Many organizations look at a new CRM system as a better way of organizing and tracking data about prospects and customers — which it is.  However, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the main benefit to CRM is that it is an enabling technology for improving business processes, including sales processes.

Most salespeople don’t like the word “process” and they certainly don’t like the word “automation” — they just want to sell more products or services.

Because of this, CRM should provide an easy and natural way for salespeople to follow best sales practices in order to shorten sales cycles and improve close ratios.  Salespeople need to see value in a CRM system.

Here are a few of the areas in which your organization automate sales processes.

Provide a Standard Set of Sales Questions

A CRM system creates an opportunity to make sure that all salespeople ask a standard set of questions when qualifying a prospect.  Is there a list of questions that has been proven to be effective and that all of your salespeople should be asking during the first call with a prospective customer?

Improved Qualification and Disqualification

Who is your ideal client, and should you more aggressively disqualify prospects who aren’t a good fit?  By getting salespeople to look at time frame, industry, revenue potential and other factors, salespeople can be guided toward the opportunities that are the best fit for your organization and have the highest likelihood of both sales and delivery success.

Identify Individuals’ Roles in the Buying Process

If your sale is a complex one, you can use CRM to identify all the people who are involved in the buying process and how they are interrelated.  On a given deal, who’s the decision maker?  Who are the influencers (both internal and external)?  Is the sales rep speaking with the decision maker?

A Focus on High Value Activities

A properly designed CRM system can help a salesperson to focus on the highest value activities — the activities that will do the most to advance the sales cycle, increase the probability to close and maximize deal revenue.

Validation Before Progress

Salespeople can be required to enter certain data before advancing a deal past a certain stage in the sales process.  For example, with CRM validation rules such as those within Salesforce.com, you can enforce the need to add products to an opportunity before moving an opportunity to a specific stage.

Collaboration

With a tool such as Salesforce Chatter, salespeople can collaborate with other employees on things such as competitive intelligence and presentation content.  An open, collaborative environment provides salespeople with better information and tools for closing deals.

Best Sales Practices Reinforcement

A lot of sales success is about continually reinforcing best selling practices that have been proven to work.  It’s one thing to train salespeople on how to be more successful. It’s another thing to continually reinforce the lessons learned.  Sales process automation helps to ensure that best sales practices are continually followed by the entire sales team.