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Business owners are always looking for ways to improve their sales process and better target their marketing efforts. CRM software can help you achieve both of these things, as well as introduce continuity between your marketing and sales teams. Here are three things you can do with CRM software: 

Prepare for leads

Converting leads is one of the most important tasks in regard to the sales process, but sales representatives aren't always as prepared as they should be. With CRM software, they can inform themselves about specific clients before meeting with them. 

According to a recent Small Business Trends article, sales representatives can build deeper relationships by incorporating CRM software into their preparation: 

"For instance, if you have a sales call scheduled with a valuable lead, CRM software would send you an email in advance so you remember to make the call.  Whenever a customer has an upcoming birthday, you or a sales rep would be notified so you promptly send out birthday wishes. Consequently, you can make customers feel more valued and build deeper relationships."

Align your marketing and sales teams 

Moreover, marketing teams can also benefit from CRM software. In particular, they're more in touch with the sales team since both parties are referring to the same data. As a result, the two teams are better aligned and can work together, rather than compete against one another. 

Improve your future marketing efforts

Users often relate the data collected by CRM software to the sales process. But does information concerning your target market have other important applications within your business? Marketing teams can learn from CRM data to better target their next marketing campaign. 

By implementing CRM software, businesses can improve their lead conversion, align their marketing and sales teams, and better target their future marketing efforts. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

If your business has not considered the transition to marketing software, you are now at the risk of being behind in the competitive race. You may be dealing with a boss who is a little hesitant about making the transition, or you are probably afraid at how much it may cost you to implement the software. You may also think that you already have enough resources to get the job done. 

Whatever the reason is for not using marketing software, you may need to think differently about it. Businesses that are using marketing automation or marketing software to develop prospects are seeing a significant increase in leads. It is highly important that you think about all the opportunities marketing software will present for improvements and growth.

If you are not quite convinced, here are some signs that your business may need to transition to marketing software.

You Do Not Have Enough Time For Anything

If your office has been using a disconnected set of tools and resources to try to accomplish something in your marketing department, it is highly likely that you probably feel the odds have been stacked against you. Well, honestly, they probably are.

The disconnection of putting information in and information coming out, having to learn new things just to remain proficient will take everything out of you. You will do this all day, and you will have missed opportunities to do other important things. With marketing software, you will have a tool that will provide you with all the resources and tools you need to be successful. 

You Have No Idea How You Got Those Leads

If you do not know which of your marketing platforms or efforts helped you get those leads, then you are definitely missing out on a huge opportunity to optimize and improve your traffic. If you have the right marketing software, you will never have to make guesses about leads. You will be able to quickly break down where everything came from. You will not have to feel like you are walking around in darkness. 

Knowing where your information is coming from and how you can improve from it is critical to the success and improvement of your business.

If you do not have the necessary insight to what is or is not working for your business, contact us today for help. 

A good salesperson will be able to fully explain and convince potential customers why he or she is better than the next competitor. The ability to do this is what puts them in the front of the line when it comes to competition in their field.

In order to be among the best salespeople, your salespeople or salesperson should posses the following qualities:

• Have the desire that can not be broken
• Have the commitment to get the job done
• Be responsible and have the understanding of the bigger picture
• Have the technical skills for finding prospects and following through on them

Sales is what drives the revenue of your company. If you want to improve your sales organization and grow it, you need to implement a sales process improvement process that will allow you to manage, support, and examine everything. 

When you are seriously ready to make improvements to your sales process, you should evaluate where you are right now. You should ask yourself these questions about your company. Whatever your answers are, you can use them to take a new walk on the path of success:

• Is it simple or difficult to order or buy from your company?
• Why is it simple or difficult to buy from you?
• What kind of feedback have customers given you? Why do they say those things about you?
• What kind of things do your sales people tell you? Does your company support their sales process? Does it make them productive and effective? 
• How well does your CRM software or system assist in the selling process? 

You need to consider what is important to your customers. When you have an understanding of what is important to them, you will be able to create a process that your salespeople can use to be effective and productive.

If you are serious about changing your organization with an improved sales process, do not hesitate to contact us today. You want to create better opportunities for your sellers and your customers. 

Employee training for CRM software is important, but there's a limit as to how much training is really necessary. For CRM software to be effective, it's true that employees need to understand the system and incorporate it in their daily tasks. Yet with all of the different CRM software providers on the market today, there's no reason not to choose a system that's intuitive and easy to grasp.

