Ignore It, Accept Defeat or Take Control
February 4, 2009 7:16 pm BI Solutions, CRM Solutions, SaaSI am sure that most of you have been bombarded with blog entries and articles on how to survive the tough times. Although they all offer valuable advice, I have just watched a brief video by Elay Cohen, VP Product Marketing Salesforce.com, which I found extremely inspiring for several reasons. Titled ” Taking Control In an Uncertain Economy”, it resonates the same title message common in many of todays posts and articles, but the content was refreshingly simple. And that simplicity is what made the biggest impression. The opening statements were:
The three choices you have to respond to the current situation:
- Ignore It,
- Accept Defeat, or
- Take Control
And the way to take control is to put the customer back into the center of your business
“Act on every lead, Win every deal, Keep every customer.”
It is easy for businesses to seek complex solutions to simple problems, and whilst the magnitude of the problem today is significant, the best response is quite simple. If your business does not have the tools to give you total transparency to know how well you are performing in each of these three key areas:
Act on Every Lead – Lead generation, Query to Response Cycle time
Win Every Deal – Deal win rate, Sales Cycle Time, Average Sales Value
Keep Every Customer – Customer Satisfaction, Support Tickets, Customer Retention, Churn Rate to Competitors
You need to know exactly what your cusotmers want, deliver it in the way they want it delivered, and do it better than your competitors. CRM and BI tools are NOT just for big businesses, and they are not only affordable by big business. With the Software-as-a-Service model:
- Simple – Customers do not need any hardware or software installed on premise, meaning implementation times are short and painfree.
- Affordable – Access to the tools is on a monthly pay-as-you go basis, meaning there are no hefty up-front licence fees.
- Effective – dashboards and screens are out-of-the-box configured, and easily customised by the business to start giving invaluable information in a very short time.
These tools convert the data you already have and are collecting on an hour by hour basis into usable, actionable information. If you can not see the change in state of your business in real time, you are going to find it very difficult to make the best of the current market environment.
The type of successes experienced by even large, cumbersome businesses are:
Sales Pipleline – 172% increase
Sales Growth – 70% increase
Team Productivity – 20% increase
It’s no longer a matter of not being able to afford CRM/BI tools – it’s a matter of not being able to afford to NOT have them.
I highly recommend you take 15mins to view the Webinar as a reminder as to what the core of your business is all about
For more information on SaleForce.com solutions
