Begins March 14, 2012. Sign up by March 4 and save $100.

This particular program is customized for financial planners and offered in partnership with Horsesmouth. Almost anyone involved in selling intangibles will find it easy to apply. However, to make sure our non-financial advisors get what they need we hold special small-group coaching sessions just for you.

The program is described in two places. Here on Savage and Greene’s site: See Cold Calling Training (I’d Rather Have a Root Canal…).

And on www.horsesmouth.com/call – click through from there to enroll.

Note: Those who enroll receive a CD set covering how to generate referrals. Again — directed at Financial Advisors yet fully-applicable to almost all consultant-types as well as bankers, and insurance brokers.

Each of the five sessions is recorded and posted online, along with the slide deck. You can listen at your convenience.

Got questions? Drop me a line so we can discuss the potential fit for you.

Well, I can’t give you a surefire recommendation – no one can – because the way you want and need to use CRM is unique. But I can clue you in on the real sources of aggravation and that will help you make the right choice.

A brief history of CRM and why it matters

When these programs first popped up, “CRM” stood for “Customer Relationship Management.” That’s customer as in after the sale occurred.  At some point, CRM companies realized expanding their target market to sales-users would bring in a nice revenue stream. They adjusted what the “C” stood for, added some features, and successfully transitioned their product. However, the customer-focus legacy is one of the things that often turns a helpful tool into an annoyance.

Most CRM include fields galore. You can input name, position or title, industry, fax, company, parent company, email, office mobile and home phones, name of last-born child, etc.. Most of the data that goes in these fields makes people in account management very happy. That’s how all those fields got in there to begin with.

However, when it comes to prospecting and selling, a lot of the data is not relevant or will not be uncovered for some time. Unfortunately, most CRM don’t make it easy to ignore all those fields. The user has to tab through extraneous fields, wasting time and adding hassle to their work. The hassle factor gets worse when the powers-that-be try to require users to input data for all or most of those fields. The result? Management frets over poor “adoption” of the CRM and sales reps grind their teeth over time-wasters.

Big on selling, not so much on prospecting

The customer-focused legacy is particularly glaring when it comes to telemarketing and other prospecting activity. Prospecting needs CRM that’s streamlined and few meet that requirement. But let’s put that aside and stick with the secret sources of frustration in the selling arena.

Whose sales process is it?

Where a lot of CRM shine is as follows: When selling to very large organizations on an enterprise-wide basis, once we’re past prospecting and early phases of selling. This is no accident. The most popular big-name CRM companies base product design on their own sales process for their own target markets. For example:

• These CRM companies’ typical sales process involves submitting a proposal. For them, if things hit proposal ‘stage’ the probability of a sale is pretty good. And so the prospect rating function in their CRM duplicates that.
• Big-name CRM companies also put a lot of effort and resources upfront into looking for prospects they’d like to do business with. They call this “qualifying” and their funnel graphic shows a large chunk of it above “discovery” — the part where sales rep and prospect actually explore the potential business fit.

There is nothing wrong with the above…unless your sales process doesn’t happen to match theirs. If it doesn’t, you either won’t use those features or you’ll waste time trying to get it to work with your actual sales process. Sadly, too many people and organizations take the latter a step further – they try to adjust their sales process and rating systems to fit the CRM. This effort rarely works and instead generates a plethora of problems; including reinforcing ineffective prospecting and selling practices, and being unable to see and analyze your true sales pipeline.

Service so good it’s bad for you

It’s only human to believe you should follow the lead of the CRM. The big-name CRM companies are clearly successful and so the process in their program represents best practices, right? Well, yes, that’s right for some companies but not necessarily yours.

In fact, there’s a very good chance the big-name CRM companies didn’t intend their products for you. Their target markets are usually very large organizations whose sales process is indeed similar to their own. Of course, if you want to buy and use their product, they’re not going to stop you and will even help you do that. Which leads us to the last way your CRM can drive you crazy: You make it work.

Go away, Tim

Fans of “Project Runway” have heard Tim Gunn say, “Make it work!” hundreds of times. Designer contestants have their assignment, they’ve already bought fabric and they’re stuck with it. If things aren’t going smoothly; well, they just have to make it work.

That’s exactly what people often do with their CRM. They bought licenses, they’ve spent hours trying to figure out what goes where, they’ve called support a thousand times, received assistance, and it’s finally working. Sort of.

The CRM is sort of working as in the fields you need are there and you just have to skip over all those blank ones that have no relationship to your selling process and data needs. It’s sort of working in that you finally got the sales team to agree what “lead” and “opportunity” are and everybody follows the guidelines. Most of the time. Part of the time. When management checks on it.

