Yak CRM

I have been going to a new gym close to work for about 6 months.  When I went during the first week in January it was more crowded than I had ever seen.  I did expect a small bump with people trying to get their New Years workout resolution off to a good start.  I mentioned to the employee at the desk that I guess this will last for a few months and he said, “Not a few months, 2 weeks”. 

It shows how quickly people give up on things that require more effort at the beginning.  If you can force yourself to stay with your workout plan, in a pretty short time frame you will find a rhythm and start seeing results.  That fuels your desire to continue and push even harder. 

The same is true for CRM.  It is harder at the beginning.  You have to do more work in the beginning and not really seeing any immediate results.  Once the reps and the system reach a more critical mass many of the benefits are seen.  The reps would have figured out how to use the system based on how they work, more mundane tasks are completed and a lot of useful data is now easily available.  The results and benefits are now being seen.

It is just a matter of getting all your CRM users through the New Year Resolution collapse.

Tags: CRM Basics

How would you like to reduce the number of clicks a rep does during the day by 25%. That can equate to 100 or more clicks in just a day. It is a huge productivity gain for both neophytes and expert users.

Key words/drop-down phrases are the answer. They are easy to setup, dramatically reduce the amount of typing a rep has to do, and enforces consistency. It allows a rep to use two clicks to enter a full phrase or word. Therefore, unless the word they wanted to use had only one letter they are ahead of the game. As a byproduct, it allows you to enforce consistency for reporting and analysis. You do not have to worry about people entering things all different ways.

In the end, you want reps to quickly record the information and move on. Drop-down key words and phrases allow you to provide that. Many CRM solutions have this available. You just need to ensure they are turned on, have the right information and show the reps how easy it is to use. Imagine 100 less clicks each day, 2100 a month, 25,200 a year, all per person. Worth the effort to put in place? I think so.

Example of drop-down key phrases:

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Example of drop-down words:

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Tags: crm, crm productivity

In a previous post, I talked about the importance of segmenting your customers. It is one of the most important pieces of information for the sales team and the company. By staying diligent, it will allow your sales and marketing teams the ability to do very focused marketing. It also makes sure you are staying focused on your core customer base as well as spot new types of customers.

Segmentation options should be centrally maintained to ensure consistency. To make it easy for reps and marketing it should be a pick list to choose from when entering or editing a new customer or company record. Below is an example of how it would work. Most CRM solutions allow for some level of segmentation. However, company policy drives it.

Once entered, doing mailings and events to specific segments are easy. But you also get to see pipelines and forecasts in terms of your segments. This allows the sales team and management to be more proactive based on certain tends you are seeing in specific segments.

As I mentioned while most CRM solutions will support this field it takes a strong company policy to ensure people are properly entering it. Making it a required field when creating or editing a customer record will help.

Segment Pick List Example

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Tags: crm, CRM Basics

I have always believed the key to success with CRM lies in the training and follow-up support you give your reps. Yes, it is important to deliver a tool that is easy to use, has features that help increase productivity and integrated business processes that reps and support people need to do their jobs. However, without providing the right training and a place they can go to get questions answered you will fight a losing battle. The first 30 days will determine the success or failure of your CRM solution. It is during this time opinions are formed, and stances taken. The mob will be forming for better or worse. Whether you have the perfect system or not with training and support, you can overcome most of the problems. You want to overcome the usage of the system very quickly. It is easy to fix features and functions in the solution. A bad perception of use is not.

The best training you can provide is scenario based. How do you see a rep using the system from the time he starts his/her day. How does he use the system when he gets a new lead? This really helps put context around the new solution. People like routines they can follow.

You only retain about 25% of classroom training. Therefore, it is important to schedule 4 weekly 1 hour sessions where users can log in and ask questions that they have from the week. You should schedule these sessions for the first month. I would also add in advanced topics and shortcuts in weeks 3 and 4.

Doing remote follow-up training is very inexpensive and easy to accomplish. It could literally be the difference between success or failure.

Tags: Add new tag, CRM Basics, Training

It is not exactly hedging but adjusting your revenue based on past rep performance is a way to ensure you are not over or under stating your revenue targets too much. How this works is simple. You assign each rep a weight factor based on how they have forecasted in the past. Do they have a tendency to overstate and under deliver or understate and over deliver? Each rep likes to handle how they report their deals differently. So for example, a rep that usually is under their revenue forecast by 10% you would assign a factor of 90%. If a rep consistently is over their forecasted revenue you can assign 105% factor.

When running forecast reports you will want to see two columns for revenue. One is the stated forecast on the opportunity and the other column will show the adjusted based on the factor of the rep. To get the adjusted revenue numbers just multiply the revenue of the deal by the rep factor. This is easily done automatically for you when creating or updating your opportunity. It should be carried as an additional field on the opportunity for easy reporting. For companies that use sales forecasts for any type of capacity planning this will help get it much closer.

Remember the past is a window to the future. Always try to leverage the past to better predict your future business.

Rep Factor is part of their profile

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How it shows on the opportunity

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How it shows on forecast reports

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Tags: CRM Basics, crm productivity

It is the one year anniversary of the blog and what a year it has been. While there are differing opinions on how long it will take the economy to recover, what is certain is that businesses will remain lean for a long time to come. Many companies have continued to show profits even with reduced revenues because of the cost cutting they have done. It has shown they can do more with less.

In addition, our financial system is going through the painful process of deleveraging itself from years of excess. And like banks, we also need to deleverage ourselves where we can. We are online and connected to work, friends, family, and news 24 hours a day. We need to find places in our lives where we can simplify things.

