Maven Sales Group Blog

Picture this scenario

Your sales team manually inputting leads and notes into Microsoft Excel or Outlook, keeping them off the phone. Microsoft Excel excels at everything related to spreadsheets, from calculations to graphing tools. Outlook not only serves as an email communications system, but also has built-in features that help users organize tasks, meetings, and notes. So it seems like it would make sense to use these as your sales tools of choice, right?

In 2016, the use of these systems for sales-oriented tasks were more common, as 40% of salespeople reported using these means to store leads and customer data. 

And now picture this scenario:

Having an automated system that tracks leads, stores customer data, creates detailed sales and marketing reports, and manages all email, phone, and meeting communications. That’s not even all of it. A system like this exists, and it’s an acronym you may have seen - CRM. CRM stands for customer relationship management and is commonly followed up with the word “system” after it. Between 2016 and now, CRM adoption by businesses has grown by 113%, with 64% of sales professionals reporting that they use CRM tools.

What are the benefits of using a CRM system?

Each business owner has its own unique sales goals, though one goal that applies to every business is to ensure that salespeople are not only being productive in their outreach but are also bringing in the necessary results for the business to operate. Salespeople play a crucial role in business growth and expansion. 

Think about salespeople are tasked with the responsibility of interacting and nurturing leads, and converting them to lifetime customers. This means that a salesperson must be detail-oriented and organized. If leads get lost, ultimately business gets lost. A proper tracking system needs to be in place to minimize errors and organize communications. 

Cue a CRM system, taking some familiar properties of Outlook and Excel to the next level by creating an inclusive user-friendly sales and marketing hub. The use of a CRM system can increase sales team productivity by up to 34%.

Where to start with your CRM implementation

Business owners - this is for you! With any kind of change comes a mixture of emotions. Replace feelings of anxiety and fear with peace and joy, as you (and your customers) feel more supported by implementing a CRM. 

So, let's get started and talk about where to begin with implementing a CRM. 

Think about what your business needs are. 

Are you a small or large company? Do you do more B2B or B2C outreach?
While CRMs platforms have the same mission to help make business transactions and interactions easier, they each have own unique features and functions. Once a decision has been made about which CRM to use, the next plan of action is to create a detailed sales playbook, in which will be later used when sales representatives outreach to their leads. 

Write down your business goals

It’s been backed by neuroscience: those who write down their goals have a higher success rate of achieving them. People who very vividly describe their written goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to accomplish them compared to those who don’t. Take a break away from the computer screen, pick up a pen, and get writing away on those goals. Don’t get frustrated if goals are not achieved by the time you want them to be. On your goal checklist, be sure to leave a section for the realistic timeline everything can be accomplished by.

Divide up the work among your managerial staff.

It’s important to have the managerial team in communication with a CRM consultant who can assist with setting up the platform, training the sales and marketing team, and strategizing and building out email campaigns and workflows. To make the transition to a CRM easier at first, put together a checklist of what each manager needs to review with the CRM consultant.

For example:

Mark (Business Owner): responsible for ensuring that all contacts and data are synced
Betsy (Marketing Manager): responsible for creating email copy for workflows or campaigns 
Tanya (Sales Director): responsible for organizing the sales team CRM training schedule

 Get your team familiar with the platform.

If you’re the Tanya of your company, then you’ll want to make sure your sales team knows how to navigate a CRM. This is where the additional support from a CRM consultant can come in. 

Keap and HubSpot are trending platforms within the CRM discussion today. They’ve both created a unique platform that simplifies communication with customers and leads. That’s why we suggest to keep those two in mind (and Maven Sales Group) when deciding to implement a CRM into your business.