Do you actually have peace in your head? As an entrepreneur, especially in SMEs, it seems like you always have a thousand things in your head at the same time. In business services it is even worse than in retail, because you are always busy with tracking leads, follow-up and the oh so important status of (potential) customers. The sales process is notoriously difficult to gauge and that makes you seem to drown quickly in a swamp of promises, gut feelings and funnels. Try to get that out of your head.
You guessed it: that is better. If your organization currently has everything together with adhesive tape and Excel sheets in terms of sales monitoring, there is still a lot to be gained. A well-structured workflow ensures that your sales process becomes clearer, you have a better grip on how everyone stands and that you are more likely to see new business ‘fall’. And how do you get more structure? With a CRM system.
Why a CRM system?
A CRM system should be a watertight solution for all sales problems. It makes it clear what the status of each prospect is and you can keep a close watch on who talked to whom. As a manager, this should give you a perfect insight into what happens while at the same time increasing the productivity of everyone. Succession is perhaps the most important aspect of sales in the business market, so it is something that you do not have to worry about. It also ensures that none of the customers or prospects receive the same question or offer two or three times, because everyone can see who has already been approached for what and what the result was.
This of course increases not only the efficiency of your employees, but also that of yourself. In smaller teams, as a manager, you often spend so much time following up on following up that you do not owe the main lines. A good system allows you to easily watch and keeps you informed. This way you can save the mental energy needed to keep everyone on the pulse and spend on other useful things. So it is a good way to protect yourself against yourself as an entrepreneur, because there are many in SME’s who want to be involved everywhere. In itself good, but at a given moment you have to learn to let go. With a good CRM system you do not have to sit with everyone all the time and you get that oh so important rest in your head.
These are not the only advantages: because you have all the data together, it is also much easier to keep your house in your customer base. Where can you still profit? Who actually delivers a lot of business but a lot of headaches? Which service or product is used the most? With a good package, these are all questions that no longer have to be answered from feeling. You have the data, so that you can make decisions more easily and with a more relaxed heart.
Which CRM system should I choose?
Perhaps you were already convinced of the usefulness of a CRM system, but you thought this was only reserved for large companies. Nothing more from where, because now there are more than enough options to streamline a smaller company without spending more than it delivers. You can request a free demo from various parties and then you can see what they have to offer. It is a bit of trouble, but you are looking for a solution for the long term and you should not rush it.
The most important thing to watch out for is perhaps the ease of use. In the meantime we have passed the time when sales managers can no longer handle computers, but that does not mean that your CRM system can be a kind of flipped database simulator in which nobody can find anything. The user experience is more important than any other aspect of a CRM system. You can have the best system running in the background, but if nobody puts data in it because they find it a complicated and irritating program, you do not have a flute. Where managers can usually get enthusiastic about a system, people in the field can see it as more work, more control and more . If you have a system that works well for them, then they are. An important aspect of this is that it also has to work nicely on mobile.
Always testing
Of course it is important that the functions of CRM software you need for your company are there. However, if you think about using such a package, then you should take as many people as possible into it, so that they can use it to make holes. The best thing is if you can do some sort of test with a package so that the whole company can get a feel for how it works. Remember to ensure that the data used in the test can then also be removed from it (so just ask), otherwise you will saddle everyone up again with double work and that is exactly what you want with such a a test.
A good CRM package does a lot with your business. It streamlines the processes, ensures a better result and (if you have chosen the right one) makes sure that everyone can work more easily but still get more results. In sales, the latter is ultimately what counts, so why not try to improve that? So it’s high time to go out and try. If we can make a suggestion: Teamleader is a package that lets you test two weeks without any further obligation, so try it out and see if you like it with the rest of the company. It is finally over with the unrest.