Manage circumstances equally as well as timing.

The obsession with time can’t be underestimated. Whether you are measuring your lifespan, war, microwave oven setting or sales cycle, these all involve a definitive time element. To better manage time elements, it’s important to manage circumstances equally well. Every month, week or day we sit down and try to make sense of our sales numbers. One of the greatest errors in our ‘subjective’ judgment may be our over-reliance on time as the driving factor. Like wars, deals are not set by time, rather by circumstance. So what does this mean?

Look for circumstances.

The Pareto Principal can come into play in a big way. It’s the 80-20 Rule. Think about your Pipeline in the same way: 80% of your sales will come from just 20% of your Pipeline Opportunities. As a salesperson or manager, we can never get away with violating the laws of nature without paying the consequences. Step off a building, and gravity will get you every time. With forecasting, while we may not experience consequences “every time” we ignore circumstances, sooner or later the laws of nature, like Pareto’s Principal, take effect. Usually it’s horribly inaccurate numbers and time lines that are difficult to make sense of.

Prima facie is Latin for ‘at first view’.

Whenever you forecast, Prima facie means you should see it the first time e.g. it should be obvious. But before it becomes so obvious there’s some homework to do. It’s important for any forecaster to know the circumstances that make up alternative directions of action. When it comes to Pipelines, analyze the number of circumstances and the order of magnitude of each.

This analysis can be as simple as a Ben Franklin plus and minus columns or more a definitive set of criteria. The circumstances affecting opportunities for your organization probably fall into five or six categories e.g. Delivery, Credit, Pricing, Customer Service, Customer Loyalty are a few. You might want to spend a few minutes creating your own list and ranking the order of magnitude each has with your pipeline opportunity.

 Two circumstances affect your Pipeline Opportunities.

1:Listing those customers that have the fewest reasons not to buy from you.

2: Define the biggest reasons why they won’t buy from you.

In either example, there will likely be a number of items. However, your task now is to separate the vital few from the trivial many. Then assign a value to each item, naturally, ranking the highest value items first. And it’s these high value items that you have to solve/analyze first.  

Set priorities for action.

Just like a general, you have to set your priorities based not so much on your wishes but what reality looks like. How this affects your forecasting accuracy will become obvious. You will now look closer at what will make the most difference in your sales success. The circumstances have a time line of their own. You simply can’t ignore a major item. Now you have to establish a timeline to the circumstance, or series of circumstances. This will result in a more accurate completion date.

The stronger the confidence in your pipeline, the less threatened you are.

We have to accept the fact that some customers are going to react irrationally. Maybe I can call it the ‘Irrational Principal’ where out of the blue you get broadsided by 20% of your opportunities. In these cases you can’t control the game, only your reactions to it.  I’ll bet that the stronger the confidence you have in your pipeline, the less threatened you will be by what happens around each opportunity. Having a high level of confidence in the vital issues surrounding your pipeline can be as a result of good ‘circumstance’ management.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

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!

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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The numbers game is dead. Long live strategic ratios.

The business climate in 2011 is projected to be brutal with less money, tighter budgets, fewer sales people and scarcer customers. In spite of this many companies will thrive. How? By changing the way they view prospects and the selling process.

Method 1: High Volume Low Results

The traditional approach to sales activity has been volume gets results. In other words, given enough volume, anyone can reach the desired results. The approach to the high volume is often too costly or too many factors skew the results. Take for example, simply adding more telemarketers to make more calls. If they are poor quality personnel with low skill levels, two things occur: The number of calls goes way, way up. The quality of the prospect goes way, way down.

A point of diminishing return becomes apparent.  Processing tons of prospects doesn’t guarantee more sales. Worse, numbers game activities can eat up valuable runway space and results in closed opportunities that carry a terrible, even unaffordable, price. It’s no longer sufficient to say any organization can sell (or manage) to the tune of just numbers.

Method 2: Regulated Volume – Strategic Results

The key management factor here is to regulate the volume to better qualify the prospects before engaging the costly sales process. With fewer resources or even with the same resources but higher quotas, defining the prospect, managing the prospecting process and inspecting what you expect are time- tested actions.

