A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is a tool to manage all of your organization’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. CRMs provide a firsthand understanding of your customer’s experience to help you match your products and services to their needs. 

Like any tool, you’ll get the most out of your CRM when you put the most into it. The first step in that effort is to be sure to choose the best CRM based on your needs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the CRM software market, you may feel overwhelmed. In short, it’s huge.You may not know that there are subsets of CRMs, so it’s important to align your business type and objectives with the right offering. Let’s begin with what is generally agreed to be the four classic types of CRM systems.

Type 1: Operational CRMs

Operational CRMs provide customer service or marketing support through automation and streamlining business processes. They capture customer interactions and track lead qualification and action marketing automation.

Operational CRMs collect data from different marketing sources like social media, emails, or website visitors. This data can help your marketing team quickly and easily qualify leads. Operational CRMs also add value by providing more upfront information for analysis. An example of an operational CRM is Spotio.

Type 2: Analytical CRMs

Analytical CRMs use algorithms and machine learning to analyze the data they gather to create optimal customer targeting. Analytical CRMs provide insight into data and then understand and anticipate the customer’s needs that humans would otherwise miss. 

This category of CRM provides higher levels of insight and analysis regarding customer data. In addition, you can customize and scale them to allow your business to add or remove modules to suit your needs. An example of an analytical CRM is OLAP.

Type 3: Collaborative CRMs

Collaborative CRMs are mainly for customer relationship management tracking. These CRM solutions allow you to manage and track interactions with customers who contact your company via resources like social media, emails, and websites. A tracking system can help your team share sales process and task status information, reducing the confusion on what they need to do next. An example of a collaborative CRM is Dynamics 365 Sales.

Type 4: Strategic CRMs

Business models that focus on repeat and loyal customer bases use strategic CRMs to learn more about their customers. They then use this knowledge to build and maintain long-term relationships.  

Like the other types, strategic CRMs collect, analyze, segregate, and apply customer information and market trends to develop better value propositions. The difference is, this type of CRM uses algorithmic and analytical features to focus on building loyalty. It also finds strategic opportunities for engagement consistently and for more extended periods. Most generic CRMs would be identified in this category. 

Legacy CRM: Salesforce

Salesforce is the grandfather of sales CRMs. It is practically a household word these days, but it is also famous for being highly complex and expensive to deploy. 

Salesforce setup is time-consuming. The system’s complexity will require specialized resources that are almost always unavailable internally. Also, it may leave you with limited options. Although Salesforce claims to be integrated, additional apps are more bolt-ons than enhancements. 

Salesforce uses its market dominance to lock you into a single CRM type. A single type of CRM means you will be stuck with a solution that will evolve slowly. That leaves you with a problematic tool to use and constricts you to its technology. 

One of its main drawbacks is its high initial price point and recurring costs. The pricing structure is as confusing as it is costly. Development and user interfaces can be tricky to use. There are steep learning curves and user adoption issues that both admins and end-users need to surpass to get the most out of it. This makes the total cost of ownership very high.

The major advantage to Salesforce is also its major drawback: it’s a popular solution so theoretically you can hire people who already have experience in using it. However, it’s so highly customized by each organization that going from one Salesforce instance to another is akin to starting over. 

Niche player CRM: HubSpot

HubSpot’s primary focus is on marketing and marketing automation; its CRM came later. 

HubSpot is often perceived as a closed system that does best when it is not subject to integrations. As an example, companies with multiple and intricate sales technologies may not find it easy to integrate their complex environment with non-HubSpot technologies. 

A common concern about HubSpot is that it lacks flexibility and robustness when it comes to customizations and sales reporting. When identifying duplicate accounts and contacts, data synchronization is another example of its inflexibility.

Also, keep in mind that if your business or organization is in growth mode, it’s likely that you will outgrow HubSpot at some point. Thus the process of selecting and implementing a new CRM will be on the horizon for you again. 

How to choose the right type of CRM

While classic one-type CRMs noted above perform well within their strength areas, they can get you and your team stuck in a data silo. Whether it’s technological, price, or people-based, sooner or later, you’ll end up with a solution that doesn’t meet your needs. 

Legacy and niche solutions come with their own set of problems, including the risk of difficult user adoption, counter-intuitive UX, costly time, and investment losses due to additional customizations. 

You know you need to choose a CRM that will grow with your business, integrate easily, and not break the bank. It’s time to explore a modern, unified CRM as the answer to this need. 

Why modern unified CRMs are the answer

Modern CRMs save you time and money because they are easy to set up, so you don’t have to engage with expensive integrators to implement your CRM. Implementation is quick, so you won’t need to wait months to experience the benefits of your new system.

The six main reasons to choose a modern unified CRM are as follows: 

1. Improved collaboration and automation – Modern CRMs like Insightly ensure that your sales, marketing, and customer support teams find and work on the information they need. Winning a customer’s business and loyalty takes a united effort, not a siloed one. With modern CRMs, you can give your teams the ability to work in a united and carefully tracked manner due to the enhanced collaboration and automation. 

2. Maximized marketing automation – Most marketing teams juggle multiple tasks and projects at the same time. Marketing automation can allow you to maximize your marketing team’s time and effort. For example, by using Insightly Marketing, your team can create and recreate campaign structures quickly instead of having to reinvent the wheel. In addition, they can rapidly deploy workflow-based processes like web-to-lead forms that automatically generate new records and update data fields to ensure proper categorization. Easy-to-create workflows can trigger drip campaign emails that keep prospects highly engaged. Marketing reporting is easy as well, and is visible to all other teams. 

3. Streamlined sales automation – Unnecessary data entry means sales teams waste time and energy instead of concentrating on deals and the pipeline. Modern CRM sales automation can streamline sales aspects such as lead nurturing and routing. Insightly Sales makes lead-building email outreach campaigns easy for your team to manage. New leads receive emails automatically within moments of requesting information. All additional emails will seamlessly go out throughout the buyer’s journey without creating new manual task bottlenecks that are inefficient and prone to error.

4. Concise customer service automation – Closing new business is the goal, and it’s just the beginning. There’s so much more work to do to communicate the needed handoffs to deliver on promises and serve the customer. It’s vital to get these tasks right so you can retain your newly-won customers. Insightly Service, which is built on the same platform as Insightly CRM and Marketing, includes key features like an easy-to-access blade showing knowledge sidebar, macros, and full history, making it easy to share information and communicate quickly. It also includes quick visibility to SLAs, so reps can stay on track. Convenient dashboards and reports help managers analyze workflows and deploy resources more efficiently.

5. Deeply integrated – Modern CRMs like Insightly are more agile than legacy CRMs because they allow you to quickly build sophisticated integrations with the applications you already use in your organization, like Google, SAP, DocuSign, and much more. Imagine building workflows and integrations without writing a line of code. Insightly’s AppConnect is a no-code solution, so you don’t have to hire developers. AppConnect uses drag and drop functionality, automated error handling, built-in versioning, plus instant deployment and provisioning so your team can build and run sophisticated integrations efficiently.

6. Easy to implement and onboard new people – Legacy CRMs are complex and challenging to implement. They require a deep knowledge of the technology and often require third-party consultants to help, and that’s just with the install. The extreme amounts of documentation and training options demonstrate the complexity in deploying and rolling out to end-users. Modern CRMs like Insightly are built with the user experience in mind. They are designed to be intuitive and to perform like common consumer apps that are already familiar to users. They eliminate the need for long and complex implementations and get your team up and running as quickly as possible so you can experience CRM success in no time.

