Optimized Data Quality Beats Quantity Hands Down

The data explosion and subsequent mash up of mis-aligned information has led to the biggest area of frustration for users and probably the top reason why CRM programs flounder.  CRM data quality is far more important than all the programming doodads put together. Without high quality, strategically defined data, the value and function of the CRM program will drive sales people (and customers) away in a hurry. I have found these techniques to be helpful in the creation, maintenance and ongoing user policies for CRM:

1: Define Value

Data should be proportionate to the value you can gain with it. In other words, limit your diet of customer knowledge to only those items that will help you to better predict the outcome of your sales efforts.

2: Nail down your objectives.

Clearly spell out what the data requirements before you enter the first file. What does the ideal client look like? What is going to make them buy? What must sales and marketing personnel do with the data and when?

3: Minimize the time it takes.

Nobody has any extra time and even less patience with globs of undefined information/data fields. All that data might look impressive but in reality, it is a sales killer.

4: Link any and all data to your mission critical business priorities.

The reason is obvious: there’s not much point to the whole leads and account intelligence thing if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it.

5: Standardize the customer info needed.

Too often sales personnel (and list buyers) take whatever customer/data information is available with no plan of focusing only on the vital few factors that can clearly lead to business gains. Develop a vital data information ‘needs list’, make sure everyone is aware of it, and stick to it.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Word of Mouth had gained our trust.

As consumers, we’ve all experienced and usually welcomed ‘word of mouth’ information from our friends, family and peers. Long ago the marketing guru’s declared you will live or die on the word of mouth reputation of your company or product; and for the past millennium it was a personal experience, often face-to-face and it became a natural extension of our conversations wherever we shared a common interest. It is precisely this long social history and deep relationship we have with word of mouth that social network marketing imitates.

For many consumers ‘caveat emptor’ applies here.

When it comes to social media, technically speaking, it’s no longer word of mouth and it’s never face-to-face. Social Media has the feel of something personal but to a great degree it is entirely manufactured. The big stars and entertainment shows that promote some networks are paid, yet you think it’s personal. It’s an ad but doesn’t look or feel like one. It has little to do with what’s real or who is real and the lines get really blurred. So just when you thought you were following your favorite movie star, guess what: there’s an ad masking as his or her personal favorites.

Word of Net Marketing is often a poser.

The problem is that a lot of online viral marketing that poses as social media is really aimed at creating a ‘buzz’ about the product. Instead of customer’s opinions, you are likely to get skillfully crafted hype by marketing ‘posers’ that, more often than not, stresses what you should think.

In this world you don’t need satisfied customers to promote your product by word of mouth: now all you need is a powerful spin (real or imagined) and away you go! Want to make millions using Social Media? Join the masses of promoters with the fast and easy way to make a killing using social media. Their premise: From toilet paper to elixirs, there’s a surefire way to get your message in front of millions of customers who are eager to buy the product. All you need is their special brand of social media marketing and you’re all set.

Social media does work.

For legitimate social media organizations it works because the ‘buzz’ is real and real customers support the value. On a personal level you can exchange your thoughts about a product easily and usually you are sharing this among other interested users. Perhaps social media marketing is best served up to compliment the traditional word of mouth conversations, calls and personal emails. Just to be sure, I’ll check out anything I learn online face-to-face at the water cooler with my homies.

Will it last?

The life cycle of any latest and greatest media tool is unpredictable for most of the stuff floating around the Internet. I suspect it lasts right up to the time something else replaces it. But based on SM’s ever growing popularity, there’s no end in sight for the magic of social media networking.

MosaicCRM Experts Tips – CRM & Social Media Integration

If relationship marketing is important to your organization, managing and collecting social network data and transposing this into your CRM program is radically different from the traditional historical based ‘interaction-transaction’ type recording. There’s a lot of talk about ‘Social CRM’ but hang on a minute, adapting traditional CRM with all the tools that work is possible, even preferred.

• Social networking requires you to adapt CRM to recognize the instant real time data and transpose this into live response data

• More than ever customer centric response models are vital: Re-engineer your CRM to optimize this closed loop marketing process
• Evaluate the type and degree of customer information needed to assist sales efforts in this medium

• Use CRM to spread the results of the customer experience within your organization

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Written by Bill Noonan, Founder and CEO of MosaicCRM.

