We're now on our soap-box



We're big fans of what software systems should be able to do to improve Sales. Yet in only a fraction of cases does any improvement ever get delivered. With winner-net's most provocative of hats on, here are factors that often lead to crm-disaster. Clearly, there are successes - surely a whole industry couldn't survive total failures - but be prepared to think about the dangerous issues identified through bitter experience...

"This message can save your life"... well, save you untold aggravation and maybe even a sacking at any rate!

Every single day, we meet someone new, proud to be at the strategic helm of their good ship sales-efforts. And we are constantly astounded at how many of these potentially highly able men and women are falling down the crm-trap.

We have no wish to antagonise you, but feel it essential to spell out the home truths of crm from a sales perspective. We are actually huge fans of what it should be delivering, yet now we urge you, should you be contemplating such a project, to can it.

Let's look at two simple issues for sales leaders (and by that we mean Sales Directors, VP Sales, whatever)...


The answer to your prayers It had to happen. Production got all the software goodies in the seventies, Finance in the eighties and Logistics in the nineties, and throughout all this, poor old sales has never even had a place in the queue for IT. Who's always the last to get lap-tops? Of course.

Until now. And the reason is, that you are wowed by the demos. Screen after screen promises sales management nirvana. Instant forecast generation, total buying cycle control, invisible policemen keeping big brother's eye on your charges, cutting-edge graphs, hours slashed from report-generation time, never looking a fool in a board meeting again. Where in Florida are you going to live, exactly?

CRM reps are actually quite good.
Amazing. An industry where the average rep is a highly proficient, successful & quota-busting tiger. But then again, the sky-high wages they're on and the fact that just about every technology-led cub-rep aspires to be in crm should've already given the game away. But what does this mean for you? Seldom could the old adage 'people buy from people' be more true. They're good, you recognise the fact, you end up signing on the dotted line. When asked later, you won't remember why...

Keep momentum going
All this control can only mean never losing vital impetus and info down cracks in the pavement. You'll always know who has said what, to whom, and when it will be next addressed.

Eternal f.i.l.m.
FILM stands for 'full inside leg measurement'. The theory goes you can know each customer as well as your bespoke tailor knows you. And now you will know everybody that breathes within your customers, why they exhale, why they inhale, what they like to buy, what they need, when their birthday is and which football team they support (if in doubt, just fill-in Man Utd we s'pose).

Someone's told you it's easy.
The odds are, you are not endlessly pouring over industry journals, websites, attending conferences and talking to people in general about crm. But you can bet your bottom dollar your other colleagues (the ones without a quota) have been doing just that. And they're telling you it's great and you simply must get involved. What could you possibly have to lose?


10 Reasons Why CRM Won't Work For You

Under-estimate task in hand
So-called 'front-office' systems, those that sales-orientated info is input to, can now all talk to each other and new kit layered on top can give unfettered access to all sorts of new reporting. Think about the logistics involved here. Using a single customer account-code as its core, every piece of info is indexed through this. Payment and credit histories from credit control modules, buying patterns from sales analysis databases, key buyers names from static details in contact management software, opportunities identified from gap analysis routines through data warehousing applications, order commitments from finance and distribution tracking, and where you are at from opportunity management software.
Whether these all come from several different systems, or just a couple, how likely is it that putting them all together will be done in your organisation? Who will manage it? Who will physically do it? Who actually understands it? Think about your current 'product file', or 'customer file'. Nice and clean with no problems when searching out existing data?

Business un-Intelligencey
We're also great fans of business intelligence software. It should provide every nugget of selling opportunity you ever dreamed of. But it doesn't. Can your average salesrep 'datamine'? No. Who knows what to search for? Tekkies or reps? The main problem with BI, is that rather than replace the "elephant's toilet roll" of reporting, with reams of paper to run through to find that killer piece of info, it creates either a shell that is irrelevant to reps or adds another cumbersome burden upon the daily routine of reps without a tangible, easy to see, benefit.

