We rarely venture outside of the ‘familiar’, especially for such mundane things as the route to the office, or where we buy our milk, to what we eat. We constantly make decisions based on the ‘familiar’. As for more the important items such as a car or a home, the ‘familiar’ factors become increasingly more important and the degree to which we will pay is premium because ‘familiarity’ is virtually unlimited.

How important is familiarity?

It’s everything. We instantly and consciously (sometimes unconsciously) seek to satisfy our need for familiarity. It’s almost primal. If you don’t think so then why would a giant brand like Disney release blockbuster animations using familiar actor’s voices? The main reason is because it sells. It sells because we are enamored with the familiarity of the voices and the story. It’s a one-two punch that’s for all practical purposes, we find irrestable. This one-two formula works really well in the endorsement world as well. I hazard to guess what portion of the retail price Nike budgets on their endorsement athletes, but whatever it is, it’s huge and nobody is complaining about the results. More than that, it keeps one brand, Nike, ahead of all others by using the personal (and big) brands of the athletes.

Does familiarity breed content or contempt?

Familiarity may breed contempt in some circles but in selling it only creates confidence. If you doubt we buy everything based on the level of familiarity, then put this example into perspective. You get a call to pick up a half-gallon of milk for your kids on the way home. Now on the way to your car, a person unknown to you, dressed in dingy clothes and definitely in need of a shower proposes to you that he has some milk for sale, unbranded of course, and it’s only a buck.  If you’re like most people, this simple product purchase is made only where you trust the vendor and perhaps even the brand. Naturally you will pay five times the strangers price and like Elsie the cow, you feel contented. Whether it’s milk or scotch, or a toothbrush, everything has its ‘contented’ price for the simple reason that we strongly relate to the things we know.

How does a customer decide?

It’s no mystery how most people make their decisions. If a machine made the decision then that’s a different story. However, you are dealing with a human being and most of the human race can’t avoid the emotional side of the buying equation. Get ‘familiar’ with these parameters because we all make decisions based on these factors: 

• Customers prefer to choose familiar things
• Customers rely on the familiarity of relationships

Why? That’s easy. We want to minimize or even hope to eliminate our risk. And besides, customers are only interested in themselves.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

The bigger the decision, the bigger the ‘familiar’ factor comes into focus.

We rely on ‘familiar’ relationships to satisfy our needs, either physical (logical) or emotional (feelings), to minimize our risks. The most pointed ‘familiarity’ example is ‘brand name’ choices. With brand names and ‘known’ references, there usually is little to decide about from a buyer’s point of view.

• With the advent of CRM tools like routine contact scheduling, key date tracking and automated personalized marketing, becoming familiar has become a straightforward job even for the most junior sales member.

Brand yourself. Maximize the risk doing business with anyone else.

Don’t have a billion dollars and a little shy on a $100 million endorsement account? No problem. As a sales person, manager or executive, you can accomplish a level of ‘brand’ familiarity to achieve the one-two punch.

• Try maximizing the risk of doing business with your competition in your customer’s mind. Your prospect must develop confidence that you’re the best choice. Your customer wants the confidence that they should continue to do business with you and not just at the ‘close’ of your sales cycle, but at each point in the sales process.
• This means that you can’t shortcut the business rapport development (familiarity of relationships) or forget about properly designing your CRM database as an information base (familiar things) from which you can then be ‘more familiar’.

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Pipeline Triangulation

Triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end. In MosaicCRM terms, triangulation is the process of determining the points that make up your pipeline and its ability to hone in on opportunities that have a high probability of closing. Click on the Icon for more information on how this works!

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Written by Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Nothing comes close to beating the zipper.  

Tired of ‘innovate or die’ hype? YKK zippers has an interesting branding lesson. The zipper is an old invention with relatively new applications. It was the brainchild of Whitcomb Judson of Chicago in 1893. Only in 1913 did Gideon Sundbach re-engineer Judson’s fastener into a more streamlined and reliable form. And it wasn’t until the mid 1930’s that zippers were embraced and became a viable business success. No other high tech solution has replaced it. Velcro doesn’t come close.

Most zippers have YKK on them. 