I welcome your inquiries, questions and comments.

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Writers are experts at crafting ‘The Button’.

It’s the last scene in a TV show designed to hold the viewer’s through a commercial interruption (or is it a message?). Well, they’ve already pushed by button by their frivolous cover up of their intent but they invariably keep my attention. The ad is entirely about interrupting my train of thought and in no way is a message and is very similar to a cold call without any preparation or value on behalf of the caller.

A message is some useful information I need. An ad is just an interruption. Never mind the definition at this stage. It’s vital you do things that keep you customer’s attention. Anything!

Keep your customers attention with a strategic system.

First you need a system. It can’t be done by chance alone. Just like the TV writers, you need a gripping story line and a strategy to make it happen. And just like the advertisers, you need to constantly and repeatedly interrupt whatever your customer is doing and gain their attention. Remember it’s not too likely that the law of averages is on your side. If you get a lot of ‘cant’s, won’t, and might’s’ … without a definitive attention keeping plan, you’re pretty much cooked.

Let’s see if we can’t improve your odds with these simple steps:

1: Leave your customers with them ‘wanting more’.

Often we are just too eager to fill in every conceivable blank in a misaligned effort to satisfy our customers every whim. The lesson here is not to divulge everything. The reason is simple: when the customer has all the information they need, you are technically and fundamentally useless. It stands to reason that they can now make a decision because they have all the information at hand so why on earth would they be interested in your interruption at this stage?

Customers think they have all the information and merrily go off making crazed buying decisions (mind now that they’re only crazed if they didn’t buy from you). Just as often they make the wrong decision. That’s why you have to keep their attention on you and stay in the game until the very, very, very end.

2: Never underestimate the power of FREE.

Somewhere your strategy has got to include something with ‘Free’ in it. That’s because it’s irresistible. And if you get to keep their attention with this offer, make it worth their while because you can use it over and over again. Get your marketing folks on this now!

3: Keep changing what you’re doing.

Just like every advertisement you every see, it keeps changing, some seemingly every nanosecond. It’s impossible to keep your customers attention with a monologue. Change your voice and inflection frequently, move around or at least make important gestures to important features, get involved and become important enough that they will pay attention to what you have to say.

4: Take a pause.

For heaven’s sake, take a pause. That’s right, a mini-break, a pause, snap out of it, plan a stop and this gets the attention of the customer to come up for air so they can think or do something.

5: Ask for input.

If you want to involve your customer, just ask for his input or ideas. Think of how well this technique works when a speaker asks for a show of hands or comments. It’s works the same way for you.

6: Keep it fresh.

This is probably one of the hardest things to do, from both sides of the fence. From your customer’s prospective, they may have seen and heard someone like you or your product dozens of times. Conversely, you may have this rather unfortunate sense of déjà vu with just too many of your customers. Make it a part of your strategy to insert another person, item or issue that gets both you and your customer sitting up and taking notice.

FREE MosaicCRM Expert Tips

Here are a few FREE techniques on using your CRM tools to get attention:

• Profile Accounts: In the B2B world generalist, mass marketing is dead. Clients today only read messages that are specific to their current needs. Adding a Rating, Type, Industry and Status profiles add significant ‘readability’ advantages when added to the usual geographic and product denominators.
• Automated and Personalized Contact: Templates work especially well. Design Sell Sheets that are personalized to each Contact on a regularly scheduled email/mailer.
• Mass Email/Mail: use your Advanced Search tools to create specialized Account/Contact lists for News Items, Free Something or other topics that will get their interest.
• Track Birthday/Customer Anniversary Dates: automatically schedule calls, emails, cards and letters
• Track Biz Networks: Track Contact’s business network updates
• Insert Objectives: Use Call/Meeting Objective and Topic inserts for important Calls or Appointments as a reminder to help keep on track.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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The tightening of business expenses often leads to squeezing every drop out of each and every sales activity. Surprisingly, many organizations cannot pinpoint the priority, type, and volume of sales activities they are conducting, even less so on which ones are producing the best results.

I have come across a number of sales and management styles which, in one form or another, fit into a prescribed activity type. Generally described as activity focused, close focused or buying-cycle focused, the question now is: Do you know what sales activity profile will gain the highest return?