What's in it for me?
The question every half-decent rep is always asking. And the unfortunate truth is 'very little'. Only a handful of routines within the entire system can genuinely help the rep, but they are smudged by a load of surrounding flannel to such an extent, the whole system is considered irrelevant. And what does this mean? The salesreps don't update the system, so depriving it of it's oxygen. Puts sales process in concrete

What is Sales to you?
To us it's a simple thing, over-complicated by people because that's what they like to do. And they're wrong to do that. Sales is a fluid, evolving process. So why treat it like processing a quote to an order through despatch to invoicing to cash collection? The way you sell today will not be the way you sell tomorrow. This means all the effort you put in now will need to be re-done when it becomes redundant. And trust us, it will, and trying to chip away the cement won't interest you.

Non-sales agendas win

Factor Number One.
You manage all your company's sales resource. Every precious person is targeted on financial goals. They are too busy bringing in sales to be allowed to do anything else.

Factor Number Two.
Mention 'software' and IT ears prick up ready to tell you their expertise in implementation methodologies is vital. Mention 'customer relationships' and Marketing eyes bulge ready to tell you their expertise in communications and planning is essential.

What does this mean?
Quite simply, your crucial project will get hijacked by Marketing. Their plans will be biased towards their wishes. IT will fail to deliver. Both will blame each other in endless recriminations before eventually realising the real culprit was the easiest of targets all along; You.

Who runs the sales department again?
On a similar point, all interested parties claim to know what's best for Sales. Think about this story. People selling highly technical software, like cad/cam, engineering applications, never meet IT Managers. It's considered far too difficult by them. They don't understand the design process, draftsmen's procedures, detailed drawings, analysis techniques, prototyping, mould design or manufacture. So they let those people who do within Engineering, Production or Manufacturing. In other words, the people who will use the software and directly reap the benefits are left to handle any project. Makes sense.
And yet when a piece of sales software is touted as being desired, what happens? You've guessed it, some completely unqualified IT person puts their elbows in and is allowed to give the casting vote. Which is usually the status-quo preserving "no". Unbelievable. Are you gonna let them do your recruitment interviews next? Maybe they can do a couple of closing presentations on key bids for you too? How about getting them to pen your next Board strategy presentation for the final Quarter?
We cannot believe we in Sales continually let this outrage persist. And nor will you when it happens to you.

Customer-Centricity is flawed.
We feel compelled to repeat that we are big believers in what crm should achieve. Yet there is current industry turmoil over the crm-backlash. Forget the fact that few systems ever deliver, eminent observers are beginning to think the whole theme is wobbly. The term "customer apartheid" has sprung up to show that if you use the kind of pyramid segmentation that leads to 80/20 splitting of opportunities, whether by previous spending or potential, the bottom 80% will drift off elsewhere. Whilst 'sacking your worst customers' remains a good thing, your business will ultimately shrink.
(Whoever thought of 'customer-centric' as a phrase should be shot, by the way.)

Salesreps or Tekkies?.
Want a salesrep to sell? Give them support. Want a salesrep to not sell? Give them a computer.
What are your reps like? Can they programme a video recorder? Use a microwave on timer? Turn a computer on at all? For some, there really is no hope. Yet even for the most laptop-cute, two things will happen. Either they will understand what the software needs and will make the conscious decision not to update, because they've sussed it hinders them, or they will spend all their time, head buried in the keyboard, rather than talking to customers.

Hurray! We're organised...
Another lovely industry expression, if you want to get admin organised, buy crm, if you want to sell more, do anything but crm! Work out what will make a difference to your sales push first.

What is CRM anyway?
The final point. Let's keep this broad. It means different things to different people. Regardless of an initial 'e', or other acronyms like SFA, anything that involves sales transactional data passing around software beyond the standard accounts package can be considered a CRM project. And this is half the problem. People consider even the most basic contact management software CRM. Believe us, there is no-one on the planet who has sold more from putting a contact manager in. No-one.
Maybe a more realistic definition could be "a Marketing-led, IT-sponsored initiative to get salesreps inputting data relating to sales but not selling that relegates the Customer from King to mere Page Boy".
Any comments? email & we'd be happy to discuss them with you...