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The successful strategy for CRM implementation in your organization needs to be well thought out and aligned to your culture, business needs and problems. However, there is significant value to examining what has worked (and not worked) for others that have blazed this trail before you. This two-part post will address some of the guiding principles and success factors that you can use within your own organization if you are looking to implement some aspect of CRM or if you are finding a need to re-implement CRM after a failed effort.
First, I think it is helpful to establish that CRM is not software. Instead, it is a mindset and a culture that is reinforced by a set of defined business processes while being enforced, automated, and supported by software. This definition lends some comfort in knowing that the major hurdles are not technical, however, one must come to terms with the fact that leading people-change is much more difficult than building technology.
Affecting real change in people requires an understanding of what motivates them. Whether it is opportunity for advancement, meaningful work, money, power, or any other factor that motivates people, we must find a way to tap into those things for change to persist. For the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that money and the ability to close more deals are the key motivators of a sales force. Sales people are generally thought to be “coin operated” in terms of their motivations so the validity of this assumption should hold up.
Allowing sales people to make more money means that they need to close more deals, and your CRM program should be designed to allow them to do so. If the sales organization is convinced that this is the case, they will advocate the system, comply with the processes and show the results that align with your business goals. Simple, right? Well, although this is the logic, I think that a bit more exploration of the specific of “How” CRM will accomplish these goals is in order. After this discussion, you should feel comfortable answering the question “What’s in it for me?” The answers will help to refine your strategy to prevent your CRM implementation from simply being a scoreboard that allows management to see that is something happened, and instead become a tool that the sales organization uses as a tool to score (close deals).
Spend more time selling
The number one concern that I hear from sale people faced with using a new CRM system is that the overhead that comes from managing their work within a system is going to take away from the time they spend in front of customers. In fact, this should be one of the primary benefits of CRM to the end user. The “Automation” aspect of Sales Force Automation (SFA) is the foundation of any CRM tool. Sales people will have the ability to generate sales letters, access marketing collateral, RFP responses, product info, presentations, demos, and a host of other information at the click of a button. Without a tool in place and processes to support it, they are likely spending countless hours manually generating these outcomes or digging in multiple sources in an attempt to locate them.
Process guide/best practice deployment
A customized selling process needs to be defined from the bottom up and then the top down (not the reverse). The rainmakers in your organization are uniquely qualified to help define best practice and the CRM system will facilitate the deployment of those practices. Those in the sales organization who help to define the process by which the company will drive sales are often invigorated by the opportunity to have such an impact that the lesser performing folks have difficulty arguing with results. Furthermore, the CRM system will offer the ability to institutionalize best practice and centrally manage its effectiveness. When the time comes for a change, that change can be managed centrally as well.
Establish link between sales and marketing
Believe it or not, many organizations struggle to establish a synergy between the marketing and sales functions. If you are nodding your head, read on. Marketing should be seen as an ally to Sales because lead generation fuels opportunities for new deals. However, Sales is often frustrated by the unqualified leads that get passed on from marketing and reacts by dismissing the validity of those leads. In reverse, Marketing is frustrated by their inability to demonstrate their effectiveness because the Sales organization is not following up on the leads that they generate.
CRM can help bring science to this issue by introducing lead scoring and lead qualification criteria that leverage empirical data to support their effectiveness. The result is better leads that increase the potential for a sale. For the salesperson, the odds go up, and they find themselves working smarter rather than harder to bring in a new customer.
Tags: CRM Strategy
