How a
Salesperson Can Find Value in Using a
Database System
This article is the first
of a series that outlines different
company roles and how they can find
value in using a database system to
manage their day-to-day activities.
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 salesperson 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 salesperson has a
myriad of things to keep track of on a
day-to day-basis. There are meetings to
attend (usually outside of the office),
calls to make, paperwork to process or
follow-up on, orders to fill. And the
list goes on. In addition to all of the
duties of a salesperson, they usually
have a manager that wants to know the
status of all of the key sales
activities, and what new prospects are
being sought after.
If we lived in a perfect
world, all new sales would start on the
same day, and then the rest of the
customer process would follow suit, so
that each task to complete would get
done on the same day for all of the
different customers. 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 grow your
sales year after year.
How many times have you
been frantically searching your Inbox
for that one email you received from a
customer with important details on an
order you should have placed days ago?
And what about that unruly to-do list
you continue to rewrite over and over as
new items come down the pike from your
manager? What if I told you that you
could stop rewriting that to-do list and
never have to search your Inbox again
for those important emails?
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 salesperson 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
their personal lives. As much as
remembering your customer’s wife’s name
and the name of his children is not
going to pay your bills, it may just
help you in selling to your customer in
the future. Customers are not just a
transaction – they are a relationship
you are building to gain the trust and
business of the customer. So if you are
able to discuss on the phone with
Customer A about his wife’s recent
surgery, or his kid’s school play, you
may just win enough brownie points to
gain more business from him. More
business equals more money in your
pocket.
Now, let’s say you meet
someone (we’ll call him Prospect Bill)
at a networking event, exchange business
cards, and when you return to the office
the next day, you realize that your
coworker already has Prospect Bill in
the database as his prospect. What do
you do? In most organizations, where
there is no centralized database of
prospect/lead information, the typical
answer to this question is nothing.
Because after all, who can do anything
when you don’t know there is a problem!
In other words, not using a database
system leads to uncomfortable situations
for some salespeople as they learn they
are going after the same prospect as
their coworkers. A database system is
intended to eliminate this situation
altogether by providing all necessary
personnel in a company access to all
contacts and accounts in the system so
they can see who else in the company may
know a customer, prospect, or vendor.
Value: more sales =
more money; Prospect ownership
clearly outlined; better methods for
relationship building
Opportunity Management
Has your boss ever asked
you what you have in your pipeline?
Have you ever had to go back to your
desk and frantically put together a
quick memo or spreadsheet outlining all
of the bids you’ve sent out or proposals
you 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
drum up more business? 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 you just sent a bid out to a
new prospect, enter the key information
into the database system so that you
have it to refer back to. This also
allows your manager to know that you
have a new prospect in the mix.
Value: easy pipeline
access; saved time
Activities, Notes and
History
The next feature of a
database system that is very helpful to
salespeople is Activity Tracking and
Notes/History. Some systems have these
separate, and others combine them. For
the sake of this article, I’m going to
combine them because they are
intertwined. If you currently use a
paper calendar to keep track of your
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. A
database system, however, can provide
you layers of information like when your
last meeting was with the contact in
question; what future activities are
planned (calls, meetings, etc.), notes
on all previous calls and meetings with
the contact. This wealth of information
can save you time and energy in
recalling what happened last time you
spoke with your new prospect, or what
issues occurred the last time they
ordered from you. You won’t get that
from your paper calendar (unless you
flip through pages of information in the
hopes of finding it!).
Value: depth and
wealth of information easily
available
Workflow Management
Have you ever entered the
same thing over and over, and hated
doing it every single time? This is a
very common scenario. The good news is
that there is a solution to this, and
it’s built into many database systems
out on the market today, called workflow
management. Think of this like a macro
(if you have ever used a macro before).
A macro is a defined set of steps that
is created in order to run when you need
it. Workflow management is very similar
to this, in that you can tell the system
you want to create steps 1-10 for a
given record (or set of records) and it
will create those steps
instantaneously! No keying them in one
at a time every single time you need
them. The system does the work for you.
Value: eliminates
duplicate efforts; saves time
Summary
There are more features
of a database system that can be
beneficial to a salesperson 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 you manage your
customers, prospects and activities.
It’s almost like having an assistant
without having to pay someone a salary
and train them!
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 keying in
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 selling!
If you would like to
learn more about how a database system
can help you as a salesperson, contact
DB Pros.
info@dbprosconsulting.com or call
(973) 607-1627.
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