Posted by Commence on February 3, 2010 under CEO Corner | 
Commence Corporation helps small to midsize businesses tackle the CRM challenge
Picking a CRM software vendor is tough. It’s even tougher when you’re part of the small to midsize market, where technology budgets are limited and horror stories of complex, drawn-out CRM projects abound. While the watchword of midmarket CRM buyers was once something akin to the President’s “irrational exuberance,” today it is “caution,” as companies demand solutions that are affordable, easy to implement and easy to use and that deliver a quick return on investment.
“The CRM industry has been plagued by vendors offering overly complex solutions to solve basic business problems. This has resulted in a low adoption rate and failed customer expectations,” says Larry Caretsky, president and CEO of Commence Corporation. “The concern for most businesses today is not a lack of technology, but rather how they can leverage technology to improve their internal processes and, ultimately, their bottom line.”
Caretsky should know. His company has been in business for 22 years and has witnessed all the trends in customer relationship management. And with that kind of experience, Caretsky figured out long ago that rapidly deployable, cost-effective CRM solutions – even when they weren’t in vogue – were the only way for customers to quickly and affordably reap the benefits of their investment.
Commence Corporation has taken a unique approach to meeting the key objectives of most small to midsize businesses – namely, by streamlining internal business processes, improving sales processes and delighting customers. The company starts with the fundamental knowledge that most mid-market customers must first address the problem of data capture, data consolidation and data sharing.
Typically, vital customer information is spread throughout these organizations in contact management software, back office systems and Excel spreadsheets. “Employees spend a significant amount of time trying to determine where or who in the organization has the information they need to address customer inquiries,” says Caretsky. “Management recognizes this problem and realizes that in order to increase sales and become a more efficient sales and service organization they must get the right information into the hands of the right people, at the right time.”
The Commence CRM software does just that. Customer information, captured from multiple channels, is stored in a unified database where it is immediately available to all authorized personnel through two product features: a digital dashboard and a multiview capability. “This enables them to be constantly aware of account activity and take proactive steps to ensure customer satisfaction,” says Caretsky.
At the same time, Commence helps companies increase sales using a sales process template that is built into the system. Preset sales stages allow the sales team to begin classifying new sales opportunities from the beginning. The product also offers sales teams the ability to utilize a structured sales methodology for lead scoring and evaluating each sales opportunity. And it helps make sales reps more productive by providing a tool to automate routine tasks. “It’s like having an administrative assistant working directly for you,” says Caretsky.
Building brand recognition via the use of direct mail and email marketing campaigns is also incorporated in Commence CRM as a component of the marketing software module. By scheduling repetitive marketing campaigns small to mid-size businesses can be assured that their company, product or service is in front of prospective buyers at all times.
“Today’s basis for business growth is the successful management of long-term relationships with customers on a one-to-one level,” says Caretsky. “When the customer becomes the center of your business, customer-centric strategies, processes and technology solutions can unlock the value of these relationships.”
Posted by Commence on November 12, 2009 under CEO Corner |
I read an interesting article that compared the success rate of accounting software implementations to that of CRM solutions within a sales organization. The results were intriguing. While accounting software implementations seem to enjoy a high level of success, this is not the case for sales automation systems. The article went on to compare and outline the differences between the two areas and while it did not provide any specific recommendations, if you’re a small to mid-size business the information below may make you think differently about the importance of implementing a sales methodology or structure within your sales organization.
Outlined below is a brief summary of the article.
Accounting departments are traditionally known for having mature well-documented business processes, perhaps because the federal government requires them. Sales organizations are traditionally void of structure and process, which often results in inaccurate forecast and sales with lower profitability then desired.
Accounting departments have mature people. This is not to say that sales people are not mature, but accountants are traditionally degreed and well trained on the principles of accounting while sales people often come from different walks of life with different levels of education and sales experience.
Accounting systems have also been around for decades and have a mature set of features that have been designed to address a specific set of rules and guidelines. Sales systems while mature must be flexible enough to support a variety of unique sales functions within multiple sales channels. This often makes these systems overly complex and hard to use.
This brief analysis would indicate that mature business processes, mature people, and mature solutions drive the operational success of your accounting department. If this is indeed true, shouldn’t we be emulating this within our sales organization?
Small to mid-size businesses that have a CRM initiative should make sure that they add the ability to have a flexible sales methodology to their functional criteria list.
CRM vendors like Commence Corporation offer fully integrated solutions for contact management, lead management, sales management as well as consulting services that help businesses deploy proven sales methodologies or create custom programs to match unique selling requirements. The flexibility of web based solutions like Commence coupled with high level sales expertise can help make your sales organization as efficient as your accounting department.
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Posted by Commence on October 27, 2009 under CEO Corner |
Any high-growth business strategy must begin with a consistent and disciplined sales process that is easily understood across the sales organization. Salespeople and their managers need to use the same vocabulary, and view selling opportunities as having sequential stages that must be completed before a suspect becomes a prospect, and a prospect becomes a customer. Following a consistent process reduces the anxiety and uncertainty common among both salespeople and sales managers because everyone knows what is expected and needed for every sales pursuit. Having definite requirements and policies on when and how to give a demonstration, prepare a proposal, or send a sample helps the sales force proactively control the sales process versus simply reacting to requests from potentially unqualified prospects. Better preparation, deeper research, and clearer goals for each stage of the selling process will result in a more effective sales team and better business results.