You’ve gotten used wading through five clicks or a long scroll to get information you really wish was there at a glance. And even though it’s often faster to re-enter data than it is to move records and you can’t see what subordinates are doing because the reporting functions don’t fit their activity…you’re used to it. Sort of.

A strong work ethic, and becoming accustomed to the hassle, can make it difficult to recognize just how badly a CRM fits. However; that’s only part of a surreptitious trap, the rest is similarity.

Years into CRM as product, we have lots of companies to choose from. Yet many CRM look the same. Lots of fields. Same number of contact groupings and with similar or identical titles. Same funnel masquerading as a “pipeline” and linear stages. Cute little graph and pie chart options. Nifty reports. The lack of distinct options from CRM to CRM camouflages the sources of what’s actually driving you crazy. The only way to avoid continued frustration is stop assuming that what you see is what you should get.

Appearing next: How to shop for a great CRM.

I’m not suggesting this is a casual effort. To the contrary, most people put in a lot of time and careful consideration. Unfortunately, looking at potential CRM puts us on a dangerous path right away because what the CRM shows us has a strong influence on what we think we’re looking for.

A different sort of effort will help you choose more wisely. I wish I could tell you it will be an easier effort but I can’t. In fact, this brief article turned into enough pages that I decided to divide it up as follows:

Selling B to C or to single contacts?

Start with this post.

Everybody else: Work through these steps and articles

1. Create a list of the kinds of prospects and contacts you have.

2. See if you can map your list to the CRM. (Not yet posted.)

3. See if you can adjust their sales process to match yours. (Not yet posted.)

4. See if you can streamline. (Not yet posted.)

5. Add a rating system. (Not yet posted.)

Want to see if you can be happier with the CRM you’ve got?

Work through the same steps and articles shown above with your current program.

Pass the Aspirin Please

Before you get started, I want to acknowledge what a pain in the rear this kind of analysis is. If you frequently find yourself wondering if it’s worth it I suggest the answer may be “no.”

Even if you’re selling very high-ticket items and that involves a complex sale, you may not need a complex and many-layered CRM. One designed for B to C may do a great job. Or…you may not need CRM at all.

Start your shopping process by listing on paper the kinds of contacts and prospective contacts you have. I can’t over-emphasize the need for this paper reference. If you try to do this mapping in your head, what the CRMs show you will lead your thoughts…probably in the wrong direction.

Example list of different kinds of contacts and prospective contacts:

The key is to create a paper reference before you lay your eyes on possible CRM. An example list is shown below. You may find the list works well for you but you may not want to just print it out and use it because Step 2 adds some notes to it. Feel free to copy and paste into a document, leaving space to add notes after reading about Step 2.

A) People and organizations you’re marketing to, would like to market to, or may market to.

Drive by a building with a new company name on it? Belongs in this group. Got a list of people and companies you want to call on and send direct mail and email to? Belongs in this group. Creating a list of networking events to check out? Could go in here or in the (C) group.

Have a bunch of prospects you’ve been marketing to but they have yet to agree to a sales conversation? That’s normal. They belong in this group.

This group does not include people you’re having sales conversations with, organizations you’re selling to (involving several players), people you’ve met networking, or clients.

B) People in your business world.

This includes people you’ve met networking, people you know from past jobs or projects, people who represent vendors or services-providers, etc. This also includes customers and past customers of the human kind.

C) Organizations in your business world.

May include networking organizations, e.g., local Chambers of Commerce. Includes vendor and service-provider companies. Includes customers and past customers of the organizational kind. Could also include past employers.

D) People and/or organizations you are selling to.

In marketing vs. selling according to Shawn Greene, you cross into selling once you and the prospect have agreed to explore the business fit. This group is on the sales side of that line.

This group includes prospects who have recently agreed to have sales conversations with you, and those who are in the process of having sales conversations with you. This includes selling different things to different departments of one organization. This also includes customers with whom you are exploring a new sale, e.g., added service or product, new project, renewal of some sort.

E) Projects? Current delivery of some kind?

Do you deliver services as well as prospect and sell? Then you may need to manage contacts in terms of current projects. This kind of contact also applies if your customers have intermittent need for your products or services.

F) Archive or Misc.

Maybe your prospect and customer organizations regularly undergo mergers or fold and you’d like to keep a record of the old organization name. Perhaps your contacts are retiring, you plan to stay in touch, and you want a reference of where you first met. Maybe you want to have a place to put “dead” accounts or proposals. These don’t-fit-elsewhere may need their own group.