For most organizations the answer is painfully obvious: today’s priority selling activities are buying-cycle focused. Unfortunately for some, nobody told marketing, sales support and a host of other departments that touch the customer. Are they confused? You bet and it is wasting a lot of time and money.

CRM’s highest and best use is the leading role in managing buying cycles.

The buying-cycle is comprised of those steps that the customer must go through to purchase and to become a continuing customer, as opposed to those activities that the company’s sales and marketing force must perform in order to achieve the same result (the selling-cycle).

In the past, sales activities have been selling-cycle oriented. These days the common wisdom is to focus on the buying-cycle. It is not a trivial distinction. The old selling-cycle approach is “me” oriented …products and features driven 1950’s salesmanship. Buying-cycle selling concerns the customer’s needs wants and timing.

It is essential that all selling and marketing activities be buying-cycle focused to gain the highest ROI on sales activities. Imagine the return if every call your sales team made was to a prospect closing in the next 90 days. That’s what we mean by buying cycle management.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner: Manage buying cycles over generalized activity management.

The emphasis in sales and marketing for the past thirty years or so has been ‘solution selling’, at least in the progressive corporations. The buying-cycle approach is a relatively new development and extension of the solution selling approach. The influence of customers buying habits and the influence of Internet reinforce the need for your CRM program to manage buying cycles over generalized activity management.

Many SMB’s fall victim to CRM systems that are too often designed around 1950’s selling styles e.g. designs that measure activity and not sales processes that manage buying cycles. I see it all the time where practically every field is ‘me’ oriented and very little is designed specifically around the ‘client needs, wants and directions. Beyond solution sales processes, a properly designed CRM plays a vital role in defining the buying cycle and it stands that its highest and best use is as a leading role in managing buying cycles.

Prioritize Buying Cycle Habits  in CRM.

The customer is of paramount importance to your business. Get into the habit of clearly defining the buying-cycle of your customers, individually, by type or even by whole. Even short buying cycles e.g. a simple online purchase includes at least a few of the following basics that should be a part of your CRM:

• Defined ‘steps’ in the buying cycle; paired with optimized activities for each step
• Contract Start and End dates paired with internal and external notices
  
• Budget Dates: When do your customers finalize annual budgets?
  
• Manage Product Life cycles adds value to specific customers
  
• Sales Stages paired to Buying Cycle Stages
• Activities tied to Buying Cycle priorities
• Identify Win Back Programs/Retention Programs focused on buying cycle
• Eliminate data fields, historical reports and activities that do not meet “buying-cycle” processes

Some day we can reflect back on the enormous volume (and cost) of non-buying cycle focused selling. I remember the ‘positioning’ ads; feel good brochures and reams of useless trinkets and brochures. What I wouldn’t give to have that money today and get it buying cycle focused!

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Written by Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Babbage is known to some as the “Father of Computing.” The Analytical Engine was the first device that might be considered to be a computer in the modern sense of the word. It used loops of punched cards to control an automatic calculator, which could make decisions based on the results of previous computations. He sought financial support to continue its development from the British Parliament.

It’s the customer who “just doesn’t get it.”

The question posed in the 1830′s by the honorable member is not as dumb as it first appears. Let’s imagine a scenario where Babbage plays super salesman and presents his PowerPoint to show his customer just how much he knows about his product. He thinks that after they hear his great plans and what the machine can do, presto, he’s got the deal done.

Now, I can recall a few times where I did the same thing, just prattling on and on about how much I knew. I thought, mistakenly so, I could convince my customer to buy because I knew so much and that would surely sell them. In these situations of babbling brook syndrome, I, like Babbage, got equally dumb questions in response. I can remember too how I felt, walking out of a meeting and shaking my head all the while murmuring something to the effect “they just don’t get it.” The reality was I didn’t get it. A never-ending splurge of features and benefits and facts isn’t selling or convincing anyone.

Make matters worse: answer dumb questions.

I have to call upon Flip Wilson’s infamous line, “The devil made me do it.” It’s the only way I can explain why I said the things I did in response to really dumb customer questions. How many of us would be tempted to say “Yes, of course the right answers will come out” if we were standing in Babbage’s shoes? My instinct tells me quite a few would.

Instead, if the devil didn’t quite make me cross that line, modern thought is to reply to the question with a question such as “Do you want the right answers to some out?” For many a sales person this question answering a question only delays the inevitable, “Yes, of course it will.” And the customer says “Really?That’s great; we’ll have to think about it.” And the scene ends with you shaking your head and muttering, they just don’t get it.