Where to start?

Not sure where to start? Get your personalized demo of a modern, unified CRM today to see it in action.

The post The 4 types of CRMs and their differences appeared first on Insightly.

This misalignment has led to tension between sales and marketing teams. It also leads to companies missing revenue targets. Because of this, many companies have made strides to align marketing and sales teams. You may hear these referred to as revenue teams. By putting sales and marketing in lockstep, these companies keep the bottom line top of mind.

If you’re a marketer, navigating a move toward marketing and sales alignment can be a challenge. You may need to make changes in your day-to-day work. Here are a few ways marketers can work with sales teams to achieve better alignment and exceed revenue goals.

Why marketing and sales alignment matters

Marketers and salespeople working together smoothly and aligning their operations can create advantages for both teams.

Improved lead management 

Your junior sales team likely spends the bulk of their time qualifying leads. They use an integrated CRM, online research, email, and phone conversations to determine if leads have the potential to turn into customers. Instead of following up on low-quality leads, sales can use this time to start to warm up leads who fit their ideal customer profile.

This gap begins to close when sales and marketing work together to create lead scoring and grading models to qualify leads. Once sales and marketing agree on lead qualification criteria, they’ll reduce friction between the teams and start improving lead conversion rates. It may take some time and testing to figure out the best lead qualification model, but as long as sales and marketing are working in tandem with each other, they’ll be able to find what works best faster. 

Sales can leverage marketing programs

Once these leads are qualified, sales teams are responsible for converting them to customers. Here’s where marketing can help. Marketers have content, programs, designs, and events that can be repurposed into sales collateral. Sometimes there is a dedicated product marketer who focuses on using marketing to enable sales. This is especially useful during a sales blitz, an outbound sales campaign common with account-based marketing (ABM).

A marketing blog post can become a case study. A webinar can become a product tutorial. A trade show can be a way for a potential customer to meet your team. By repurposing assets, marketing provides sales reps with more tools to help them guide customers through the buying journey and close deals.

Integrated programs have the best chance of success

Companies are moving to hyper-targeted, integrated campaigns. If your company is using account-based marketing, the buy-in of sales and marketing is crucial. ABM campaigns require sales results, account management expertise, agile digital marketing, and creative thinking. Your marketing and sales leadership must be in lockstep as to how the campaign will operate, who is responsible for each aspect, and how to measure its success. If your marketing and sales teams aren’t on the same page, your ABM campaign will struggle—or fail outright.  

How marketing can better understand sales

Even when teams are integrated, there are still fundamental differences between marketing and sales. There are a few things that marketers can do to better understand salespeople and improve the value they deliver to sales. 

Sit in on sales calls

The best marketers do this regularly. By sitting in on one with sales each week, marketers can get insight into the results of their programs. Learn more about the characteristics of a good (or bad) lead, what the biggest concerns are, how they describe a problem they are trying to solve, and if your marketing materials resonate with prospects.

Understand the sales funnel

Marketers know how the sales funnel works: leads get qualified, turn into prospects, then opportunities, then customers. Yet, sales teams know the ins and outs of their funnel specifically. Perhaps there’s a smoking gun that can tell a salesperson that someone is a great potential customer. Conversely, there may be a red flag that tells a sales rep that someone should be disqualified immediately. Are there specifics that impact your company’s sales process? As the marketing team learns these, they can focus on generating leads that are a better fit for the funnel.

Integrate and align your customer relationship process

We all know there’s a slew of sales and marketing tools out there. Yet, what about tools that align the goals of marketing with the goals of sales? A unified customer relationship management (CRM) system, like Insightly, is the first step in orienting marketing and sales results. Sales management uses a CRM to organize and manage sales processes and customer interactions. Marketing can use CRM data to extract customer insights and learnings to inform programs and initiatives. 

Review sales results 

We all know the sales process doesn’t end when we generate a lead. Your sales team is likely using their CRM to collect and crunch plenty of sales-related information. This shows how leads move through the funnel and how they convert to customers. 

Three ways marketers can become indispensable to salespeople

Once marketers understand how the sales process works, there are a few easy ways we can help sales close more and bigger deals.

Provide them with content to help warm leads and close deals

Create a comprehensive content plan that includes blog posts, tutorials, videos, and other agreed-upon resources that sales management and account executives can share with prospective customers. Also, figure out the best ways to repurpose materials in different formats so that you can maximize the value of every piece of content you produce.

Offer social media training and reviews

Many sales managers rely on social networks like LinkedIn to help them qualify or prospect. Marketers can offer reviews and recommendations to sales’ social media accounts, as well as provide a plan that includes post content and suggested language.

Create loyalty programs to improve customer engagement

Marketing doesn’t end once the deal is closed. Implementing best practices in customer engagement can improve customer experience. This gives salespeople more leverage in offering benefits to customers. 

How salespeople can help marketers

Sales teams can also help marketers improve programs, which in turn generate better leads. Here are a few specific ways that salespeople can provide insight to marketing.

Help marketers build an ideal customer profile

An ideal customer profile is a comprehensive account of your company’s perfect customer. Ideal customer profiles are crucial for account-based marketing and targeting enterprise-level customers. An ICP relies on sales information to understand the process by which the ideal customer goes through the sales funnel. Marketers can integrate both quantitative and qualitative sales results into the profile. 

Identify customer advocates

Customer testimonials strengthen marketing. There’s no better way to convince a new customer than the recommendation of a current customer. Along with customer success, salespeople can help marketing identify strong customer advocates who can be quoted on the website and speak at marketing events.

Measure marketing return-on-investment

You don’t know if your marketing program is successful until you get regular feedback from sales and see the final bottom line. Request regular reporting from the sales team on the results of marketing programs, including revenue generated from specific campaigns. Incorporating this assessment will ensure that marketing programs align with sales success. A unified platform for sales and marketing, like Insightly, can help to keep both teams in sync from lead generation through conversion and ongoing customer engagement campaigns. 

Conclusion

We are all striving toward perfect sales and marketing alignment. Consider the value that each team can provide to one another when interacting and planning your joint revenue efforts. What tools, processes, and elements of culture can help your sales and marketing teams to better collaborate and tackle challenges? 

The post How marketers can work more effectively with sales appeared first on Insightly.

This is part 3 of a sales process series based on conversations with Insightly VP of Sales Mark Ripley.

Even after you’ve developed your ideal sales process and aligned it with the buyer journey, there are still challenges to overcome—both now and in the future. Unexpected changes in market conditions, new product launches, and rapid expansion or contraction of the sales team are just a few examples.

Is your sales process built to last?

Let’s explore tips for future-proofing your sales process.

Why some sales processes fail & tips to avoid failure

Here are five reasons why sales processes fall short—and some best practices for avoiding failure.

1. Sales process is too complex

Breaking down your sales process into clearly defined stages and steps is necessary and logical. After all, your sales team needs a general roadmap to ensure deals get done in a way that aligns with your business goals.

However, according to Mark Ripley, VP of Sales at Insightly, developing an overly complex sales process is a recipe for failure.

