Building a sales plan: Planning your CRM

Well I was going to start this post by exclaiming how excited I am to be using SalesForce again and going to DreamForce to build content for my CRM series next month. Unfortunately they have denied my press pass, and frankly I cannot see why I would spend $500-$1000 to go.
The planning of what CRM to use, how to use it, and how to maximize the tool for increasing sales is relative to your product or service, your market, and your price point. What I can comfortably say is every organization can benefit from a CRM, and On Demand or Software as a Service (SaaS) is the way to go!
What is challenging is writing this article without Bias, so I will talk to my favorite CRM, and then move into why it is not ideal. There are four that I am really familiar with, and they all have unique abilities. They are:
Netsuite – My favorite for flexibility and dashboards. Reporting is a bit weak, especially for activity tracking. It hangs a bit at times, and there were(are) some minor bugs. My favorite item is that you can set a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for ANYHTING! Great for small business and startups – everything is editable from every screen! Every screen has drag and drop for changing around views. It also does everything from lead to quote, quote to order, order to cash, order to ship, AP, AR, and GL. This means one service can run as a miniature ERP for your whole company. If you are not clear on these processes, it just means you can do everything from enter leads, to quotes, to orders, to inventory, to shipping, to billing, to collections, to closing your books. It also manages marketing campaigns and tracks cases for support and service.
A great benefit is reps can see transactions, get quote and orders approved through the service. You can see if an order was approved, shipped, back-ordered, paid for, etc… If you are small and growing, or have a need for a complete system, this tool is amazing.
SugarCRM – You cannot beat the open source price of free. It has a great core product, and if you spend a little you can add on some amazing modules. It is a bit quirky in its queries, things sometimes do not appear. If you are a small company, or you have a small number of prospects, this is a great tool. Out of the box the reporting is abysmal, but there are some four star dashboard and report add-ons. It can also be difficult to customize cells and pages, since the back-end codes and db configurations take some computer language knowledge.
Right Now! – Hands down the best tool ever designed for customer service! Also Right Now has some of the detailed reporting available, and it is out of the box. If you are an analyzer to the Nth degree, this is the tool for you. I would recommend it for anyone that has a more inbound sales model that requires online customer service portals. It gives you amazing FAQ features and online support. It also tracks communications via e-mail and online submissions. You will have faster response times to issues, and a minimal amount of unresolved cases. I will say it again, customer support LOVES IT!
SalesForce – The industry standard, and overall a solid tool. I have many complaints about SalesForce’s limitations, but admittedly am using it for the third time and quite comfortable with what it can do. My number one and two complaints:
1. SalesForce does not do quotes, quote to opportunity, or anything even close. This is a real drag, as you have to have a completely different quote engine. This makes it challenging to match quotes to pipeline and activity to sales goals. SalesForce, please do this soon!
2. SalesForce does not have edit capabilities from the home page, the main account page, the activity views, etc… This feature makes EVERYONE more efficient. If SalesForce could do this, I would never look at another CRM. Well, maybe if it did quotes and edits…
Now that we have listed four tools and some basics, let me share that there are many more out there. I do not want to limit this post to my personal knowledge, but I am not doing CRM’s reviews. If you have some input on a different CRM, send me an e-mail @ newoptions2006@yahoo.com. I will look at your thoughts and add it to the following benefit to need section.
The next thing to determine is why you need a CRM in the first place.
• If you are like my current company and you have a high outbound call volume, a large lead base, and low cost product, you need a CRM to keep your head above water. Use it for Account, Contact, and Activity management. Forget pipelines and forecasting as the sales cycle is too short. More time spent on focusing on sales to close and activity will drive the needed revenue. Set up your system to allow for quick noting and call tracking through a dashboard or reminders.
• If you are like my last organization and you are selling high dollar services/products, and have a long sales cycle. Focus on the note taking aspect of activities and pipeline to forecast. Your CRM needs to have strong forecasting tools and allow for several people to view the long term pipeline. Notes should be detailed and systems for listing objectives and goals should be implemented.
• If you are selling products/services that allow for repetitive deals, like advertising, medical supplies or clothing, you should set up your CRM to forecast and remind for calls/visits based on a timeline. Notes are not as critical, but maintaining visibility into sales vs. expectations is immense.
These are the basics to setting up the CRM plan. I will go into several more detailed CRM posts in a series on applications and each unique scenario for adding value to particular industries. It will start in December or right after I finish the next series of posts on training. There are eight more posts coming in the series titles Building a Plan, and I will do my best to get them out in the next couple weeks.

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