The 5 Sales Staff You need to have to be able to Succeed With a CRM.
You’ve decided you need customer relationship management (CRM) software. Today’s the day you begin tracking prospect interactions, logging deal data, and leveraging that information to sell more, better, and faster … or not.
What if six months go by, and only a fraction of your team regularly enters information in the system? What if the money you spent goes to waste?
An empty CRM is like an empty water glass: Falling short of its full potential. And it’s a shame to see one go to waste — because your entire sales staff can benefit from the implementation and active use of a CRM.
Let’s get a picture of what kinds of sales reps can most effectively leverage a CRM and some tips on how to motivate your sales team to get on board with a new system.
Importance of CRM Adoption
In this changing sales landscape, leveraging a CRM is becoming a must. One can up your productivity, offer essential insights, increase efficiency, and foster collaboration — smoothing and streamlining the day-to-day operations of staff members at every level of your sales department.
And those are just some of the reasons CRMs have become such an integral part of business success today. That’s why many companies have invested in finding the right software for their team.
Here are some of the sales staff roles that stand to gain a lot from leveraging a CRM.
The CRM Staff You’ll Need
- Sales Development Representative (SDR)
- Account Executive (AE)
- Outside Salesperson
- Inside Salesperson
- Sales Operations Manager
1. Sales Development Representative (SDR)
SDRs are expected to facilitate prospects’ movement through their sales pipelines — to nurture and qualify leads until they’re primed for closing by higher-level reps. That means they need resources that allow them to contact leads in the right way, at the right time, in keeping with the right cadence.
CRMs often include features that enable those kinds of connections. That can include functions like contact management, email automation, personal pipeline management, and company insights. SDRs can leverage those features to field interested leads and keep them engaged until they’re ready to be passed off.
2. Account Executive (AE)
AEs support existing client accounts. Their job is to sustain relationships with clients whose business is either relatively inexpensive to maintain or valuable enough to warrant pulling some of the effort, resources, and attention that would otherwise be used to acquire new accounts.
An AE needs to track and maintain a lot of customer data to keep tabs on accounts’ characteristics, contact information, and potential needs. That’s where a CRM comes in. It allows them to both store and make use of key customer data — including through reports and sales forecasts.
3. Outside Salesperson
Outside Sales reps can gain a lot from having their pending deals and details of past wins and losses readily accessible. A CRM gives them that kind of flexibility without the potential for human error that comes with storing that kind of information on a spreadsheet.
They also can benefit from certain contact management features. A CRM allows them to stay on top of prospect interactions by giving them immediate insight into which contacts might need a phone call or followup email. And a solid meeting scheduling resource can help them smooth out the process of finally connecting with deal-ready prospects.
4. Inside Salesperson
An inside salesperson’s professional world is almost completely digital, so it’s only fitting that a CRM — the ultimate digital resource for sales professionals — is often a central component of their day-to-day.
Inside sales reps need access to sound contact management tools. After all, they conduct most of their efforts through mediums like virtual meetings, videoconferencing, phone calls.
CRMs can provide just that. A solid system can also offer a hub for prospect and customer data for these kinds of reps to pull from — making for better-informed and more thoughtful outreach.
5. Sales Operations Manager
Sales operations managers aim to reduce friction in the sales process, making their reps’ day-to-day activities smoother and simpler. They’re also often responsible for supervising a team of sales operations specialists.
A CRM can help a sales operations manager clearly define their team’s ideal sales process to keep reps on the same page. Features like dashboards also let them quickly and reliably understand team performance and activity, and custom reporting can let them identify new opportunities and potential room for improvement.
