Sales Managers guide to using the PTS CRM Leads

Transcription

1 Sales Managers guide to using the PTS CRM The job of the sales manager is a challenging one. One of the biggest challenges that they face is how to keep a team of sellers motivated and producing quality results. Some of the best ways to make salespeople more productive doesn t include spending a fortune or sending them through another training class. A few of the best ideas are the ones that help reduce busywork and increase time in the field or on the phone. It s estimated that 78% of all salespeople don t hit their revenue goals because they don t have a sales plan. Using the PTS CRM can help your sales team regain control of their business and build a successful sales plan. The PTS CRM module was designed for litigation support salespeople and its main objective is to put potential clients in the sales process and always have an appointment or task schedule for these potential clients. Too often a salesperson s lack of success is due to not having an effective plan that allows them to do consistent follow up meetings to build the relationship and trust. Below you ll find some suggestions to use as the Sales Manager but first it s important to understand the CRM categories and how all the categories fit together to design an effective sales process. Leads is the bucket that should hold all the accounts that are not going to be worked by a salesperson. A good rule of thumb would be if an account has not seen any activity such as sales meetings or projects within 90 days move it to the leads category. To do this open the account and change the status to unqualified. Moving accounts to the leads bucket allows other people to see what s available and they can request to work that particular account. Many times when salespeople have too many accounts it makes it difficult to build a focused plan. I always suggest that the sales person requesting an account must first submit a plan for attacking the account. Once you agree they are the best fit you can simply assign them the account by using the drop down box on the right.

2 Accounts The next crucial step is to find all the active accounts and move them into one of four statuses. 1. Qualified is all accounts that a salesperson is working but not currently getting any business from. 2. Shared is where you get a portion of the work but you know that one or more competitors are also getting work. Accounts that need to be cultivated and grown typically fall in this category and most likely your largest bucket. 3. Captured is for accounts that you re confident you re getting 100% of the work. This may be an FM, an account with an agreement or it may be a small firm and you feel good you are their only supplier. 4. Lost is for accounts that the salesperson is ready to give up on, an account that has been lost due to errors, nonpayment or some other reason. These accounts should be discussed by management and a decision should be made to move the account back to the leads category or assign to a new salesperson. Whatever the reason make note on the account so that the next salesperson is aware of their history. Contacts Now that all accounts have been established it s time to do the same for each contact. Contacts can be placed in one of five statuses. 1. Unqualified it s best to start everyone in this bucket and move them out as the salesperson decides to start their sales process. 2. Qualified are clients who the salesperson has decided should be contacted for a meeting or product demonstration. Keep the contact at this status until after the first sales appointment. 3. Prospect once you have your first sales appointment you should have enough information to decide if they are a good potential client. If not move them back to

3 unqualified and make a note as to why. Keep in mind things change so a client that may not be a good potential client now may become one in the future. If they are a good potential client move them to the prospect status. This is your most important bucket. Clients within this bucket have been deemed by the salesperson to have business so it s important to move them along in the sales process. It may take many follow up meetings before receiving a project so it s imperative not to lose traction with these contacts. 4. Buyer move contacts into this bucket after the salesperson has received more than one project. This view is where the salesperson can easily keep an eye on buyers to make sure they are still seeing them on a regular basis and that they are still sending work. It s very important for a salesperson that uses support staff for service, to make sure the contact is still seen often so they don t feel neglected. Use the view options at the top of the page to search by neglected accounts. 5. Lost Buyer is where you put a client that has either been lost due to quality or deadline errors or that has made it clear that they will not use your products and services. Make notes on these clients and put them on a long term contact plan as things change over time. Forecast & Goals Now that your accounts and contacts are categorized you can have your sales team establish goals and forecast revenue. It s estimated that 78% of salespeople fail to meet their revenue goals due to lack of planning. PTS CRM allows you to set activity goals for appointments as well as forecast your expected revenue goals. Revenue goals can be forecast for the year although we recommend you focus on one to three months at a time as things change and you should give consideration to upcoming projects the salesperson may be aware of.

4 When you add your forecast, PTS will provide you with the trailing two months revenue to aid you in creating an accurate estimate. We recommend that forecast be completed within the first five days of each month then reviewed in one on one meetings with the Sales Manager after completion. The process of completing the forecasting section each month forces the salesperson to slow down, reflect and think about where his or her business will come from and how their activity will help them achieve their goals. Deals Deals are another great place to keep track of large projects. Some companies refer to this area as their big job tracker, pipeline or sales funnel. Many sales managers use the deals page in sales meetings or within one on one meetings. It s important for each company to establish what constitutes a deal. Tracking small projects can be counterproductive so it s recommended that you establish minimum potential revenue.

5 As a Sales Manager you can see all the deals or filter (show in red circle above) by a particular salesperson. Salespeople can change the probability and the stages (show at red arrows above) as they progress in landing the deal. In the CRM admin section you have the ability to customize certain areas of your deals page, including renaming the stages to better fit your organization sales flow. You can associate appointments and task with deals so you can see the history. Another feature is the ability to add additional salespeople to a deal, so that multiple salespeople can work on a deal and see each other s meetings and notes. As the Sales Manager it s easy to see the recent activity and the next activity. The deals page is a perfect place to coach and mentor the salesperson. This type of coaching can increase the number of projects landed by your sales team. It s important that deals don t fall through the cracks and the deals page is perfect for keeping them top of mind. Document Repository The document repository is a great place to keep documents so that your sales team can access them. You can keep many forms of documents such as PDF, Excel and Word documents. Some common types of documents to keep in your repository are: human resource documents, marketing materials, white papers, proposals or SOW templates. All documents in the document repository can be downloaded by the salespeople to their computer and either modified, printed or ed to their client. We recommend setting up categories and organizing your documents by category so they re easy for your salespeople to find.

6 Territory Management As the Sales Manager it can be difficult to keep track of salespeople s territory, analyze performance and make changes or reassign accounts if necessary. The PTS CRM can help by providing you quick reports so you can analyze client performance. PTS has many sales reports that can help, so make sure you familiarize yourself with all of them. We also provide you an Account Management page that allows you to quickly reassign accounts and change their status. This page can be accessed in the CRM admin page. Expenses The expense section of the PTS CRM was created so that you can track expenses either employee paid or company paid and associate those expenses back to a particular client or group of clients. It s a great way to see where your money is being spent and whether or not a salesperson is just buying the business. It s also an expense reporting program that allows salespeople to submit their expense report to Management for approval of the expenses. Once approved administration can track when the expense report is paid. You can require the salespeople to scan all receipts, upload and attach to each expense report for record keeping. By automating expense tracking it saves all parties involved time and increases accuracy.