“One of the ways that a sales process falls down is when reps don’t follow it,” says Mark. “When sales leaders overcomplicate the sales process with too many stages, steps, scripts, assets, and questions, reps abandon it.”

How to avoid: Focus on two things: simplicity and buy-in. Go back and revisit your customer buying process and look for opportunities to reduce complexity in your sales process. Partner with leaders throughout the organization to ensure alignment and confirm their buy-in. Once management is fully on board with the finalized sales process, it’s time to roll it out to the entire team. If sales reps know that their managers believe in the sales process, they’ll be more likely to believe in it, too—and follow it.

2. Sales process is too vague

On the other end of the spectrum is a sales process that lacks meaningful details. Much like overcomplicating things, being too vague leads to a similar outcome: abandonment by reps.

“Your sales process has significantly diminished value if it’s haphazard,” says Mark. “You can’t measure anything, and there’s no consistency for the reps.”

How to avoid: If your sales process is overly complex, don’t overcompensate and go too far in the opposite direction. Instead, strive for a balanced approach that combines structure with the freedom for your reps to do what they do best.

“A high-impact sales process sits in the middle,” says Mark. “It gives people a framework for consistency, but it also lets each individual personality flourish based on their own strengths.”

3. “Set and forget” mentality

A sales process is not like an automated workflow that you build once, enable, and then rarely think about. Rather, a good sales process is a work in process that must be constantly measured, reevaluated, tweaked, and, in some cases, overhauled.

“The sales process is not something that you can set and forget,” says Mark. “It’s something that you establish, and then you keep looking for ways to improve in a never-ending evolution.”

How to avoid: Take a proactive approach in developing and maintaining an ideal sales process for your business. Launch a cross-functional team that meets regularly (at least twice a year) to discuss bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. Use data from your CRM to go beyond gut feelings and set data-driven goals. For example, by the end of this year, you might aim to fully understand your MQL to SQL ratio for each of your industries. Understanding key ratios makes it easier to identify issues, support ongoing coaching sessions with reps, and continuously refine your sales process.

4. Inability to adapt

The COVID-19 pandemic upended most aspects of our personal and professional lives—and sales is no exception. Virtually overnight, sales teams that were accustomed to working in shared physical offices had no choice but to go remote. Companies that had future-proofed their sales processes found themselves at a competitive advantage to those who had not.

According to Mark, “The pandemic absolutely compounded the importance and impact of having a sales process.”

How to avoid: If your organization has never developed a sales process or your current sales process isn’t well documented, now is the time to take action.

“Documentation is more important than ever for organizations as they move to a remote work world,” says Mark. “You need that master sales process document so that each sales rep, even in a remote world, is creating the ideal customer buying experience and maximizing revenue.”

5. Right process, wrong technology

Simply having a master sales process document or diagram is not enough. Sales reps need the right tools and technology to perform their day-to-day jobs in alignment with your ideal sales process. However, when your process document and sales tools are misaligned, the net result is sales process abandonment.

How to avoid: Seek out systems that best align with your ideal sales process. If it means making a change, so be it. Do your homework and research the capabilities of other sales systems. In particular, look for a CRM that can be easily customized to fit your sales process—without requiring complex development or expensive CRM consultants.

Request a free CRM needs assessment and Insightly CRM product demo to learn how sales automation can help your reach your sales goals.

Request a demo

Don’t get lost in the weeds

Over the course of this three-part series, we’ve talked a lot about the sales process—what it is, why it’s important, how to align it with your customer buying process, and how to overcome challenges. With so much to consider, it can be easy to get lost in the weeds at the expense of the big picture.

As you work on improving your sales process, remember that maximizing revenue is the whole point of a sales process.

The post How to future-proof your sales process & avoid failure appeared first on Insightly.

This is part 1 of a sales process blog series based on conversations with Insightly VP of Sales, Mark Ripley.

If you sell something, you already have a sales process—even if you’ve never written it down.

Of course, some companies invest a lot of time and effort to create detailed flowcharts, diagrams, and work instructions for every stage of the sales process. Others do not formally define their sales processes, aside from allowing their sales reps to “do what they do.” Both approaches are examples of sales processes, yet a more formalized approach can be much more effective.

What’s the ideal sales process for your business?

To help you figure out, here are a few tips for defining and improving your sales process.

What is a sales process?

A sales process is a series of steps that your company takes to guide prospective buyers toward a purchase.

If you’re a cooking enthusiast, it may be constructive to compare your sales process to preparing your favorite recipe. Following the recipe allows you to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Deviating from the recipe—or ignoring it entirely—usually leaves a bad taste in your mouth and makes you feel like you wasted your time.

“Like any good recipe, a well-crafted sales process creates consistent results, time and time again,” says Mark Ripley, Vice President of Sales at Insightly. “As you start to grow your business, your sales process becomes even more important.”

Stop and think about your sales process as it stands today:

• What “steps” do you and your team go through to close a deal?
• Do these steps align with the pipeline stages in your CRM?
• Does everyone in your sales organization follow the same steps to close a deal?
• Or, do they just go through the motions and ignore your “recipe”?

Spend time studying your current sales process along with its strengths and weaknesses. Remember, you already have a sales process—good or bad! Now is the time to understand what is working and what’s not.

Benefits of developing a better sales process

If you’ve been in business for very long, your existing sales process has at least delivered some measurable results. Cut yourself some slack and be thankful for the success you’ve enjoyed.

That being said, there’s always room for improvement. And, as Mark points out, continuously refining your sales process puts your business in a better position to enjoy the following benefits.

More data for ongoing measurement & continuous improvement

Whether you realize it or not, you likely have a substantial amount of data at your fingertips. It might be messy and require some cleanup, but it’s a start. Analyzing historical deal data enables you to understand your future data needs, which creates a virtuous cycle for enhancing the sales process.

“Measuring conversion rates and everything else in your sales process provides a surgical approach to understanding what needs to be improved,” says Mark.

Key takeaway: Use data to take a snapshot of your existing sales process. Then, look for new measurement opportunities to generate more data for ongoing improvement.

Enhanced coaching for your sales team

Armed with reliable data about your sales process, you’re in a much better spot to anticipate challenges, provide actionable coaching to your team, and be the best leader that you can be.

“Data makes it easier to paint a vision of success and inspire your sales reps,” says Mark.

For example, closely monitoring your team’s average close rate on qualified opportunities should make it easier to identify reps who need specialized training or assistance with late-stage deals. Likewise, tracking the success of cold outreach efforts can help you predict acquisition costs and inform decisions about talent allocation.

Key takeaway: Simply telling your team to “try harder” is not a winning strategy. You need a transparent, data-driven sales process that provides the right insights for elevating sales rep performance.

Scalability

As you add additional sales reps, layers of management, geographic locations, product lines, and general complexity, a haphazard sales process turns into serious liability for your business.

“If you want to scale, that’s where a sales process becomes mission critical,” says Mark.

Key takeaway: If you have ambitions of growing your sales team beyond a handful of reps, you need a reliable, repeatable sales process.

Revenue optimization

No article about sales processes would be complete if it ignored a key topic: revenue optimization. Maximizing revenue is the whole point of a sales process.

When properly designed and implemented, a sales process makes it easier for your company to generate revenue—and do so without adding headcount.

“Your sales process can help you increase your revenue per rep in a number of different ways,” says Mark. “If you’re taking the right measurements, constantly tweaking things, and coaching effectively, you should start to experience more revenue per rep.”

