The CRM Dilemma…

By Ron Signore

Having a job in sales is very similar to the practicing of medicine or law, it is always evolving with new dynamics from the field and the internal side.

As a young buck coming into the professional sales world back in 2009, I used to sit there and listen to the veterans on ways to do things. Taking it all in, the good, the bad and the ugly, I would learn enough to put my political science degree to good use and form “My Way” with the facts from every angle.

Veteran salespeople, admittedly now, can be like that grandfather that told you how they would walk to and from school in 3 feet of snow wearing only socks because they were too poor to afford shoes. In many ways, this is one of those “same church, different pew” type of analogies.

Salespeople were stereotyped as the people who had the gift of gab, or people who had the ability to make the impossible scenario sale- the cliché being someone who could sell a ketchup popsicle to an Eskimo wearing white gloves.” No matter the time frame of the sales cycle, they were people that could gain a connection to the customer. We saw the evolution in the stereotype relate to those who maybe went door to door, sold cars or sales executives that worked in the higher end corporate world.

The veterans would tell tales of a primitive art form when they started to the glorious options for tools we have today. The veterans ran with simple manual processes for everything. They had a rolodex for clients, managed a pipeline using a file folder system, and for those who weren’t blessed with the most effective of memories, notes on their clients so that they could keep the sales cycle in line with buying from the devil you know. Who wouldn’t buy from the person who called them to wish them a happy anniversary or wish a happy birthday to their kids? That connection was real to the eye.

Technology has made things simpler by way of automating the manual processes. The birth of the Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) was the first disruption to the old way of doing things. There is no argument that the ability to keep all information organized in one source of truth is a great concept. Many of us in this day in age sell technology where the overarching benefit value is to consolidate multiple sources of information into one.

I have heard it all on my career journey. The fact that the CRM is just a way for big brother to watch over you, to companies need things recorded for audit purposes. There are more in there, but primarily, at the end of the day, as CRMs became a regular thing, they became a target for innovative technology to aim at their shortfalls. Products that help tie to your CRM and your ERP to help drive as much information in one easily accessible spot for reps to gain a history of customer’s purchases, or sequencing tools to help aid email blasts while transmitting variable data to autofill contact names and retroactively log the communication.

As a rookie sales rep, I had no predisposed habits. I had no real idea of what was available prior to my arrival and that there could be something better to help aid my efforts. However, as I grew in my career on a pathway to management, the CRM as a focal point had different messages everywhere. As a rep, the critical use of a CRM as I saw it was to jot notes of conversations, maintain tasks as you drive sales from point A to point Z and have readily available information for when you had pipeline discussions with your manager. As a manager, it was the realization that some of the vets were right, it was a way for me to track the activity of my reps. Though many would argue that it was to prove you were working, I would argue it was a way for me to help reps plan to succeed using data.

The CRM did not stop though. It became a tool for forecasting, order submission, notes, layers of information between the account, the contact, the related opportunity, etc.… that helped pull dashboards for visibility for a rep to know their roadmap to their goals. These are ALL great things.

So, what is the dilemma? It is not that Salesforce is better than Microsoft CRM, or HubSpot being super intuitive and complete, the truth is, one way or another depending on your company’s investment, they can transform to have whatever they want and need to be effective system automation wise. The dilemma is time.

Somewhere along the line we have lost some focus on the most important thing for salespeople: Sales. I have always been someone who felt the best combination of a sales rep today is a baby boomer work ethic installed in a millennial body. This is someone who knows how to work smarter, has the grit to do what needs to be done in order to hit their goals, but also understands and practices the use of technology provided to help them succeed, essentially, not resist technology just because of some paranoia or intimidation of technology.

What were seeing though is a directive in many cases that companies want every call logged, whether it was a hit or miss, a voicemail left or not, or each email that is part of a multi-message string of emails. If it isn’t logged 100% correctly (cause god forbid you log it to the wrong opportunity if your contact has multiple opps associated with them, or accidentally didn’t click complete to save your notes and it didn’t log as a completed task).

I was super guilty as a manager to use the phrase, “The CRM is the bible, if it isn’t in there, it didn’t happen.” Yet, we would constantly see trip winners who hit their goals, made their money, but had some of the poorest CRM hygiene around. The standard was not the same for everyone. It became a somewhat sliding scale to the effect that the heavier the hitter you were, the less CRM mattered. It became more of a burden of time, the concept like Bill Gates not picking up a $100 bill if he dropped it because his time was worth more than that.

I am one who values a sales profession in a similar note to practicing medicine or law. We have our benefits to society, and maybe some bad apples a detriment. Sales causes a chain reaction in our economy. The more we sell, the more demand for product and SUPPORT, the more jobs get created. Like a doctor or a lawyer, where seeing the highest number of billable patients or logging as many billable hours as possible, we look for that next call. Each email, each phone call, each appointment can have a dollar amount associated with it, whether it is successful or not. A sales professional can determine that each time they pick up the phone or type it email, they make something. It all goes into the grand scheme of earnings and number of activities it took to get there.

Data is a powerful thing as we continue migrating through the transformation in this digital age. A CRM can help automate and provide that data to help guide you. When it becomes detrimental to the focus of sales and revenue generating activities, it is a dilemma. Salespeople contain characteristics that are special and unique, but most importantly are not typically the patient type with the skills for clerical work like someone who may be in an admin or operations-based role. Those roles on the same note do not want to do what salespeople do. We all sell something that automates time in efforts to create leaner processes, this is a strong internal reflection to evaluate if things can be done in a more optimized fashion. As leaders, if you can find the balance to get the most critical information to operate without a multitude of processes or complexities, salespeople will increase productivity and that will directly correlate to revenue growth.

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