CRM Implementation

MDM recently spoke with me about getting the most from your existing technology for its annual Distribution Trends Special Issue, out now at mdm.com. I spoke with Associate Editor Eric Smith about the importance of starting with processes, not systems, when considering new technology.

So you’ve spent the right amount of time and money to clean up your data, and have had a successful CRM implementation.

But remember: The work doesn’t stop the minute you hit Go.

Before implementing a new CRM, most companies think they have their arms around their data, but when they really dive in, they realize their data is all over the place. Multiple salespeople with the same contacts, spelling issues, no connections between contacts and companies – you name it.

I’m excited to announce my new book, ROI from CRM: It’s About Sales Process, Not Just Technology, is now available from MDM. Order your copy here.

My goal with this book was to provide simple yet effective strategies to get the most from customer relationship management. When you read this book, you will learn how to approach CRM as a system for leveraging knowledge throughout your business, and gain an edge with a revamped sales process and engaged team.

One of the most common reasons that CRM fails for industrial sales organizations is because they try to do too much, too quickly.

I encourage you to start slow and grow. Don’t try to do everything at once.

There’s more to success with CRM than your initial investment in a system. In fact, the cost in time and money can be up to four to seven times that of the software itself, depending on what you want to roll out to your team.

As discussed on this blog, it’s important to start slow and grow (see #5 in this blog post), and ease your company and team into CRM. That means picking just a few priorities at most to focus on at each phase of your implementation. When you feel like your team has embraced the functionality in Phase 1, move to the next phase and so on.

Many industrial distributors, reps and manufacturers tend to view any kind of technology investment as a cost. Part of that stems from the need to budget the investment, which is typically done under the eye of the CFO.

In the past few blog posts on SalesProcess360, we’ve addressed the sometimes difficult transition companies have to make when they decide to move forward on a CRM project.

In this post, we talk about the importance of getting what I call your “top guns” involved in CRM implementations.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series of blogs on the most c­ommon reasons that CRM does not deliver the ROI industrial distributors and manufacturers expect. Read Part 1 here.