Key takeaway: Think of your sales process as a tool that helps you drive more revenue in an increasingly efficient way.

Next up, model your sales process to the buying process

Stay tuned for our next article about sales processes, which will provide specific steps for modeling your sales process to the customer’s buying journey.

Check out more sales tips on the Insightly blog.

The post What is a sales process? Why is it important? appeared first on Insightly.

Here, we share our tried-and-true advice for another year —or more— of working from home.

Tips for staying motivated with remote work

Work when you feel the most focused.

Don’t lock yourself to your desk from 9-5. Remote work should be flexible. If you’re more creative and have a better focus in the early morning or late at night, work those hours into your schedule.

Take breaks.

Often, we are most jazzed when we’re in a state of flow. However, if you’re constantly in a state of flow, you’ll begin to burn out your energy supply. Notice when you’re overworked, and take a half-hour to think about anything else but work. Go for a walk, take a nap, or do something non-work related.

Pump the jams.

One of the benefits of remote work: no headphones. If your space and “co-workers” allow it, make a playlist for each of your work tasks. Blasting “Songs for Cold Emailing” while mail-merging makes the task much more fun.

Explore professional development.

When remote work from home began, most of us were trying to keep our heads above water. We back-burnered new skill development to keep the ship afloat. Now that we’re in this for the long haul, don’t sacrifice your professional growth. Take a course, join a networking group, and focus on learning something new.

Build a new relationship.

Simulating the water-cooler conversation over Zoom is tough. Yet, we are all missing the work friendships that bloom outside of our direct responsibilities. It takes a little effort, but reach out to someone at your organization who you don’t regularly talk to. It is a boon to personal motivation to hear about the successes of another team or share tips on overcoming challenges.

How to focus while working remotely

Created a dedicated workspace.

We don’t all have the luxury of a built-in home office. Yet, we all need a space to focus and think only about our tasks at hand. Do all you can to build your remote workspace as your custom productivity den. You shouldn’t be looking at your unfolded laundry while you try to run a business operation.

Use alerts, reminders, & alarms.

Dedicated focus time should have a start time and an end time. And, you shouldn’t be glancing at the clock every five minutes to see if your focus time is up. For example, you can use Google Calendar notifications to fire whenever your next block is two or five minutes away. This way, you’ll know when to wrap up and get ready for the next thing.

Stop multitasking.

Another hard one for marketers. Why is it so hard to close a tab that I *might* need later? I tend to remind myself that only one thing can be done at a time. Closing out of all non-current tabs, tasks and apps makes this a little easier.

You can also try the Pomodoro Technique to stay focused and complete specific tasks. Pick a task and work on it for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break, and then return to the next 25-minute working session. If you finish your task in the middle of a session, use the remaining time to review or learn something new. After four working sessions, take a longer 15-30 minute break before moving on to the next task.

Bake social media time into your day.

Spending 20 minute scrolling Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter used to be the ultimate way to slack off. Now, it may be the only social ‘interaction’ you even have in a day. Don’t beat yourself up for taking a social media break. Just make sure you’re using it as an actual break, and not a distraction. Set a time limit on your phone, so you don’t lose track of time.

Prioritize items on your to-do list.

We are so reliant on our to-do lists. These never-ending litanies are the anti-project management system. As you start your day, pick the top three or five tasks you absolutely have to complete that day. Move the rest to the “future” list. By making your to-do list shorter, you’ll see how easy it is to finish.

Remote working recommendations for ultimate productivity

Scope your time.

For marketing professionals, conventional wisdom suggests you to under-promise and over-deliver. Meaning, if a request will take an hour, scope out four hours and provide an even better deliverable. With remote work from home, this doesn’t fly. For those of us balancing work and home priorities, accurate scoping goes a long way. Estimate the amount of time something will take, and then stick to that timetable.

Exit Slack.

Slack is an amazing productivity tool for remote work. It’s kept us connected and GIF-ing throughout the entire pandemic. But, as soon as you sit down to get something done, it’s inevitable that you’ll hear the recognizable ‘ping.’ If you’re trying to work uninterrupted, do a hard “Quit” of the Slack app and get back to your messages later.

Limit your email time.

Like Slack, email can be a black hole of distraction. There’s always something new that needs your attention. Consider blocking out 30 minutes for email when you start your day, and 30 minutes when you end, or whenever you are the least focused. You’ll get to everything urgent, and can leave the non-urgent messages for the next day.

Ask for help.

Before remote work, asking for help was as easy as popping your head into someone’s office. It was easy to tell if someone could find ten or 20 minutes to teach you an Excel formula or chat about an upcoming event. Now, asking for help is tougher. We don’t have a great concept of our co-workers’ free time. For ultimate productivity, it’s crucial to ask for help when you need it. Instead of waiting for a one-on-one or team meeting, normalize reaching out at the time you need help.

Adjust your expectations & your deadlines.

Even though we may be ‘used’ to our situation, that hasn’t made remote working any easier. I’ve found most co-workers and stakeholders to be more flexible with adjusted deadlines. Marketing remotely does not have to feel like a pressure cooker, but you need reasonable deadlines to keep things moving.

Effective communication tips for remote work

Start with kindness.

‘Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle’ is a cliche, but it could not be more true. With unprecedented death, illness, and economic turmoil, this tough year has affected everyone. There is no excuse for curtness while we continue to navigate our global situation.

Confirm understanding.

As noted above, asking for help has become tough during these times. When speaking to your stakeholders, it’s worth taking a moment to ask for their questions. By clarifying that they understand you (and vice versa) you avoid miscommunications and create a more collaborative virtual team.

Use Zoom if you have to, avoid it when you don’t.

Zoom has kept our entire world afloat this year. Yet, we’ve become reliant on it for every communication instance. Consider whether each of your meetings would pack the same punch if it were an email or a phone call. If so, consider these options instead. This makes each Zoom rarer and more valuable.

Avoid small talk, but embrace chit chat.

Over the past year, I’ve missed catching up with my work friends about their lives, families and pets. What I haven’t missed is the awkward conversations about the weather or the commute. Ask your co-workers interesting and thought-provoking questions about their lives. Skip the mundane and give that time back.

Texting is your last resort.

Email. Slack. Zoom. You basically live in your co-workers’ computers. You don’t need to live in their personal cell phone as well. Unless it’s emergency-level urgent, use the work-approved communication channels.

Tips for managing remote employees

Check in daily.

You would say ‘good morning’ to your employees every day in the office, why wouldn’t you now? Even the smallest daily touch is a good reminder that you are a team.

Resource readily.

Are there software solutions that can make your remote team’s work smoother and easier? Now is the time to invest. Your employees should see that you value your time, even when they’re out of the office. By investing in the proper tools, like CRMs, they need to get their job done, you show how much you value them.

Be flexible.

This cannot be said enough. Employees have stepped up this year to still succeed at their jobs under unprecedented circumstances. They may ask for extended deadlines or rescheduled meetings. Just by asking, you can know they are still prioritizing work even during these trying times.

Understand emotional needs & respect confidentiality.

We’ve all experienced loss this year and some of us more than others. Employees may need extended bereavement or mental health days. Consider allowing them without additional explanation or excuse.

Celebrate when you can.

