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"Customer Relationship Management Systems; Success Depends Upon These 3 Factors"Don't blame the customer relationship management systems if the cold-calling, sales-process isn't working. The crux of the problem is in the failure of the Sales and Marketing groups to clearly articulate the steps to success. What to do? Bring in the IT professionals. They can help. Including IT in sales and marketing problem-solving is a thought that rarely occurs to those who are trying to get the most out of their customer relationship management systems (CRMs). Why? Because, Sales and Marketing professionals do not recognize the value IT people bring to the process of creating well-defined processes. The IT team immediately comes to mind when it comes to installing software and maintaining programming. But, that is a cake-walk when compared to job of putting CRMs to work. Why is putting CRMs to work such a headache? Because, the professionals in sales and marketing have entirely different problem-solving skills than the professionals in IT. To create a rock-solid sales process that will work in a CRM both thinking styles are required for full, successful implementation. Sales and Marketing people are not used to thinking in terms of steps in a process. When attempting the task, they unwittingly leave big gaps. In the brain of a sales professional the gap is something that gets filled during sales presentations while the creative, selling juices are flowing. IT professionals are gifted at building step-by-step maps that walk any user through the sales process from opening the sale to closing the sale. They write down the steps of generating inquiries, identifying the components of converting inquiries to leads, and map out the process of converting leads to sales. Throughout IT, sales, and marketing conversations the lines of communication must be left open to discuss bugs in the system and to make the sytstem easier to use. When the onerous task of charting out the sales map is completed, then, the party really gets started. Sellers and marketers are able to literally see what is occurring and come up with new twists to an old step. Each new twist can then be tested against the old. The winning solution becomes the baseline against which future new twists are tested. Being able to test every step of the sales and marketing process is a methodology which creates a platform for genuine, sustainable, predictable growth. Recommended ResourcesLead Generation for the Complex Sale: Boost the Quality and Quantity of Leads to Increase Your ROI
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