Next Step

Once you’ve got your list on paper, choose a couple CRM to trial, fire them up and go to Step 2.

By the way, don’t run a trial on more than two CRM at the same time. The evaluation recommended here takes time. Too many CRM in trial may mean you don’t evaluate them carefully or you may run out of trial period. (If you run out, call and ask for an extension. Most will let you do that.)

Once you’ve got your list on paper, fire up the CRM and see how easy it will be to fit your groups into their groups or “modules.” (Or not.)

As you do this, also evaluate how well the CRM supports your prospecting and selling flow. You don’t necessarily need to clarify the flow in advance if you keep this in mind:

Remember that the idea is to let YOUR groups and YOUR flow rule. As soon as you realize you’re trying to force those into the CRM’s mold, stop. I mean it literally—stop. Step away. Take a break. And then call support to see if they can help, or take the CRM out of consideration.

 How the example groups may map to many CRM:

I’ve taken a close look at a number of CRM but there are tons out there. The modules or group titles, functions described, etc. won’t apply across the board. However, this example will hopefully get you on the right path.

A) People and organizations you’re marketing to, would like to market to, or may market to.

This group often maps to a “leads” module, set, or group in CRM.

Now think about your process. Do leads transition directly into selling, or is there some sort of interim step such as a high-level conversation to qualify prospects?

If the transition is direct: Does the CRM allow you to ‘move’ a lead directly to selling status? (Selling status is often called an “opportunity.”)  You want that move to happen with one click. Two at the most.

If there is an interim step: Does the CRM allow you to characterize leads in different ways so you know which ones are in this interim step? This may be some sort of status option, a custom field you created, or a field you renamed and repurposed.

Many CRM also have a built-in interim step in which “leads” convert to “contact” and/or “company.” This may be a good fit. However, be careful about also using their built-in definition that contacts and companies are fully qualified. See the article on Step 3 for more on this.

Think about who does what in your company, too. If you’re passing leads back and forth, make sure the CRM allows for this. Look for features that allow changes in assignment or owner.

B) People in your business world.

C) Organizations in your business world.

Almost all CRM map easily to these groups.  People usually maps to Contacts. Organizations usually maps to Companies, Organizations, or Groups.

If you often have more than one contact in an organization, make sure the CRM handles this well, including providing fields for department if you need that information at your fingertips.

Some CRM have a built-in flow in which you can convert a lead to a contact or organization in one click. This may be a good fit if you have an interim step before you ask for a selling appointment or before you get too far into selling.

If an interim step is a normal part of your process, make sure the CRM allows things to go ‘backwards’ for prospects who don’t make it from interim to the next part.

D) People and/or organizations you are selling to.

The ubiquitous spot for these in most CRM is “Opportunities.” As you look at the “Opportunity” fields in the CRM, look for either a smooth fit for what you need or the ability to customize the fields yourself.

It’s also very important to evaluable the CRM’s fit for your normal sales process. DO NOT let their process change yours! Look for CRM that has a great fit or lets you edit the process options. See the article on Step 3 for more on this.

E) Projects? Current delivery of some kind?

Amazingly, some of the most popular CRM don’t have a good place for these. Instead, they want you to add a service-oriented program which of course costs more.

You may find that the contacts or organizations groups are enough. If needed, you may be able to customize a field so you can easily find the active projects among the other records.

However, if you’ve got the kind of work life where you prospect and sell, deliver…prospect and sell, deliver… In this case a sales-process-focused CRM may be a waste of time and money. A very simple CRM or some sort of address book program may be all you need.

F) Archive or Misc.

Most of us have a bunch of records and contacts that don’t neatly fit in the above. To keep the other groups or sets nice and clean you need a sort of junk drawer. Unfortunately, few CRM give us this option. The best alternative is CRM that will allow you to create subsets within the other groups and then sort so the junk is easily ignored.

Next Step

So far, so good? Alright, now it’s time to see if the CRM’s sales process works with yours.

Most CRM include an illustration in the shape of a funnel. That funnel represents a sales process—how things typically flow as you and the prospects evaluate the fit. This flow is a major element in CRM for sales-use and it’s the default funnel/sales processes that most make me want to gnash my teeth. The fit with most actual, productive, sales process is so poor that this article and step begin with ripping apart what you’re likely to see.

How Their Sales Process can Mess with Yours

Most of the CRM funnels show prospecting or leads at the top and that is indeed accurate. But things go downhill immediately because most of the funnels next show a huge swath called “qualifying” before something often called “discovery” or “needs analysis.”