We haven’t just lost in-person work. We’ve lost birthday lunches, baby showers, and holiday soirees. Many companies have had historic successes and some have had huge comebacks. Consider a Zoom party, gift basket, or even a celebratory email thread to celebrate life’s good parts.

Tips for being managed remotely

Check in daily.

If you don’t hear from your manager, send a brief update or follow up on specific tasks. These conversations often increase rapport and build trust between colleagues.

Report on your successes.

It’s up to you to prove your value to your manager, which is harder to do during remote work. If you have a win, make sure you share it with your manager and team right away.

Take things off of your manager’s plate.

Free up your manager’s time to focus on what’s important to your remote workforce. You can handle the weekly team agenda or send out the Zoom links. This builds trust and can relieve some of the stress of working remotely.

Prioritize your professional development.

If you’re early in your career, time hasn’t stopped. Make sure you are still learning and growing your skills for career development. Work with your manager to incorporate professional development into your 2021 plan.

Embrace the phone call.

Sometimes talking on the phone allows people to be clearer and more candid than they may be over Zoom. Without the self-conscious nature of a video call, you can get a better picture of what your manager needs.

Techniques for work-life balance

Take days off.

During a global pandemic, we all worked more. Instead of investing in our own self-care, we spent more time on our computers. This year, take your vacation time when you feel like you need a break—you don’t need a better excuse than that.

Invest in the things that make your life easier.

I wish we could all hire a laundry/grocery/childcare/dog walking/dinner-cooking service. That’s not realistic, but there are a few affordable COVID-safe services as options. The space that outsourcing household tasks creates in both your brain and on your schedule has great value.

Don’t forget about your friends.

There were long stretches during the pandemic where I only talked to my immediate family or my co-workers. When the only channels for chatting with friends are the same as those you use for work, it can be exhausting. Yet, keeping up these relationships is crucial for your mental health. They are the one thing that isn’t work or home—cherish it!

Take your lunches.

When your kitchen table is also your office, it’s easy to work with a sandwich in-hand. Try to avoid this: our lunchtime is ours, and it’s a built-in time in the day to step away from your work.

Shut down your computer at the end of the day.

Don’t log off or put it to ‘sleep.’ When I hit that shut down button, it’s a wave of relief from the day. Your computer doesn’t need to be glowing in the background of your personal time.

How to make the most of remote work

Spend your commute time doing something you love.

It might be getting an extra hour of sleep. Or, it might be reading, doing a puzzle, or chatting with friends. You’ve gained this time back into your life—use it for something good.

Dress comfortably and for yourself.

Even if your workplace had a relaxed dress code, it probably was not as relaxed as working from home. Pursue your original style in your remote-work wardrobe and find a ‘uniform’ that makes you comfortable.

Connect with your new “coworkers.”

They might be your spouse, your kids, or your neighbors or pets. Take time during your day to treat your new “coworkers” like you would your work teammates. Check in about their day, share a snack, or go for a walk (dogs like this one best).

Explore a new space.

If you’re safely able to, consider working from a new location. Many remote workers have been able to explore the world while maintaining their jobs. This unprecedented lifestyle was once on the fringe, but is now accessible for anyone able to travel safely.

Make it yours.

For the entire history of the modern workplace, workers have played by their company’s rules. When to work, where to work, what to wear: this was all determined by one person in charge. Now, this power has returned to employees. Consider what truly makes you happiest in your work life, and pursue it.

Sources:

Forecast Analysis: Remote Work IT Spending, Worldwide. Ranjit Atwal, Neha Gupta, Dean Blackmore, Christian Canales, Grigory Betskov. Gartner. January 31, 2021

9 Tips for Managing Remote Employees. Mary Baker. Gartner. January 4, 2021

The Psychology of Flow. Kendra Cherry. Very Well Mind. January 13, 2021

The post 40 tips for remote work appeared first on Insightly.

That’s why midsize companies frequently hire CRM consultants to help with implementation, training, and ongoing support. CRM consultants possess intricate knowledge about particular systems, features, and integrations—knowledge that may not exist within your organization’s four walls.

Of course, hiring a CRM consultant comes with its share of tradeoffs. Cost is certainly at the top of the list, as CRM experts are in high demand and, as a result, highly compensated.

This article discusses the topic of CRM consultants and how to form a game plan for eliminating, or at least minimizing, consulting fees.

Why are CRM consultants so costly for midsize companies?

Midsize companies have customer data management needs that are similar to those of larger organizations, but with budgets that are considerably smaller. This means that every dollar of your CRM project really counts. However, when you’re spending the majority of your CRM budget on consulting fees, it’s hard to make traction toward your actual business goals.

Here are just a few reasons why consulting fees can add up so quickly for midsize companies:

CRM onboarding expenses

Bringing in a consultant to document use cases, develop architecture plans, and serve as an independent advocate is a common starting point. You also need someone who can extract data from legacy systems, prepare data for import, configure custom fields, onboard users, and coordinate training. And, of course, all of these tasks require meetings—lots of them. Before you know it, the consultant has logged 100+ hours, which begins to rival the total cost of your first year’s subscription. Ouch.

Ongoing expenses

Consulting projects have a way of evolving into never-ending engagements. What seemed like a one-time setup morphs into an ongoing relationship. After all, new customer data continues to flow into your CRM. Someone also needs to stay on top of deduplication, record management, provisioning new users, offboarding old users, and ensuring everyone has proper access to the right data. Since you’ve already invested so much time (and money) into the consulting relationship, it seems logical to keep the consultant around to provide ongoing support, even though the hourly fees continue to add up.

5 tips for eliminating dependency on CRM consultants

So, what are your options for minimizing dependency on costly CRM consultants?

Consider these five tips:

1. Start with an intuitive, easy-to-use CRM

Users and administrators want a system that is easy to use and manage. When you go against their wishes and select a CRM with a complex data structure and antiquated user interface, consultants become almost unavoidable. If you’re still in the consideration stage of your CRM selection process, take a few minutes and ask yourself these four questions:

• Do other midsize companies use this CRM?
• Is data management intuitive and customizable?
• Can we save money and improve efficiency?
• Will this CRM scale to align with our future growth?

Then, look for a CRM that’s built for the exact needs of midsize companies and offers features that accelerate user adoption, such as:

• A modern, intuitive user interface
• Easy-to-use administrator tools
• Customizable data fields
• Integration to business applications that your company actually uses

2. Avoid shiny objects

Go back and reevaluate your motivation for implementing a CRM in the first place. Take a CRM needs assessment to get your creative juices flowing. Is your primary goal to centralize customer data? Or, are you looking to scale sales operations and give SDRs more tools for prospect engagement? Identify your primary and secondary goals, then focus all conversations and resources around achieving those goals. Do not be distracted by features that, while interesting, do not support the mission.

For example, if your main goal is to streamline the handoff between sales and operations, you should not spend much time worrying about APIs or custom objects. Rather, focus on the features that accelerate project delivery, such as automated workflows and record linking. You might be surprised by how much your in-house team can accomplish on their own once goals are clearly defined and understood.

3. Use every resource at your disposal

Most likely, your CRM vendor’s pricing page lists every feature and service that you’re entitled to as a customer. (Your contract might include similar information.) Look for the expanded version and familiarize yourself with every resource at your disposal. Examples might include:

• Standard support services (i.e., email support, chat, etc.)
• Success plans that provide dedicated support and continuous improvement
• Online user communities
• Sample data import templates
• On-demand training resources
• Native integrations
• Self-help documentation (For example, here’s Insightly’s documentation site.)

