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New Breed of SaaS for the Salesperson
September 25, 2007
Don't forget your sales force. Give them tools they will use.
By Razi Imam
If Willy Loman carried a BlackBerry instead of a briefcase, could his demise have been prevented? Maybe not, but you'd be hard pressed to find a traveling salesperson today who did not rely on her BlackBerry, PDA, cell phone or laptop to support her daily activities. So why doesn't software directed at salespeople, claiming to help them do their jobs, completely ignore the actually day to day selling process?
Even as little as five years ago, the outlook was bleak for the average salesperson. CRM and SFA solutions, although numerous, tended to target high-ranking executives seeking to measure ROI. Many salespeople watched in frustration as rigid processes were imposed on them and number crunching became the norm.
The theory was that if salespeople track data, businesses can gain insight into customer trends and behaviors, and measure profit. But salespeople are human. How many of us delight in spreadsheets and hours of data entry? It is this human factor that ultimately drove early CRM/SFA solutions off course. Salespeople simply ignored them, or waited until the end of the quarter to enter data.
If your sales team doesn't use the system, the data is inaccurate. If the data, and your sales forecasts, are inaccurate, what information is the executive team using to make strategic business decisions?
The salesperson's style of working is unique. It's time for the software industry to support it.
New Breed of SaaS for the Salesperson
Fortunately, a new breed of selling solutions is on the way that realizes the importance of addressing the unique needs of individual salespeople. These solutions focus on minimizing data entry, delivering time-tested selling strategies and supporting a mobile workstyle. The next generation of selling solutions, including CRM and SFA, is a marked improvement from their humble beginnings. But if any software geared for the salesperson is going to stick, it must perform the following functions:
• Offload Data Entry: Traditional CRM has taught us that salespeople are most effective when they are free to engage prospects. Data entry is a reality, no matter what the solution, but it must never impede selling. Selling solutions should minimize data entry, but maximize return on information.
• Increase High-Touch Selling: CRM and SFA solutions must deliver highly interactive tools that help foster a personal relationship with the buyer, without overloading the prospect with constant phone and email follow up. For example, enabling the salesperson to track buyer interests and deliver the right marketing content without the constant hassle of phone calls and follow-up e-mails that might turn a prospect off.
• Integrate with other Solutions: SaaS CRM solutions work best when they can draw data from customer support databases, call centers, sales records, etc. The failure to integrate well only exacerbates the problem of populating CRM systems with useful data that can lead to more accurate reporting and analysis.
• Grow with the Enterprise: One of the biggest complaints about traditional CRM is that its bulky, expensive and difficult to implement in large enterprises. If CRM and SFA in the SaaS model are here to stay, they must be streamlined, cost effective and most importantly, they must grow and adapt with a business.
• Provide Step-by-Step Guidance during the Selling Process: As long as there have been salespeople, there has been demand for a proven sales process that can be codified for the entire salesforce and help everyone close more deals. Every salesperson wants to know what works—what seals the deal. They should not have to pry open the brains of other salespeople, who may or may not offer the best strategies, to find out. Best practices should be built into CRM and SFA solutions so that the guidance they seek is only a click away. This is especially vital for small businesses. Imagine the potential of these solutions to package the expertise of the President or CEO of a company and proliferate that knowledge to all salespeople.
• Maximize Productivity and Profit: An old sales axiom reads that "20 percent of the sales force generates 80 percent of the leads." Imagine the difference if a company could maximize those salespeople who are inexperienced or ineffective. Selling solutions must engage and inspire these salespeople to increase customer satisfaction and profits.
For those seeking to maximize productivity across an entire sales team, the key is to select a solution designed—not for management—but for the individual salesperson. This tool must adapt to existing workstyles, and avoid imposing a rigid process. The fact that solutions are moving in this direction means it is a good time to be a road warrior.
The point is salespeople have evolved, so why hasn't their software?
Razi Imam is a 20 year sales veteran and founder of Pittsburgh-based Landslide Technologies, a pioneer in sales workstyle management solutions. To learn more about Landslide download a free software trial, please visit www.landslide.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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