A sales manager should pay attention to the CRM technology at use in their company. Two crucial questions should be asked: 1.) What kind of technology does this sales team need in order to really compete and succeed? 2.) Does the current technology answer the question in “A”, or is new, more modern (or more simple or more powerful) technology required?

1. Just How Important
is Technology to Sales
Management?
Pain Points of Sales Management and How to Overcome Them

2. Nikolaus Kimla
Email: n.kimla@pipelinersales.com
Website: www.pipelinersales.com
CEO at Pipelinersales Inc.
Written by...

3. Choosing Technology
Nothing can happen in today's business world without technology. This is no less
true for a sales manager or a sales team.

4. Choosing Technology
A sales manager should pay attention
to the CRM technology at use in their
company.
2 crucial questions should be asked:
What kind of technology does this sales team need
in order to really compete and succeed?
Does the current technology answer the question in
“A”, or is new, more modern (or more simple or
more powerful) technology required?
A
B

5. Benefit
Technology should be something
that salespeople will love to use,
and that is easy to learn.
Flexibility
No 2 companies are alike—hence the
technology should be extremely
flexible so that it can be rapidly and
easily customized to a company’s
requirements.
Turnover
When a rep leaves and a new one
comes on board, the new rep must
be able to get rapidly up and running
with the technology, and the leads
and opportunities from the departed
rep must be rapidly and efficiently
turned over to the new rep.
Choosing Technology

6. Implementation
Getting a technology up and running,
and trained in on users, should take
days or, at the very outside,
a week or so.
Within Each Stage
Along with process stages,
technology must make actions within
each stage very easy for salespeople
to follow and accomplish, and for
sales
managers to observe.
Processes
Your technology must be totally and
rapidly adaptable to buyer patters
and your company’s processes.
Choosing Technology

7. Accurate Answers
Technology should assist the sales manager to see that a rep is doing
an efficient job, and highlight ways the manager can assist the salesperson
to do an even better job.

8. Accurate Answers
The sales manager must be able to rapidly tell how
many opportunities of what size should be in the
pipeline for a rep to close a certain percentage
of the quota.
For a sales manager to truly provide help to reps, lead
conversion ratios and opportunity closing ratios must
be known. That’s the kind of data that is extracted from
an empowering CRM solution.

9. “Speak My Language?”
When evaluating technology, ask this about the companies you are talking to:
“Do they speak my language?”
Do they truly understand your pain points, what you are going through
in managing a sales organization?

10. “Speak My Language?”
CRM applications were originally designed by
programmers who perhaps had some understanding of
sales, but had never actually “sat in the hot seat.”
At Pipeliner, we are salespeople—and hence Pipeliner is
built by salespeople for salespeople. We are keenly
aware that it’s not so much the data that you put into
CRM, but what you get out of it.

11. After The Start
Once a technology has been implemented and users
trained, now comes the beginning of the story.
Now you need to find out: how does this technology
perform under real business conditions?
It requires thorough testing.

12. Navigate Complexity
The technology you chose has to act as navigation
through the complexity of today’s sales. Without
technology, this won’t happen. And even with the wrong
technology, it won’t happen, either.
As a sales manager, make sure that you are choosing
the right technology.

13. NEXT SLIDESHARE IN THIS SERIES:
The Pain Point of People

14. CRM (R)Evolutionized—Instant Intelligence, Visualized!
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