Argh! The above leads people to counter-productive actions in prospecting and in selling.

Prospecting: Showing qualifying before discovery/needs analysis leads many people to believe they should try to do a lot of qualifying when telemarketing. This usually backfires because it’s too early and prospects experience it as assumptive—they push back.

Selling: The juxtaposition of qualifying next to a word or phrase that means “ask questions to determine fit” leads some people to believe that qualifying is not part of that fit. This, in turn, prompts many to avoid asking sales-qualifying questions once they are indeed in selling situations. The order in which qualifying appears can also lead people to believe they should qualify before they find out how their products and services may provide value for the prospect. In real life, this self-centered approach backfires.

But wait, there’s more!

Most of the default funnel illustrations show some version of “make a proposal/ask for the business” where the funnel becomes very narrow. This is accurate…but still has big potential for a counter-productive effect because of how most CRM apply the funnel concepts.

With “prospecting” at the wide top and “ask for the business” close to the narrow end, the funnel illustrates an overall general process as it applies to prospecting and selling on the whole. Applying it to single prospects does not work very well but this is exactly what many CRM do.

On the Whole, Yes; Single, No

Most CRM that have a funnel illustration tie that to selling stages or status and those stages/status are tied to each “opportunity.” This generates the expectation that selling should operate in linear fashion.

Effective and successful selling does not necessarily operate in such an orderly flow. Sometimes a proposal is created much earlier. Sometimes the timing is off and we need to circle back to discovery at a later date. Sometimes needs analysis shows us we do not have a good fit and should not ask for the business at all. This list could go on and on.

When CRM include selling stages, there is often a percentage function attached to each stage, too. This is intended to show how much of the stage is complete, or how certain we are the deal will close. This feature may as well be called a WAG meter.

Warning in Summary

Do not let what the CRM shows you make you think your selling should operate differently than it does.

If your sales process or cycle generally flows in a linear manner:

Change the CRM’s sales stages so they are titled more appropriately to yours. The stages may have a percentage function linked to them. Disable the percentage function, or lock it at zero or 100%. If you can’t make these alterations, don’t buy that CRM.

If you can make those alterations: Use the CRM’s sales stages for individual opportunities so you have a sense of where things are with each prospect but don’t apply it too rigidly. (Using the sales stages also lets the CRM system’s funnel show the overall picture for all prospects you’re selling to.)

If your sales process or cycle does not have a generally linear flow — welcome to the norm:

Let me again assure you this is not something you should change. Instead, change the CRM’s sales stages so they are very high-level; for example, Marketing, Selling, New Business, Did Not Close. Disable or hide the percentage function, or lock it at zero or 100%. If you can’t make these alterations, don’t buy that CRM.

If you can make those alterations: Use the CRM’s sales stages for individual opportunities only so the system’s funnel can show the overall picture.

Next Step

You may have noticed this step and article recommends changing fields and functions in CRM. The next step and article cover other alterations to shop for.

Ability to show only those fields you need for each group.

The goal is to have as streamlined a system as possible. If you don’t use fax numbers for leads, then you don’t want to be forced to include a fax field in that group’s window.  If department is not important at any point, you don’t want to be forced to tab by that over and over again.

Look for ability to delete or hide unused fields.

Ability to re-order fields, preferably for each group.

As you consider what the CRM has as default and what you can customize, think about two things: How people need to use the information and how people generally enter information. For example…

Someone calling on leads probably needs name and phone number first. If you call across time zones you might want state or even time zone shown next.

Now, let’s say your telemarketer is supposed to find out when their current contract comes up for renewal. Does it work well to ask about that early on in the conversation or later? That field should be placed accordingly. (By the way, the answer is probably later in the conversation.)

If you’re selling something that affects all or big chunks of an organization you may prefer that the “organization” field comes before the contact name in the Contacts group window.

And how about people’s names? Do you really need first name and last name in separate fields? (Yes, you probably do.) Is the person’s work title important or nice to have? (If it’s the latter, you want to be able to move the work title field down.)

Ability to re-name fields, groups, and possibly functions.

The more closely the CRM matches your internal lingo, the better. For example…

Maybe you’d prefer to call a “comments” field “notes.” Or maybe you focus on finding out hot buttons when selling and you’d like to call the notes field “Hot buttons.”

Perhaps you’d rather call the “leads” group “Prospecting.” Maybe you don’t want your CRM to look like all of the rest and you’d rather call the “Opportunities” group “Selling.”

