There is nothing as important as having the right sales system for your small business or large-scale. Whether you run a successful startup or are the co-founder of a large enterprise, a sales system will take the hard work out of the equation and help you work smarter.
A solid sales system will improve your sales and product development process. This will ultimately grow your business in leaps and bounds. Imagine this...having a sales team that does not have a marketing strategy in place. Even worse than this, running a business that is not capable of identifying a product market fit or distinguishing its services from competitors. Imagine not knowing when or how to reach out to prospects. And most importantly, not having any idea on lead conversion.
As if this is not enough, any mistake that you make may send months of arduous work down the drain.
Sounds like you are fighting a losing battle, right?
Wrong!
An efficient customer relationship management (CRM) software can reward your sales and marketing efforts. It will support the growth of your first time or existing business while giving you a heads up about all-important business aspects.
Most importantly, when used in the right way, your CRM system will boost your sales and magnify your profits. Ultimately, your business will be successful and will motivate investors and other stakeholders to take the plunge. A CRM database system consists only of sales automation and customer support functions that provide marketers with the ‘juice’ they need to be successful.
Don’t believe us? Here are 5 ways CRM will increase your business revenue:
1. Ability to assess marketing channels
As a business owner, you use multiple marketing channels. After all, you need to determine the most profitable routes that will drive traffic. As long as you are in business, the visibility for your marketing team or product developers should never stop.
But without a proper system in place, it will be difficult to keep an eye on all your marketing channels, metrics, let alone recall all your leads. Needless to say, CRM systems are invaluable when it comes to identifying your market needs.
Your CRM software will;
- Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for your main marketing channels
- Find search engine metrics
- Keep tabs on your organic traffic
- Remove the guesswork from your marketing strategy
- Ease tedious marketing and product management processes
- Deploy the right message at the right time- with minimal to no effort
- Keep track of customer sales models and feedback systems (such as negative and positive reviews)
Next, you will find a way to tie your CRM findings to revenue. If you are keen on SEO, then a tailor-made CRM portal will help in determining the amount of organic traffic that you are generating. You will also know whether you are headed down a good path or a bad one.
Once you have the right findings, it will be easy to evaluate your rate of conversion, the average value of purchases on your website as well as the lifetime value of your customers. This is the best way to come up with a lucrative revenue plan and help you discover the roadmap to success.
The ability to assess marketing channels also provides an opportunity for targeted marketing. Isn’t it frustrating to keep sending emails to potential customers who never respond?
As a business owner, CRM data analysis makes it possible to gear your marketing efforts towards a specific group of customers who will most likely appreciate your efforts. This focused approach saves both time and resources.
2. Suggestion selling
Also referred to as upselling, cross-selling, or add-on selling, suggestion selling is a sales technique that is often used when a company recommends extra, great products or services to their clients to add to what they have already subscribed to or purchased.
Usually, this type of selling occurs when your company sells related products or services to either a single client or a group of clients.
For instance, if you own a microfinance company, you may ask your clients to open a savings account before issuing them with the loans they apply for. The goal of suggestion selling is simple- to leverage customer relationships while making the most of your business services.
With a customer relationship management plan, suggestion selling becomes even simpler. This is because the best CRM software allows for automated entries and keeps everything centralized in one location.
Let’s take the TapDesk software as an example. It can be tailored to your customer suggestions. As a business owner, you can set it up to collect useful data about your customers and stakeholders.
If you run a restaurant, do not directly offer food suggestions to your customers. Instead of telling them that you have amazing seafood entree, ask the following questions through your software:
- Do you like seafood?
- Are you vegetarian?
- What are your favorite vegetarian dishes?
Asking thoughtful questions will not only teach you more about your clients but also allow you to give them recommendations without necessarily overwhelming them with your sales strategy. Additionally, clients will feel like their personal preferences are being taken into account. This offers the best opportunity for suggestion selling that will ultimately translate into more revenue for your business.
3. Developing deeper customer relationships
We can all agree on the fact that there is nothing better than the confidence that a repeat customer instills in a business.
The best way to develop good customer relationships is by taking time to understand your customer’s business: It is best, to begin with, a complete overview of your customers’ companies.
And once you understand the professional services they offer then you will be able to build mutually beneficial relationships with them.
When developing relationships with your clients, your CRM system can help you in;
- Exploring the challenges that your customers face on a daily basis
When you understand the challenges that your customers face then you can address these problems accordingly. But since we are human, and may not always remember, then you can record the necessary information in your CRM system and use it as a reference point for addressing customer problems. - Engaging with relevancy
Once you understand your customers and their businesses, then you can recommend the products and services that will meet them at their point of need. - Focusing on one-on-one relationships
It goes without saying that customers value personal experiences. However, it may be challenging to remember all your customers and their personal systems. Thus, it is wise to let your CRM system do this for you. The right system will handle everything from sending host email templates to scheduling phone calls with your customers.
So, what does this have to do with business revenue?
Building customer relationships will give you the opportunity to upsell future, viable products, stay high on your customers’ radar, and win referrals. Did someone say increased revenue?
4. Increased team productivity
Increased productivity makes it possible for you to put out your products or services at a rapid pace. CRM best practices will enable your team to have all the important information in a centralized location.
As such, any member of the team will have access to this information at a point in time. A good customer relationship management software also improves your team’s efficiency by preventing the overlapping of tasks or reassigning of the same tasks to different team members.
When all work activities are streamlined then your staff will be more efficient. They will not only complete tasks in time but also dedicate more time to engaging effectively with customers. It is safe to say that automation liberates your staff from hefty work practices and rewards them with increased productivity.
When the right amount of time is spent on customer service then your company is more likely to score successful leads. Higher productivity leads to higher revenue because the input (labor) and output (products and services) rations are perfectly balanced.
5. Tracking return on investment (ROI)
In today’s technology-ridden world, software providers are embracing subscription models. The likes of popular Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office have also become subscription-based.
And because of the money that you will spend on purchasing the software and the subscriptions that you will need to make at a later date, your sales and marketing team may suffer a lot of added pressure when it comes to maintaining dialogues with clients.
You may also find it hard to keep up with software purchases and upgrades. Due to this, you may encounter losses every now and again. But worry not! CRM data analysis helps to keep this confusion at bay. It also promotes accountability.
With the right system, you will easily track your return on investment and also find out the negatives and positives that are impacting your retention rates. CRM software provides the crucial service of providing data that is invaluable to your decision-making process. Keeping an eye on your investment is also the best way to set attainable goals for your business.
The bottom line
Your sales practices should not be a conveyor-belt operation. Instead, they should be a nuanced approach that strives to understand clients or individuals and what they are looking for from a business or service.
By adopting modern technology, you will attract highly qualified leads and convert them accordingly. This means that your business will be able to enjoy more revenue. Your CRM system should provide persuasive insights and allow for smarter marketing.
Today gunning for sales anywhere you may find them seems like a rather ambiguous approach. To be successful, you need CRM data analysis as it will serve as the foundation of a scalable process and multiply returns. It’s time to make the switch to automation. This is one of the best ways to grow your business.
Looking for a CRM
system for your business?
Click below to learn more about Tapdesk CRM and how it will change your business.
Written by:
Louisa Eunice
CRM Analyst
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