Haven’t I said this before?
Today I attended the Salesforce for Sales keynote. Thanks to the Sales Cloud team, Tim Clarke specifically for the great VIP Seating. I have to admit, I sometimes fall into that grizzled, jaded, old sales vet mode, and think, “come on! Do we really need all this new fanged technology to sell?” The answer is no. Unless, of course, you want to sell more in less time with greater ease and with more profit.
In that case, the answer is absolutely yes!
Teams need to be equipped with mobile technology, and a fully functioning CRM. <— Click to Tweet
I would also encourage you to consider the following technologies that are proven to increase conversion rates:
- Lead scoring systems that can help pre-qualify leads.
- Voice activation CRM to help sellers take notes and schedule follow-ups. I KID YOU NOT – I sat next to a sales operations manager for one of the largest e-commerce platforms today and they have their teams equipped with Amazon’s Alexa for voice activation of CRM notes and tasks. They love it. As I was reminded today, only my grandmother still types notes…
- AI to help you see what your customers are searching on, talking about and doing in their markets.
- Integrated pricing and quoting tools that provide version control and workflow to approve pricing exceptions.
- Internal communications and “chat” tools that can help virtual teams stay in touch and collaborate.
- Push Counters to help you understand how many times a close date gets pushed and what this means for your likelihood of close.
- CRM for non-sales people including service, QA accounting and production control.
- Electronic signatures for contracts and approvals.
These are just a few tools that I spent the week exploring and learning about. I spoke to their customers, saw the ROI and I am convinced that in order to accelerate revenue we need to make it easier for our buyers to buy, and our sellers to sell. I’m a natural skeptic. You have to prove to me that it will work. This week I learned that it does, profitably.
Dedicated to increasing your sales,