Renaming fields can also prevent confusion. For example…

Many CRM call the field where you’d put Mr., Ms., etc. “title.” Frankly, that confuses a lot of people. Change it to “Mr. Ms. Etc.” and you’re more likely to consistently get the information you hope for.

Ability to add custom fields.

Adding custom fields fine-tunes the CRM. For example; maybe you want a “notes” field and a “hot button” field.

Adding custom fields can also help address CRM shortcomings. For example…

If there aren’t enough groups or modules you may find adding fields such as “active – yes/no” or “archive” does the job.

If you want to know the kind of product or service involved in a sale a custom drop-down might work. (e.g., a drop-down for my CRM would include training, speaking, design, other.)

You can also use a custom field to address a major shortcoming in every CRM I’ve seen: Add an appropriate rating system. (More on that in a later article.)

Be Willing to Ask and then Hold

Most CRM offer at least some customization at the user-level. Many offer different editions with varying levels of customizability at different cost. And many CRM companies offer additional customization for additional fees.

Try to compare CRM apples-to-apples: Focus on what’s possible at the user-level for the least cost.

However, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what cannot be customized versus errors or lack of knowledge on your end. After all, you’re probably evaluating CRM in trial as well as taking care of the rest of your work. And so if you’re not sure, give support a call and find out what’s possible.

When customization will cost extra, make a note and continue evaluating—don’t follow-through yet. You may find another CRM has a better fit. You may find another way to make it work. You may decide you don’t need that functionality at all.

Next

As noted above, every CRM I’ve seen lacks an appropriate rating system. Most use those sales stages instead; as if things moving through stages equal probability of new business. You’ll have to add your own rating system.

Most CRM include a set of funnel and pipeline functions. These are usually linked to selling stages. I’ve harped on many problems with these in other articles. In review: Most sales do not unfold in a linear manner and so applying stages does not work well, blah, blah, blah.

Now I must add one final rant: Knowing what stage a sale is in does not tell you how likely it is that the deal will close. But since that’s the only function CRM offer, people try to use staging to forecast.

Pretty short rant, right? To see the whole thing, go to the article on rating prospects. This article here focuses on how to add that rating system to your CRM.

Option A – Use a custom or re-named field

The rating method I advocate is a simple points system based on qualifying issues. You can have a field in which the current number of points is shown for each opportunity (or whatever you choose to call selling situations). I suggest you also have people explain any negative point in a notes or comments area.

Distribute the rating system and instructions for use. Have people post it on their cubie wall or save it to their desktop… As long as each sales rep is using the same system, you’re good to go.

Option B – Publish the rating system within the CRM

Some CRM will let you create fields that have instructions, prompts, or information in the background. For example, LuxorCRM will let you add a multi-selection field to its opportunities group/module. Customize it to show the rating elements, add a separate field for the total rating number, and you’re good to go! You can even force people to use it by requiring completion of both fields.

Option C – Rate and track elsewhere

You can always keep a simple list of prospects to whom you’re selling, with each prospect’s current rating shown. Add a column for the prior rating, and a column in which any negative point is explained and you’ve got the key information you need.

If you manage a number of sales reps and want to see the total pipeline, set up an Excel file that will show you how many prospects are rated at 1; how many at 2; how many at 3; and so on.

Layer onto Your CRM

It would be neat if CRM would show you total pipeline as per the rating system but none of them can be made to do that. (None so far, anyway.)

It would be neat because the rating system is a far more appropriate pipeline measure — way better than a funnel. For now, either mentally layer your own separate rating pipeline onto the nifty CRM funnel or ignore the CRM funnel altogether.

Shopping Tips Complete

Adding a rating system to your CRM is the last piece of the shopping puzzle. Hope this helps you find the right CRM with the least aspirin.

LessAnnoyingCRM.com

A truly less annoying CRM that may be perfect if you’re selling to consumers, or if you usually deal with one contact in an organization.

LuxorCRM.com

They bill themselves as “the most customizable” and it may be true, especially compared to CRM costing about the same. If you like the basic format of the big CRM companies, you may like Luxor even better.

Any CRM that has a contacts module or group and an organizations module or group will probably not offer the best fit. So skip over the big-name CRM and try some of the small ones. As you do this, apply a ten minute rule: It should take you no longer than ten minutes to figure out the basics.

Check out www.LessAnnoyingCRM.

Or, if you don’t need mobile access you can always set up your own database in Excel or Word.

I also suggest you read the article on Step 5 once it’s posted. The article is about adding a rating system to the mix.