As Sales Leaders, we need reliable data from our Salesforce CRM to help us make good business decisions yet many of us struggle to have our Sales team keep their activity current. We understand how inefficient the update process can be at times and we want our Salespeople focused on direct sales activity over administrative tasks but we need good data to do our jobs.
So how do we maintain a healthy balance between these 2 objectives?
Let’s look at 4 ways to create a collaborative effort with your Sales team to stay motivated to keep their sales data current while maintaining high levels of productive sales activity.
This is where Sales Leaders need to ensure the CRM data collection process is straightforward for Salespeople. A combination of automation tools, constant evaluation of required data fields and process simplification, will have a significant impact on sales results and productivity.
There are a number of questions to ask yourself to ensure you have an efficient CRM data capture process:
One area of CRM data capture that can be time-consuming is customer communications, especially email. Salespeople are using multiple social media channels and efficiently capturing those activities into your CRM can be a challenge. However, there are a number of applications available that can automate and streamline this process.
This is where sales leaders and high-performing salespeople take corrective action based on using historical data from their CRM. Some of the more common applications are:
The downside of using only this Hindsight application is that frequently motivates underperformers to over-invest in administrating their activity in Salesforce. Conversely, high-performers place little value on inputting more data as it is often overlooked by management to not disrupt their performance.
This is where Sales Leaders use real-time access to reliable activity data to coach their sales team on improving their performance. Some common applications of real-time sales data are:
The value of this activity is that it reinforces salespeople keeping their CRM activity data current. Seeing the value of how this information directly helps close more business reinforces keeping their activity data current.
This is where Sales Leaders earn their value at the Executive Leadership table. If you have real-time access to reliable, high-quality sales data you can have a significant impact on the growth plans of the business. Some common planning applications are:
Summary
The speed at which business moves today allows little hesitation in decision making and small margin for error in your future planning. So your success as a Sales Leader is heavily dependent on having real-time access to reliable data from your Salesforce CRM.
Getting your salespeople engaged in these 3 applications of CRM data helps them see the direct value in keeping their data current. But first, make sure you have an effective data capture process in place. There are also some terrific tools in the market such as ZynBit www.cirrusinsight.com that will also make this process more efficient. The key is to understand and communicate how the tools and data requirements will help your sales team make their number!
John Stopper, Chief Executive Officer of NorthStar Performance Strategies
John Stopper founded Northstar8 and created the Northstar Operational Revenue Model (NORM)TM to support his customers by delivering quantifiable metrics that provide optimal planning and execution of revenue generation strategies.
He has repeatedly demonstrated how to profitably grow global companies of varying sizes, and deploy capital cost-effectively throughout his 30-year career as CEO, board level executive, and entrepreneur within the high-tech industry. Additionally, John has integrated his technology industry knowledge, sales and marketing management skills, field operations experience with proprietary tools and services that would support senior executives in their revenue generation strategies.