How to Convince Your Boss to Take Up a CRM… Part II

 

Our previous article on the same topic, was a hit. And it was only fair that we come up with another version of how to Convince Your Boss. This time we have come up with something
even better!

 

In this modern-age world, you need to boost your sales which need a streamlined system. And what better than taking up an Open Source CRM for the same! You know it’s going to be helpful but the boss calls all the shots. So the next BIG Challenge for you will be Convince Your Boss & bring him to the same page.

 

Here’s how you can do it…

 

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SendGrid Integration : Released

This has been a long time coming. And we are so excited to share it with you all. The “SendGrid” Integration with Wakeupsales is now available for download.

About SendGrid

SendGrid is a Denver, Colorado-based customer communication platform for transactional and marketing emails. It provides a cloud-based email delivery service that assists businesses with email delivery.

About the SendGrid Integration

The world’s most popular transactional and email marketing platform integrates seamlessly with WakeUpSales; just to make sure the emails that matter to you, reach to their desired recipients. Setting up is easy… Just setup via SMTP & get started in minutes.

 

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Adopt a CRM. Don’t Hesitate

A lot of effort is put before zeroing on what you think would be the perfect CRM Tool for your organization. And just when you think it’s time, calamity strikes. The fear of change sweeps through the entire workforce. It’s so fascinating to see how a qualified group of people get overwhelmed thinking about a change this small.

Some people take it in good spirit. Whereas, others just give up in their minds. They believe spreadsheets & emails are the best way to do business forever. Almost funny, isn’t it!

As a leader, you’ll most likely not have much time for training the employees. But what you should do is, come up with a plan to unroll the CRM gradually into your business.

Also, one of the first things you should do is to let all your employees know how amazing & helpful a CRM can be for their work. Or how much difference a CRM can make. This will help them getting rid of the nervousness in the initial days. Only when they realise the value it adds, they will feel extra motivated to give the CRM a try.

Hence, your basic aim should be to get all your employees on the same page with you. Identify their point of hesitations; break those barriers if you have to.

Let’s talk about a couple of most common barriers that arise:

Lack of Planning

You should always do your homework beforehand, preparing a timeline for the CRM rollout & the guidelines going forward. Not doing so, & expecting everyone to come onboard straightaway is not wise.

Still if you don’t have that much time, the first thing you should do is to analyze what you have coming up in the next few months. Also, make a policy to use the CRM for all new leads going ahead. It will help to an extent.

If your team is still hesitant, invest some time in showing them tutorials, walkthroughs of the CRM. Yes it’s tough to pause office work & train everyone at any point. But it won’t get any easier in the future as well. So better face it now.

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CRM Trends to Watch for in 2017

Every New Year brings with it, a whole bunch of celebrations (with lots of wine of course) & a lot of new trends emerge.

When it comes to CRM, it’s really tough to predict which way the wind will blow. However, taking the market response & experts’ opinions into account… here’re a few trends which I think will go BIG this year.

AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Like everything else, AI is also set to make BIG inroads into the world of CRM this year. It’s just inevitable, like it or not.

At times when users get overwhelmed with the huge amount of data a CRM gives out, AI will be like a breath of fresh air. Imagine it predicting what product/service a particular lead will most likely be interested in, depending on a set of parameters such as demographics, buying habits to name a few. Things will be so cool.

For marketers, AI may also give valuable info about where they’ll get the best RoI from, which areas serve as their cash cows.

In short, AI will make decision making a lot easier by making best use of the data available.

Sales Automation

Automation is going to play a major part in sales cycles this year. Because, most of the sales folks want repetitive works like email follow ups, scheduling a meeting out of their kitty.

Also, a report in the US states that people are increasingly getting more comfortable with automated interactions, rather than talking to an actual guy over telephone. Yes it’s heartbreaking but true, no one likes those sales calls.

Simplicity everywhere

In today’s jet-set-go world, startups & small businesses hardly spend their time & effort on training. They need resources to be able to use the CRM straight away.

That’s exactly where simplicity or easy-to-use interface comes into play. Almost everyone is running tirelessly behind this, but very few have come close to cracking this.

Also, it’s not just the sales & marketing team that’s involved in the CRM. The product development team may also want to take a look at the buying behaviours to work on new products or updates. Even the finance dept can take a look at your CRM to predict the financial requirements of your firm. Hence, the key here is to make the CRM tool as easy as possible for all parties to use.

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7 Winning Ideologies of Sales Email Prospecting

Most of us are very particular, in actually going through a sales/promotional email.

When was the last time you had gone through a sales email & responded positively? Don’t stress yourself. Most likely you don’t remember at all. Most of those emails might be biting dust somewhere in your spam folder. And you hardly bother. It’s normal.

However, put yourself in the shoes of a sales guy and things look quite different from this side of the table. You wish for as many people to read & respond positively to your emails as possible. There’re just no other options!

Based on market research, and my own experience… here I discuss about a few tricks which may improve your probability of getting a response.

Personal Touch

Gone are the days of sending a fixed pre-written template to all your prospects. Everyone loves little bit of a personal touch now a days. Hence, all your emails should be customized as per the needs & demands of the prospect. He/she should relate to what you are offering.

Homework

It’s undoubtedly the most important thing at play. You should always do a thorough research on the preferences & industries of your prospects, to be able to provide some value. And there’s no better time than to do it in your very first interaction itself.

Visualise

Before you write your emails, it’s a good idea to imagine how the email will look like. That structure forms the basic template of your emails. And then you can go for customization, of course.

Subject Line

Subject lines are one of the most under-rated things in online sales. Most of the folks use the same subject line for all their emails. That’s not cool. You should always have different subject lines for different personas that you’re targeting.

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