Go through the feature and service list to identify resources that could make the biggest impact on your CRM project. Make sure your team is also aware of these resources and references them often.

4. Continuously invest in your people

Your team is a talented, diverse group of professionals. From IT to sales and marketing, your organization already possesses many skills that are necessary to successfully implement and manage an in-house CRM project. Perhaps they just need extra training or coaching to give them the necessary confidence boost.

Believe in your people. Capitalize on their strengths and identify opportunities to help them develop new skills. In doing so, you’ll be supporting their professional growth while simultaneously establishing a new core competency for your business—one that’s far less reliant on consultants.

Empower your team with modern and easy-to-use CRM, like Insightly CRM, that can drive up productivity, free up time for more creative work, and help your team reach goals.

5. Run the numbers on a CRM success plan

If you’re still not sure how to eliminate costly consultants from your budget, maybe it’s time to consider your vendor’s CRM support and service plans. Although there’s a cost, such plans can be easier to budget for as compared to hourly consulting fees. In exchange for a predetermined amount, your vendor provides additional services to help your in-house team be more successful with your CRM project.

For example, Insightly’s support plans include a variety of value-added services such as:

• Onboarding
• Admin and user training
• Phone support
• A dedicated customer success manager/personalized guidance
• Regular check-ins for continuous improvement

Why not tap into the collective genius of the people who are developing and supporting your CRM software? Seems like a logical place to start.

Get your game plan

Perpetually relying on consultants to manage your CRM is a losing proposition. It’s time to take control and develop a game plan that maximizes the impact of each dollar invested back into your CRM.

Explore Insightly and schedule a demo to get a free CRM needs assessment and see Insightly CRM in action.

Request a demo

The post How to eliminate the need for costly CRM consultants appeared first on Insightly.

The proliferation of CRM software today illustrates this point. The value of the global CRM market grew from $15.4 billion (USD) in 2016 to $40.2 billion in 2019. That’s a dramatic 260% increase in three years. Experts predict that growth to continue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.2% between 2020 and 2027.(1)

We’re now seeing “unified CRM platforms” emerge as early CRM technology evolves. Unified CRMs incorporate additional business functions, such marketing automation, into a CRM platform without the need to manually sync sales and marketing data. This digitalization of previously-manual processes delivers extensive benefits to sales and marketing organizations. Plus, it’s forcing a shift in how B2B businesses conceptualize and approach sales.

However, the internal adoption of digital business technology remains a challenge for many businesses. In the case of B2B sales, managers, directors, and executives must champion digital tactics to support this transition. Below, we share five tips to streamline digital transformation in B2B sales.

5 Tips for B2B sales teams

Digital business models will inevitably dominate the near future of B2B sales, yet many businesses find the transformation difficult. Use the tips to minimize the challenges and successfully transition from analog to digital B2B sales processes.

1. Identify & adopt emerging technology

Spotting emerging technology and adopting it early on is key to a successful transformation. For example, the first companies that adopt unified CRMs almost certainly outpace their competition today.

It’s fairly simple to identify high-potential, emerging technology early enough to get a head start on the competition. But you need to understand existing technology and its gaps and be open to new ideas or ways of doing business in order to recognize it when you see it.

Adoption is the difficult part. You can invest in a software system and implement it in your company, but that’s not adoption. You achieve adoption across your company once your entire organization embraces and uses this new technology on a daily basis. And that takes some work.

Some employees push back because they’re happy with the way things are done and see no need to change. Some simply don’t use the new system and stick to their old ways. Others aren’t as technologically-savvy as you’d like them to be and challenged by learning new systems. All of this is true for senior management and executives as well as entry-level employees.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to surpass these hurdles, most of which are covered in the steps outlined below. And if you’re struggling with CRM adoption, there are plenty of tips to increase CRM adoption rates. Once employees see the benefits digital technology delivers and how it makes their lives easier, their concerns tend to disappear.

2. Prioritize internal training & onboarding

Because engaging in a digital transformation requires businesses to invest in new technologies, training is essential. The most powerful technology in the world is worthless unless users know how to leverage it properly. That’s why onboarding sales teams and investing in comprehensive training is essential. B2B companies shouldn’t undervalue the importance of having an effective success plan for CRMs or any other technology.

While initial training and onboarding of new users is critically important, user education shouldn’t stop there. Continued training on new features and capabilities ensures your initial investment maximizes your ROI. It also provides B2B sales teams with digital skills that will continue to benefit them throughout their careers. In Europe, the data from 2018 informs us that 90% of all jobs already require some level of digital skills.(2)

3. Educate users about the benefits

It’s hard to deny the efficiency and productivity gains that digital technology provides to businesses of all types. B2B companies and their sales teams are no exception. If B2B companies educate salespeople on the benefits digital technology can provide to them, they’re more likely to adopt it.

We can again use CRM software to illustrate this point. Because CRMs automate manual tasks, salespeople can spend more time on prospect interactions and building stronger relationships with customers. In a B2B setting, this equates to more new customer acquisitions and increased levels of cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Those, in turn, lead to more deals won and more commission earned by B2B salespeople.

4. Embrace data analysis & digital insights

Trusting data and its sources is a major roadblock on the journey to a successful digital transformation. However, the data and insights provided by digital technology are two of the key benefits of digital transformation.

First, B2B sales revolves around building trusted, long-term customer relationships. Building those relationships is easier when sales has access to digital insights around customer behavior, buying patterns, interests, challenges, etc.

Today’s CRM solutions capture extensive data that B2B salespeople can use to form rapport with customers. CRMs with marketing automation capabilities like customer journey mapping let sales reps maintain insight into where customers are in their decision-making and which resources they need at each stage of that journey.

Furthermore, B2B sales leaders and executives can leverage this data to make more informed, data-driven decisions. This is key because the right data gives decision makers insight into untapped opportunities for business growth. Indeed, 51% of companies that engage in digital transformations say identifying growth opportunities in new markets is the leading motivator behind their decision to start that transformation.(3)

5. Commit to & enforce digital sales processes

In order for a digital transformation to be successful, B2B sales managers must fully commit to supporting the effort. They also have to enforce new sales practices and consistent use of new technology when interacting with their teams. This may sound easy, but it can be a challenge.

There are tactics sales managers can use to smooth the transition to a digital business model. One of which is to clearly communicate to their teams that it is a priority for executive leadership. If sales reps realize that not adhering to new processes and consistently using new technology carries consequences, they’re more likely to fall in line.

Constant check-ins when first implementing new technology help sales managers ensure their teams are adhering to these changes. Plus, digital businesses have access to technology that can alert them when their reps don’t use the system. A unified CRM, where sales and marketing data are fully integrated, makes it easy to identify incomplete processes or data gaps.

Pulling it all together

Ultimately, B2B sales organizations have more than enough incentives to support digital transformation. Sales managers who are actively involved in a digitally-transformed business can attest to this. Survey data indicates that 32% of IT decision makers say that digital transformation has already helped them to achieve revenue growth. They go on to report that the growth they’ve experienced represents a 23% increase in annual company revenue, on average.(4)

Ready to start your digital transformation? Connect with Insightly for a free needs assessment and a unified CRM product demo.

