009 please drop me a line at http://www.barrett.com.au/AboutUs/ContactUs.html?ONEPAGE=TRUE#void.

I wish you all the very best for the New Year and look forward to contributing to your ‘sales fitness regime’ in 2009 and beyond.

Keep sales active. Keep prospecting. Keep positive. Be persistent.
Happy Selling

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Create your own opportunities

October 24, 2008 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Strategy, Value Creation

Just one idea can positively transform your life, career, income and wealth.
As I have written before, in uncertain times, we can let the negativity of current events and others consume us or we can continue to look for opportunity. Excessive worry, however, can often cause us to lose sight of our goals and can limit our creativity and problems solving capabilities just when we really need them.

These tough times call for us to be even more innovative, inventive, creative and persistent. Some of the most successful sales people are the most adaptive and creative people you can meet, especially when it comes to finding new markets and new ways to solve customers’ problems with their products and services.

As the saying goes “Necessity is the mother of invention’. And in these tougher times it is not only necessary to keep our sales activities going and ensure that have enough people to speak who can work with us but to think creatively about how we going to do that.

Does your thinking or sales approach need a refresher?

If you are feeling in a bit of sales slump here are some questions to consider that may help you keep your ideas fresh, check for any blind spots and help you create opportunities so you can keep your prospecting and sales efforts on track:

What are the current boundaries or rules in your business, team or area of expertise?
What are the rules that can increase the likelihood of success in your business, your team’s field of expertise? Rules can be formal (written down) or informal (spoken or implied). How do these rules help you solve problems?
List 3 times when you didn’t listen to an opportunity and it hurt you, your team / business. What can you learn from this?
What were the rules you followed that kept you from seeing or taking advantage of those opportunities?
What changes can you make to your thinking to increase your imagination and flexibility and create more sales opportunities?
What is impossible to do right now, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change you, your team and your business for the better?

Often times our customers can have the answers to these question also. So if nothing get out there and ask them for feedback about how you can all work together more effectively and creatively get through these challenging times in good shape.

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Be Consistent & Keep Your Customers Happy

July 17, 2008 in Customer Service, Value Creation

One of the things that frustrate me the most as a customer is inconsistent service standards, inconsistent procedures and people’s inability to deal effectively and honourably with different types of people. If left unchecked this leads to confusion, frustration, wasted time, wasted effort, impaired brands and reputations, lost revenue and lost customers.

These issues don’t seem to be as much of an issue when you deal with very small companies because usually everyone knows what everyone else is doing and how it should be done even if it is only via word of mouth. However as businesses expand and get on board more people to work in the front line you, as the customer can’t always expect to get the same person to deal with then the challenges begin.

Here is a live example of what I mean.

I was trying to change a periodical payment amount over the phone recently normally a very simple task from my previous experiences. When I have called in the past I usually get put through to a regular group of 3-4 people who take care of our region. They have always been very helpful and pleasant to deal with. They know who I am and I enjoy speaking with them. I follow the appropriate security protocol they instructed me to use and more often than not our tasks are completed very quickly and promptly. This has been the case for over two years now. No fuss. No bother.

So when I tried to change a periodical payment to a new amount a few days ago it took three calls and 45 minutes to still get nowhere and when I tried again a few days later it took only one call and 2 minutes to rectify what I needed done in the manner I had always done it in before. What a waste! Wasted time, wasted resources, wasted relationships, etc.

Here is a summary of what happened and you’ll see what I mean:

My 1st call was taken by a young man who was very abrupt to begin with and would not give me his name when I asked for it later on in the call. I admit he did give me his name when he answered the phone however he said it so fast that I didn’t hear it so when I asked him to give it me again he said ‘I have already told you my name and I don’t have to tell you again”. In short he refused to help me with my request and behaved in a belligerent manner. I then asked to speak to his supervisor and he said, “No I will not do that”. I was at an impasse so I hung up and tried again.
My 2nd call was much more pleasant. I explained what happened with the last call and the woman (who sounded older) was very gracious and understanding however she was unable to help me with my immediate request as per my usual method as she claimed I needed to do it another way and had to get more information. So I hung up again and gathered the information needed to be prepared the next time I called. (It should be noted that I have not needed all this additional information in the past as they have it on file and I use the appropriate security information to process my tasks.) And sadly I was not able to call her back direct to carry on our discussions. I had to start back at the start with a new person all over again.
The 3rd call is too long to go into so in summary after I explained what I wanted to do as per the previous two calls, I was spoken over, interrupted, told that staff were getting sacked over not doing things properly, “I don’t want to lose my job” and that the way I had been doing things in the past (i.e. ringing up and giving my account details and security passwords to process simple tasks) was no longer valid and that I had to fill in forms and fax them through, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. And in this person’s attempt to finally empathise with me and my frustrations they said “Yes I get nasty too when I am not happy”. I sighed again and explained that at no time had I behaved in a nasty manner. Sure I was frustrated but not nasty. She had to admit this was the case and apologised for inferring otherwise. She stated she would send me a PDF to fill and fax back. More wasted time, more frustration, more inconsistencies. I gave up and went back to try to enjoy my day off.
The 4th call a few days later. I ditched the fax and did what I normally do and it was done in 2 minutes no fuss over the phone.

I have to say I was confused. I mean what is the right way to do things? The way calls 1 and 3 went were so far off the mark of effective service standards I wondered if I had walked into a comedy of errors and just a bad day at the office.

My expectations as a customer in this situation are not high at all as it was only a simple transaction that shouldn’t have taken much effort to process at all. All I expected was to receive the polite and helpful processing of my request. Calls 1 and 3 were handled so badly that they potentially ruined all the good work put in by their colleagues previously who knew better (consciously or not) how to treat customers well.

So who is to blame? I don’t know specifically in this case however I would talk to management and find out if the issue was an isolated incident or systemic. If it is systemic we need to identify the problem(s) and put in place a change process to resolve this as effectively and efficiently as possible.

So,

What are your service standards?
How do you educate and work effectively with your clients?
How do you expect your staff to interact and behave with your clients?
Does everyone know want is expected of them and how they should behave?
Are you all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet”?

While it’s easier to strike up a relationship with one person only, having to deal with multiple service people about the same common issues or procedures needs a streamlined consistent approach in procedures and tools in how to work effectively with different people. Educating customers on the right ways to work with you is very important especially if you are not going to provide them with the same person to contact each time. Customers want consistency.

For instance at BARRETT every member of our team is aware of our standard policy for Psychometric Assessment procedures and that we guarantee a 24-hour turnaround for delivery of reports once the assessment has been completed. If a client gets its within 24 hours that is an exception not the norm. Everyone in our business knows this and makes it clear to our clients especially the new ones who begin to work with us. This reduces confusion and sets clear expectations.

So if we are going to make it better for everyone concerned, customers and staff alike, we need sales and service staff to:

handle a query simply and easily
know, understand and follow due process
explain things clearly
use plain language the customer can understand
clarify and solve people’s problems
help correct any misunderstanding politely
communicate in a positive professional manner
make people feel welcome
distinguish how customers really feel
adapt their communication style with different people
handle frustrations effectively
don’t take things personally

If they can’t do this, they potentially send your customers away unhappy and maybe unwilling to come back and this will ruin your reputation, your revenue and ultimately your business.

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