In reading numerous discussions about choosing and using CRM software products I have observed a significant amount of confusion.

My first observation is that people are seeking the wrong advice in their efforts to choose their sales team’s CRM software.

CRM software is very much like clothing, in that it works like clothing fits and looks based on where and how it’s being used. Thus seeking the advice of others can actually be a dangerous thing when that advice comes from a different environment.

Now, I’m not talking about finding out what’s available. I’m taking about perceptions and judgments as to how good or bad any particular CRM software might be.

To help you better understand why this is true, let’s go back to why you purchase a CRM.

CRMs are intended to be productivity tools for the sales force. In other words, they are supposed to increase the productivity of the salespeople.

They accomplish this task in a number of ways. The first and fundamental purpose is as a repository for customer and prospect data, thus providing salespeople and management with the means for analysis and interaction with their marketplace.

Secondarily, they provide a “method of operation” for the process of engaging customers and prospects, including some robust mechanisms form managing the sales cycle while providing tools, such as scripting and product information to aid the salesperson’s efforts.

But the bottom line in choosing a CRM software product, is does it provide increased productivity for YOUR selling environment.

Let me give a blatant example of how this could backfire. Let’s say that you have a group of consumer telemarketers calling on households in the evening gathering donations for the handicapped.

You decide to put them on a CRM software and learn from another sales manager that Salesforce.com is one of the best. But to your amazement sales plummet nearly immediately after the software goes live.

Why?

Because Salesforce.com is not complementary to that particular sales process due to the way it operates. Salesforce.com is very navigation intensive and will reduce the number of calls reps can make by as much as 50 percent over calling out of a phone book or off a printed list. Additionally, these reps don’t need most of the tools that are provided.

The point is that CRM software products all have similar features, but they don’t all work or operate the same way at the user level.

In the above case, even the DOS version of Telemagic® would have been a far better choice because it is more in align with the selling activity.

If you want to make the best decision with regard to CRM software, you need to choose it from the user’s viewpoint.

In other words, you need to choose the software that most enhances YOUR users productivity in their selling process.

Thus the most profitable way you compare CRM software products, is by having the CRM software company or representative come out and demonstrate how their software executes YOUR users selling tasks.

If the users have to make calls everyday, then you need to see how they get that list of people to call and execute those calls including any documentation that might be required.

If the users need to send faxes, emails, or schedule meetings with other people in the organization, you need to see exactly how that is done.

It is only when you carefully compare the user execution of the sales process required tasks that you can truly see how much productivity is gained.

Your choice between CRM software products will likely come down to a trade between lesser evils and absolute necessities. But, making such comparisons will avoid deadly and expensive mistakes.

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And learn 3 very cool and workable techniques to improve your results.

Let’s start with production.

If the sales numbers aren’t what they are suppose to be it is quite possible, and likely, that your team doesn’t have the tools they need to succeed.

And I’m not talking about a good CRM or fancy phone system, I’m talking about a powerful and compelling story to tell.

If sales management has not worked out and compelling and powerful story for reps to tell prospects and customers, you cannot blame sales people for failing to produce.

Believing that your people have the prowess to construct and tell a powerful story on their own, look around because you have slipped through the hedge and are now in Alice’s Wonderland.

Next, once you have constructed a story, you need to coach the salespeople on how to tell and execute that story.

Don’t leave it to the sales reps to figure out how to do this effectively – show them. Doing so will save time and is the only way it will get done.

Now let’s chat about “Motivation.”

You can’t teach motivation, and you can’t manage it either. You can no more make others motivated than you can make a horse drink. Motivation comes from within.

However, there are many things you can do that will spark the motivation in others and get it to grow.

In the 60’s JFK did this when he told the nation America would go to the moon in the next decade.

If you want your team to be motivate you must first give them a reason. That reason comes in the form of a vision that they see and then desire.

I did this once with a group by simply asking them if they would like to be the number one regional team. I included with that some reasons they might wish to achieve this goal.

