Non-sales small business owners and startup founders, if you are having difficulty understanding your CRM (and how to use it), this is for you. This post will help you simplify your CRM so you can use it to save time and improve your sales results.
As a VP of Sales, I know that CRMs can appear confusing and seem like they are not worth the effort.
Trust me, they are absolutely worth the effort.
I have seen firsthand how implementing a CRM can immediately transform a business. Simply tracking your sales data improves results by helping you stay organized, stay on top of follow-ups, and always know where each customer and prospect is with your business.
Implementing a CRM can be challenging for busy owners and founders, so I packaged the confusing parts of CRMs into 4 simple categories to help you save loads of time and get to selling.
The (Perceived) Problem: CRMs are confusing
Most owners and CEOs wanting to scale have considered or purchased a CRM. There are hundreds of CRMs out there to evaluate and there are a handful that stand out above the rest (though I have two strong recommendations).
The hard part about CRMs is they are sales and marketing tools, but most small business and startup owners do not have sales backgrounds.
So what is the problem? Companies will purchase a CRM without understanding what is packed inside it, creating a useless solution they cancel or let sit dormant at a cost to the business.
Let's break down the confusing parts of the CRM so you can quickly see why every highly successful company uses one.
Understanding your CRM: The Basics
What is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool? In short, a CRM is a software tool that helps companies track, manage, and sell to leads and prospects. A good CRM will integrate with your email and track your conversations. In my experience, the two best (and most popular CRMs) are:
Tip: If you are considering implementing a CRM, Salesforce has a starter version and Hubspot has a free version!
Most CRMs have similar structures for companies to track the necessary customer and prospect data. Let's break it down.
You have four main objects:
Accounts
Opportunities
Contacts
Leads
Accounts
The most straightforward, Accounts are the companies and organizations that you are trying to sell your product or service to.
This will include every prospect (accounts you want to sell to) and all current customers. This is what an Account Page looks like in Salesforce (starter).
The Account Page contains all of the information your company wants and needs to track to increase sales and deliver an exceptional product.
Good CRMs will allow you to add custom fields to track. For example, if you are a SaaS startup founder selling in the education space, you may want to add custom fields for the Number of Students or the Number of Campuses. You have nearly unlimited creativity here. Remember, only add what you need to be tracked to improve sales in the long run.
>>>If you need help determining what to track in your CRM to improve your top line, check out our post on CRM data tracking!
Opportunities
The Opportunity Page is where your salespeople (salesperson, CEO, founder... whoever is running the deal) keep track of all the details specific to a certain deal.
An Opportunity is what your CRM would call a deal. Meaning, an account/company is interested in your product or service and you are in discussion with them about purchasing your solution.
You can see a screenshot of an Opportunity Page below, including all of the opportunity information and the specific contacts involved.
Opportunities have a lot of flexibility and offer many fields to help your salespeople and leaders manage and forecast deals. Some common fields are:
Next Steps
Close Date
Opportunity Stage
Contacts (see next section!)
Amount/Price
Description
Many more
These fields help the salesperson stay on top of their deals and always remember who is involved and what conversations are taking place. A good CRM will automatically populate the conversations you have with your prospects into your CRM and Opportunity Page, so you will always have your information in one place!
CRMs allow your company to create reports so you can see all of your opportunities on a single page, what stage they are all in, when the estimated close date is, and what the next steps are.
The opportunity page is where your salespeople will likely spend the majority of their time.
Tip: Always clearly define your Next Steps with a date and tasks so you can easily see what you need to complete. Example: 5.20.24 Follow-up call with CEO to discuss pricing and timeline.
Contacts
Contacts and Leads are similar but serve different functions within the CRM. The Contact Page contains all the pertinent information about the people in each account. The screenshot below shows the Contact information, activities, and the opportunities they are a part of.
The fields you can include are customizable, however, some popular and default fields are:
Email
Phone Number
Lead Source
Job Title
Reports To
Notes
Job Category
The Contact Page will also include all of the emails, calls, and meetings you have had involving that contact. As long as they are loaded in the CRM and their email is correct, your CRM will populate these items automatically!
Deciding what to track on the Contact Page can be challenging. If you need some quick help deciding what to track, check out our post on the Top 5 Metrics to Track in Your CRM to Boost Sales for Your Business or Startup.
Leads
The Lead Page looks similar to the Contact Page and has similar information about your prospects. Functionally, however, the Lead Page serves a different purpose. The Lead Page serves as a "staging ground" before you move (convert) them to a Contact.
This process can differ greatly depending on your business type and how many leads you get. What I have seen work well is, that as a new lead comes in (someone fills out a website form, you meet someone at a conference, etc.), their name gets populated into a Lead Page either automatically or manually.
From there, if they are a qualified lead for your business, then you convert (see picture below) them to a Contact and add them to an Account.
Again, functionally this can differ based on your business and business type. The above strategy works great for B2B companies.
Summary
CRMs are capable of incredible things. You can integrate them with other solutions, create reports that will help you boost revenue, and use them for territory planning and go-to-market strategies.
But... none of that is possible without understanding the building blocks and simply getting started with your CRM.
As you implement and work in your CRM, remember that all fields can be changed and nothing is permanent. The longer you use your CRM the better it will become!
Talk with Spurr
If you would like some help getting your CRM set up to help your business or startup improve your sales and sales processes, click the link below and let us know!
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