Identify Your Need and Choose Your Solution
There’s an old saying: Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. In other words, don’t use the wrong tool for the job when your life is on the line. It’s not hard to imagine how being unprepared in such a way could spell trouble.
This article offers a good take on set of principles on how to automate the sales process. His approach is decent. Standardizing the sales process and automating it is an important step in streamlining your efforts, not wasting leads, and getting consistent results from your sales team. The problem with the author’s approach is that he is taking a knife to a gun fight. In other words, he’s using a CRM to manage leads. Use CRM to manage customer relationships. Use LMS or lead management software to manage leads.
It’s not uncommon for companies to try to use CRM to manage leads. Companies are sold on CRM as the one solution to rule them all. CRM often comes with a few lead management features. And these features, it is often wrongly assumed, are enough. This assumption leads to companies bringing knives to gun fights.
In fact, lead management software is built around a few core principals, i.e., speed, process, and persistence. Speed is the single most critical component to closing leads. As such, LMS is designed to optimize speed to call. Lead management, particularly when enhanced with an integrated dialer, is the single most reliable way to equip sales reps to be the first on the phone with a lead.
The other two core principals; process and persistence refer to LMS’s capacity to create an enforceable workflow that optimizes your chances to connect with a lead. These principals are baked into software features such as lead prioritization, email nurturing, and a robust reporting engine that gives real time feedback around which lead sources, marketing campaigns, and reps are underperforming.
The thing is, the analogy of bringing a knife to a gunfight isn’t exactly accurate. It’s really more the case that the opposite is true. It is so prevalent that companies are using CRM or no method at all to manage their leads. So using LMS is more like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Companies who are using it constitute a dominating minority that is reaping huge benefits from its use. The benefits include skyrocketing contact, qualification, and close rates. In short, LMS is the best way to turn leads into customers. CRM is the best way to manage customer relationships. Identify your task and choose your solution.