A recent Enterprise Apps Today article discusses several mistakes that businesses make with CRM software. According to the article, many businesses waste too much time and money on employee training, when they could have just selected a more straightforward system instead:

"Though many analysts emphasize the importance of upfront user education, Wettemann advises buying CRM software that is intuitive enough that most users won't require a great deal of training. Then rather than scheduling mass classroom training sessions, conduct small-group sessions with individuals or groups that need a little extra help, offering usage tips geared to their specific roles."

There are many important aspects to consider when selecting CRM software (ACT!, Salesforce, HubSpot) and employee training certainly isn't at the very top of the list. Businesses first need to consider the size of their company, their client base, and their budget.

But how intuitive a CRM system is should definitely have an impact on a business' final decision. CRM software is designed to make customer relations easier for the company and sales representatives in particular. There's no need to make them go through months and months of training to try and understand a complicated system.

When considering how much employee training for CRM software is necessary, keep the cost-benefit relationship of the purchase in mind. If training is starting to seem too costly and strenuous, then search for a more straightforward program.

If you would like more information about CRM software that doesn't require extensive employee training, contact us.

Businesses are often faced with the difficult task of staying modern while still making prudent long-term decisions. Particularly now, there are many new software developments that allow businesses to communicate with clients efficiently. While much of the software would have an immediate impact on customer relations, not all of the programs or applications will still be relevant in a few years time. Businesses therefore have to keep the balance between being trendy and making logical long-term investments.

Of all the customer relations software on the market today, experts remain confident that CRM software will be relevant in the distant future. CRM software has been growing and developing over the past few years, and it's expected to stay on that path.

A recent Gartner study asserts that CRM will continue its growth over the next few years. The company's research states that CRM software revenues will grow in 2014 and 2015.  Joanna Correia, research vice president at Gartner, voices her opinion of CRM software in the study and explains which areas of investment are particularly important:

"CRM will be at the heart of digital initiatives in coming years. This is one technology area that will definitely get funding as digital business is crucial to remaining competitive. Hot areas for CRM investment include mobility, social media and technologies, Web analytics and e-commerce."

CRM is the ultimate software for managing customer relations. It provides sales teams with the tools and information they need to keep their clients happy. With CRM software, sales representatives don't have to start from scratch with each client, rather they can look up their past order history and assist them through a simple order process.

In addition, it benefits the clients because they are able to place their orders quickly and with a reduced chance of error or miscommunication. This strengthens customer loyalty and lays the groundwork for future business deals.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

The main goal behind CRM software and other marketing software, like ACT!, is improved organization. In other words, businesses believe that if they remain organized in terms of sorting through their customer data and making it readily available for sales representatives, they will have a better chance of landing more sales.

With CRM software, organization starts with customer data. The software automatically records past sales and sorts through the important customer information, such as what they purchased, when they purchased it, and which sales representative guided them through their purchase.

Yet organization with CRM software goes much deeper than collecting customer information. It also guides sales representatives through future sales so that they're more prepared and have a better chance at finalizing them. It removes much of the unknown in the sales process and keeps sales representatives on the right track.

A recent Business 2 Community article discusses several types of marketing software, including CRM. The article explains that when choosing a software, businesses should focus on the type of organization it provides:

“There’s two sides to organizing content: organizing the creation, distribution, promotion and performance of the content itself, and organizing those who will create that content. This is why a strong workflow management process is crucial. The software you choose should not only provide a higher-level view of the content being produced and producers, but the ability to set defined process steps and to collaborate from the idea stage to distribution to reporting.”

Organization that is provided by CRM software isn't something that can be done with simple calendars or word documents. Such tools can only go so far in presenting customer information, while CRM software collects, stores, and organizes the data so sales representatives can easily use it. With this information, sales reps are ultimately in a better position to make future sales with the clients.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

When doing business with your company, clients want to feel as if they're respected individuals, rather than faceless numbers. Unfortunately, as sales grow and companies expand, businesses sometime struggle to give clients the individual attention they desire. In fact, there are many companies that unknowingly treat their clients as if they're faceless numbers.

It's not that businesses intend to lose track of their customers; oftentimes they just don't have the technology to stay organized. Using sales and marketing software helps businesses to stay organized and keep track of their customers. This ultimately allows companies to give more attention to clients and have more-tailored marketing campaigns.

CRM software is a type of sales software that keeps businesses organized by collecting and sorting its customer data. With CRM software, sales representatives have more access to information about clients and are more prepared to close sales.