A standard approach to pursuing and tracking opportunities is a smart way to assure that all sales activities are aligned with organizational goals and the overall direction of sales management. Consistency also reduces the amount of non-value added sales activities such as drafting letters, writing reports, and having lengthy phone calls to determine what stage is next in a sales opportunity. Having standard terminology saves time and minimizes confusion.
Sales managers benefit from standardized processes because it is also easier to determine how each salesperson is performing. Opportunities that are stalled in one stage can be identified and resolved. Salespeople benefit from standardization because they waste less time determining what information is missing and what the next step should be in the workflow. Sales appointments become more productive because they are only conducted when qualified as part of a planned sequence of events.
The high level steps to implement a sales process are:
- Document your sales process
- Design your implementation
- Train your sales team
- Support the implementation
Some companies adopt branded systems such as Sandler, Solution Selling, Dale Carnegie or others. Others develop their own systems with distinct terminology; perhaps a hybrid of popular systems or a mix of the techniques used by the company’s most successful sales performers.
A standard sales process allows companies to more easily analyze events and make sense of trends. As a regional sales manager at a mid-sized organization observed, “The only way to discover what’s working and what’s not is to measure the individual steps of the sales process. If you know the percentages of prospects that proceed through each stage of the process, you accurately predict how many sales will close in the future, based upon the current pipeline. You can also compare the performance of team members and take appropriate action, like additional coaching, in order to ensure that the team remains productive.”
Applying Best Practices to Sales
Most organizations are not strangers to processes, systems, and re-engineering. For example, in the manufacturing industry, plants and warehouses couldn’t operate profitably without them and no business manager would let accounting and purchasing departments improvise. The more complex the task, it’s more likely that the effective principles and processeses for successfully completing that task have been defined and codified. In other words, much of the business world is already highly process-driven, systematized, and automated.
Yet, oftentimes, the sales department hasn’t been automated. For example, in a recent study of distributor respondents, eighty-eight percent indicated that they do not have a documented, formal sales process. Given that sales is fundamental and represents a large expense item, it was quite surprising that written sales processes were non-existent for the majority of the study participants. Without such a document to provide a consistent road map, executives have no choice but to depend on the creativity, work ethic and luck of individual sales reps and their managers.
Organizations without a documented sales process often exhibit several common symptoms, such as a disconnected and manual approach to selling and a lengthy cycle time to find prospects, get quotes out the door, and close orders. This may in turn lead to irritated prospects, who expect a rapid response to their inquiries or request for a proposal. . In addition, top sales employees may become annoyed. They want to sell, not figure out the best way to put prospects in the pipeline, create quotes, enter orders and track shipments delivered. Other symptoms of process deficiencies include abundant and costly errors, evidenced by expedited orders and high volumes of returns, and inadequate margin on too many quotes, resulting in deflated profitability. This may lead to stagnant sales from the most important customers and cause engineering and other departments to be pulled into disarray when the sales team gets a request for proposal or learns about a bid opportunity.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many executives voice issues similar to these, yet the remedy seems to be incredibly difficult. Sales teams are often extremely autonomous, and management struggles to avoid “big brother” accusations and micromanaging. Despite these legitimate concerns, it is not that difficult to successfully implement a standard sales process.
When reviewing the various sales methodologies and processes available, make sure your final selection is repeatable, predictable, and scalable. What you want is a sales process that is simply enough that, over time, it will become second nature to the sales staff. Also, make sure that it isn’t too complicated, or the sales team will not use it.
The elements of a sales process typically include:
When smart organizations are designing a sales process implementation, they focus on change management, not sales training. By implementing a formalized sales process, businesses are fundamentally changing the way people do their jobs on a daily basis. There will be natural resistance. To develop a change management plan, make sure you can answer the following questions:
Follow the Leader
One of the best ways to make sure implementations “stick” is to have the management involved. One recent study found that when sales training is reinforced by management, the sales skills taught during training produced a 15% permanent increase in productivity.
Management needs to be involved in more than a cosmetic fashion. A senior member of the management team needs to attend the training, and this same manager should inspect the sales activities for a period of time to make sure they continuously are consistent with the new sales introduced during the training.
At the end of the day, the challenge with adopting a new sales process is getting everyone to follow it. Sales management must lead by example in sales meetings and on sales calls. An automated workflow reinforced by a CRM system that quickly prompts a salesperson to enter required information before moving to the next sales stage is invaluable. Standard reports and online visibility into the sales pipeline can help monitor the progress of opportunities over time so that both the salesperson and the sales manager can spot when an opportunity is stalled.
As one sales leader summed up his company’s recipe for success: “Our company can’t grow consistently unless the sales process is repeatable, not arbitrary. For us, it is a condition of employment – you have to embrace the standards, follow the processes and use the CRM system.”
Author Larry Caretsky is the CEO of Tinton Falls, N.J.-based Commence Corporation.
Tags: CRM, Information Management, OnDemand, process management, project management, Reports, SaaS, sales, Sales Effectiveness, sales force automation, sales forecasting, social networking, software
