There’s gold hiding in plain sight in your sales data and CRM (Customer Relationship Management system). Yet sales data is often neglected or forgotten. Or at best, lacking the care necessary to maximise every sales opportunity.
Lack of care for your sales data means:
- No sales data, or
- Sales data in multiple separate systems, or
- Sales data in a CRM which your team does not use
SALES DATA GAPS CAUSE REVENUE LEAKS
Gaps in your sales data and CRM are often invisible. You can run a healthy business turning over six or seven figures each year, but still be leaking revenue in the form of missed opportunities – because of gaps in your CRM and sales data.
Here’s what those revenue leaks look like:
- Forgetting to do a proposal
- Neglecting follow up sales activities
- Lack of awareness about all the decision-makers
- Inability to forecast sales revenue for the months ahead
- No support for large, undocumented sales opportunities
- Multiple people from your team contacting the same person
- Lack of visibility and insights to help prioritise your sales activities
Cleansing your sales data and developing better sales data hygiene and habits takes time.
Whether you get external support or do it yourself, here are 5 steps to success when setting up your CRM and sales data.
ONE – FIND YOUR SALES DATA
Start with your invoices
No CRM, and want to pull together your sales data? Start with your invoices. With most businesses using cloud-based invoicing tools such as Xero, this may be easier than you think.
Check contacts in your mobile phone
Yes, if those mobile phone numbers are not in your invoice system, it’s time to trawl through the contacts in your mobile phone.
Check contacts in LinkedIn and any business social media
You can download your list of contacts from LinkedIn. Check out options to download your contacts from any other relevant personal or business social media accounts. Be careful not to spam everyone you’re connected to – you may want to roll out your email marketing in stages.
Check any other systems for client data
Do you send out marketing emails? Then you’ll have a database of clients ready to download.
TWO – ASSEMBLE YOUR SALES DATASHEET
This is where the fun begins. You’re going to assemble all the data you’ve gathered into one spreadsheet.
This is also where many founders get stuck – leaving sales data in an excel spreadsheet or a google doc.
A google doc is live, and you can see what your team does in real time. If you have more than 20 contact names, you’ll start missing opportunities. So be brave and get ready to import your data into your new CRM system.
If you think you’ll want to filter against your original data lists, you may want to keep your lists separate.
THREE – CHOOSE A CRM SYSTEM
If you’ve not used a CRM system before, now is your opportunity. There are many CRM systems available, all with tiered pricing that works for small businesses, right through to large corporates. After trying several CRM systems, we’ve chosen HubSpot.
The key here is to get sales out of your founder’s head (and out of everyone else’s head) and into a cloud-based system that everyone can use.
What if you decide you don’t like your CRM? No problem – choose monthly pricing commitment, and check what level of notice is required if you ever want to change. Keep invoice payments up to date so you can export your data whenever you want to.
FOUR – CREATE AN IMPORT PLAN
Now your sales data is clean. How are you going to maximise it?
You’re about to introduce a new, powerful sales CRM into your business. Many founders and business owners rush at this point, and forget to create an import plan. As the old saying goes, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail.’
An import plan could be a simple one-page document, or an email between you and whoever is doing the data import. This is your agreement on how your sales data will be structured and set up in your CRM, designed to set your business up for sales success.
Here are some factors to consider in your import plan:
Data Questions
- What do you want to report on?
- What data sets do you want to filter against?
- What sales activities do you want to measure?
Sales Team Questions
- Who will be using your CRM?
- What is your sales process?
- Where and what can you automate to streamline your sales process?
- How will you get your team onboard with utilising your CRM?
FIVE – IMPORT YOUR SALES DATA
After all that planning, you’re ready to import your sales data into your CRM. Check the data formats required to import your data into the right fields in your CRM. Getting this right means less risk of import errors.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR SALES DATA IS READY!
Yes – you’ve imported your sales data into your new CRM system. Your business is set up for sales success.
Remember your CRM and sales data are only as good as the people who work with them. You’ll get maximum value when you bring your whole team on the journey with you – especially your sales team. Everyone who deals with clients need to be on board with using your CRM, and follow your documented, best practice sales process. Then your business will realise the full ROI from your investment.
Part two of this series will cover how to improve CRM adoption with your team – to deliver full visibility across your sales pipeline and opportunities, and grow your revenue.
Mary Crampton is the owner and principal consultant at Magnify Consulting
