Technology Can Be Bad for Sales

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  bnetgeo06/11/07 Report as spam
  1

  Technology - somethings never change

  I somewhat disagree. The managers who feel they need to ask the lower minons about everything are the personality types that 25 years ago would tie up your secretary (remember them?) writing lots of little call back requests on little pink notepads. Its more a personality problem, than a technology problem.
  
  Don't get me wrong. I hate all this technology. There was a time when I could relax at home or in my hotel room. No longer.
  
  As for email, I have instituted a simple protocol that has helped me and the organization I work for a great deal with a few simple rules.
  
  1.) Only people with action items go on the "To" line. Everyone else is on the CC line. If you are only sharing info, only send it to the most quintesential people on the issues front line and CC everyone else.
  
  2.) Create a email rule that moves all email where you are on the CC line to a different folder. This folder has a lower "read" priority.
  
  3.) If the email you are sending is that dang crisis important, then do it the old fashion way, call the person or walk into their office in talk. yes, talk. Its much more efficient than email. Most company telephones also support conference calls. Learn how to use it.
  
  4.) For reports that come out daily (sales for the day, etc.) ask the sender to use the same subject line and then create a rule to parse that information into it seperate folder.
  
  Well that's my two cents. I get about 150 emails a day from up and down the food chain. I have 11 folders under my inbox to try to keep life straight. Right now my Spam box, which has a rolling 7 day delete window, has 756 emails!!!!. The other folders with a 3 month archive window have about 100 unread work emails. I've been using this system for 3 years and haven't been burned yet. My inbox (things where I'm on the "to" line) is clean.
  George

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/11/07 Report as spam
  2

  Rules for email

  Seriously, dude, those rules for email ought to be printed up and posted on the wall of every cubicle in the country. Great work!
  Geoffrey

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  Jeffryh06/11/07 Report as spam
  3

  Lazy people will never work

  People are the problem not the systems. CRM allows my ADD mind to be more productive, more effective. And I use CRM to make my team more productive and effective. Without it my job would be much harder and me and my team would be less effective. Historically I've noticed the folks who gripe about technology are the ones who use it to cover thier @sses instead of just doing the job at hand.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/11/07 Report as spam
  4

  Managers and CRM

  I'm not at all surprised that you, as a sales manager, like CRM. It's a tool for sales managers. It's not a tool for sales reps. It makes your job easier. In most cases, it makes their job more difficult.
  
  I have a question for you, and I hope you'll answer:
  
  If you had a top sales rep that was booking three times the business of any other rep, and that rep simply refused to use CRM, would you fire her?

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  Jeffryh06/11/07 Report as spam
  5

  Top Rep......

  I'd never fire someone booking 3x above everyone else. However, the first month that rep's revenue is off the mark I'd be all over them to show me what they've done to turn it around. Sales is a numbers game, if you don't have the numbers show, you better be able to account for your time with activities. And if your good you'll make those activities matter, which feed your forecast.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/12/07 Report as spam
  6

  CRM

  Well, it sounds to me like you've got the right priorities. It's not that CRM is a bad idea in and of itself. But the potential for abuse is enormous. And a lot of time is wasted in most sales environments fiddling with technology that's largely irrelevant to the sales process.
  Geoffrey

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  bnetgeo06/12/07 Report as spam
  7

  Sales Managers and CRM's

  Wow! you have to be kidding to think a CRM is only for Sales Managers. If you are not using a CRM I would say you are ineffeciently working your territory, not to mention destroying the company for which you work.
  
  Yes I would (and have) dismiss(ed) a good sales person for not using the company CRM. No sales person is an island. Its takes a whole company to make you successful day in and day out, month after month after month, year after year. Sure you can jump jobs and be "successful" selling, maybe even over plan, but you have to move on to keep up that pace because the rest of the company is drowning in your wake. I"ve seen many good "flash in the pan" sales people walk out the door because we ask them to participate is cleaning up their mess (false promises, incorrect lead times, loosing demo equipement, setting false expectations, etc., etc. etc. ) Making plan by deception is not selling, its being a flim-flam man! Please, go work for my competition!
  
  We use our CRM for product planning, forecasting, picking out unhappy customers to call about product changes, marketing target mailers, targeting key accounts, keeping an updated customer testimonial reference list, resolving customer complaints, etc., etc. It is a core tool.
  
  You can't sustain sales growth over years if the rest of the company is not in tow.
  
  Thanks,
  
  George

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  mike.tressler@...06/12/07 Report as spam
  8

  I agree CRM is good for business...

  Nicely said! Any salesperson who does not make use of CRM is leaving money on the table.
  
  I take exception to the article's characterization of executives as "clueless" and sales perople as "pros". I used to be a sales person and now I am an executive. I found that 80% or more of salespeople are anything but professional. That is why now, as an executive, I have to send mystery shoppers around and standardise processes. The data collected proves that most people are not doing what is asked of them. I am concerned with the customer much more than a so called "sales pro's" ego. The goal here is to treat the customer right so they return and bring their friends. If I have to get rid of sales people who won't get on board with the program, I will. From my perpective, it is about the customer experience and overall salesforce productivity rather than any individual sales person thinking he knows better than the rest of the company.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/12/07 Report as spam
  9

  CRM and Managers

  All you're doing with this kind of comment is proving my point -- that CRM is tool that managers love and sales pros hate. If CRM were helping them make sales, they'd be wearing the freakin' T-shirt. It doesn't, so they think CRM sucks.
  
  Sounds to me like you think CRM is the bomb because helps you keep an eye on your reps -- when you're not sending out spies to check up on them, that is. What's funny is you don't get that the reason you don't get trustworthy people is that you're incapable of trust.
  
  You're hiring second-raters -- because only second-rate sales reps will work for a control-freak -- and then getting your shorts all in a twist because they act like second-raters.
  
  Secret shoppers. My god, what next?

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  vidal@...06/13/07 Report as spam
  10

  Sales reps need to understand how CRM can help!

  Of course sales reps hate CRM, I used to hate it myself!. We've just implemented CRM, using a methodology based on Solution Selling and what I found most difficult is to make them keep it updated. I think sales reps hate it because they don't exploit the information and don't understand how CRM can help them to improve their sales.
  
  During our 1-to-1 sessions we've used CRM to analize monthly, quarterly and yearly pipeline, planned weekly activities to advance opportunities in the sales cycle and setting a timeframe to reach specific targets to make the sales plan. Surprisingly, they found it really helpful and promise to keep it up to date, so it can help them in the weekly analisys and the next activities needed to improve the "yield revenue" and the chance to make their numbers.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/13/07 Report as spam
  11

  CRM and productivity

  You see, here's a perfect example of how CRM really can help sales pros to be more effective. But the approach needs to be lighthanded -- and the system can't be used as a justification for unreasonable demands. Example: if sales management is lying to top management about forecasts, and beating up on sales reps who can't make unrealistic forecasts, and using the CRM system as a trigger for beating them up, the sales reps will use the CRM system to perpetuate the lies, just to keep from getting in trouble.
  
  broken organization + bad management + CRM = hell on earth
  sane organization + good management + CRM = increased sales

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine06/12/07 Report as spam
  12

  CRM

  I hear you... but I notice that there aren't a lot of sales rep jumping onto the board to talk about how much they like CRM. So far we've heard from sales managers who like CRM. But that's kinda par for the course, as is the assertion that reps who don't like CRM must have something to hide. That's Big Brother talk. What's missing in that equation is that people who know that they're not trusted (because somebody is always looking over their shoulder) resent the lack of trust and find ways to subvert the system. "Big Brother" attitudes create deception that might not have been there in the first place.