Request a demo

Sources:

1. Customer Relationship Management Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis, Grand View Research, 2020
2. The Impact of Technological Innovation on the Future of Work, European Commission, 2019
3. The State of Digital Transformation, Altimeter, 2019
4. State of Digital Business Transformation, IDG Communications, 2018

The post Tips for digital transformation in B2B sales appeared first on Insightly.

Now that we’re several months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are settling into their new workdays at home and may even be getting into a routine at this point. While even health experts are unable to put a timetable on a return to “normal,” the day will come when the pandemic is a memory and we’re living in a business environment that might be “back to normal” in thought, if not in practice. It’s important to use some time now, before the shift happens, to think through the transition plan for what coming out of this phase looks like—taking all facets of your business into account.

Revaluate culture & what “returning to work” looks like

While you’ll likely have very little agency in the timetable of when you will be able to return to your office, you can, and should, take the time to figure out what that return looks like for your organization. When everyone is finally allowed back, it will look very different than it did before. Will everyone go back at once? Will some people who can do so without interference continue to work remotely? There are so many business decisions to be made in the new world order and it’s important to take the time to consider them now, while you have more time to think them through and make the right call. Culture is so important at a time like this—it’s what holds a business together—and it should be top of mind as you’re making your reentry plans.

When you are finally allowed back to the office, know that it will not be business as usual. It’s possible that many roles will have shifted in the time out of the office, and people will need the time and space to adapt to their new roles. Small things can go a long way here; we’re planning to have branded masks available to everyone who will be in the office once we’re allowed back. And once we’re allowed back, it probably won’t happen all at once. People’s lives have been uprooted, and they’ll need to be re-sorted again. Maybe you start small and people go in for a few hours at a time. It doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, black and white. The culture will have shifted; there will be a new proverbial “water cooler” around which people gather. Support your team members through the transition and know that it likely won’t be a painless process, and that every organization is likely going through at least some of the changes you are.

Refocus on growing from the crisis

Everyone seems to be talking about “rebounding,” but what does rebounding even mean in this climate? Nearly every single business in the country needs to rebound in some way after one of the worst crises we’ve ever seen. More likely than not, you’ve already faced some challenging business decisions, whether it’s drastically cutting budgets or even reducing your head count. After the flames have died down, think about how you can grow from the ashes.

This is an excellent time to review your crisis strategy. There are likely a number of things you did well in reacting to this crisis, and things that could have gone better. Take a beat and gather feedback across the board. Did employees feel they had the right amount of information when they needed it? Do your customers feel well supported by you right now? Listen to the appropriate parties both internally and externally to be sure you’re prepared should something of this magnitude ever strike again.

Of course, the state of your business is top of mind right now. Instead of scrambling and trying to plug the holes one by one, take some time to think and really be creative about solutions for your business in the new world order. You’ll likely have to think, and act, a bit outside your comfort zone. It’s a good time to reevaluate the tools your organization is using to help your business run, especially within the sales pipeline. The right CRM platform can make or break a sales team right now, when each and every touchpoint with a customer has to count. There’s no reason for your sales and marketing teams to not be operating on one, unified platform with the tools available in the market today. Everyone should be looking at the same cohesive dataset, across teams, to provide the best possible customer experience.

It’s impossible to know when the fog will lift and we’ll be allowed back to some version of “normal,” whatever that may be. What we do know for certain is that it’s important to use the time we have now to plan for our reentry so that we can rebound and adapt to the new rules when they’re placed. As we’ve said all along, the most important thing right now is to keep moving forward. Don’t wait until the last moment to make decisions about your organization’s future, or there may not be much of a future toward which to work.

Read more like this:

• Selling while sheltering: how to manage sales & engage customers
• How to use CRM to manage remote work & keep up the sales pace
• Navigating uncertain times with the new ‘business as usual’
• How Hot Spots Movement future-proofs businesses
• 4 steps to building a unified business approach in 2020

The post Reevaluating & rebounding appeared first on Insightly.

CRM workarounds come in many shapes and sizes—and for a number of reasons. Feature set limitations, plan level restrictions, inadequate training, and subpar user adoption are often the primary culprits.

Regardless of the cause, CRM workarounds usually end up creating more confusion than clarity. In this post, we’ll share five common CRM workarounds, why they’re bad for your business, and how to avoid them.

5 CRM workarounds (& why they’re bad)

Be on the lookout for these five CRM workarounds. You might be surprised by their negative consequences on your business:

1. Sharing passwords

Most CRMs—including Insightly—license their technology on a monthly (or annual) per-user model. Purchasing licenses for every member of the organization can add up quickly, especially for midsize and large organizations with dozens or hundreds of users. As a result, some companies try to manage rising CRM costs by “sharing” user accounts instead of creating new ones.

Why it’s bad: In addition to obvious ethical considerations, sharing passwords creates numerous transparency and data integrity challenges. If a large amount of data is accidentally deleted by a shared account, how can you possibly pinpoint the responsible party? If a task is assigned to a shared user account, who is responsible for getting the work done? How can you guarantee compliance with data security regulations when multiple users have unfettered access to sensitive business data—without proper oversight? You can’t.

2. Building unnecessary integrations

To survive and thrive in the 21st century, you need an arsenal of cloud-based tools and business systems. In addition to CRM technology, many companies rely on third-party email marketing tools, social media schedulers, web analytics platforms, content management systems, keyword analyzers, document repositories, SEO software—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Maintaining a strategic view across dozens of disintegrated software applications can be difficult, which is why some companies try to integrate everything to their CRM.

Why it’s bad: This is not a case against CRM integrations, but rather against enabling the wrong integrations. Each integration that you build should deliver significant business value. After all, there’s a real cost to configure and maintain each integration. Be sure to consider whether the value outweighs the upfront API development work (or plan level upgrade). For example, does your marketing team really need to sync upcoming social media posts to their CRM calendars? Or, will this integration soon become forgotten—or, worse, create new distractions that reduce productivity?

3. Force-fitting bad processes

Switching CRMs represents an excellent opportunity to challenge the efficiency of pre-existing processes. Perhaps that 22-step checklist for quoting new business can (and should) be slimmed down. Unfortunately, some companies take the opposite approach and force-fit their “way of doing things” into their new CRM—while expecting different results.

Why it’s bad: CRMs are built to help your company leverage relationships more effectively, grow faster, and reduce waste. Therefore, force-fitting a bad process into your CRM misses the entire point of adopting a CRM.

4. Exports, exports, exports

“I’ll do a fresh export and run a VLOOKUP so we can massage the data.”

What is it with people and spreadsheets? Why is “massaging” data easier or less risky in a spreadsheet than in a CRM? Granted, a spreadsheet does not contain “live” data, so the risk of accidentally deleting important information is reduced. But spreadsheets come with their own set of unique challenges that make it impossible to maintain data integrity.

Why it’s bad: Each exported data file creates a new data silo that previously did not exist within your organization. True, most spreadsheets are promptly deleted after the data is re-imported back into your CRM. But, in the event of a security breach, what would happen to exports that were accidentally or purposefully retained on a compromised end-user device? Despite your company’s previous efforts to consolidate all customer data into your CRM, exported data files silently increase your exposure to information loss.

