This is a response to a request to share my opinion on CRM systems.
When the question arises about what is better — complete control or total anarchy — the seemingly logical answer, “of course, complete control,” is actually completely wrong. Why? Because the answer “total anarchy” is also incorrect. Look.
Let’s assume you have one subordinate and you control him completely. I mean, 100%. You monitor his behavior at work, set up surveillance cameras, attend client meetings with him, listen to what he says on the phone, and even grab the phone from him when he says something “inappropriate.” You reread and check all his correspondence, meticulously sending emails and proposals to be revised multiple times (so much so that it would be faster if you wrote them yourself), and so on. What comes of this? It turns out that all your time as a manager is spent not on fulfilling your core functions, such as unnecessary creative work, pointless strategic planning, fake organizational management, and… (I hope the sarcasm is clear), but on controlling your subordinate’s work. A 100% control strips the company of its leader. The company becomes headless. This means we have anarchy. The most interesting part is that by controlling 100% of your subordinate, you are essentially replacing him and living by the values of his level of competence, not your own. You dig yourself down and fail to see the horizon.
You might say that 100% control is impossible. You might say that 50% control is a good number. Yes, I would agree. Perhaps. So, if you have 2 performers, you are still spending 100% of your time on control, right?
Well, then let’s make it 10% control, and let the performers submit some forms of reporting that I will review and make decisions on. Oh, we’ve reached the first stage of recognizing the problem. The only issue is that if you have 10 performers and you seriously intend to analyze their reports, then 10% control for each one will again consume all your working time, forcing you to work 12 hours a day, with only 4 of those being productive (when everyone has gone home and there’s no one left to supervise). Moreover, reporting takes time away from the salespeople, making their work inefficient. In general, salespeople don’t understand why they need to report to you.
Ah, really, why do sellers need to report? It’s not for your benefit — we’ve already discussed the questionable usefulness of their reports. So why do they need to provide these reports?
How do their reports affect their performance, aside from the time spent on preparing them? What is your role as a report auditor? How can you be sure that the reports aren’t just made up to meet a deadline? How thoroughly do you actually read these mega-reporting forms? Do you tell yourself that you read them from time to time and analyze them in detail when sales efficiency drops? Is it not too late then?
Let’s take, for example, Sergey Bubka at the peak of his sports career. His coach tells him: “Seryozha, today it’s 5 kilometers for time, then 100 squats, and after that, 20 sprints of 100 meters.” What does the athlete do? He runs the 5 kilometers. Can he tell his coach to take a hike and go to a bar instead? Sure. But he won’t achieve his goals. You might say, “Oh, how wonderful it would be if everyone were as motivated as Sergey Bubka.” But it turns out that everyone is motivated in their own way. The question is whether they have a goal. And the second question is: how do you help them achieve that goal? It turns out that Sergey Bubka keeps track of how many kilometers he has run and stops once he has completed them. No one is sitting there watching to see if he cut a corner or slacked off.
From all of this, it follows that reporting should be structured in a way that helps salespeople sell better, rather than to control their work. If there is any element of oversight, it should focus on effectiveness rather than compliance. Think of it as a stopwatch at the finish line, not a GPS tracker around their necks. Salespeople need effectiveness monitoring so that you, from a higher level, can assist them, offer advice, accompany them to client meetings if necessary, identify their “weak spots,” or, as HR managers like to say, their “growth areas.” For example, knowing that your first salesperson has only one meeting for every 20 calls, while the second makes do with 10 calls, will help you understand where the first salesperson is struggling and what the second is doing that the first could learn from. (A quick takeaway from this is to never hire a “capable deputy” for sales if you are a small company. There should be more than one salesperson, and the second salesperson should not be you.)
It turns out that you shouldn’t analyze the reports of each seller individually, but rather have some visualized and integrated information about their performance metrics. Let’s put a star next to that. (*)
Now, let’s take a look at the seller’s work. To finally answer the question of why they need reporting.
A salesperson always keeps their own records. They have some notes in their planner, which they maintain with great difficulty. In there, we find client addresses, their phone numbers, new leads, sources of leads, the stage of negotiations, estimated and then actual deal prices, and so on. The planner is a linear document. To find something in it, you really have to put in the effort. Moreover, the planner is not interactive. It won’t remind you of a meeting with a client, nor will it tell you when it’s time to call them. It won’t help you recover information if it’s lost. It often contains only rough drafts, the meaning of which fades just two hours after a meeting unless you write a detailed report to yourself and, furthermore, send that report to your client as a summary of the conversation. The planner is disconnected from your correspondence. You can’t open a client’s profile in the planner and immediately learn everything about them. The planner is a rather clumsy tool for planning and subsequently comparing the plan with the actual outcome. It won’t indicate whether you are the only one working with this client or if someone else from your company is involved, and so on. How great it would be if there were a system where you could input client information that would organize all the details for the salesperson and assist them in their work. Let’s add another star (*)
Such a system, in addition to its useful features, would also help the seller manage their time by providing:
- task list
- goal setting and
- prioritization
Additionally, such a system would allow you to
- to maintain communication with clients during the seller’s temporary absence
- replace one seller with another if necessary,
- fully control the portfolios and
- to prevent its leakage when the seller is dismissed.
It’s worth adding another star (*).
In total, we already have three points in favor of what are called CRM systems. I always try to implement CRM. If it’s not a fancy software solution (how I wish this post was sponsored by one 🙂), then at least Excel spreadsheets with a standardized format and feedback. Some makeshift tools that would allow a salesperson to effectively plan their day/week, compare it with actual results, adjust their activities for the next period based on that comparison, and maintain a database of clients, leads, and the status of their work with them. Makeshift tools won’t solve all problems. For example, you can’t use makeshift solutions to link signed contracts and legal correspondence with clients to a record in a spreadsheet.
When considering whether to allocate a separate position for managing your five salespeople, think about a CRM system. When contemplating a 1% increase in productivity from your five hundred salespeople in a large organization with millions in revenue (which translates to tens of thousands in efficiency gains), think about a CRM system. In general, think about CRM systems, and if you can’t afford to purchase one, at least think in terms of CRM systems to better organize your work as a leader of a sales structure. Because the approach advocated by CRM systems is the right one: “control for the benefit of the salesperson and their growth,” as opposed to the approach taken by most businesspeople: “control because I’m standing with a gun on the tower.”