Author Archives: Brian Gardner

Last week, I got this question from a webinar attendee while tying up my ROI from CRM webinar series with MDM: Are back-end or front-end KPIs more important? During my presentations, webinars and consulting jobs, I focus a lot on the front end of the sales cycle.

I recently read the most recent shareholder letter from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, where Bezos listed four elements he says are vital to maintaining a business’s vibrancy and relevance. Among the listed elements was “a skeptical view of proxies,”

As a sales manager for a major industrial distribution company for 15 years before founding SalesProcess360, I gained firsthand experience in establishing successful sales processes driven by customer relationship management.

We’ve all heard plenty of statistics about how the millennial generation is impacting distributors from the buyer side; the trends of millennials being more likely to buy products online and of millennials having growing influence in B2B buying have attracted plenty of attention.

I often tell companies searching for a CRM vendor that finding the right CRM partner – and building a long-lasting, successful relationship with them – is a lot like a marriage. Here are some tips to make that “marriage” strong

I spoke last week at the Sales GPS Executive Workshop in Austin, hosted by MDM and Indian River Consulting Group. I talked with distribution leaders there about how many distribution companies proudly consider themselves to be quoting machines. 

When consulting with distributors implementing CRM technology, I’m often involved in the training of the sales team. I like to start each sales team training session with this question: “Why do you think your company is moving forward with CRM?”

On Tuesday, I presented an MDM webcast on long-term CRM success, just two days after the Patriots won Super Bowl LI. I couldn’t resist drawing a parallel between a contributor to their success and a characteristic of successful sales teams: teamwork.

Managing CRM according to the status quo will only yield status-quo results. I’ll be presenting three focus areas you can focus on for long-term success with CRM in my upcoming Feb. 7 webcast with MDM.com. It’s free: Register today.

The most common CRM-related problems I’ve found for companies over the years revolve around sales processes. For example, most industrial sales organizations are giving nonqualified leads to the sales team with no follow-up process, resulting in wasted effort.