Whatever you do, you must find some future scenario (the vision) the team members would like to achieve. This is what creates motivation.

There are two additional things you’ll want to do.

First, get them motivated to learn. Doing this insures that they will accept coaching and instruction (Such as on their new story.)

Second, you need to show the team how you will personally empower them to reach their goals. This provides the confidence they need to believe in the vision allowing the motivation to grow. Providing that powerful and compelling story is the beginning.

The actions summarized above are what we call leadership, and it is the most powerful tool you have in creating a team that consistently performs at high levels.

Check out my upcoming Telephone Skills Seminar… The Next Step

Click here for details.  (Opens in a new window.)

Attend this FREE 30-minute webinar to learn a 5-step process that will that will increase the effectiveness of your follow-up calls to prospects and customers 10%-30% or more.

It’s ridiculously simple once you learn the secret!

Click here for details.  (Opens in a new window.)

I am absolutely amazed to discover how few companies have their sales process worked out in enough detail to guide salespeople through an effective sales call.

Over the past 30 years I have worked with numerous companies many with tens or even hundreds of millions in revenues.

Yet most have almost no documentation of their sales process. And salespeople have no understanding of even the internal best selling practices.

Listening to their sales calls you discover the primary means of getting through the sales process is by the seat of the pants.

You’ll observe salespeople simply wandering through their sales calls most of the time being lead by the prospect. You’ll hear salespeople missing prospect generated clues that should be generating critical questions.

You will also find that salespeople don’t ask for commitments let alone the order.

Why?

Very simply they don’t understand their sales process and how one gets from point “A” to point “B.”

You can listen for this quite simply — listen to a live call. See if the salesperson is “forcibly” directing the call and driving the prospect to an obvious objective. If it’s not obvious, they probably aren’t doing it and it is the sales process that needs your attention first.

Many companies hire outside training organizations to come in and teach selling techniques when the bigger problem is really their sales process.

They would find that cleaning up their own selling process would give them significant improvements in results, even without any telephone sales training.

Teaching sales skills to salespeople that don’t have a good understanding of their own sales process is almost a waste of time.

Without this knowledge they will incur great difficulty applying the new techniques properly. They may even have trouble knowing where to apply the techniques in the first place.

Before you purchase outside telephone sales training make sure you have a well detailed sales process that contains at least the method for getting to the sale, and hopefully the internal best selling practices.

Check out my site for more information on how to address these issues and please leave a comment.

I am guessing no one has ever made you that offer, but I’m going to.

So what makes a telephone sales training program great?

• That the program was designed to change behaviors not present a fixed content
  Most telephone sales training is driven by a fixed set of content developed by the trainer. This content may or may not with the most common errors salespeople are making.

• That the content of the program focuses on “telephone sales” content and doesn’t simply repackage classic sales theory
  Most telephone sales training programs don’t cover key subjects like communication and the key differences between the telephone and in person sales effort.

• That the program attacks the actual errors being made by sellers in real time
  A program that operates primarily on a tactical level that focuses on the actual issues in today’s calls gets immediate results and typically better results as these errors will likely naturalize the gains any new techniques produce.

• That the program documents the corrections in a way that management can continue to coach them
  Most importantly is the fact that without follow up results almost always leave within weeks of the training. It is not practical for companies to keep a training organization on retainer — management must be able to continue what was done. The problem is that most training models don’t empower managers to do this.

Because my program is so unique I have created a Pilot Training Program you can test drive with NO risk.

The program consists of 5 sessions run similarly to the standard training (There are some minor differences due to time restraints.)

There’s no contract, no payment, and no risk to you. If you’re not completely satisfied after the first two sessions we will stop the pilot and you pay nothing. To read the details please click here.

And there’s a huge bonus that is a by product of the structure of the sessions.

Because of the way this telephone sales training program operates you will literally get a “mini skills evaluation” of your team.

