By There's no silver bullet for accelerating sales growth but a smart CRM system that helps to integrate your sales and marketing activity is a good start. This can help you to make big strides in empowering people and defining process - as well as achieving an efficient and successful B2B sales process.
The sales landscape
The advent of search and social media means sales are now more about research and careful customisation than knocking on doors and “spray and pray.” But different doesn’t always mean better.
Even though changing times necessitate new approaches, some salespeople merely transfer their old methods to modern channels. It’s not totally their fault. Change is hard, and sometimes, scary. But not to fear - in this bold, new world of sales, the right CRM system can not only enable salespeople to update their practices but also give them a competitive edge.
What is a CRM?
A CRM, by its very name, is a system for managing relationships with your customers.
Even today, many businesses' customer details -- who they are, how they’ve interacted with your organisation -- are spread out in many different places. As a business grows, it quickly becomes necessary to have one central place where all of this information lives.
With one central place to organise all the details of your leads and customers, a CRM is an easy-to-use tool for everyone on your team, allowing them to gain insight into the status of every customer relationship and to provide a snapshot of sales performance.
How can it make a sales process efficient?
ERADICATE DATA ENTRY
Sales reps dislike manual data entry - that shouldn't be a huge surprise to you. Research by HubSpot found that 50% of a sales team's time is wasted searching for content and working on CRM-related and administrative tasks. A CRM can cut out unnecessary data entry, getting your sales reps back doing what they do best - selling.
SPEND LESS TIME PROSPECTING
How much time is lost due to your sales team scrolling through endless lists of prospects that simply aren't interested in what you have to offer? A CRM connected to your marketing activity can help to identify those who have shown an interest in your business - whether they have been to your website or follow you on social media. This information provides sales teams with greater insight and a warmer lead to chase.
Don't miss a communication
Many modern CRMs include task modules that automatically alert sales reps on who to follow up, and when. They can also be used to log communications with all prospects, whether they haven't picked up the phone or they've recently visited the website.
Forecast sales pipeline
A CRM system can help salespeople avoid boom and bust cycles by visualising their deal flow. Instead of trying to infer meaningful knowledge from a sea of identical rows and columns, reps can immediately recognise stages in which they have too many opportunities - or too few.
Easily train new sales reps
Scaling the sales strategy through word-of-mouth causes trouble. A CRM can help to firm up the sales process for your current team and colleagues that are recruited afterwards, providing insight into what the "stages" of the sales process are, and how prospects are categorised.
Sell better and faster
For a more efficient sales process, a CRM is a crucial part of your sales and marketing strategy. We've identified what else you can do to sell better and faster to your target market in our free guide The Definitive Guide To Selling. Take a read and see what you can achieve today.
