Your sales team is spreading out. In the past five years, the number of virtual workers in the U.S. has increased 800 percent. At least 60% of employees work in different locations from their supervisors. That means you’re going to be a lot more dependent on your CRM data to manage your team and drive results.
1) Make CRM data entry a KPI.
You know the adage: If it’s not in the CRM, it didn’t happen. That’s especially true for remote workers. In an office setting, you can have a casual conversation. You might be able to get by without the most granular details in your CRM, the most up-to-the-second reports. But once your teams go remote, CRM has to be the primary source of information. Hold your reps accountable to it.
2) Implement structured data fields for all key points in the sales cycle.
Anything that can be in a dropdown menu, radio button or numerical field has to be. Who are you competing against for an account? What current solutions do they have in place? What objections do you hear? If this information is in editable fields, CRM can’t analyze it. You need structured data to identify the roadblocks in your pipeline. And how to power through them.
3) Conduct a more thorough analysis of CRM data.
It’s easy to look into the CRM and see that a rep is working 22 opportunities or that your team’s win rate is 38%. Don’t stop there. How many of those opportunities had an associated activity in the past 7 – 14 days? What’s the win rate for different account sizes? Different reps? You may get a “feel” for some of these answers when reps are around. But even when a few members of your sales team work go remote, you need to go deeper into the data.
4) Review the CRM data frequently with your reps.
As we explained in a recent blog post, reps need to feel connected. Frequent instant messages and check-ins let them know you’re engaged. Phone and conference calls are a must, too. It might be a good idea to schedule separate meetings for forecasting and pipeline management. Use the forecasting meeting to gauge the health of the pipeline and prioritize deals. Use the Pipeline meeting to review how best to move those high priority deals forward.
5) Make the CRM easier to use.
If you’re going to be asking for more CRM data, you have to make the data easier to enter. And it pays. 93% of sales teams report that salesforce.com ease-of-use investments increased revenue. Rollio is proven to capture 3X more data while giving reps up to 100 extra hours a year to sell. Which is how you want them spending the time they save by not commuting anyway.
Click here to find out 7 ways to make your team love their CRM.
Schedule a demo and see what we mean.
COMMENTS