4 Reasons Why CRM Helps Sales People be Successful

Louise Alderton, 14 May 2011

Recently, there has been a lot of hype around Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and technology for business. Although the concept of nurturing customer relationships have been around for decades there has been an increasing trend over the past five or so years for technology systems to manage this. I hear you saying – “So what? What does this all mean for me as a Salesperson?” Here are four reasons why CRM helps sales people be successful…

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1. Knowledge is Power

You’ve probably heard the saying, but when it comes to selling this becomes quite true. A successful salesperson knows his stuff – products, prospects and customers. With a CRM system you have the ability to create rich profiles around each customer, contact, prospect and even products. Dashboards can provide a visual representation of information important to you such as your sales pipeline, leads and opportunities. While the product and knowledge base tools provide a wealth of material for your disposal. Easy accessibility to this information means that you meet with your prospect prepared and researched ready to progress the sale.

2. Focused Efforts

Successful sales people are devoted goal setters. Their targets are clear and their approach is well planned. Goals set are specific, motivating, achievable yet challenging, relevant to them, and time-framed. Once these goals are set they determine how they will reach them and take action towards them every day. Successful sales people are also very busy, so to keep at the top of your game it is important that you focus on those activities that are most critical. CRM has tools to manage all of this effectively.

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3. Time Efficiency

A big component of CRM is the ability to automate things, you can find methods that work and then save these as templates and workflows so that they can be repeated. This can save you huge amounts of time spent on those mundane admin tasks so you can concentrate on what you do best – selling. Play to your strengths. CRM is a master of the art of delegation; you can easily assign tasks to others giving you more face time with your customers. As a sales person a central, accessible and mobile system is such a powerful thing – allowing you the flexibility to work anywhere, anytime and effectively.

4. Effective Communication

The nature of a CRM system is to keep the customer relationship positive and ultimately keep them coming back for more. Too often sales people let their customers slip off the radar once a sale is complete. But remember the Pareto Principle, 80% of business comes from 20% of your clients. It is important to continue to communicate and keep customers happy for long term benefits. Follow up is very important, successful sales people keep in touch with their clients. They know that consistent contact will contribute to this 80% of business so they use a variety of approaches to accomplish this. With easy account planning and automation of follow up activities through comprehensive workflows you know the right person to be talking to and no opportunity is missed.

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* Image from: http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/12/6-essentials-for-turning-sales-page-visitors-into-clients/
** Image from: http://www.marksinvestingblog.com/2011/01/the-best-goal-setting-tips-ever-from-greg-secker/
*** Image from: http://themagicalsecrets.com/WorldProfit/your-lousy-communication-skills-are-hurting-yourself-and-others-heres-what-you-need-to-do-at-once/