Is it Your Salespeople or Did You Make a Bad Decision?

Consider buying a car that has an insanely cheap price, with every option you could imagine, as well as options that you never thought you could use.  Nice!  But, you can’t drive it until you hire an after market specialist to install instrumentation on the dashboard, a steering wheel, brakes, and gas pedal in the driver’s area.  When you finally accept delivery and take it for a spin with your family, everyone hates it, nobody wants to drive with you, and you feel like it wasn’t such a great price after all. You can’t trade it in, and now you’re stuck with it. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?  But for many companies, that is exactly how things are playing out for those who purchased  Salesforce.com.

Consider this quote from a client:

“You were right, you know.  Six months ago, when you told us that we wouldn’t be happy with the integration of the customized sales process into Salesforce.com, we didn’t understand what you meant.  But now we do.  It’s clunky, not really part of the interface, the customization cost us tens of thousands of dollars, and it doesn’t work the way we need it to.  We are so sorry we didn’t listen because that train has left the station.”

Companies think they have to buy salesforce.com when, in reality, there are some really great alternatives.  Our favorite is Membrain.  It doesn’t cost as much, doesn’t require third-party integrators to get it to do what you want, and has perfectly good dashboards out of the box.  There’s even a standard configuration for Baseline Selling.  [Speaking of Baseline Selling, I’ve received so many compliments on the great job of the voice over talent on the new audiobook!  You can order all versions (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audio) of Baseline Selling here.]

Nobody should be stuck in a CRM application that salespeople don’t want to use!  They will be inconsistent at best with regard to entering data, when they should actually be living in their CRM application.  Whether they are inconsistent or invisible when it comes time to enter and update opportunities, you won’t have real time data on your dashboard and that makes the application useless to management.  At that point it’s like owning a car that has a folding chair for a driver’s seat and the car does not have a working speedometer, odometer or gasoline gauge.

CRM is important.  Accurate forecasts are important.  Visibility into each and every opportunity is important.  Integration of the sales process that must be executed and the stage and milestone on which each opportunity sits is important.  Real time visibility is important.  If it’s not working for you, cut your losses and move on.  Isn’t that what you would do with an under performing salesperson?

Kitedesk featured me in a Sales Expert interview that you can read here.

I was the guest expert on a Rapid Learning Institute Webinar on the sales candidate interviewing mistakes you must avoid.  You can listen to that Webinar here.

I’ll be hosting a 30-minute presentation of my own on October 25 at 11 AM Eastern.  I’ll be talking about the 6 Hidden Weaknesses that impact sales revenue!  If you would like to listen in, you can register here.