Being reactive is receiving reports from your staff and reacting accordingly. Sometimes too quickly. Being proactive means having more insight into your sales operation, funnel, and customer experiences overall.
Regular Sales Data Audits look at:
- How your team is communicating with prospects. If your customer is submitting an inquiry asking for information and sales asks them about their budget or how they can assist–there is a disconnect in communication. Communication that is not professional, doesn’t include e-signatures etc. We see this all the time-CROs often don’t dive in and look at sales’ actual communications with customers.
- The onboarding process. Is sales putting prospects through unnecessary steps and communication? What is the actual time your team takes to onboard, and how can that be tightened?
- Look at actual lead quality. How many leads are attended to versus good leads that your company wants?
- Lead volume and handling. Are your salespeople cherry-picking? One of the most common problems we see in sales teams is that they deprioritize what, at surface level, doesn’t look like a lead to them. They are not even following up or taking any action. Over time this is damaging to a brand and can even result in bad reviews and reputation issues.
- Your data accuracy. How consistently and accurately is the CRM being updated? Is your data even accurate?
- Looks at your marketing spend. What are the true sources driving the most qualified leads and closings.
Proper Lead Scoring
This is a big one – the difference between what is a marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, and opportunity. Lead scoring is the only way you will be able to know, from a bird’s eye view, what your funnel is comprised of and be able to proactively define each step in your process while ensuring consistent labeling in your CRM. This will greatly empower you to lead your team.
A Functional Dashboard
This is huge! We see so many sales leaders that have gaping holes in their insights simply because of the data showing on their dashboard. Customization of your dashboard should include things like: lead create date, last activity date, stage, status and assigned tasks. From your dashboard, and at a bird’s eye view, you should be able to see all contacts that have come into the CRM, where they came from, who is working them and what is happening with them.
Automation For More Control
Some things just don’t require a human. The more you automate, the more control you have so that certain things update according to actions in the CRM versus a human updating the data. You can also have more control over the communications that go out to prospects.
The reality is that in your sales team you will have team members with varying levels of skill and adaptability as it relates to technology, communication, organization, and even transparency. Being a proactive CRO means being five steps ahead and keeping your operation agile and successful.
If this blog resonated, please feel free to reach out. Visit www.gopulsion.io and let’s start the conversation.