+ Don’t allow prospects into the pipeline (or prospecting channel) that don’t fit simple yet concrete parameters.

+ Deal with the ripe bananas, only the ones that can take advantage of a limited window of opportunity.

+ Deals won will increase because you have much fewer distractions and more on top of your game.

MosaicCRM Experts Tips – Looking at an improved management role for CRM

Allocating resources is critical, so is monitoring results to optimize these resources. Our CRM platforms provide a number of methods that go beyond traditional ‘activity measurement’ reports.

• Manage Call Ratios & Results: The key analytics determine how good the prospect demographics are.
• Monitor promotions with ‘Opportunity Source’ analytics: From Prospect to Customer can be a tricky course. Analyzing what prospects become customers  reinforces the call ratio and delivers a ‘success’ criteria blueprint to copy

• Aging Analysis: Tracking the time periods through the sales stages provides data to modify promotions/sales processes to shorten the sales cycle.
• Measure Deals Lost Analytics: Lost Deals tell a lot about customers, competitors, pricing, timing and more that will enable you to fine tune the next offering.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Alchemy was the medieval attempt to turn lead into gold. Jean Dubuis described alchemy as the “art of manipulating life and consciousness in matter to help it evolve, or to solve problems of inner disharmonies”.

Modern CRM isn’t so different: data bases follow the alchemies operation of separating the ‘the prima material’ or so called chaos by taking this unstructured data and putting it into a structure to capture, index and store it.

On a simpler plane of thought, alchemy could easily be used as a metaphor of transforming prospects into customers. It’s this process that is almost magic, but not quite. It does involve a simple, yet demanding process of turning dumb or chaotic data (leads) into usable information (customers).

This is where the magic ends: CRM by itself does little to help you turn data into information and knowledge. Let’s take a look at how to make your CRM task a whole lot easier and beneficial.

1. Get better outcomes in less time with strategically focused sales behavior.

Begin at the beginning: rank and prioritize your leads. After all, who or what makes it into your database, and then subsequently into your pipeline, will determine to a great degree your success in turning these leads into customers.

2. Set out a clear and easily defined selling stage process.

I hear it all the time: my database is no good… bad info, leads are crap, I need more accounts…etc. Sales automation provides a huge volume of information; however, separating what’s needed to advance the sales process can often be an excruciating exercise that too often bears too little fruit. If everything makes it into your pipeline then you have a fantastic bowl of goop and nothing tasty. Unlike poor Oliver, you don’t want more of the same no matter how hungry you are for a deal.

The easiest method is to plainly and clearly describe each phase of your sales process, even a basic rating scheme will work. Then when a lead doesn’t make it to the next desired stage you know why and when and can manage your time and efforts much more confidently.

3.    Manage your pipeline on a daily basis.

Regardless of the advances in CRM, you still need to figure out not only what to do, but what to do next. It’s often too late for management to have any significant impact on the outcome when they are only managing what’s closing this week or only get involved at the later stages. Rather they should be involved on a daily basis and knowledge of what works, what doesn’t and guidance on plan b.

Daily attention should not be an issue. CRM technology allows us to sort through leads, pipeline candidates and sales opportunities easily and effectively. Properly designed, it now forms the way we manage sales and activities by dictating what strategic value or action is necessary as opposed to blind sporadic oriented actions e.g. call everyone again.

4. Nurturing long term leads.

We all wish everything happened today. Alas that genie never seems to come out when we need it. Eventually it may by adding a structure to the lead nurturing process including understanding how each customer wants to be contacted and frequency. CRM make this a relatively brainless task of turning data into buying cycles.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

At the end of the day, any CRM is only as good as the data in it and how the users manage that information. To make CRM outstanding, we follow a strict methodology so users avoid the chaos:

• Implement sound business process and logic by concentrating on a vital few objectives that gain sales
• Eliminate fluff and duplication: ignore anything that doesn’t add immediate value
• Constantly improve the system: Step by step, month by month
• Vital tasks like qualification, stages and pipelines require little effort and are easy to understand
• Tracking, maintaining and developing contact points that match customer buying cycles

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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P.S. We ask questions that no CRM vendor wants to ask:

CRM Discussion Points – Getting CRM right begins with asking the right questions.

