In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the first of two key reasons leads get stuck: poor lead qualification. In this article we’ll look at the second key reason sales leads stagnate: CRM misuse/compliance.
Why is it so hard to get salespeople to put data into CRM systems?
The short answer is that there is a basic conflict between the amount of data entry required to completely populate CRM system records and the amount of interest most salespeople have in performing administrative tasks. Let’s look at this conflict in more detail.
What data elements are required to completely fill out a CRM system record?
The answer to this question differs by company. However, some common data elements include:
- Company Name
- Division/Department Name
- Shipping Address
- Shipping Address
- contact name
- contact title
- Office phone number
- Cell phone number
- Fax number
- Email address
- website url
These are just the basic details needed to establish a record. There is also a large number of data elements that must be entered for each sales opportunity line item. And, if the CRM system is used as a repository for notes related to customer and prospect conversations, much more writing will be required.
The bottom line is that if salespeople are going to fully complete CRM registrations for each of their opportunities, prospects, and customers, they will likely have to spend 20 minutes to an hour PER DAY on this administrative activity.
Why is this a problem?
It’s a problem because most sellers have little interest in doing administrative activities!
I have personally evaluated several thousand sellers over the last five years. One of the characteristics measured by the specialized sales assessment tests that I use is the seller’s interest in the process, procedure, and administrative activities. Approximately 80% of the best sellers I tested scored a 1 or 2 (on a scale of 1-10) for this feature. These low scores indicate that many high performing salespeople have little interest in back office activities. (If you’ve been managing salespeople for a while, I’m sure this information doesn’t surprise you!)
How do we solve this problem?
There are two solutions I recommend:
1. Assign as much data entry as possible to administrative staff
2. Switch your salespeople to a system that ONLY tracks data related to new business activity and the progress of each sales opportunity through the sales cycle. Let’s examine each of these solutions in some detail.
Solution #1: Reassign data entry to administrative staff
If you want to continue to capture all the details required by most CRM systems, assign as much of the data entry to administrative staff as possible. An added benefit of this approach is that administrative staff are often much less expensive than salespeople. (Wouldn’t you rather your expensive salespeople concentrate as much as possible on activities that only they can do?)
Sellers can provide CRM data to administrative staff in a number of ways. Here are two examples:
- Sellers can give business cards collected during cold calls and networking events to administrative staff for data entry.
- Salespeople can give administrative staff copies of written sales call notes or provide the information via voice mail.
If your salespeople are going to be doing any data entry, focus on the data that will help you track how effective your salespeople are at generating new business and moving leads through the sales cycle. Essentially, this involves tracking “first meetings” (discovery conversations) with new prospects and the progress of each sales opportunity throughout the sales cycle.
Solution #2 – Switch to a different type of system
The second option is to switch your sales people to a system that ONLY tracks data related to new business activity and the progress of each sales opportunity through the sales cycle. The best (and only) system I know of is called M-Power. (For more information, visit http://www.asasales.com.) A BIG benefit of this type of system is that salespeople only need two to five minutes per day to do the necessary data entry.
Does this mean you should abandon your CRM system? That decision is entirely up to you. While it is certainly valuable to capture historical data on your salespeople’s activities, what is absolutely critical is having a clear understanding of your new business generation activities and the status of each of your sales opportunities.
If you choose to use M-Power in combination with your existing CRM system, you can share data between the systems and avoid duplicate data entry. M-Power is tightly integrated with salesforce.com and also interfaces with other commonly used CRM applications.
Regardless of the choice you make, remember that the key to improving your salespeople’s CRM utilization and compliance is to minimize the amount of administrative work they have to do. Reallocate as much data entry as you can to (lower cost) administrative resources and focus your salespeople’s data entry on new business activity and sales opportunity status updates.
Conclusion
If you want to improve the quality of your company’s lead pipeline, focus your efforts on solving two key problems:
1. Poor Lead Rating
2. Misuse/compliance with the CRM system
If you implement the suggestions made in this two-part article, you will enjoy:
- Greater accuracy in sales forecasts
- Fewer “stuck” opportunities
- A constant stream of NEW opportunities being added to your company pipeline