Growing up playing sports, I always heard the line, “you can’t teach speed”.  That made sense to me.  No matter what level of conditioning an athlete has worked into, it doesn’t translate to faster when running.

This is not true when we relate speed to an organization.  There are five key elements around the concept of speed when I work with our customers developing their CRM strategy and systems.

First, I want to be clear on what speed is when I use the term as it relates to business and the CRM system.  I use speed to represent these components of a business:

• How fast can you convert a prospect to a customer?
• How fast can you make a decision that is data-driven?
• How fast can you report your top metrics in your organization?
• How fast can you change a process in your operations with accuracy?
• How fast can you know and solve a customer problem?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then your CRM system is not doing what it should be doing for your people and your customers.

Let’s dial in here.  Don’t shy away from this concept.  Your customers will feel it if you do.

Here are the key concepts that drive the answers to the questions above.

1. Inputs to the CRM system are consistent among your users AND these users don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about what and how to record events and activity. If this is the case, then the information is going into the system the same no matter who is inputting it.  This drives reporting which drives decision making which drives speedy business.
2. Timing of inputs is critical. I hear the statement a lot that says if events and activities aren’t in the CRM then they didn’t happen.  I would take this one step further by requiring our team to make their entries daily.  I don’t want to make a decision at the end of the day that doesn’t include that day’s business.    This drive speedy, accurate decisions.
3. If you are not targeting the proper buyers, your CRM system will reflect that if 1 and 2 are true and adhered to. If you are targeting the right buyers, those that you have proven need you, then your speed to make the sale will be optimized.  Thus, if find a deal that is slipping or taking longer than your average number of days to make a sale, you need to quickly review the buyer persona for variances from your optimal buyer.  I’m not supporting not making the sale if it takes longer, I’m an advocate of knowing why the normal process is taking longer than it typically does.  So, know your sale’s cadence and keep it optimized by selling to the proper target.
4. Follow your CRM’s documented sales process. This is so important.  Why would you go through the work to create a continuously evolving and improving sales process, update it, and train on it, then not follow it?  I see this a lot.  Look, you know what it takes to make a sale.  Whether the process is highly simple or highly complex, follow it.  Be consistent, so that when you are reviewing your sales pipeline, you can make quick decisions, coach your sales team consistently and quickly, and rapidly respond to your stakeholders in terms of forecasted revenue and future cash flow streams.

In summary, speed does kill in sports.  In business, speed kills too.  But being slow and inaccurate kills faster.  So, speed up your team’s approach in your CRM now.  Don’t wait.  If you don’t know what to do, call me.  We will get you started on the training needed to speed up your performance for the benefit and value to your customer.

See more here, rockyourcrm.com, or call me, 501.777.8370.

With constant growth and changes to the Salesforce ecosystem and rapidly evolving business needs, how can you be certain about the health of your system? Are you confident that you are utilizing the latest and greatest Salesforce capabilities properly?

With your investment in Salesforce, as with any investment, it’s essential to regularly evaluate how your investment is paying off. So let’s discuss a few reasons why it may be time to evaluate your Salesforce ecosystem and next steps for assessing.

Importance of Continuous Evaluation & Improvement

Regular evaluations of your Salesforce system can give you peace of mind, particularly as you prepare for a new year. Additionally, conducting assessments can help with identifying potential issues and areas of improvement so you can address them proactively and avoid unwanted surprises. 

Salesforce Genie Readiness

Now may be an especially good time to consider a Salesforce Assessment for your business to see whether you are ready to leverage the power of Salesforce Genie. Salesforce just unveiled Genie at Dreamforce in late September. As the first-ever real-time CRM, Genie brings the power of in-the-moment data to Customer 360. You won’t want to miss out on Genie’s benefits!

Questions to Consider

With a healthy Salesforce ecosystem, your team should be able to answer these questions with confidence. Take a moment to think these through and consider whether it may be time to assess your system.

• How accurate and up-to-date is our data?
• Are we utilizing the 360 view?
• How are our systems integrated? Is this integration automated?
• Are we utilizing proper metrics?
• Have we encountered new pain points since we last optimized our system? 
• Can our system be better-optimized to address new pain points?
• Are our reports and dashboards reflective of our performance? Are they easy to update?
• Is our reporting structure appropriate for where our business is today? Will it be appropriate for tomorrow’s business?
• Is Salesforce customized to our unique business needs?
• Does our system meet the latest company security standards?

