CRM Implementation

I’ve found through my talks at different meetings typically 70-80% of those in attendance are using some type of CRM within their company. And that only 10% feel they are getting ROI out of their CRM. One of the factors that lead to success is setting the stage for WHY from the beginning…including getting management buy in.
Visibility is a key component in showing “why” you’ve chosen a CRM. Think about this…we all have visibility of the back end of our sales, via the ERP we are using to quote and process our orders. BUT, do we have visibility on the Front-End? This is where the CRM tool comes in to play and it is huge in helping to manage visibility of our leads and opportunities.

One of the tools within a CRM is your dashboards and these offer outstanding visibility and help support “why” with your sales team! In my experience CRM success and visibility comes from creating a dashboard that is your leading indicator and promoting this to your sales team as such. How are you managing your business? How do you know if you are reaching your sales goals? Most companies will answer, the back-end bookings and order history data. That’s good…keep doing it, but within CRM we can create what I call Load Input Goals. That’s where we’ll set up a formula to determine what kind of input do you need to reach your sales goals. There is a formula that I use and we can imbed that into the CRM and set up a dashboard to view that.

I am a huge believer on trending input…how old is the data in our pipeline? In the dashboard example above their total pipeline $ which is great to track, but that does not tell the entire story. The opportunity input trend show how the team is performing against Load Input Goal. If you are trending below the red line (Load Input goal) this is your leading indicator for future bookings. Let the sales team manage this! In doing this, you are giving them the tool to keep their eye on the ball. I believe it’s not just about “pipeline”, it’s managing the trend for the load input goal, I think a great dash board to manage from.

New Load Input vs. Pipeline:

Pipeline is NOT the same as New Load Input!

Pipeline = Total Open Opportunities

New Load Input = NEW Opportunity identified

Need to put focus on New Load Input #’s.

Sales Goals = Base Business + (NLI x Hit Rate)

*Hit rate is the moving target. I have asked a lot in the industrial market “what do you think the it is?” and I typically get an average of 25-35% as Hit Rate. So, if you really are not sure, start with that…it’s not an exact science.

You should be getting buy in from your salesforce if you work with them to come up with the Hit Rate. By doing this, you are giving them a tool to own and grade themselves. Get the sales team involved early in this! Allow them to have visibility of their business and drive it. During an association webinar a member offered this insight, “If the CRM dashboard and measurements aren’t treated in the same respect as your operational dashboard and KPI’s on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis you will not get out of it what you could”.  I could not agree more! Visibility is a key component to success.

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Many companies, including industrial manufacturers, distributors and representatives 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.

Some industrial sales organizations are getting great ROI on their CRM investments, while others continue to struggle. What factors separate these two groups?

To find the answer, SalesProcess360 has partnered with Modern Distribution Management to administer a short survey to distributors, manufacturers and manufacturers’ reps.

Modern CRM systems collect large volumes of data that can be used to better manage people, products, business opportunities and more. Without the help of filters and views to make sense of these data, though, it would be overwhelming if not impossible to draw any useful conclusions from them. 

The implementation of a new CRM software program can feel like a full-time job. While it may be tempting to push through the implementation quickly to move on to other projects, I highly recommend you roll out your CRM project slowly and grow it from there. One great way to do this is with a pilot, but there is a wrong and a right way to conduct one.

Last month, I conducted a webinar on ROI from CRM in partnership with Modern Distribution Management (available on-demand here). Among the questions I received: “What tips do you have for bringing the executive team on board after purchase?”

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.

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.