CRM - March 2008 - (Page 41)

Driving Home Discipline tions, it’s easier to hide information and be off the books—but then you’re not operating efficiently,” he says. “Smaller organizations have more visibility across the entire process, because salespeople are managing more than a product line.” But in either case, information hidden in offline systems and Filofaxes is information that the business can’t use, and that the “owner” can lose or forget. Convincing buyers that hidden information is bad gets complicated when they won’t admit—or worse, don’t even know—there’s a problem. If the prevailing business methods show reports being filed regularly and forecasts being kept up-to-date, a sales executive could become complacent. What the exec might not know is that, without good CRM, those figures are not reliable. “Too many salespeople think once a month,‘How do I feel about the forecast today?’ and then fill out a spreadsheet based on that,” Maximizer’s Callaghan says.“It’s compounded because the forecasts are so subjective: If Johnny is perpetually optimistic, he’ll forecast at 90 percent, and Sally the pessimist will forecast at 20 percent, even though Sally always closes more actual business than Johnny.” Suddenly, regular reports are almost meaningless. Good CRM takes the subjectivity out of reporting, and often takes the work of reporting out of human hands entirely. Dashboards and reporting engines work on what’s actually happening in each salesperson’s opportunities, not his feelings about them. “Real-time forecasting provides useful updates for management, and for [salespeople] themselves,” Callaghan says. “Instead of scribbles on paper notes, they can use a BlackBerry to update the figures, at the push of a button.” The CRM sale should be simple enough if the seller knows what the buyer needs—and that’s easy when the buyer is another salesperson. The best tactic is usually the consultative sale.“The worst thing you can do is pitch, pitch, pitch without understanding or listening,” Fogel says. “Salespeople like to be listened to.” Indeed, when the job involves pitching to prospects and trying to overcome reticence— or coaching a sales team to do it in order www.destinationCRM.com D iane Corrado, vice president of CT Corporation, a Wolters-Kluwer company, knows about deploying CRM for salespeople. The company provides support services for registered agents, law firms, and other entities—making sure those customers know what’s going on with their own clients, and ensuring information reaches accountants or courthouses on time. To ensure accountability in such a high-volume and high-pressure business, Corrado implemented Salesforce.com for CT and continues to roll it out to satellite offices as they are opened or acquired—in fact it’s almost all she does now. CT currently has more than 1,500 employees in 43 cities across the United States. “I always have somebody who refuses,” Corrado says, referring to the one holdout in every office who doesn’t want to change his ways. Getting that person to reconsider is her specialty. “Using the CRM system is a condition of employment, but I don’t like to play that card,” she says. It’s better to convince salespeople that the new way is actually better than to force it on them. “Sales DNA is lazy, a little arrogant, conditioned to turn the wheel and get a dollar,” she says. “Ask them if they’d rather turn the wheel once for the dollar, or turn it 40 times. Or ask if they’d like to be able to turn it faster.” One winning move is Corrado’s “show-me” tactic: “I have them walk me through their process. They show me paper clips, Deal-a-Meal cards, email organizers, all kinds of arrangements,” she says. “I ask, ‘What if you needed contact information for the corporate paralegal at this company?’ or something, and see how fast they can produce it. However long it takes, I can counter them by saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you had that information already on screen, without hunting for it?’” Wagers work also, Corrado says. “I bring out two stopwatches and say, ‘You write a proposal, and I’ll write a proposal. You do it your way, and I’ll use [the CRM system]. If you’re faster, you don’t have to use the system.’ When I finish in four minutes and they’re still working after 40, they get the point.” Other approaches Corrado uses include: “Ever call a prospect who says, ‘Call me back in three months’? What if you could actually do it in exactly three months, to the day, without effort?” “With CRM, you can see if your massive number of contacts are working the way you think they should—and look at new channels to reach the target.” “If you use the system, I can promise to pay you 15 days sooner, and eliminate 100 percent of your incidental requests, shadow accounting, and compensation disputes.” Showing the value applies to managers and executives as well. “We don’t answer questions for senior management anymore; we send the link to the answer, forcing them into Salesforce.com,” Corrado says. She even has a technique for those last few remaining Luddites who really don’t get computer: “I’ll print them the dashboard a few times to show how useful it is, and before long I’m getting urgent calls if I forget to send them ‘the thing with the fuel gauges and stuff.’ Then I teach them how they can get the information themselves, live instead of printed.” These tactics get workers on board. To keep them honest, there’s the Offenders List. “Salespeople have until Monday at 8 a.m. to enter all their numbers from the week before. Anybody who doesn’t get it done goes onto a list I post on my door,” Corrado says. “Those people will be on a conference call with me at 8 a.m. Tuesday to explain why they made the list. Vacation or illness is a valid excuse, but it’s got to be booked through the Salesforce.com HR system. If it’s not in there, it doesn’t exist.” And Corrado is strict: “You must have 100 percent compliance or the system won’t work for you. Information you don’t put into the system is information you’re keeping secret from the company.” One way to ensure compliance? “Sometimes you have to fire your first victim, to show you’re serious.” —ML http://Salesforce.com http://Salesforce.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - March 2008

CRM - March 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Re-shoring Contact Centers NetSuite’s Sweet Ride Takes Another Turn SaaS X.0? destinationCRM Dashboard Retailers Dream Big Detroit: Driven to Distraction Required Reading The Markets Within the Masses In Search of... Selling CRM to Your Sales Force Quixtar’s Quick Fix Travelocity’s New Traveling Companion Chasing Down First-Call Resolution Governing Better Marketing Secret of My Success Re: Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - March 2008

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