Without a CRM database of your customers & potential customers, you won’t be as effective as you can be.
Your customers are your organizations #1 asset. Without them, you have no revenue. Without revenue, you die.
A central database of customers and contacts can help drive forward sales and allow you to get higher returns on your marketing activities.
So what makes a good database? The answer of course will depend on your specific needs, but here’s what I’ve found to be a good starting criteria:
It should be able to track the source of leads/contacts
This is neccesary to create a closed-loop between marketing and sales. If marketing is generating bad leads, or if a particular marketing activity is working really well, you need to know about it.
Simple so that sales people (and everyone else) actually use it
Even though everyone in your company will probably interact with your database of customers at some point, your sales people will do it most often. And good sales people are by nature very goal focused. If a tool doesn’t help them make sales, they will stop using it. If it’s too complicated/cluttered/large, they’ll stop using it.
Common tasks should take less than 3 clicks to do. This usually includes calling a list of leads, adding new contacts, create a new deal, taking notes about a call, etc.
Action-oriented so sales people get things done & never drop the ball
One of the biggest benefits of a good CRM system is that it helps your team be more productive. This includes doing what you say you’re going to do and not dropping the ball during the sales cycle. If you say you’re going to send an email or a brochure, your CRM system shouldn’t let you forget.
You should be able to quickly create a new task and pick a deadline for it… and you should get reminded if you’re late.
It should be easy to keep history
A good sales person will ask a lot of questions and gather a lot of good info. Your CRM system should allow you to easily create a note about phone calls, emails and the various other ways you interact with your contacts.
You can easily find contacts
Two CRM systems fit this description
There are two CRM system’s that I’ve found that fit this description. And you might be surprised to find that neither Outlook & SalesForce.com aren’t one of them:
PipelineDeals $15/month per user
PipelineDeals is the system I’ve used for the past year and a half. It’s simple enough to be clean and easy to use but powerful enough to help me be more productive when I’m in Sales Person mode. They are great for solo sales professionals and even better for sales teams because it has some really cool collaboration tools. I loved them so much I contacted them and decided to become an authorized reseller.
Highrise $29/month for solo plan
Highrise is an uber-simple contact manger. It recently added deals capabilities which makes them useful for the solo sales professional. They take the prize on simiplicty. I used them for a while until I discovered PipelineDeals because it’s so simple to use. However, they have no reporting and wouldn’t be my choice for sales teams.
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Thanks I needed that one.