If you have wondered why there is an interesting history to the modern version of the zipper. In 1934, Yoshida Kogyo Kabushililaisha was founded. In 1994 the privately held firm headquartered in Japan, changed its name to YKK Co.  In size and complexity the company would rival any major high tech international firm and consists of 80 companies at 206 facilities in 52 countries. They manufacture everything from the brass to the dyes used in the cloth and made over 1.5 million miles of them last year. 

“A fair company on which customer’s can depend.”

This is how YKK describes itself. It makes a lot of sense and is a great message for sales personnel to carry to their customers.  The point here is to state a clear message of who you are. So many companies and personnel fail to get this message across to their customers and suffer because of it. Forget the marketing hype for a minute (because your customers ignore it as well).

What makes you different from Brand X?

How is your company known? How would your company like to be known as? You need the answers to these questions because your customers frame them in another way: What makes you different from Brand X? If you don’t have the answer or simply haven’t learned it, stop everything until you do.

And for goodness sakes, don’t state some slick marketing line. Unfortunately, sales people are often perceived as a little suspicious until the customer gets to know you. Using a slick statement can trigger an even greater defense. Whatever you say, make it real, simple and natural. Branding yourself and your company into a one liner is a hard but valuable task. Take a few minutes and get your team together to create one. Maybe even ask some of your customers for ideas.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

CRM is a good platform to standardize branding though communication protocols that can be imbedded throughout the customer interaction routines.

• ‘Marvel’ allows a prescribed series of activities that are specific to email content, brochure distribution and even talk scripts
• Template files are an easy way to provide branding and content standardization especially when used in licensed or controlled industries to ensure compliance
• MosaicCRM’s ‘Sales Intelligence’ is a suite of modules designed for specific Product Knowledge, Features/Benefits, References and more

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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In the world seemingly on a rudderless course steered by automated ‘personalized’ marketing; we are inundated with the latest and greatest sales behavior predictions using social media, networking, blogging, video platforms… a digital cornucopia of the ‘it’ factors pointed at customers that will buy.

Beware of sales behavior predictions.

Some of the statistical data is downright poor and maybe that’s because simple statistics rely too much on buying habits under a limited number of situations, markets or conditions that bear little resemblance to what you sell. Few experts are willing to debunk these easy and simple hypothetic links e.g. a social network platform that works for selling Pepsi may have little relativity for selling houses.

Yet many a marketing guru would have your company totally revamp its selling process based on these statistics; worse yet with relatively ‘green fielding’ methodologies in lieu of tried and true methods.

Social Media Sales Stats: Does this mean the end of Wal-Mart?

Even when demographic and econometric modeling is added, a statistic hypothesis of a certain sales behavior doesn’t necessarily mean anything. For example, Twitter touts 200 million users. Even with such screaming growth, does this new wave of internet marketing spell the end to Wal-Mart? Hardly, for many solid reasons, not the least is new internet platforms are a figurative drop in the bucket. The 176 million living and breathing customers that visit Wal-Mart stores weekly and ‘stay’ awhile and ‘buy’ vastly outnumber Twitter and MySpace.

Stats tell you what customers aren’t buying.

Car crashes killed 34,000 people in 2009 and in 2008 there were six million accidents, about a one in five chance it will be your time. No one could possibly sell cars based on these statistics alone. Car manufacturers avoid the poor statistics and replaced them with items that do not change the statistical facts: zero interest loans, free this and more that. They have used poor stats to their benefit: ignore what customers aren’t buying.

Great stats can fail to sell.

Airlines can statistically prove air travel is many times safer than traveling by car. However, many a travel plan is based on a perceived and intense decision not to fly for safety reasons. As infinitesimal as the risk may be, the buying decision for air travel is not based on favorable safety statistics. So airlines ignore statistics that won’t sell: a hugely favorable safety statistic is something they can’t sell because many passengers aren’t buying it.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner
Maximize your statistical edge: “Sell a ‘Trend”

Even with exposure to the unlimited ‘customers’ on the net, selling a trend is possibly the only edge over blanket numerical statistics. What makes a trend is selling to good markets and ignoring weak markets, niches or products with proven methods and options that accentuate your edge.

At MosaicCRM we rely on tried and true statistics, particularly in the two vital areas of activities and sales opportunities.