5. Over-customizing

Your sales reps want to know as much as possible about their potential clients. Marketers need detailed insights to understand personas and their buyer journeys. Success teams require quick access to holistic customer data to provide a meaningful experience.

In short, each stakeholder group has unique data needs, which can lead to never-ending requests for custom objects and data fields. As a result, CRM administrators often find themselves feeling pressured into unnecessary customizations.

Why it’s bad: When aligned with your business goals and strategically deployed, CRM customizations deliver measurable value. However, when implemented haphazardly, customizations create unnecessary confusion that accelerates misalignment. Does your success team really want to scroll through dozens of unused data fields (that were requested by the sales team) when providing customer support? Conversely, do sales reps want to be bombarded by support ticket transcripts when upselling or cross-selling? Of course not.

Avoiding CRM workarounds

So, how can you prevent CRM workarounds in your business? Here are a few recommendations.

Think long-term

We get it. Software licenses are not cheap. On the other hand, there’s a tangible cost to information loss and unscalable business processes that keeps rising with time. Maintain a long-term perspective and don’t be lured into bad decision-making just to save a few bucks.

Understand what you already have (and know how to use it)

Many CRM workarounds could be entirely avoided with proper training and onboarding. CRMs are robust systems, which means there’s a lot to learn. Familiarize yourself with the entire feature set that you’re already paying for. Then, implement policies and procedures to ensure that you’re maximizing the system to its full potential. If your CRM offers built-in workflows, you might be able to lessen your reliance on external automation platforms like Zapier.

Keep it simple

Could your CRM completely eliminate the need for other software that you’re currently using? For example, a CRM that offers sales and marketing under one roof might reduce your dependency on third-party marketing platforms, thereby simplifying your tech stack and limiting unnecessary integrations (aka workarounds).

Trust the system that you’ve built

You must be able to trust your CRM and the processes that you build around it. If you can’t trust your CRM, maybe it’s time to bring on an expert or consider a switch. The less you trust your CRM, the more prevalent workarounds become.

Simplify your life with fewer workarounds

At the end of the day, your CRM should make your life easier and your company more successful. Workarounds, although somewhat effective at solving immediate problems, can complicate your life and, in the long run, detract from your overall success.

Which CRM workarounds are slowing down your growth?

It’s time to take control and replace workarounds with viable solutions that scale.

Read more like this:

• What is data integrity? How to achieve it?
• Should you build or buy CRM?
• How to increase transparency in business with a unified CRM
• How to do a CRM needs assessment

The post 5 common CRM workarounds you should quit now appeared first on Insightly.

Business has undoubtedly been turned upside down. As the world navigates managing operations in the Covid-19 lockdown, here are a few best practices aimed at helping business leaders and sales teams move forward in the new environment—from managing remote sales teams to engaging with customers.

By nature, salespeople are people people. While many sales teams (ours included) are not face-to-face with customers, salespeople are social people and feed off being around their colleagues in an office environment. So there are two main challenges for this group. Firstly, there are no more face-to-face meetings with customers (for sales teams who do this). Secondly, social salespeople are forced to fend for themselves at home, without the collective energy from their colleagues. In the face of Covid-19, you must have a plan to weather the storm and a plan for when the storm passes. Businesses, and sales teams in particular, must find a way to keep a level head and keep moving.

External care

As you’re probably aware, selling in this climate can very easily be read the wrong way. It’s important to be hyper sensitive to the fact that people are concerned for their livelihoods. People, and your customers are no exception, want to know you’re in this with them, and this may mean adapting to the way customers need you to adapt. Follow a few best practices:

Lead with empathy

Understanding how their business is being impacted and what they’re going through—personally and professionally, how are they being affected. Some will have to pause, so it’s critical that you stay connected. Check-in, formally and informally, to stay close to what’s happening with them and their business and proactively support them as their business and needs evolve through this time. For salespeople, it’s not always intuitive for them to think about the longer-term relationship building process, because many are focused on landing the deal. It’s critical that they focus on the needs of the customers/prospects above all else, even if that means postponing the deal. The reality is, if sales teams do this right, they will come out of this crisis with more qualified leads and long-lasting customer relationships. The slingshot effect will take hold.

Align with CRM

In times like these, CRM can be a lifeline to your customers. Make the most of each and every touchpoint you have with them through your platform; be overly thoughtful in each and every exchange whether its a marketing email or a customer service touchpoint. Don’t ignore what’s happening, but use the tools you have in place to engage with your community in a new way.

Stay in touch with your key customers

Keep in mind that many businesses will use this time to invest in tools that will enable them to grow and succeed post-Covid-19 are going to get stronger. They will be investing in tools, looking to build and rebound after the outbreak. More reason to stay in close contact with your critical customers.

Internal Support

As the vast majority of the workforce that is able to work from home is doing so currently, business leaders’ mindsets around how and where people work is going to continue to shift. A mere five years ago, working from home was often equated with playing hooky. Now, with the continued advances in tech like video conferencing and cloud computing, it’s much easier for teams to vouch for their productivity and prove that it’s possible to be as productive at home as in the office, provided you have the right tools. One critical requirement is the ability to measure activity with tools like Slack and Google cloud that enable collaboration like never before. Likewise, a modern CRM platform is the key to enabling leaders to measure productivity and to ensure nothing is dropped.

It’s also important to pay attention to your team, not just your customers. Find fun, interesting ways to keep them engaged during this weird time when it’s easy to feel disconnected from each other. Replicating the energy of a sales team in a remote world can be difficult—here are few ways to keep the team motivated and connected:

Cross-department creative

Use this time to have your team do a deep dive into different aspects of your business—break into teams and analyze a competitor, an issue, etc and have each group present their findings. This forces people to work together, analyze different aspects of your role and delivers cross-team collaboration.

Namaste at home

We’re doing extra programming like virtual yoga classes and walks so people can get energized and get a break from the stress of the new workday. I personally offer optional “ask me anything” bi-weekly calls to my team—the only caveat is both of us have to be on a walk while we’re chatting. The format is wide open – my team asks whatever is on their mind. The goal is to replicate the highly collaborative office experience we normally have—but in this new remote world we’re living in. We’ve also just launched a “show me your crib” initiative that parodies the famous MTV show—each person shoots their own segment and gives us a tour of their home and home office. It helps to humanize this experience and reinforces the “we’re in this together” mentality.

Let’s do lunch

Virtual lunch groups where people can just shoot the breeze and connect can help create a sense of normalcy and allow your employees to chat about non-work related items during the day.

Share the love

Leverage messaging tools to increase the frequency of direct communication between employees, and encourage sharing “little wins” throughout the day. And focus on sharing stories (versus closing deals). We’ve found our internal messaging system, Slack, to be more active than ever before, with team members sharing updates on good calls with customers, using it to collaborate on projects and have even used it to share interesting articles they come across. People are craving connection during these isolating times; make sure your team has access to it.

At the end of the day, it’s about thinking about ways to connect—and show your team it’s okay to step away and that as the leader, you’re in this with them. While eventually, the world will get back to business, our new normal may look completely different than the one to which we were accustomed. Things are going to be different, but with a little extra work now, you can be prepared to manage your remote sales team now and beyond.

Read more like this:

• How to use CRM to manage remote work & keep up the sales pace
• 4 steps to building a unified business approach in 2020
• 7 ways to adapt marketing during a crisis
• 4 customer relationship lessons from women entrepreneurs

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