Get you customer to stop tinkering and make a decision.

Babbage, who died in 1871, worked the rest of his life on the Analytical Engine but never completed it. It’s said he never stopped tinkering and no sooner did he send a drawing to the machine shop would he order everything stopped until he finished tinkering on a new design. Does this scenario remind you of more than a few customers?

I recognize that a lot of sales people make good money selling consulting gigs that allow customers to tinker themselves into oblivion. For those of us who don’t have that lap of luxury, our task is to motivate them to make a decision. The lesson is clear; if you fall into the latter group, don’t waste time on tinkerers, some customers will never get it!

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

CRM programs are great platforms for defining and monitoring the sales process.

• In this example, an ‘Account Rating’ system could be of huge value: Qualified & Committed or Suspect & Uncommitted? Too often account ratings simply define the size or location of an account. With CRM technology it is easy to go beyond that simple parameter and rate accounts by meaningful reference and measurable objectives e.g. financing approved, decision date identified, competitive advantages etc.

• Monitoring your Progress with an ‘Aging System’ is important in the sales opportunity phase. Use your CRM programs to check progress by length of time and date in each phase. After all, if the deal is not moving to the next sales stage in a timely manner, it isn’t going to because you wish it so. Using these ‘Aging’ techniques is also very telling on forecasting more accurate closing time periods.

• If the opportunity is not moving ahead and you’re not making to progress where you are, then the Fall Back System is needed. Beyond keeping your pipeline content clean, Fall Backs require a specific strategy and sales routine to follow.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Consistent wins are as a result of strategy, not behavior.

Successful sales people are action oriented. They think in terms of doing something, often anything, and something will result. It is the old numbers game thinking. Action is always admirable but the problem is that it employs only behavioral actions and not strategies.

For many managers and sales personnel, learning to focus on a defined strategy and not just behavior can produce more immediate and lasting results.

To illustrate this point, I am reminded of an example where the young misses, after applying lipstick, had a habit of kissing the mirrors and leaving telltale smudges. This caused a lot more work for the janitor to remove these.

The option now was either enforce certain disciplinary action to stop this behavior or employ a strategy. The action could produce immediate results; however, the strategy could prove to deliver lasting and repeatable results. The latter won out.

Assembling all the girls in the washroom the principle pointed out how hard it was to clean the mirrors of their lip smudges. She asked the janitor to illustrate. He proceeded to dip his squeegee into a nearby toilet basin and then went vigorously about the business of cleaning the mirrors. As the story goes, there were no more lipstick smudges after this strategic example!

Strategies are more important than ever when it comes to CRM systems.

The advent of the CRM and exploding databases has allowed even the smallest organization to grow their data lists to extreme proportions. The downside of having more and more information can often result in focusing on the wrong action.

The first reaction by many managers is now that the team has the info, all they have to do is make some (or many) calls. However, separating what’s needed to advance the sales process and how to decipher the information is not so simple a process as making calls.

It can often be an excruciating exercise because there is little to help you turn data into information and knowledge. Hence, you are caught in the trap of the numbers game because the kind of sporadic wins you get when calling blind are a result of focusing on just the behavior: the number of calls. There is absolutely no question that this type of behavior focus leads to poor results and early burnout of sales staff.

Consistent “wins” are the result of having a strategy and making good decisions.

It’s not about numbers anymore; it’s about the ratios! Ratios are about thinking strategically, not numerically. By providing logical strategies for every step of the sales process you focus your team on the highest probabilities with a specific mission. This means you make better decisions and you naturally get better outcomes in less time with strategically focused sales behavior.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner – Well defined and specific strategies are needed.

Each phase of the sales process requires a well defined and specific strategy. Naturally qualifying takes a different tact than closing. Defining a strategy for each phase is imperative for sales people to understand what is expected and to have some gauge to measure performance by.

Whether it is qualifying a new lead upload or moving an opportunity through the sales stages, a defined and actionable list for each will set the road map for strategic methodologies that are easily understood and carried out.

• On a basic level, this can be a series of specific pre-formatted actions (calls, meetings etc) that are baked into the account qualification process
• Advanced CRM techniques are especially important in the pipeline phase where inclusion of management, team members and other departments may be crucial to success

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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