• Market Analytics show aging, margin, unit volumes and revenue distribution is a single step
• Track Stalled Opportunities as an indicator of competition, sales programs and sales cycles
• Identify Customer Buying Cycles to minimize the selling cycle and maximize personnel deployment

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Protocols for Measuring and Optimizing Activity Results

Helping organizations and their users achieve their activity objectives is the hallmark of MosaicCRM. Our business processes offer a unique and important approach to measuring activity ‘results’.  This differentiation is particularity valuable when it comes to Account Retention and Acquisition: our activity protocols are vital to optimize activity effectiveness and success.

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CRM manages obsolescence better than anything else.

Ever ask yourself how we got here from index cards and a ballpoint pen? What made CRM the darling child and a must have? Let’s take a step back to 1959. Harley Earl, who for over 30 years as the Chief of Design and Styling for GM, may best be remembered for designing the classic Corvette. For sales and marketing professionals, more important was his design for the tail fins on the 1959 Cadillac.

First Key: Planned Obsolescence

This Caddy marked the epitome of planned obsolescence. By any measure, no one would confuse this masterpiece with any sort of a vehicle that would last a lifetime. Just the opposite was true:  this car was purely about style, a river of chrome, cool colors, and even cooler fins and what it said about the Customer. This is the First Key in what would forever mark the change in how we sell all goods: planned obsolescence changed our sales strategies to customer buying cycles.

Key Two: Ralph Nader added to the CRM chain

The Second Key would involve Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who gained notoriety by killing the Corvair with his 1965 authorship of “Unsafe at Any Speed”. Few know that he actually got his first stab in this field with the ’59 Caddy. My guess is Nader felt it was unsafe at any speed because people might impale themselves on the tail fins. Nader ensured that consumer rights gained momentum and laws demanded auto manufacturers keep track of buyers (customers) for recall notices.

Key Three: Cheap and easy to use, PC’s was the breakthrough for CRM

Well, not all this Customer data was put to waste as simple mailing lists or be the privy of major corporations. Much has been said about the personal computer but what’s not evident is its role as the Third Key to the modern selling puzzle. The result of this data journey is every nuance, of everything you buy or want to buy, is available to anyone who cares to know. For miniscule cost, with equally miniscule computer or marketing skills, anyone can use this data.  

Key Four: The Internet changed buyer’s relationship habits

The Fourth Key is the Internet: Information is cheap and available to everyone. Customers are addicted to finding out what they want to buy on the net. This doesn’t eliminate the need for a sales relationship. For many organizations, just the opposite is true. Once the object of desire is found, consumers want to connect instantly in a ‘relationship’, no matter how short term they need it to be.

What this all means today is for a great many sales people, economic survival relies on the consumption of the constant turnover that obsolescence requires and how the customers prefers their client relationship.

Modern selling recognizes customers changed to a buying cycle process

Why they buy and what they expect to gain is often measured in terms of their short-term buying-cycles. Hence, we need CRM technology to stay tuned to our customer’s wavelength and gear our sales pitch to exactly what the consumer wants to buy at that very moment. Unfortunately, most CRM program designs are still back in the 1950’s mode: lots of data lists, extraneous info and doodads that do little to recognize or respond to buying cycle strategies. 

Here’s the rub: Buying and setting up a CRM is ridiculously simple….

• But this bears no relation to what you need CRM to do: support a structured process that defines the buying cycle and the enterprise-wide activities essential relationship events that surround it. 
• CRM to be of any sustainable value to an organization is a strategic process that should eliminate the clutter of extraneous data, activities and tools, the polar opposite of the soup to nuts offerings that are sold to CRM users.   

I am not here to debunk anything or upset the latest CRM guru’s solution. Rather, to illustrate that a lot of what we have learned or assumed about CRM role in sales automation starts on the wrong assumptions, neglect the relationship needs and the vast majority die quickly e.g. obsolete before they get started. That’s not entirely your fault: it’s just that many of the CRM programs and gurus fail to navigate a sustainable buying cycle relationship management strategy. Instead they see obsolescence (a river of technical chrome, doodads and bells and whistles) as a better reason to engage CRM.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

The basic roots that make up CRM ‘work’ fall into this simple summary:

• 1: Deploying a process that acknowledges the ‘Customer’s’ buying cycle as critical to whatever comes before or follows next in the sales relationship cycle.
• 2: ‘Managing’ the customer’s short-term needs and bridging the attention gap is the ‘Relationship’ job of the sales person and must be in sync with the CRM process set up.
• 3: CRM must manage the degree of automation required in the sales role e.g. the shortest route possible to the customer.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Mirroring our Masters

In America over 77 million dogs have owners. Then it’s not so unreasonable to imagine that in the scheme of modern urban life that they have an affinity to look like their owners. During a recent lunch my guests discussed this phenomenon and for an added wrinkle we even went so far as to match a few business associates with the dog they owned. One commented how uncanny it was that their General Manager looked remarkably like his mutt. Upon further reflection the business too was beginning to look unremarkable, like her GM. This was not an appealing spectacle.

