Last time I wrote about the importance of having clear commercial processes and roles in place. And that (CRM and other Sales Enablement) tools can strongly support commercial teams and leaders to become more effective and efficient, especially when the tools match with these commercial processes

For example, if you clearly define all different items for an ideal customer contact process, then the workflow in the CRM system should match with this. Match with all what is needed to effectively and efficiently prepare and follow up on the customer contact, match with ‘what excellence looks like’. Same with lead management process, (key) account planning process, contract (re-) negotiations, pipeline management, key decision makers/stakeholder analysis at the buyer side (‘buying centre’), etc.

In this blog I will tackle 2 more commercial processes and make the link with effective CRM and other sales enablement tool usage:

Cooperation Key/Global Account teams with local Sales

A few things linked to what excellence looks like:

• • • Are the roles of the KAMs and local sales clearly defined, who does what?
    • Alignment of commercial approach: Are the overall objectives set by the Global/Key Account Managers filtered down to the local markets and reflected in targets, account plans, incentive strategies, opportunities? And the other way around?
    • Based on opportunities identified, is there a clear mapping of key decision makers who can play a role getting the additional business in linked to such opportunities? For example, an EMEA key decision maker at the customer side, who is in contact with the Key Account Manager could play a decisive role in getting the business in country/region X in
    • Is the budget process linked to revenue allocation of the key/global accounts and local markets clearly defined?
    • Is there a clear involvement and alignment of central and local Customer Support teams?

Most CRM tools support sales hierarchies and a CRM tool can support improving the communication between teams, consulting each other before and after customer contacts, when preparing negotiations, identifying key decision makers and aligning strategy, etc

Other Sales Enablement tools and applications can support with the central-local data/management information needs, content needs etc. As discussed in Commercial Processes and Roles Part 1, the next step then will be what behaviour is required from the sales teams to ensure the tools are used in the right way:

• • • Data/management info tools: do the teams draw the right conclusions from all data, make the link with customer needs/business and identify & define qualified opportunities to discuss during the contact moment with the customer?
    • Content management tools: are the sales reps/account managers using the right content linked to the customer needs and linked to capturing the additional business linked to the opportunity?

Furthermore, to identify customer needs, know everything about the customers business and capture opportunities/additional business linked to these opportunities, capabilities like ‘asking the right questions’, ‘active listening’, ‘leveraging all kind of relevant and interlinked information’, ‘connecting with key decision makers’, are key.

Data and Customer driven Commercial Performance Review Process

What is meant here is how well the overall commercial performance process is organised, with a clear link to the Sales and Revenue forecasting process, based on:

• Clear and uniform dashboards and KPIs. Coming from CRM and other sales enablement (DSS) tools. ‘Killing’ in performance review meetings are participants using different dashboards/reports and when there are discussions on the reliability of the data, because of different sources and interpretation (even worse when this happens during customer meetings/contacts….)
• Constructive cooperation in cross-functional teams (Sales, Marketing, CS, Operations) to identify opportunities and areas of poor performance. Next step is to link the opportunities to customers in the CRM tool and estimate the potential revenue (target)
• Clear definition who will do what, what actions to be taken to capture such opportunities or solve the performance issue. Based on this, tasks with deadlines can be sent from a CRM tool
• Agreement on these targets and how to monitor and measure progress getting the additional business in. DSS tools can identify progress made and compare targets put in the CRM tool with the ‘actual revenue’
• Joint identification of reasons for not reaching targets or for exceeding targets (!)
• What we can learn from this and how can we do things better in the future?

Next time, I will share my experiences on designing and implementing an ‘agile’ L&D program based on ‘what excellence looks like’ and capabilities needed for that. And what is needed from (top) management to effectively lead the change, coaching and developing sales teams to improve in Sales, including the effective usage and adaptation of (CRM) tools