The sessions work with live calls and engage salespeople in critical thinking about their selling activities. These two things produce a powerful birds eye view into the real issues in your team’s selling efforts.

I assure you it will be obvious after two sessions that progress is being made.

Example of the Actual Results Obtained From a Recent Pilot

Here are just some of the items found in a pilot run with one of my clients. Remember that each of these items results in corrective documentation and training material that the manager can use going forward to coach or retrain the sales team on these items. Many of the corrections you experience in the pilot may be specific to your sales process and products.

These are the non optimum behaviors discovered in the pilot program.

• Poor or weak process for selling evaluation units

Resulted in a draft for the  selling process for selling these units

• Improper or weak closing of the call, poor next step

Resulted in a best practice sales process document* (*The sales process document is a “script on steroids” description of the actual segment of the selling process. It can be used as a guide for sellers during their sales presentations, a tool for management to collect best practices and as a coaching and training tool.)

• Weak questioning of partners for the purpose of driving business

Resulted in a draft of key questions reps should ask partners

• Weak voice mail messages

Resulted in a training discussion about leaving messages

• Inefficient handling of a non registered product

Resulted in a draft best practice for handling this situation

• Poor use of “voice” in presentation

Resulted in a training piece being presented in one session

• Beating around the bush on critical questions

Resulted in an in depth training discussion

• Handling “negative” price situation to make rep look good

Resulted in and in depth training discussion and best
practice for handling this issue

• Lack of or ineffective qualifying

Resulted in a discussion, and this item being schedule
for future attention.

Each of the above items will eventually result in a sales best process document and training piece.

Here is a testimonial from the CEO of a company where this whole process was executed fully for the purpose of improving sales results.

Testimonial

Here are the words of the CEO of a company where these telephone sales training strategies were used in full.

“When I hired Flyn to help me bring our sales team to the next level he said he will double our sales in 6 months. He achieved this goal in 30 days. He brought new ideas, strategies and methods that were revolutionary, and worked very effectively for us. He is the best telesales expert I have ever worked with.” Gal Almog

What Gal doesn’t say in this recommendation is that in the third month we had moved to about 285% of original revenues.

In this case I was more than an external trainer – I was responsible for “sales performance” as an interim manager responsible only for sales performance and spent 25-30  hours per week with the team.

This result is typical for teams I managed directly, Logitech 300% in 8 months, GoldStar start up computer sales to reseller group 30% better results that the other 4 equivalent teams — but my group worked 6 versus 8 hours each day.

You have nothing to loose except some bad habits.

Here’s one other valuable thing you will receive in this process. Even at the end of the two sessions sales management will have a much clearer understanding of the real quality of the sales calls being made by the team. In the above pilot the VP of Sales realized that even his best person in the group could be doing far better that he was.

Knowing what your potential is, and seeing a clear method for achieving it is invaluable. This program will provide that knowledge, even in the first couple of sessions.

Call now to schedule your NO RISK Pilot Training Session — 408-296-6880

I have to say I totally disagree with all this bashing of “elevator pitches.” Please keep in mind this is my two cents and personal opinion. I respect all that has been stated on this subject though I may not agree.

The basis for bashing is not based in fact, but in a mystic that has been created by hype about how terrible these pitches are.

A true elevator pitch is simply a statement used in prospecting of what someone does. It could be as simple as “I help shoe companies increase their distribution.”

Now I ask you how is that in any way “phony” or “pitching?” Are you telling me that you are not going to reveal what it is you do to the person you’re talking with? Of course you are.

Great elevator pitches are not so simple but use what is known as a “unique selling proposition. (USP)” I feel obligated to define this term as few really know what it means.