How does the leader look?

With dogs or business, one reason we might mirror our master is that we tend to seek out those things that are most familiar to us and readily adopt those traits. Some may argue that it starts out when owners pick their dogs, or staff, they unconsciously choose them because they truly reflect the owner, or boss as the case may be. The lesson learned is be careful of what you want your business to look like as it will invariably reflect just how the leader looks.

The Customer’s perception is everything.

I believe the same logic applies for customers: a reflection of them. They find what appeals to them and what doesn’t. This is beyond nettlesome because the ‘look’ or perception for most customers is everything. Worry too about the fact that most people don’t necessarily act in accordance with your reality quite as much as they do on their own individual perception of ‘reality’. To that end, our customer’s reality, good, bad or indifferent, is formed to a large extent by what companies do and not what they say.

Follow the bouncing ball.

As business management and customers accelerate even further away from each other, success is often influenced to an immense degree by decision makers who have little experience or a ‘look’ for sales. In fact, your surroundings can begin to look astonishingly unfriendly, even somewhat dog-eared; particularly when the company’s current nirvana is simply the latest Guerrilla tactic that entirely ignores ‘reality’. Or the brains behind the new budget has patently little appreciation for brand or value; like the premier airline I flew last week whose management believes a fraction of an ounce of pretzels, a half of a can of soda, with questionable housekeeping and seats so close I could perform dental work will, of course, endear me to fly with them again.

Solution: Perception Truths.

If you find yourself or a client in this position what are you to do? Well there are a few Perception Truths I devised you can always use as a fall back.

• Brand Personality: Product Excellence and Superiority a.k.a. Value

Be ever vigilant for someone mucking it up. Your fundamental task is to correctly identify the customer’s preference for brand over price.  Look for customer clues where they value the significance of a great reputation, or beneficial cost of ownership matters like durability, warranties, multi task applications and even pretentiousness and esteem are striking buying qualities. If you’re not attracting enough of these types, then either you, the company’s marketing or its business style needs correction.

• Service

Practically nothing beats a high level of customer satisfaction, it’s not hard to understand why: customers want a pleasant buying experience together with attentive and responsive customer service, from both the sales and support staff. Lose this and you have lost the profitability associated with ‘value’ …and likely the customer. Now tell me again how much airline ‘A’ saved on those pretzels?

• Costs

Everyone knows that better products cost more and cheap products are made up of cheap bits and pieces. When it comes to cost, it’s the thing your customer perceives as price, your task is to hone in on what’s superior about your product or service. That’s because surprisingly few customers will bother to take the effort to figure it out on their own. Worse yet I am given to wonder why some salespeople can’t let go of customers that have little conscience of cost.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

There is no better tool than a well configured CRM program to monitor and manage perception truths. At MosaicCRM, we add simple yet effective fields to account monitors and specific reports in these key areas:

• Buying Qualities:
  

  Monitor and record customer preferences and translate that data into optimized sales cycle management tools

• Service Factors:
  

  Customer satisfaction, service and Case Management components tie the entire company relationship to the customer experience

• Value:
  

  Monitor where you are wining against competition, one click recording of sales factors, value milestones, even managing road blocks

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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When business was flying and financing was easy, getting the sale was sufficient enough and adopting a strict CRM protocol, along with a lot of other ‘protocols’, usually went by the wayside. Fast forward a couple of years into a deep recession to upset that status quo: Account Retention and Acquisition protocols are absolutely vital to success, mainly because nobody has the money or enough runway to wing it or buyers who have money or time to chance it.

1: Break the Outlook habit to optimize sales potential.

CRM users always gripe it is time consuming to enter data. Well, in comparison to what, Outlook or a spreadsheet? Outlook is pathetically inefficient and like cigarettes, has everyone addicted to it and a habit that needs to be broken. There is no possible way a contact manager or excel can be more efficient and effective than CRM to optimize sales.

