Sales efficiency
All businesses face opportunity costs. In the case of a sales organization, money, time, and effort allocated to accounts A and B are resources not available for accounts C, D, and so on. That reality drives the distinction between effectiveness (optimization by doing the right things) and efficiency (doing things right) that Peter Drucker and others made years ago.
A confusion between efficiency and optimization plagues many sales efforts. If we use an automobile analogy, sales efficiency initiatives — like CRM, training, and KPI dashboards — improve the engine’s horsepower. Sales optimization decisions — like aligning sales tasks with business strategy, customer selection, and sales force deployment across opportunities — set the direction in which the car will travel. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” But if a car is going in the wrong direction, getting there faster is not the solution.
Investment in Sales Efficiency
Companies spent about $30 billion on CRM alone by the end of 2015, according to Gartner. More recent figures indicate that the CRM applications market size is expected to reach $43.5 billion by 2024, compared with $42.7 billion in 2019 at a compound annual growth rate of 0.4%. But consider the work of the Boston Consulting Group, which indicates that Sales optimization practices, such as targeting high-value customers and deploying sales resources with strategically-appropriate criteria, have more than three times the impact on revenue growth than sales efficiency (SE) initiatives.
The lesson is clear: How and where you allocate available sales resources is where the leverage resides for more profitable growth.
There are number of ways to ensure that your sales efficiency is properly optimised. Our recent blog posts have covered some of these. They include:
- How to Use Marketing And Sales Analytics to make educated decisions
- Understanding the Ideal Customer Profile characteristics
- Implementing a sales methodology
- Having effective sales pipeline management in place
- Ensuring everyone understands and follows the sales process
- Having clearly defined sales metrics
How a CRM can help with Sales efficiency
A CRM system benefits an organisation through the visibility of its sales activities. This visibility is fundamental to managing sales performance and control of the sales process. This visibility enables management to understand why, when, who and how opportunities are being won, stalled, or being lost. If it cannot be monitored, it cannot be managed. The visibility offered within the CRM system also allows management to make educated business decisions based on hard data. A CRM system will enable structured data to be used to access performance. This assessment should indicate the sales efficiency of an organisation. Once you have the data, they plans can be set out to address shortcomings and develop sales optimization.
How ProAptivity can help with Sales efficiency
ProAptivity are an independent CRM solutions provider. We focus on the implementation, training, and support of highly customised CRM software solutions. Our CRM software supported by our sales training provide customers with the tools needed to deliver successful sales process management.
Fundamentally, we help organisations embed CRM best practice throughout their organisation. This helps organisations become more competitive, customer focused and ultimately more profitable.
If you need help in understanding why my business needs CRM, maybe some of our eBooks could help! Alternatively visit Maximizer CRM for more information. Contact us today in Belfast on 028 9099 6388 or at our Bedford on 01234 214 004. Alternatively contact us via email on info@proaptivity.com. Contact us today for a free CRM consultation that will assess if your business is CRM ready and how we can help your business sales efficiency.
Source: HBR