A USP is a unique statement of the benefit one can provide. It is a statement with the purpose of engaging the prospect by making them feel they’d be crazy to buy from anyone else regardless of price. It must be free of platitudes and statements of things that the prospect would expect (We fix it right the first time), and it cannot be something your competitor could say. Otherwise it’s not a USP. (For those interested

I highly recommend Richard Hershaw’s book Monopolize Your Marketplace as a reference on this subject and how to create a powerful and compelling description of your business.

Example

I help shoe companies improve their distribution and our benchmarks show that companies that use our program get an average of 15-19 percent increase in distribution over the first two quarters — 8% above any other program tested.

This is a USP and a powerful elevator pitch. What shoe company executive is going to ignore the fact that the average result is 15+% increase and 8% better than the competition? Few! They are going to engage you.

There is nothing pitchy about this statement which is likely to do more for opening a dialog than the so called “meaningful conversations” — which in all discussions such as this are NEVER defined.

I would also disagree that what you say before or after the elevator pitch is more important. If you are giving such a pitch, your are in fact trying to engage the prospect. The best and most powerful way to engage a prospect is to show that you can provide value — NOT say you can provide it — show it. If you are unsuccessful you won’t get to say anymore! What do you think is  more important than engaging the prospect?

The statistics above do exactly that. I think the example you gave (See the LnkedIn Question: “Let’s be honest about elevator speeches! for the example I refer to. It is in the clarification to the question in paragraph 3)  fails to provide evidence of a benefit beyond your say so. Except for the trademarked name of the product every one of your competitors could use the same statement. I don’t think that statement differentiates you from anyone else. The statement above certainly does.

Besides your name and hello this would be the first thing out of your mouth and the basis for any continued conversation or a return call if left as a message.

We don’t need to move from pitching people, we need to move from doing it badly!!

I would obviously agree that having a referral is an advantage. But only if the referral has talked to the prospect about me. Otherwise it won’t carry much weight until you establish value. And even in that  case all that I have suggested is still valid.

I would add as a footnote this is one of the biggest problems in selling. People are not skilled. Most sales people have never pursued the definition and study of USPs, or studied communication skills, or even read the major works on selling.

It is not the selling or sales theory that is bad — its the lack of real skills by the users.

After all this time I am finally able to put my quizzes back on line.

They’re not all up yet but the Telephone Sales, Sales, and Management quizzes are now available under the Sales Education menu.

My new inside sales training  program is so revolutionary it makes all the standard methods of training inside salespeople obsolete.

Why?

Because my program is the first to actually fix the root causes of non-optimum behavior using a system that actually changes the behavior of salespeople.

If you think I’m kidding, click here to read more about it.

Compare this program to what you’ve done in the past and see how the old methods simply don’t stack up.

You’ve never seen a training program that will do what this one does! Ever!

And that’s not even including my incredible unbeatable training guarantee.

Regards,
Flyn

PS: I have made an incredible discovery about training inside sales people that you must see – Click here to check it out!

The primary reason inbound calls tend to be more difficult is that the prospect starts with control of the call and typically salespeople don’t know how to gain control of the call.

I submit to you that you must control the call if you are to have an “effective” sales presentation and process. Otherwise, you simply don’t get to tell your story and frequently don’t obtain the critical information you need about the prospect.

When a prospect calls in they usually have a bunch of questions which be begin to rapid fire at the salesperson. Once the salesperson begins to answer it becomes a freight train he or she cannot stop. Prospects fire question after question and then say they need to think about all of this information and will call back when ready.

The second thing that happens is that many salespeople are not competent questioners. If you listen to the tapes of telephone sales calls you will find that salespeople ask very few questions. This weakness tends to compound the difficulty of gaining control of the sales process on an inbound call.

Summary: The correct way to think about any sales call.

Remember that it makes no difference who dials the phone. On and inbound call you are still talking to someone you know nothing about. You don’t know if they are the decision maker, or have a clue about their environment and how your product or service might fit in.

On every call you need to take the process from the beginning. Thus on the inbound call you must tactfully gain control of the call and the direction it takes. Doing so on an inbound call will give far better results.