• Use CRM to maintain a customer relationship e.g. manage all things related to revenue

2: ‘Vital’ information minimums.

As a company, detail exactly the vital information needed to acquire and maintain a sales relationship with the customer. You don’t need a record of every voice mail message, or the type of dog the contact has. Yet typically vital info is ignored e.g. full names, telephone numbers, email addresses, decision making authority. The lack of vital communication factors makes for a crippled CRM database that can only reference historical data and not the future.

Warning: The Social media craze might be killing your efficiency. So much of the contact/account data included in these programs is useless to your mission. Rarely will it qualify or add to a sales opportunity. Be very wary here of value versus results.

• Set out the required info
• Insist on 100% compliance

3: Monitor Results, not Activities

It is simply all about the results and not the volume of activities. The value of recording activity numbers with non-result actions e.g. leaving a voice mail message or sending a generic email is negligible.

• Your CRM must be monitoring next step ‘results’ of activities.

4: Ratios

What is working really boils down to ratios: how many calls develop how many appointments that result in so many proposals etc. Sloppy activity management will come home to roost in a big way.  Measuring results is the only way to can find out e.g.

• Power Caller User: 100’s of calls and low appointment results are telling in so many ways
• Least Resistance User: Low Calls-High Email is this opening opportunities or not?

5: Get Maximum Activity Coverage

Scheduling one activity at a time by ‘opportunity’ is a really hard way to plan ahead. You’ve profiled and rated accounts right? Good, then sort your database and start scheduling en masse. Plus, dedicate a given time every week for scheduling.

• Insist there is a scheduled activity at all times for every Key Account, Pipeline Opportunity Account and Qualified Prospect. It is impossible to argue this from a sales person point of view… even harder to explain why not to management.
• Monitor activity ‘results’ associated with Opportunities: what’s open, closed, lost, a maybe… this is the most important criteria with which to measure activity efforts.
• Add another activity when completing one.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

Helping users achieve their activity objectives and making each one count is the hallmark of MosaicCRM. Here are a few built in systems we deploy to manage customer retention  and acquisition activities:

• Automatic Reschedule: Past due activities are automatically rescheduled by the system
• Mosaic ‘Marvel’: This tool pre-configures any number of specific activities by specific users in one click. Superb for customer retention routines, lead nurturing and prospect hunting.
• Daily Activity Manager: One simple screen for adding and completing all activities
• Dynamic Activity Objectives: Set number goals for Calls, Appointments, Presentations and Email and get instant monitoring by day, week and month
• Activity Results: Monitor results achieved by activities across the board or by individual
• Comparison Results: Activity comparisons for scheduled, completed numbers and overall database coverage
• Priority Alerts: All activities affecting accounts are profiled  and instant alerts issued

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Mastering Simplicity

At MosaicCRM we try to imitate a paper clip: master simplicity and keeping it simple. The traditional paper clip is a wonder of simplicity and the essence of form follows function. For over a century, it still works in spite of the fact that a lot of imitators have come and gone. Seemingly everybody’s got a simple this CRM or a simple that CRM to sell. The reality is there’s nothing simple about selling. Making CRM look simple, however, is the mark of a professional.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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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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In a recent conversation with a prospect, he lamented that Free Demos concentrated more on how fast you can copy over what you are using now e.g. an excel spreadsheet and declaring it done and a success. Identifying the objectives and processes he needed to drive results was far more valuable but missing. That begs the question: CRM changes everything: without changing your process and updating objectives is this the reason for the epidemic of such low CRM success rates?

1. Don’t limit your CRM vision.

A thirty minute ‘here it is show’ and how to master menu lists won’t exactly make you a CRM pro. I haven’t met an organization just starting out with CRM that knew their way around CRM better than I do. Its equivalent to reading a book on driving and letting you go with the keys. I wouldn’t give the car keys to anyone without extensive and professional instruction. Same for CRM: I care about our clients especially when their CRM is certain to benefit from our deep sales and programming experience.

• Make sure you get adequate time on the bench with the pros.

2. Check lists won’t get you there.

You’ve spent months, maybe years, musing CRM concepts around. During that time you have created a mighty list of wants and needs. Unfortunately most organizations ‘want lists’ are not clearly defined objectives or ways of measuring progress and results. Our expertise and the time we take to peel back the onion skin to find out exactly how things tick in your organization can make shorter sales cycles and identifying customer buying cycles a breeze. This, by most accord, is way more valuable and measurable than how it syncs with a Blackberry.

