sales manager

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When Should I Fill Out the CRM Info?

Posted on by Jason Kanigan

When should I fill out the CRM info for a prospect?

This common question needs a clear answer—and sales managers, you'll appreciate this post as a place to point your people to for the solid answer.

Over the years as a consultant to sales departments large and small I've seen two different answers to this question in action.

when should i fill out the crm info confused salesperson question business development staff woman raised hands struggling

Photo by Yan Krukov from Pexels

The first has the business development or sales person putting the data entry off until later.

The second features the bizdev or sales executive getting that data into the CRM right now.

Having worked with countless organizations and seen the difference in effectiveness of these two approaches, I can tell you this:

Put the info in the CRM as you go.

Hazards of Not Entering the CRM Data Immediately

Don't chicken scratch it on a pad and then think you'll go back later and dump it into the program. You won't. Do it now and get it done and out of your mind. You'll thank yourself for developing this habit.

Those who leave the data entry until later run the risk of constant low level, nagging worry. The job is out there, still needing to be done. And what if your boss needs that info? If it's not in the system, it doesn't exist. Remember that. No matter how deep or powerful the information you discover about a prospect is, if no one else can access that data, you may as well have never uncovered it.

So get it into the CRM, now.

An Alternative Answer to "When Should I Fill Out the CRM Info?"

This is for salespeople, especially outside salespeople: if you are an awesome closer, and hate doing this "paperwork stuff", consider asking your boss to hire you an assistant. No kidding—it could save you and them a ton of expensive time and frantic worry. That data HAS to be in there so your manager can quickly see progress and status, and know when to ask questions and offer help. If your time really is better spent talking to prospects, then it should be a no-brainer for your boss to get you an inexpensive assistant to help with the data entry.

If you're an independent hired gun, consider hiring a VA for yourself. You'll probably be shocked at the time and energy they recover for you, doing tasks you believe are dull but they find rewarding.

>> Need help with your business development, sales or CRM process? Book a problem-solving consultation with Jason by clicking here <<

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Sales Manager Skills are Hard to Find

Posted on by Jason Kanigan

Sales ManagerSales Manager candidates are frequently promoted from within. An above-average salesperson is tasked with the role of improving the performance of not just themselves, but the entire team. Just as often, this decision leads to disaster.

Consider first: if the sales manager role is also a selling role, meaning the candidate still has to maintain their revenue targets, how much time and energy will they have to coach others?

Second: if it isn't a selling role, the company now loses that revenue and has to replace it. Not only does the new sales manager have to improve the performance of their team, they also have to get them to make up the loss of their own previous sales.

Third: the skills that made the candidate a good salesperson are NOT the skills that will make them a great sales manager. Sales management is an entirely different role and needs a totally different skill set. Think about baseball. Would you promote the best hitter to coach, and expect things to work out? This is how you ought to be viewing technicians and managers. That hitter is out there to hit the ball. That's their job. And the coach is there to coach them--not to hit the ball themselves! Even if the coach could hit the ball more effectively than the hitter, they cannot and should not intervene. It's the hitter's process, the hitter's moment. Get it?

The coach's role is to get the most, the very best, out of that technician on that given day. And this is what the manager must do. Their purpose is to get the most out of the salesperson--without stepping in to run the sales process themselves.

If they do, that's an automatic Fail. They've run over the salesperson's process, and in consequence the salesperson hasn't learned a darn thing.

How the "Mini Me" Sales Manager Syndrome Causes Serious Problems

Richard Ruff, a sales program developer from Sales Horizons, is an expert we've heard from before. He recently wrote about the "Mini Me Syndrome" in sales management. When a salesperson gets promoted to sales manager, their instinct is to get the team to start emulating what made them an individual success. The problem with this approach, says Ruff, is twofold:

Individual differences make it difficult to "clone" the whole team into following one sales approach.

Transformational market shifts mean that the path to sales success that worked last month may no longer be there. What, how and why people buy can and is changing quickly.

The transition from great salesperson to great sales manager is not easy, and that's why sales manager skills are hard to find.

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