Opportunities abound throughout life. Seizing those opportunities and acting on them though, is often the difficult thing to do. Now, during this period of upheaval, it will be as good a time as ever to reflect on what works and what doesn’t in your business and take advantage of new opportunities while they exist. From this crisis will come new ideas, new products and services. The quick, the nimble, and the brave will do well.
What is business as normal?
With the current lockdown conditions lifting slightly, we’ll begin to see a return of business as ‘normal’. For the last few months, many of you may have been mostly concerned about the survival of your business, but as we move past that phase you’ll want to see your business grow again. Now is the time to reinforce your sales process and ensure that everyone is working from the same page.
Having reliable, proven, tried-and-true methods for creating sales is key to your business success. It’s the right time to discuss what works, what doesn’t, and rigorously enforce best practice throughout the company. If you’d like some help with this, we currently run a free sales clinic offering advice and support to you and your team. Our team have years of experience managing their own sales teams and working with many sales teams around the country in a BuddyCRM capacity. That knowledge could prove invaluable to you.
While reflecting on your sales process, you can start asking yourself these questions.
- What will be the core drivers for success in this new market?
- How do we win over customers reluctant to spend?
- What are the new pain points that our products and services have to consider?
- Has our customer journey stayed the same?
- How will we make customers into repeat customers who will spread the word about us?
So, where does the information come from in our new world?
With fewer strictly necessary travel trips taking place, your remote team will be more important than ever. Your sales team have their eyes and ears on the marketplace every day and their knowledge will prove invaluable. It’s key that their insights are shared with the whole team including those in head office.
This is where your CRM comes in.
Storing, categorising and organising your sales data means that information from the sales front line reaches those in head office, admin, and accounts. With that information stored reliably, you can make decisions regarding demand, productivity, targets, inventory, budgets, and more.
How will we handle accounts when the team is no longer together?
CRMs are built to handle remote working and BuddyCRM works everywhere, from an app or in the browser, from your phone, tablet, and desktop. Your sales team can now record appointments (virtual or in real life), tasks, calls, opportunities, sales, and more in one place and everyone in your team can access that too.
Many companies will also have staff that are still furloughed and be worried that their customers aren’t being managed. A CRM will let remaining sales members update records and information on their accounts. You may also wish to reallocate key accounts to different personnel until furloughed staff return. How do you do that without a CRM in place?
Some employees will see the benefit of continuing to ‘work from home’ and as a business, you may wish to take advantage of smaller or more flexible office space. You’ll, therefore, need measures in place to work with a permanently distributed workforce. Here working with your CRM will be the most important tool you’ll have. Its function as a ‘go-anywhere’ system means that staff and you have full knowledge of all interactions with your customers.
A CRM also provides useful methods for measuring productivity so you’ll know if your team is continuing to perform to optimum levels. ie. key performance indicators (KPIs) could include calls made, appointments conducted, virtual meetings, opportunities opened, sales closed, etc. All of these can be measured and delivered in reports, thus ensuring remote staff work continue to work effectively.
Successful companies are created in crisis too.
Airbnb, Groupon, and WhatsApp were developed during the financial crisis. Disney during the Great Depression. There are opportunities in every business cycle.
While this medical crisis continues, it’s difficult to know what economic pain may occur further down the road. We’re likely to see enormous changes in some industries and you’ll need your CRM to generate leads and identify opportunities. Work through prospects and customers that haven’t been contacted for years, switch to new markets (ie. can your products be used successfully domestically too?), and research companies relentlessly. The more you know, the more you share with your team, the more likely the success during and after this crisis.
The new normal may be just like the old normal; who knows? However, keeping a rigorous sales process, using a CRM to ensure information is distributed, and effectively monitoring your team will be key to success no matter what happens.
Ring us for free assistance on your sales on 0121 288 0808.
TLDR;
- Review your sales process. Consider taking up our free sales clinic.
- Rigorously enforce best practice throughout the current sales team.
- Get a handle on what your customers are doing from your CRM
- Allocate customers from furloughed workers to active members of staff in your CRM
- Remote staff remain productive and can be monitored with a CRM
- Identify new targets and opportunities