I have written this comprehensive discussion points guide that covers topics that no CRM vendor wants to ask mainly because they can’t pass you off to a junior menu list type techie. That’s because now you know what it takes to meet your CRM objectives and it is a lot of work to demonstrate how to get there. Far too many CRM vendors won’t put in that sort of time.

What this worksheet creates is the right atmosphere for discussion and strategy building your CRM. Let me know if it would help you on your CRM journey. Use the ‘Contact Us’ tab on the website and I would be pleased to email it to you.

Bill

Concentrate on what’s vital.

If you ever get the urge to jump on a sport bike and hit the track, I suggest you first give Keith Code a call. He’s the founder of the California Superbike School and I spent a few days with Keith and was impressed with both his racing skills and his intuitive sales skills.

To Keith, it’s not just about the bike or speed; it’s about every nuance of skill and tools scientifically put together in the right sequence. Does his equation sound familiar… like a sales and CRM automation process?

Beyond satisfying the need for speed, Keith begins a valuable part of his training with illustrating the cost of distractions. He literally paints a picture of what they cost i.e. looking at a crack in the pavement is a buck, glancing over at a tree is a fiver and so on. The point here is when you have used up the distraction budget you are headed for trouble (often instant and serious). The skill a rider must develop, just like a skilled sales person or manager, is the ability to concentrate on what’s vital and ignore the innumerable distractions along the way… and stay out of trouble too boot!

Distractions mean significantly less and less time to sell.

Some things about modern business and management mean an inescapable duty to others in the organization but there is a limit to how much you can afford. Even the best run organizations place a plethora of non selling activities in front of their sales staff every day: emails, news bulletins, information requests, training programs, update programs, report needs and the list goes on and on. It’s not to say that these are trivial. What I am saying is how much can you afford?

Get rid of distractions. They’re efficiency killers.

Pay attention too to your own distractions. You know, those pesky habits, like smoking or idle chatting on the phone, surfing social media networks…the ones that burn a lot of time and take your eye off the game.

Your credit card has been declined.

Start counting every nuisance interruption, unneeded telephone call, face time meeting, report making session, email and a host of other time greedy actions. Now establish a credit card for these, let’s say a $1000, which represents your ability to spend your resources on activities that interfere with your making a living.

Now assign a dollar value to each of your top ten distractions. Now it gets interesting. What is it going to cost say for a ‘no value add meeting’ or a mind numbing report and another general email information request? Really stupid questions are at least $25 and incredibly stupid questions that require you to call a meeting are a minimum of $100. When you get to your card limit stop and tell everyone that you have your distractions credit card has declined their request.

There is a limit to how much distraction you can stand.

How do you prepare a distraction budget? Managers take heed: make yourself a budget. Put a dollar figure together with a value of how much it costs every time you send, ask or review something with your team. Stop once you have used up your budget.

It sounds simple but in reality it’s very difficult to do. How much will Human Resources be allowed, Marketing, Credit, Training, and so on receive? How much is enough? Is some interruption worth more or less than others? Whatever the result, manage the amount, peg a realistic value and then stop when you have used up your budget.

MosaicCRM Expert Tips

“My team can’t find enough time for selling!”

I hear it all the time.  A MosaicCRM hallmark is our ability to minimize technology distractions that interfere with your strategic business focus.  Our exclusive CRM planning, set up, implementation and ongoing management programs make sure that you are focusing on solution not high tech gizmos that only complicate matters.

Here are a few areas where we can help:

• Design automation to minimize administrative task load (often 40-50% of total workload)
• Define strategic selling activities, then automate them to how your sales force will use them
• Automated customer nurturing systems for improved retention
• Automated Lead tracking, distribution and nurturing systems
• Intelligent social media program development and management

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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