A Molecular Sales System

In our “new” economy, we now more than at any other time in recent business history strive for the highest possible performance from our existing resources. The luxury of inefficiency is behind us.

In the world of sales, executives work tirelessly to find the path that will take their sales team to a higher level of performance – even a higher level of excellence. These executives are bombarded with product options from software and seminars, to get-well training programs, all of which claim to be the “solution” to sales force performance enhancement. Most are offered at a cost of time and capital that make them impractical in the contemporary business environment.

One product in the past few years that has enjoyed explosive popularity is CRM software. It continues to be successfully marketed as the “turn-key solution”, a plug-and-play answer to improved sales force performance. Many now consider CRM software a necessity for any sales organization.

A recent Gartner report states that forty percent of companies are now focused on generating effective customer relationship management (CRM) strategies in order to increase their competitiveness when the economy recovers.

However, nearly every CRM user organization will admit that although the software technically operates as promised, it does not improve bottom line sales performance as expected. In fact, the majority of salespeople whom have had CRM imposed on them by their management, resist its use because they feel they reap little or no benefit from CRM – it does not help them close more opportunities. Many feel that CRM is no more than a means for their manager to keep tabs on what they do with their time. Why is this?

Gartner states that “Process is often an overlooked part of CRM, and in many cases all that CRM technologies have done is taken out old broken processes and made them run more efficiently.”

CRM – necessary but not sufficient. The reality is that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all, or an out-of-the-box product that will by itself solve businesses sales objectives. Sales performance is the product – the result of a sales system. A molecular sales system is composed of many components, one of which should be software that supports the overall system and that provides useful and concise information with which salespeople and their managers can make timely intelligent decisions.

The molecular sales system is composed of individual components, each having a specific function and each bound by carefully designed processes. Therefore, the expectation for each component is specific and confined within the framework of the processes by which it is applied. It is the articulation of these components, via their controlling processes, that cause the molecular sales system to produce its results. Ineffective processes therefore produce undesirable results, regardless of the quality or potential of the individual components. A critical component of the molecular sales system is the effective analysis of data that is collected by the CRM system. Effective analysis is not limited to predictions based on historical data, but rather must be based on real time conditions and the capability of processes and resources (system components) to achieve what is expected of them.

Gartner suggests using analytical tools. “Many companies have more information than they know what to do with, and now have the opportunity to put this to good use studying attrition models, looking at the next-most-likely-to-buy models, and figuring out channel usage patterns,” said Gartner. The report goes on to warn companies to bear in mind that customer behavior may change when the economy improves. Gartner also advises firms to study customer processes with a view to creating greater business efficiencies.

Therefore, the molecular sales system, processes, and components must readily adapt to economic conditions and customer behaviors as they occur. Such adaptability is a function and the result of well designed processes that utilize capable components and effective real time analysis.

Do you have a molecular sales system?

Do you know if your sales system architecture and its components are capable?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »