Let me tell you why we felt the need for a CRM(Customer Relationship Management) tool in the first place.
As you all know by now, Sales Extended is a firm that focuses on Sales and Marketing Services for businesses that are in B2B/B2C segment.
Hence, one of the things that we got to do everyday is to focus on List Building and Prospecting so that our pipeline looks good at the end of the day.
List Building, as the name suggests, is about collecting names of companies, business owners name, email id, phone number, the industry they are in and their website or any social media handle. All this information helps us with Prospecting.
Some of you may argue that buying database can solve this problem.
True, but then sometimes databases procured from others may have dated information. We have a personal experience in this.
Eight years ago, we paid a large sum of money to buy a database of 5000 CEOs. Much to our dismay we found that 90% of that data was old and incorrect as those CEOs were no more with those companies and did not have a functioning email and/or phone number.
Build your list. Everyday.
When you build your list, you can ensure that the data is correct.
You may ask me how? Well, because you use that data to actually prospect!
Once you start collecting this information, your next concern is where do you store that information.
This is where CRM steps in.
CRM, for those of you who are new, is Customer Relationship Management.
Sales is all about solving a problem for your customer, and in order to that you need to manage your relationship with your customer. This would involve storing information about the various touch points with him/her. This includes storing contact details, to when you met them, what were his requirements and how and what did you serve him with and finally the closure.
And none other than CRM tools can do a better job at this.
As you see, you take the customer on a journey from the first contact to the final closure and beyond that.
You may argue that all this information can be stored on an excel sheet too.
Believe me, after a certain number of customers, it starts becoming difficult and unmanageable.
And now let me tell you how has CRM helped our business.
Sales Extended, our company is in the business of offering Sales and Marketing Services in the B2B Segment.
We have partnered with companies whose products we take it to the market and close deals for.
Hence, we as a team, generate leads, meet prospects, understand requirements, demonstrate solutions and finally close the deal.
At every step, from Lead Generation to Deal Closure, we record information and use the CRM tool to follow up, set meetings, reminders, emails and also information pertaining to the deal value , discounts , sales targets.
Also managers use it to set targets for their team members regarding the number of leads reached out, meetings fixed, follow ups et al.
Similarly, sales targets are set for Sales Reps.
CRM tool gives us the transparency so that even if a team members takes leave of absence, another person can take over and resume work.
The tool is an integral part of our day-to-day operation and we are happy to have adopted it, early in our business.
You may want to know which CRM tool are we using in Sales Extended.
We are using Pipedrive and it meets all our requirements.
Well, there are other CRM tools as well such as HubSpot, SalesForce etc.
And they are awesome too.
Now you may ask how does once decide which tool is good for their business?
What factors help you determine, the right CRM tool for your business?
And much more.
I suggest that you read my next blog that actually has a detailed comparison on CRM tools.
If you wish to know more about how we use Pipedrive for Sales then write to us and we will be more than happy to help.
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