• Know where you want to end before you begin trial CRM programs.

3. How does it really perform?

Just like test driving a car, a CRM test drive you get the look and some of the feel but sadly zero data on exactly how it will fit your business, sales culture and processes on a long term basis. A month will get you even less concrete data on business process improvement measurements.

• To be fair to yourself, it often takes two or more months to get it right so you can actually see what your CRM really has to do and how it does it.

4. Part time learning is weak at best, and flawed throughout.

You need feedback so you set a couple of bright and eager bodies into the program, maybe even an office. They are busy, haven’t been guided through the real objectives and probably have an hour or two of generic training. So they take a stab at it here and there and trying this and that. Then declare it doesn’t work or doesn’t work how they need it to. That is not at all surprising.

• At MosaicCRM we first question and rationalize every single step of your processes. Then we get joined at the hip so to speak and help you set out the objectives, business processes, and measuring programs unique to your needs.

5. A month is generally not enough time to customize it to your true needs.

CRM always adds a whole new dimension to sales and marketing business processes. Simply copying over your spreadsheet doesn’t make for a better sales system… anymore than your excel spreadsheet did when you left yellow ruled pads or Outlook.

• The pros at MosaicCRM know how to move a field here, change a report there and modify an alert system…. small but knowledgeable things that can totally and dramatically change how you view CRM. This takes time and effort on both sides.  But it’s worth it.

Who Benefits?

There are some benefits to a free trial period. Frankly I feel the only guy who benefits from free demos is the CRM salesman. He gets to add you to his pipeline and with an active demo and moves ahead to an assumptive close position. You get a barrage of email and calls and pressure but not solutions.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

First and foremost, get a firm grasp of the results you want to achieve and know where you will gain the most. What you really need is a partner that adds to your knowledge and experience base. It does take more time but if that works, there is no need for a high pressure ‘close’ or a rushed implementation. Our expertise and the time we take will allow the both of us to evaluate and prioritize exactly what has to be done.  One thing that you will notice right off the bat: we won’t simply copy your spreadsheets into a CRM program. That is a prescription for disaster.

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Written by

Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Pre-CRM Planning Tips for SMB’s

I’ve put together this slide presentation that covers a number of key elements that can help in your CRM Plan or Re-Start program.  Some of the topics include Beware of ‘Quick and Easy’ CRM promotions, The Human Factors, Competition Applications, Abilities, Resources and Sales Process Design, Budgeting and more.

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CRM Adoption: What makes for long term CRM success?

CRM adoption is a topic that has been around from day one and has seen many iterations of the good, bad and ugly when it comes to what adoption factors work.

The reality is that people still sell to people so it goes that the human interaction with CRM can’t be ignored or swept under the rug. So rather than focusing on what the technology will do, let’s look at how to make CRM more in sync to how people sell,  and what they need to sell, to improve adoption success.

Sales Personnel:

The job of modern selling now demands a number of practical skills, CRM is one of them. If sales personnel are resistant to CRM, they are simply not a good fit for the organization.

• They must like to use and are comfortable with selling in a technology enabled environment and the efficiencies CRM brings
• They are wholly invested in the value of and the work needed to maintain the customer relationship, and not just a sale
• The CRM is designed so that they learn from the data, make a profit with it and not just input data

The Company:

From a company perspective, it has to wring out the inefficiencies and excuses with not using CRM.

• Insist that CRM is essential to meet their objectives, no exceptions
• Company must be focused top down on maximizing the customer relationship, not spreadsheets or historical transactional data
• Have a definitive plan and objective with each part of CRM and how it benefits the sales personnel
  
• Make CRM clear, concise and profitable e.g. what will be gained at every stage

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

We have learned that if the sales personnel and company are doing their part, it is essential that the CRM be designed to compliment that business process and structure.What this means is that each CRM program must exemplify usability and value:

• Apply only the tools that make the result more effective
  
• Ignore anything that doesn’t improve sales/profit
• Eliminate, table and squash any distractions
  
• Make pipeline design and management clear, concise, easy
• Design CRM to cultivate the customer relationship e.g. focus on the individual
• Automate everything that assists in customer buying cycle  and sales cycle management

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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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