Fixing CRM (Pt. 1): Rename It.

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  don_hicks03/17/08 Report as spam
  1

  Renaming CRM

  SFA/CRM is a sales management tool, not a sales tool (although that was not the intent of the CRM software vendors). Therefore it should be renamed Sales Management System (SMS). Once sales managers learn to effectively use the tool, they can affect positive behavior and improved performance from the sales team. Increased compensation through improved sales performance will warm sales team appreciation for the software and the extra work it creates.
  
  One small insignificant point: SFA pre-dates the PC and represented applications designed by salespeople. Back in the days before email, SFA was a set of applications that managed sales letters. Mail-merge was born from these apps. A salesperson could easily manage and produce hundreds of sales letters, which indeed for its time was automation.

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  andrew2wyatt03/17/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Fixing CRM (Pt. 1): Rename It.

  Sales people will accept CAS "Computer Assistant Selling" better than CRM: it puts them into control over the sales process.
  Sales people need to build the realtionships and do the selling.
  They need all the informtion available:
  - the background information on the company and the contacts
  - the website visiting information for interests and behavior
  - the search terms used for interests and function or position.
  - the reaction's) upon communications and conversations by the communication induced visits.
  Different: LEADSExplorer for B2B lead generation and complex sales www.leadsexplorer.com

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  LTLewis03/18/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Fixing CRM (Pt. 1): Rename It.

  There is a company in Pittsburgh PA that has a relatively new take on CRM / SFA called Landslide Technologies. They are quick to differentiate themselves from CRM/SFA by calling themselves a "sales workstyle management" tool. I don't know much about it, but they claim that it is "built for salespeople, by salespeople."
  
  I once heard a consultant say that the biggest problem with CRM is that "it is the rare dog who will carry a stick with which it expects to be beaten." While this new software could be used as a stick if used improperly, their claim is that it delivers enough value to the sales rep to overide the potential risk.