Considering these questions should assist you in determining your confidence level in the health of your Salesforce ecosystem. If your confidence level is low or unclear, further assessment may be an appropriate next step.

Salesforce Assessment Services

Having a third-party partner with an outside perspective come in and assist in gathering this information can be extremely helpful. 

At WhiteRock, we provide detailed assessment services to measure and learn how your Salesforce platforms are utilized and leveraged to meet your needs. We cover the details of the assessment in a workshop with your team to confirm findings and discuss options. After that, your team receives an assessment report detailing the findings, solutions, and the order of implementation of the changes found in the assessment (your CRM journey map). 

From there, you are welcome to use this assessment to tackle the needs identified. Additionally, if you would prefer, WhiteRock can tackle this for you and provide service with full accountability and reporting of progress throughout the journey.

Benefits of Working With A Salesforce Partner

Partnering with a team of Salesforce experts that you can trust and count on allows you to feel confident that your systems are running effectively.  At WhiteRock, we take the time to understand your needs, and map out a plan to implement the right solution.

As your organization changes over time, you have us to keep your system aligned. We support you as you serve your customers in an unavoidable, ever-changing environment. 

So, Are You Confident in the Health of Your Salesforce Ecosystem?

In our opinion, it is highly valuable to ask this question regularly and to pursue continuous improvement of your system. Above all, keep your organization confident that all systems are functioning as expected and that you are leveraging relevant features to help address your needs and achieve your goals. 

Increase the value of your Salesforce ecosystem with regular check-ups and improvements. If you have questions about how to begin this process, we’re here to talk this through or to provide an assessment for your business. Reach out to us at learnmore@whiterocktech.net or via the form below!

What does sales success look like for your business? Metrics for measuring performance of your sales team and CRM success may include:

• Close Rate
• Net-New Revenue
• Length of Each Pipeline Stage
• Length of Sales Cycle
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

Learn more about each of these metrics here. 

Use these CRM metrics as a starting point — but don’t feel pressured to use all of them. Choose the KPIs that measure the things you want to improve.  Your KPIs should tie closely to the goals you set as part of your CRM strategy — why did you put this new CRM system in place originally? Make sure you’re measuring how well you’re meeting those original needs. (If you set SMART goals, you’re already halfway there.)

CRM reports

Once you know what you want to measure, you need to figure out how to measure it. Many CRMs offer built-in reporting that lets you track the same sales, marketing, and customer service metrics we just ran through.

Here are 4 popular CRM reports you can run to measure some of your chosen metrics:

Sales forecast report 

A sales forecast report uses your lead data and sales trends to predict future revenue.

With ActiveCampaign, you can use win probability to take revenue prediction one step further. Win probability uses machine learning to analyze hundreds of factors, then predicts how likely you are to close a certain deal.

Win probability helps you figure out which actions lead to closed deals and which are unimportant.

Sales conversion report 

This report tells you what percentage of leads convert within a certain date range — aka your close rate.

You can break this report down by lead source to see where these leads came from. Do more inbound leads close vs. outbound leads? What about leads from social media vs. organic search?

This report has the answers.

Sales performance report 

A sales performance report gives you a leaderboard view of your sales team’s current and historical performance. These are the KPIs for this dashboard:

• Sales performance metrics, including total deal value, total number of deals, and average deal value
• Bar graphs depicting the deal value by stage and number of deals for each sales representative on your team
• A table of each deal in a pipeline with deal owner and deal value
  Deals sorted by Deal Status (Open, Won, or Lost), Currency, or Pipeline

In ActiveCampaign’s CRM, this graph breaks down the total deal value and total number of deals by stage. This can help you ID bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your sales process.

Lost deals report 

Analyzing your wins feels great, but don’t forget to learn from your losses, too. Finding out why someone said ‘no’ to your business can be even more important than knowing why someone else said ‘yes.’

A lost deals report shows you which deals your team didn’t close — and why. Use this report to:

• Find common reasons that leads fail to close
• Figure out how to handle those objections from other leads as they come down the pipeline

The (success) story is in the data

“Data, I think, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for telling stories. I take a huge pile of data and I try to get it to tell stories.” – Steven Levitt, Co-author of Freakonomics

Measuring the right metrics can be the difference between a success story and a cautionary tale. If you know how to measure your CRM success, you can keep track of how close you are to reaching your goals.

If you find yourself off-track, be willing to test different ways of using CRM to meet your business goals. Try something new, measure the results, rinse, and repeat. You got this! Want to learn more? Conact us today via the form below!