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Let’s have a chat about revenue management tools; more specifically, a customer relationship manager (CRM), software that tracks your prospecting and sales activity.
Revenue management is arguably the most important job a leader has – whether you’re running an agency or a book of business. This is such an important topic that we have a chapter in our book dedicated to it.
Without insight into the pipeline for future revenue, you can’t make projections and decisions. And then you’re left with guesses:
- How can you find confidence in making investments if you don’t know what revenue will follow?
- How can you be confident you or your team are on top of your opportunities and managing them effectively?
It becomes impossible to accumulate intelligence and build a prospect profile if you're not leveraging technology and collecting information as they interact with you.
Lack of tracking and data collection is a contributing factor to low conversion and close ratios. If you don't have insight into your buyer's interests and needs, you're moving at a much slower pace in developing that relationship.
Conversely, the more clearly you understand the buyer, the better chance that they become a client. You have more information and are able to tailor your conversation and solutions to their needs.
Agencies embraced technology for managing client accounts; it’s time to embrace it for finding and securing new business.
What’s the rub?
Why do people resist using a CRM?
Leadership wants the information. But too often, they want the benefits of a system without setting it up or using it themselves. And creating a successful structure for their team takes more time and energy than they realize.
On the flip side, salespeople often don’t want the technology or the tracking and accountability that goes with it. And they certainly don’t want the “hard work” of it. But technology has come SO FAR and doesn’t have to be complicated and difficult.
Sales team complaints are the number one issue we see holding agencies back from committing to data tracking. Companies find themselves at a crossroads with this disconnect between what the company wants and what the team wants.
What do they do? Forgo the technology and allow salespeople to “track” their pipeline however they want? Or buckle down and make it a requirement?
We have many people in our network who are committed to using technology to drive their prospecting and sales processes, and it's very exciting! We are leveraging the power of the group and organizing support to provide tools, training, and peer conversations to keep teams on track.
If you want to join in these conversations, follow the link to subscribe. We’re a very supportive and welcoming group, and we'd love to have you there with us. 😀
Self-reflection
In our book, we provide a self-reflection on where you are with technology. Let’s take a quick walk through those three options at the end of Chapter Six.
- We don’t have marketing and sales technology, or if we do, we don’t use it consistently. Our sales team resists the work and accountability that come with technology.
- We have a CRM that’s mostly used by one salesperson, and we have an email tool that we use for occasionally sending basic communications, such as invitations to webinars and holiday messages to our client base.
- We love our technology! Our team uses it consistently for marketing and prospecting, and they’re able to gather insights and make decisions, adjustments, and predictions based on the data we have.
If you’re farther along, it may be a great reference to see if you’re currently capturing all the data points you need to leverage your data and turn it into useful information.
I hope you find it useful. Thank you, Friends. Let me know if you have any questions!
Content provided by Q4intelligence
Photo by lightfieldstudios
