SalesProcess360 Blog

Many companies struggle to identify what an “opportunity” truly is. An opportunity is a qualified lead. It’s not rumor of potential business. It has real potential to move to the quote stage. (Learn what a qualified lead is in this blog post.)

Where do you get your leads from, and how do you know they are qualified?

Leads are the start of the sales cycle. They are part of what I call the front end of the sales process (along with opportunities). A lead is a broadly defined term that includes potential customers that may have shown interest in your products and services. Key word here is interest. At this stage, the lead is not yet qualified. You may refer to them as prospects.

In most industrial companies, the service group is an island. The team is in the shop or out in the field. And the interaction the service team has with the sales team is minimal.

But that’s a big missed opportunity.

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.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series of blogs on the most common reasons CRM does not deliver the ROI industrial distributors, reps and manufacturers are looking for.

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a system for sharing and leveraging your team’s data and knowledge. It’s about process, and technology helps to automate that. But as is frequently reported, many companies find they don’t get what they want out of a CRM system. I’ve seen this in my one-to-one work with industrial distributors, reps and manufacturers, and I have heard this from many of the professionals I’ve spoken with at industry events.

It probably comes as no surprise that one of the top reasons that CRM sometimes does not gain traction for industrial distributors, reps and manufacturers is culture.

Just as economists track leading indicators – such as the Purchasing Managers Index, durable goods orders and consumer sentiment – industrial companies should also have a leading indicator to better understand which direction their businesses are heading.

When I ask businesses what their competitive edge is, most businesses will respond with: Their people, their products, their excellent customer service or their experience.

If I asked your competitors the same question, how would they respond? Most likely, they’d answer the same way. Which means what you think is your competitive edge is not a competitive edge at all.