I’ve been riding my cool SUV for more than 5 years now. I call it my thinking car because it was an upgrade from my regular sedan with super smart blind-spot monitoring, touch lock, and more. It’s been a decent ride. But am I using all the features that can help me be more efficient and smart in all weather conditions? The answer is a big NO, even though I attended a 2-hour session to learn about the features and functionalities.
The reality is, I didn’t take time to practice implementing them, and I’ve been driving my SUV almost like my old sedan–minus the blind-spot monitoring.
I don’t even have the app installed on my phone to use auto-start and auto-heat features for freezing winters!
This is similar to something I’ve discovered recently with many sales teams. They struggle to optimize their CRM tool – using the new tools in the same old ways and not leveraging the COOL features to take their process to the next level.
I have a quick question: Is your CRM set up to send you a weekly report about your sales reps and pipelines, and which accounts should your sales team focus on in the coming week to close them?
If the answer is yes! You are in the right place with your CRM. If not, you are using your CRM almost like an old sedan.
Let’s do a simple exercise around setting up Sales Pipelines in a CRM:
- Write down the top 5 clients you closed last year
- What were the sales stages? Not the sales process but the stages to convert the lead into a deal
- Attach keywords to each stage and describe it – such as ‘Pre-qualified,’ ‘Discovery call,’… etc
- Add these custom sales stages to your CRM under their “Lead Status” features. It might be called something else based on the CRM
- Change the “Lead Status” per sales stage, allotting each stage in the pipeline
- Set up automated reporting to deliver reports to your inbox every week
You can go a step further and start using behavior scoring to develop a “cold to hot” lead scorecard for your sales funnel. Be sure to read about the AI features that are being added to many popular CRMs!
Just like many other things, we need to commit ourselves to continuously learning and implementing new features in the technologies we are most familiar with.
If you are getting stuck on where to get started or have a question about what capabilities your CRM might have, Let’s chat.
