June 11/18, 2018: Volume 33, Issue 26
By Jason Goldberg
One of the most challenging parts of investing in new lead management software is getting your sales team to adopt it. It is never easy to convince people who are set in their ways to completely change the way they operate on a daily basis. To most salespeople, integrating new software into their sales process is only going to slow them down and give them less time to sell, which could eventually lead to less money in their pockets.
However, I believe this assumption is incorrect. In fact, the right lead management system can put more money in your salespeople’s pockets. Following are some ways you can handle your sales team’s objections to your new lead management software investment.
It will save you time. Most sales teams waste hours each day managing their leads on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet. A good lead management system enables them to store all of the information related to a lead (contact details, tasks, appointments, products of interest, samples, diagrams, quotes, notes, etc.) in one organized place that can be accessed by other salespeople and managers. Sales managers do not have to interrupt their salespeople to ask them what they are working on. Rather, they can log into the system and check their salespeople’s workloads themselves. And while it might take a few days to master new software in the beginning, the time saved in the long run far outweighs the time required to invest up front. In addition, that time saved can be spent talking to customers and closing more sales.
It will improve the level of service you offer your customers. How many times does a salesperson answer a call from a customer and spend minutes digging through papers on his/her desk to find the details of that customer’s project? Those minutes are valuable to both the customer and the salesperson. The sooner an RSA can answer a customer’s questions, the higher level of service he/she can provide, resulting in a happier and more satisfied customer. The less time the salesperson is spending searching for answers, the more time he/she has to invest in nurturing other leads and closing sales. With a lead management system, it only takes a matter of seconds to find the specifics of a customer’s flooring job, so both the salesperson and customer will appreciate the increased speed and efficiency.
It will increase the effectiveness of your marketing. Most lead management software can capture data about the marketing sources that are driving leads to your business. This data is very valuable to the marketing team and can help marketers determine which advertising mediums are the most impactful. For instance, if a lot of leads are coming to your business from Facebook, your marketing team might decide to allocate more funds to Facebook, which should result in more leads for your sales team to pursue. More leads represent more opportunities for your salespeople to—you guessed it—make more money.
In summary, if you are planning to invest in a new lead management system, it is important to demonstrate to your sales team how, if used properly, it can dramatically increase their efficiency, improve the level of customer service they provide and convert more leads into sales. These three things combined will increase your salespeople’s close rates and eventually lead to bigger paychecks. No salesperson would object to a bigger paycheck, right?
Jason Goldberg is CEO of Retail Lead Management, a CRM software system designed specifically for the flooring industry. The company has sold more than 1,000 user licenses to flooring retailers in North America.