Sales Without CRM is Like Being a Jockey Without a Horse

According to an old saying, good business is where you find it.

Never a truer word spoken. Good business – which means sales – can be found in the most unlikely places when sales teams go the extra mile. This means carrying your sales message to the buyer and beating the competition to secure the prize.

However, some businesses seem to prefer it when the going’s hard. Their sales message gets left at the gate, is unable to go the distance and unable to cross the winning line.

Why is this? It’s because their CRM is weak. A strong CRM set-up puts sales teams furlongs ahead of the field.

Trying to operate a successful sales programme without an effective CRM is like being a jockey without a horse – businesses are left stuck in the mud. 

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

No matter which sector they operate in, sales are the lifeblood of any business, and they’re best measured in two ways – the sales conversion rate (leads pursued against customer conversions), and the cost-to-sales ratio (how much you spend to achieve each sale).

Ideally, businesses want a high conversion rate and a low cost-to-sales ratio because that’s where the profits are.

However, too many businesses have this the wrong way around – putting the cart before the horse, chasing too many leads without success and spending too much money to gain each sale.

It’s almost as if these businesses want to lose money. Perhaps they like coming last? Who knows? But more importantly, this upside-down world is most commonly found in organisations with an ineffective CRM, or no CRM at all. 

Putting the Spur into Sales

This isn’t the 1990’s. These days, even the smallest businesses can operate an effective marketing and digital content campaign. The rise of technology has made it easier for everyone to compete. However, it has brought with it an avalanche of data from multiple marketing channels and sales processes.

Prospective customers are now pursued through social media, email, text messages, cold calls, clickbait, chatbots, pop-ups, influencer campaigns and more. Every interaction creates new data and new opportunities to capture a sale, but the sheer volume of information can make it almost impossible to discern the wood from the trees.

In short, customer relationships have become challenging to manage. In many cases, too challenging for human management alone. This means if you’re not using an effective CRM system, you’re missing sales opportunities and leaving money on the table.

What do effective CRM systems do?  

• They enhance your ability to target profitable customers
• Improve sales team efficiency and effectiveness
• Improve pricing
• Improve customer service
• Anticipate customer needs
• Create customer-centric products and services
• Connect customers and all channels on a single platform

Your CRM does this by organising and creating customer profiles of your prospects, customers, and partners – recording information not just about demographics and contact details.

They also log customer interactions, responses, conversations, and preferences so you can fully follow the customer journey. Most of this work is done automatically, using AI and machine learning to divide the favourites from the field, indicating which prospects deserve close attention, revealing when and how to reach them best, and pinpointing optimal product offerings, pricing, and opportunities for upselling. 

An effective CRM is like having 100 horses in the race and running in harmony to deliver the big win time and time again. This means that the CRM lets nothing get by it, nothing gets passed over, and sales teams are free to concentrate on the winner’s circle without the constant need to shop for new prospects.

Three Tips of the Day

A well-set-up CRM is an essential sales and marketing tool for any business. But there are many options out there. What should you look for in an effective system? Here are three top tips:

• Choose a CRM system that’s future-proof should you scale or change your organisational strategy. The best CRM solutions are customisable to let you create a platform that matches the way you do business now and in the future.
• It must be easy to use. Complexity will only guarantee low uptake by your sales team. This also means the system should have a high degree of AI and automation, removing the need for salespeople to waste time on repetitive data input.
• Your CRM will only be as good as the people who use it. Look for a solutions provider that offers training and adoption packages and readily available platform support. 

The Reality Check

Some businesses will continue to do things the hard way, without an effective CRM.

There’s not much we can do about them. Their race is already run, and they lost.

However, smart businesses will invest in a user-friendly CRM that speeds and streamlines the complete sales process, turning first customers into repeat customers and advocates for your company.

Okay, I can almost hear you saying; “can the CRM really work that well?” Yes, it can. In terms of efficiency, the choice between having no CRM or a well set up one is like putting your bet on a donkey, or on a flying horse. Which one do you think will give a blue riband result? 

Contact Red Pegasus to discover more

Red Pegasus provides strategic advice, CRM, sales & and leadership training, and interim commercial management. We accelerate revenue, improve profitability, and create a culture of high performance through a blend of technology, experience, and collaboration.

If you found this article helpful or interesting and’d like to chat with us, please book a no-obligation meeting now.