A recent Top Tech News article discusses CRM software and explains how it can improve businesses' sales process. The article references Mike Gualtieri, an analyst at Forrester Research, who asserts that CRM software can improve customer engagement efforts:

“Effective CRM analysis enables marketing managers and customer service workers to treat people as individuals rather than faceless members of market segments, Gualtieri said. That kind of customer knowledge can lead to more-tailored marketing campaigns and improved customer engagement efforts.”

Without CRM software, sales representatives essentially have no concrete information about their clients. They're simply going off their memories and past experiences with the clients and hoping their intuition can help them land a sale.

CRM software provides sales representatives with data and information so they don't have to rely on memories and intuition. Sales representatives are therefore more informed and educated about their clients, ultimately leading to more sales.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

Being able to communicate effectively is essential for the success of many businesses. It is important to understand that there is plenty of software out there, designed to help people do this easily. Using contact management software can improve the experience of just about everyone involved. These benefits range from the employee that needs plenty of information to the customer that is able to get what they want initially through the knowledge of others. Using this software saves everyone time, which is something you can never get enough of when running a business.

Preserve Contact Details after Entering Once

Having the ability to share contact details to everyone in your business can mean the difference between outstanding and mediocre success, and this is because knowledge is power. The more you know about a potential customer or existing customer, the more you can do to satisfy their wants and needs. Using contact management software allows this information to be obtained just about anywhere, which is extremely helpful for those that travel frequently for business.

Easy Place to Store All Sorts of Information

Before this kind of software was available, people had to deal with the alternatives. It was not as an effective method, but it was suitable. It is critical to realize the ease of being able to use one piece of software to store important contact details for everyone you want to see. Additionally, since it can be updated by anyone you want to have the power to do so, information can always be kept updated.

Avoid Any Confusion with Your Customers

If you are trying to win customers over, one of the best ways to do this is with knowledge. Having details regarding conversation, memos, criteria, wants and needs, and the ability to bring this information up when a customer calls is both incredible and extremely beneficial to have. It is important not to underestimate the power of software like this, especially in such a competitive world where all it takes is just one mistake for a customer to begin looking elsewhere for assistance.

Using contact management software can help you get ahead of the game and save lots of time, contact us for additional information.

When your business depends on making a sale, whether it is a product or a service that you provide, a lot of your time and attention is spent on the process of closing the deal. Sales Process Improvement can help your company spend more time building relationships with your clients and prospects, leading to increased customer satisfaction and repeat business, as well as referrals. One of the easiest ways to improve your sales process is by using CRM (customer relationship management) software.

A CRM system (ACT!, Salesforce, Hubspot) can help ensure that you are giving your clients and prospects more attention, while reducing the amount of time wasted by poor record keeping. By having all the client's or prospect's information in one place, along with your notes, tasks, and status of the deal, you are better able to focus on what you do best: closing the deal.

CRM software can also keep track of the number and type of deals in your sales pipeline, so that your company is better prepared to estimate the value of the sales pipeline, to control your delivery obligations, and to make sure that your customers' needs are met in a timely manner.

Depending on the system that you choose, individual orders can be tracked from lead through sale through delivery, sales tracking will also allow trends and purchase patterns to be analyzed for trends, again to better meet customer's needs and orders. Your company can also use the information to develop marketing initiatives and other forms of business development.

Sales tracking allows each individual salesperson's performance to be evaluated on objective criteria. Keeping this information in one place will also ensure continuity in the face of employee turnover.

Need more reasons to use a Customer Relationship Management system? To talk more about this, or anything else, please Contact us. Thanks.

Making the risky decision to start a business is never an easy one but it is one people make everyday, with results being evident in virtually everything we buy or interact with. After first taking the leap to start the business, small business owners are then stuck with an entirely new set of problems they must face -- such as setting up their website; coming up with their marketing plans for the foreseeable future; and not least of all, figuring out the prices for their items.

One solution that more and more small business owners are starting to accept is to use Sales Software. The benefit of this software comes in its innate ability to take large amounts of information that would have otherwise been incredibly difficult to work with, and turn it into easily understandable data.

The days of manually managing ones books are long gone. Now, businesses can keep track of their sales and inventory all in one go. By providing the software with certain parameters -- such as the target demographic and the general climate of the economy in general -- the software is able to come up with results that can help you manage your business. One type of business in particular that stands to benefit from such software is the restaurant business. Instead of playing guess and check with regards to what types of food to order for that week, being able to see what customers have ordered and when would ultimately help the bottom line drastically.

If you would like to know more about how sales software can help you and your business, feel free to contact us.