In my experience, four variables separate high and low performing sales organizations. A well designed CRM system can add horsepower to all of these. In fact, when looked at carefully, one must wonder how any company can compete without an effective CRM system.  Here’s the juice:

• Focus – Investing time and energy in only the highest value activities

• Leverage – Using the best methods and tools to get the most done with least time & effort

• Skill – Making best practices visible and easy

• Teamwork – Sharing information and work so that everyone looks good

Focus on the important – don’t sweat the small stuff.  I’ll discuss the other three variables in separate posts.

Sales reps are jugglers. The sales guy knows most of his prospects will not buy, but not which.  Follow-up phone calls must be made, proposals prepared, questions answered, prices negotiated and objections addressed.

And time won’t wait – the competition is fighting every minute to close the deal first. A deal delayed is a deal lost. I sometimes wonder if IT people have any idea what it’s like to know that 90% of your hard work is a waste of time.

The more information a sales rep has to manage, the greater the anxiety that he or she will lose track of something and screw up. At a certain point, information / anxiety overload becomes a limiting factor to productivity.

The only alternative is to work smarter.

Forget About It!

The key to working smart is off-loading information and activity management to the CRM system. With tasks and reminders tracked by the system, the sales rep can focus his time and effort on opportunity and relationship management – the high value work he should be doing.  And, once entered to the system, he or she will have the wonderful luxury of being to forget about it!

When the time is right, the reminders, notes and history are all there, but for now, the focus can be on the important: the person you are working with right now.

By leveraging the CRM system to handle the information duties, a rep can improve focus, reduce anxiety and work smarter. However, this requires the discipline to use the system consistently. But, you knew that already.

Best – Mike