Activity…Activity…Activity

What we do as sales people and what we achieve can be two very different things. Over the next few days I will be rolling out a blog series about Activity.

This is the first in the series and focuses on Activity and CRM Systems.

I was asked again this week which CRM System I prefer – so I’m sharing my thoughts on CRM in general.

Brilliant, no more note pads, excel spread sheets… and now it’s simple… getting flagged when you need to call someone back, giving the full details of the job, etc.…

The downside – the moment that automation of the collection and analysis of data makes it easy to generate reports on sales activity – something happened. There is ‘the man/big brother’ and he is watching over. He has a glint in his/or her eye. Now, I know what my reps are doing! I can tell how productive they are.

‘The activity’ that we enter into the CRM systems falsely encourages him/her by implying that the sales person is productive simply because their activity levels are high. But here’s the clincher – if you thought activity equals success then you are WRONG. Oh so wrong.

So, if you are a manager and are looking at the CRM system to measure the quantity of sales activity and mentioning it, thereby encouraging the team to fill their pipeline then you are perpetuating the problem.

Where to put your focus.

You need to ensure your team don’t get slaps on the back for having, say, 40 new potentials drop into the system with a 5% conversation but instead be championing them for having 8 that have a 75% propensity to convert. (Save you the maths, that’s 40 leads = 2 client’s verses 8 leads = 6 clients)

Imagine the focus and effort that person will give those 8 leads.  They are really getting to understand each persons business and how your solution can assist them. Noticing other opportunities AND creating opportunities!

Now every business is different but if you are playing a numbers game then you’re missing the perfect customer when they come along. Of course the fear is am I choosing the right 8… you’ll have to read my next post to discover the secret to that!