A Hate/Hate Relationship: Salespeople & CRM

Salespeople rarely agree on anything.  The comp plan is good, the comp plan is bad, quota is too high, it’s not enough for me to make enough money, and the list goes on and on.

The one thing they all seem to agree on:  The CRM my company makes us use SUCKS.

And here we go!

Compliance with our CRM tool is “good.”

Most Sales Leadership we speak to agree that,  “we require 1 login per week with our CRM nd compliance is achieved with the ‘stick.’” Meaning salespeople are, more or less, forced to use the CRM.  Believe it or not, this is considered success. (Seriously???)

The reason for this, as many salespeople will attest, is they feel the CRM system is nothing more than Big Brother keeping track of their every move.

It has nothing to do with helping the salespeople grow their business.

And unfortunately, they’re right.

Growing business is the #1 priority of salespeople, right?  Of course it is!  That’s how they earn a living!

So, don’t you think you could get more compliance out of your CRM if it actually HELPED them sell something?!?!

Shocking thought… I know… (You’d think I must be some sort of a genius to come up with that!)

CRM isn’t exactly Mobile Friendly

Salespeople are always on the go. They work on commission and every moment spent in the office can be considered wasted time.

If this is the case, which it is, why are they still being given tools to use that are laptop or tablet based?

I remember very distinctly when I was a salesperson:  If I had to do something on my laptop it more than likely wasn’t going to get done.  Once expense reporting was available on my phone, my laptop became an official paper weight.

The idea that software companies provide a tool that isn’t designed specifically for the on-the-go salesperson is unbelievable.  What’s worse, companies still buy them.

The Software tool decision makers typically sit behind a desk and mainly focus on themselves and not their end-user: salespeople.  After the fact they are completely flabbergasted when salespeople won’t use their shiny new toy.

Imagine that…salespeople not wanting to use a tool that is not built for them.

CRM’s Don’t Help Salespeople Sell

Not only does CRM make little to no difference in the sales process, but it also makes it more complicated and time-consuming.

Let’s call it what it is:  CRM is a data-collection tool that 99% of the time is simply telling a salesperson, manager, etc what has happened in the past.

That my friends, is called a rear-view mirror… Have you ever tried driving forward while keeping your eyes on the rearview mirror?  Impossible.

So, why do Healthcare companies insist that their salespeople use tools that force them to use the rearview mirror?

Answer: Well, we need a CRM, right?  They all do the same thing, right? I guess this is what we’re supposed to do…  We’ll just use “this” one…

And bang, just like that you’ve set your salespeople up with a tool they will fight you on 100% of the way.

Goodbye Rearview Mirror, Hello Windshield

Instead of your salespeople being forced to constantly focus on the rearview mirror, what would it feel like to have them focus on what’s in front of them?

Imagine your salespeople using a tool throughout the day that actually fed them leads and insights about those leads while they worked in their territory?

Now that would actually make sense.  Maybe that’s why companies are so slow to move to a solution like that,,, because it makes sense.

After years of having to suffer (and yes, I do mean suffer) through the same problems as presented here, our team built a solution for both sides of this problem and it’s called ProSellus.

ProSellus was designed with all of these issues in mind, allowing them to manage their territories, without having to do the extra work to appease their superiors.

Come take a look:  blog.prosellus.com

 

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