The analogy I have used about shaving a Yak to explain why projects like CRM projects fail continues to be true (see October 6, 2008 post). We need to always remember not to over complicate things. Start off small and slowly add-on features as you need them. Don’t anticipate everything you need upfront. Look at today and ask yourself what is really needed to help our reps get back 10% of their time. What kind of tool today do they need in order to help them meet their quota? What kind of tool can we expect them to want to use?

Try to visualize what the feeling would be if you were standing in front of a Yak with a razor trying to figure out how to shave him. If you look at your CRM project and feel overwhelmed you need to reevaluate your strategy.

And remember, deleveraging is not just for our banks.

Tags: CRM Basics, crm productivity

When tracking an opportunity in CRM most systems allow you to track not only the sales cycle step but what your feeling is on closing the deal. This is very important and shouldn’t be overlooked. When looking at deals in a forecast, rating them by Gut is at least as important if not more as where you are in the sales step. Many times you can be early on in the sales cycle and the rep can get a good sense of the likelihood of winning the deal. Also if this is an existing customer with add-on business, you can have a large spread between sales step and gut.

Tracking Gut along with the sales cycle provides the team a really clear picture of the opportunity. It allows you to better balance resources and ensures you have the right strategies in place.

Forecast Report with Gut factor

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Tags: crm, CRM Basics

One of the best things about using a good CRM solution is the ability to easily keep your team as well as management informed about what is going on with your customers.  It ensures that everyone is on the same page even though they were not part of a meeting or away working with other customers.  It ensures consistent messaging which is one of the top objectives for most companies. 

CRM should automatically inform your team or anyone else you want about customer interactions.  You should be able to simply fill out a call report or opportunity update and the system will automatically notify your team.  The email that everyone gets should allow for a brief note you can add and a link to where the information you updated is stored.  No one should have to deal with searching their inbox for customer information that was forwarded to them.  It should all be stored in one central location, associated with a customer, and a link to it.

Some solutions take it one step further by allowing discussion threads.  This allows people to easily participate remotely and foster a more collaborative environment. 

If your CRM solution does not have a notify function that integrates with your email system, it is worth having IT put it in.  It is not hard to do but will require some small workflow coding and integration with the companies name and address book. 

It does require a little Shaving of the Yak but well worth the effort.

Below are examples on how to integrate notifications and the email people would receive.

Sample Call Report with notification

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Sample email to a customer with notification

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Sample email a person gets with link to record

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Tags: CRM Basics, crm productivity

This past weekend I experience what I am afraid is becoming more of the norm. I have gone to this same bagel store for many years. I would get a toasted bagel with whitefish salad. I loved it because the salad had large pieces of whitefish perfectly blended with herbs and just the right amount of mayonnaise.

I guess due to a drop in business they changed the preparation of the salad. Now when you order it you get this pile of pureed slop on the bagel. Gone are the chunks of fresh whitefish. Gone is the right mix of mayonnaise and herbs. They are trying to take the same amount of fish and create a lot more salad from it. They added a lot more mayonnaise and put everything in a blender. But they thought giving more would make up for the near soup they put on the bagel.

It seems a lot of companies think that people would rather have more of a bad thing than less of a great thing. Is this true? I know I will never go back for that sandwich. I believe most people would be fine (or not even notice) a little less salad per serving. Getting so much more of something fair diminishes the quality and value we expect from American business. But worse than that for companies is that it erodes their customer loyalty. I will no longer go to the store and when the economy turns around again and they can go back to making the sandwich the way they always did, I will have found an alternative.

Customers understand the difficulties vendors are under. I don’t believe getting a few ounces less for the same price while this crisis’s is in place would be an issue. Organizations need to be very careful not to alienate their best customer base by implementing changes to save money. There are many ways to get to the numbers you need.

CRM is great for not only understanding your customers buying habits and key issues but a great way to communicate with them easily. Let your customers know beforehand the cost cutting changes you are putting in place that might affect them. Some might choose another alternative in the short run but will value your integrity and caring for them. As soon as you can provide the same level of service again they will be back. Mass mailings are an easy way to get the message out to individuals. They will be happy to know you are doing your part to stay in business and maintain profitability. They need you around.

Tags: crm

With the passing of Walter Cronkite I got to thinking about what it means to be “the most trusted man in America”. How is it possible that one man delivering the news can capture the attention of everyone in America and much of the world?

Before Walter Cronkite the news was sort of homogenized. Bundled up into little easily-absorbed bites. All the news stations were doing the same thing. Walter Cronkite changed all that for CBS. He delivered the news with vigor, compassion and a sense of purpose. He knew the American people could deal more effectively with the actual facts rather than some watered down variations. And he was able to connect with the millions of viewers one soul at a time.

Walter Cronkite’s success came down to 4 things: credibility, sincerity, loyalty and approachability. His quest for the facts, his caring about getting the job done right, his devotion to family and America, and his clear opinions and delivery is what made him the most trusted man in America.

As business people, if we follow Water Cronkite’s example our customers will always want to do business with us. If we know the facts, present clear ideas, prove our case and show them we care, we have done our job and customers and prospects will appreciate it. They might not always agree with our counsel but they know they can trust us.

George Clooney said he hates America without Walter Cronkite. We all know he does not mean that but the world has lost one of its best parts. We should all strive to carry a little Walter in everything we do and slowly we will make our world a better place.

Tags: CRM Basics