How a Sales
Manager Can Find Value in Using a
Database System
A database system, if
used properly, can help people at all
levels and functions of a business.
This article will focus on the role of
the sales manager and how such software
can ease their day-to-day processes.
No matter what industry
you are in – financial, food and
beverage, IT, etc. – a sales manager has
a myriad of things to keep track of on a
day-to day-basis. There are management
meetings to attend, people to manage,
paperwork to process, reports to run.
And the list goes on. In addition, many
sales managers take on a direct sales
role in the company.
If we lived in a perfect
world, all salespeople would be created
equally – they would all be top sellers,
fill out the appropriate paperwork on
time, and yearn to grow their sales year
after year. But we don’t live in such a
world, and therefore it is essential to
have a system in place in order to
maintain order and help your salespeople
achieve this level of success.
How often do you
follow-up with each of your salespeople,
trying to find out what new sales
activities they have had this week? How
many hours do you spend correlating what
you’ve discovered from your salespeople
into forecast and sales reports for your
management team? What if I told you
that you could stop hunting down your
sales team and never have to develop a
sales report from scratch again?
Well, here’s how you can
do this. Use a database system! There,
four simple words can help you out
immensely and save you hours a week
completing unnecessary tasks. Do you
want to know how you can achieve this?
As
expressed in the October issue of CRM
Monthly, there are many features to a
database system. The following is
a description of the features relevant
to a sales manager and
how one can benefit from them.
Account and Contact
Management
Let’s start with the
basics – account and contact
management. If you have more than a
handful of customers, you probably
cannot remember all of the pertinent
details of their sales orders, let alone
which sales rep is responsible for each
one. In addition, it would become very
cumbersome for you to keep track of
every follow-up activity required of
your sales people towards each customer
and prospect. That’s where a database
system comes into play. If your
salespeople are entering the
interactions with each customer and
prospect as they happen, you as their
manager can see these interactions in
the database system and ensure all
proper follow-up has been completed.
You can see if any issues arose through
their detailed notes, and any other
valuable information necessary for you
to guide your sales team in the right
direction.
Value: more
visibility = saved time; easier
follow-up with sales team
Opportunity Management
Have you ever asked your
salespeople what they have in their
pipeline? Have you ever had to go back
to your desk and frantically put
together a report or spreadsheet
outlining all of the bids your team sent
out or proposals they submitted in the
last month? What if you were able to do
this with the click of 2 or 3 buttons on
your computer? Would that save you time
and energy, allowing you to do more
important things with your day, like
build a larger sales team? I thought
so!
Database systems are very
helpful with what we in the industry
call Opportunity Management – or the
tracking of all bids/proposals/potential
sales. This information is tracked on
many levels, including account, type of
project/job, amount of potential sale,
salesperson responsible, date brought
in, potential close date, and the stage
at which this potential sale is
currently at. The idea behind a
database system is to enter this
information in as sales activities
happen. If your sales rep just sent a
bid out to a new prospect, and they
enter the key information into the
database system, you have it to refer
back to. This also allows you to know
that there is a new prospect in the
mix.
Value: easy
pipeline access; easy reporting for
forecasting purposes; saved time
Activities, Notes
and History
The next feature of a
database system that is very helpful to
sales managers is Activity Tracking and
Notes/History. If your company
currently uses a paper calendar to keep
track of meetings, phone calls and
to-dos, or if you use Outlook or a
similar tool, you are part-way there.
However, these systems are lacking some
neat features that can save you time and
heartache. A paper calendar is great to
see your daily, weekly and monthly
activities at a glance. You know where
to show up, who to call at the exact
moment. This is great. But what can be
even better is if you tracked this same
information in a database system. Why
you ask? Because paper (and Outlook and
the like) are flat systems that only
provide you the current information
at-hand for each employee separately. A
database system, however, can provide
you layers of information including a
report on all activities and notes
entered by each salesperson. This
allows you to check in with your team
without having to ask them all of the
details – you already have that! And you
know where each of your salespeople are
at any given time by accessing their
calendar too.
Value: depth
and wealth of information easily
available
Workflow Management
Do you find your team
complaining about their follow-up
process, or missing key steps on a
regular basis? If so, then workflow
management will become one of your
favorite database features! Workflow
management is comparable to a macro –
define your steps once and run the macro
as often as you would like. The results
will be the same every time because it
is following the same sequence of steps
each time. Just like a macro, workflow
management, once built, can ensure your
team completes their follow-up on time
and in the proper sequence of steps.
Value: maintains consistency in
processes; eliminates duplicate efforts;
saves time
Dashboards
Do you ever want all of
the key metrics and activities you need
access to available in an instant for
you? This is now possible through a
database’s dashboard feature. A
dashboard is a summary view into the
database’s myriad of data – with charts,
graphs, etc. Most can be customized to
show you what you need on a regular
basis.
For example, you can view
all open opportunities by salesperson to
see their individual pipelines and the
company’s as a whole. You can see the
activities on the calendar for today for
not only yourself, but each of your team
members. And you can view data like
client dollars brought in by industry.
Value:
succinct information at your fingertips;
quick way to access key business metrics
Summary
There are more features
of a database system that can be
beneficial to a sales manager in his/her
day-to-day activities than what is
mentioned above, but there are too many
to list in detail here. What you should
take away from this article is that
using a database system every day (or
even every week) can be extremely
beneficial for you. It can save you
hours of time a week by being more
efficient, having information at your
fingertips, and helping your team manage
your customers, prospects and
activities.
If you could save
yourself 5 hours a week by using a
database system, wouldn’t it be worth
learning how to use the system and
putting in the information on a regular
basis? Yes, there is always that
beginning learning curve that actually
adds some time to your week because
you’re still fumbling around trying to
remember the steps to take in accessing
the information. But once that curve is
gone, you will be thanking yourself for
using the system because you will have
more time to do the things you want to
do, and you will most likely increase
your sales because you will have an
extra 5 hours a week to be managing the
selling process!
If you would like to
learn more about how a database system
can help you as a sales manager, contact
DB Pros.
info@dbprosconsulting.com or call
(973) 607-1627.
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