As a business owner or sales manager, the success of your company lays in your hands. Your sales force, no matter the size, is your responsibility, and should always be your first priority. The success of your company, its future and the security of its employees depend on competent sales leadership. It’s important that you let your expectations be known, and more importantly make your expectations part of your sales process. When we talk about expectations, this isn’t just about making a monthly or annual sales quota, this is about following a variety of daily, weekly and even monthly disciplines that will help you, the sales manager, have clarity into your team’s sales activity, at all times.

Getting your sales reps to follow your instruction and include your processes as part of their sales routine will strengthen your sales force, ensure consistency with your sales data, and make analyzing your sales data an intuitive and more accurate process. You can make adjustments to your process from time to time to accommodate evolving markets and new technologies, but always be consistent. Your expectations should apply to everyone and everyone should meet your expectations.

Of the thousands of companies that we’ve served and worked with since 2009, those who have been successful and grew in annual revenue were the ones who were disciplined in their sales management processes and had consistent expectations of their sales teams throughout their organizations. Those companies that saw either zero or negative growth had no centralized sales processes at all and were managed by undisciplined sales leaders. In the end, they paid the price.

If you’re looking to build a solid foundation to nurture a world-class sales team, then the following are best practices consistently used by successful sales organizations.

Be a leader, not a friend

One of the most important responsibilities of a sales manager is the ability and willingness to assist their sales team whenever asked or whenever you feel is necessary. Whether you’re assisting with pricing, participating on a sales call, discussing strategy, helping reps get back on track during tougher months, the sales manager is a leader, and successful leaders support their teams. While it’s natural to form relationships with your reps, their first duty is to produce for the company and the sales manager’s priority is always keeping that top-of-mind. Everyone deserves help, so be a mentor, and support them when they need it. Don’t let friendship get in the way of making tough decisions. Be a leader first.

Set goals for your sales team

We’ve all heard you can’t manage what you can’t measure. This begins with establishing reasonable and precise sales goals for your sales reps to achieve on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. Setting goals gives something everyone can work towards. Sales reps have a target to meet and sales managers know when to step in and help their reps when they spot any struggles or shortcomings within their team. Establishing sales goals is a key component of your sales matrix, and regardless of if they are being met consistently, it’s the number one criteria every sales leader should pay attention to.

Have weekly sales meetings

Hold a sales meeting every Monday morning. This will help you accomplish a few important things. First, it will add discipline, structure, and accountability to your sales process.  Having a sales meeting consistently reminds your reps of their responsibilities and is helpful for keeping them in tune with their own sales activity. By simply talking about their activity with their sales manager on a weekly basis, the likelihood of opportunities falling through the cracks becomes fewer, resulting in a more natural flow within your company’s sales funnel. Second, the discipline and consistency of a regular sales meeting will ensure that your sales rep’s activity will remain current and up to date. Get your reps in the habit of updating their opportunities in their CRM prior to your sales meeting. This will make your meetings more efficient and productive. Good opportunity management is a key component to successful sales management.

Run Reports – Weekly!

Pay attention! Just like paying attention while driving can prevent a fatality, you need to stay on top of your sales activity and forecast accordingly so you can make the necessary adjustments or take action. Whether you’re looking at KPI Dashboards or running reports, stay on top of your data. Running reports regularly can help you spot trends, gains, and losses in different areas. A good sales manager can use this data to tap into new territories or quickly shift from failing ones. Include all or some of your reports in your weekly sales meetings. This will help your reps understand the information that’s more vital to your analytics and decision-making processes, so they can be more disciplined in keeping this data accurate and current.

Routinely review sales activity

Whether at a glance or in a report, stay on top of your team’s sales activity to make sure everyone has consistent momentum or updates with each opportunity. A CRM will offer a centralized location that makes staying on top of sales easy and practical. CRMs can include event notes, calendar appointments, emails, next follow-ups and so much more. Having sales reps keep their opportunity records up to date with the latest activity will not only help them remember where they last left off when interacting with their prospects (which is especially useful when dealing with a high volume of opportunities or longer sales cycles), but it will also give sales managers real-time insights. Regularly reviewing your team’s activity will also help you prepare for your upcoming weekly sales meeting, yet another way you can optimize your meeting time.

Conclusion

A well-organized sales process and sales team require discipline. But like every sustainable regimen the results can be rewarding and in this case, profitable. Adding structure and discipline (in the right areas) can provide you with a healthy foundation for sales success. If you’re looking for a CRM that can help you achieve your sales management goals, check out Mothernode CRM and request a demo.

Learn more about how Mothernode CRM can help automate your business processes. Schedule time with an advisor today.

Email is unquestionably the most popular and practical method when it comes to engaging new prospects. Whether you’re sending a personalized email or planning a strategic long-term drip, a clever subject line can be the determining factor in your recipient’s decision to open your message, read it, trash it or even worse – tag it as spam.  You only have a few seconds to make an impact, and in many cases when recipients are drowning in a sea of emails, it’s up to your subject line to win their interest. Below is a listing of tried-and-true email subject lines that peak interest and stimulate ‘opens’.

Analyzing your email subject performance and making the necessary updates is an ongoing objective that is critical to your email marketing process. Experiment with a variety of different subject lines (and ordering of your sequence) to see how recipients respond and understand what gains the most opens.

Cold Emails

If you’ve had your own email account for more than a month, then you know first-hand how many people are competing for your attention. You also know that subject lines can be the definitive make-or-break when it comes to engaging your prospects (or customers), so it’s important to grab their attention within seconds. Successful cold emails contain some or all of these characteristics:

1. Intrigue
2. Personalization
3. Curiosity
4. Value
5. Urgency
6. Informative
7. Call to action
8. Trust
9. Confidence

Following are some sample cold email subject lines that can generate immediate interest. Using a CRM can give you additional options to personalize your subject lines using the prospect’s name, company name, industry and more. Studies have shown personalized subject lines have a higher open rate.  Consider the following when developing a subject:

• Relevance
• Usefulness
• Excitement
• Urgency
• Don’t sound salesy

Sample cold email subject lines:

1) Hoping to help

2) {Mutual Contact Name} recommends I contact you

3) X ways to meet your revenue goals

4) X winning strategies to increase {industry name} sales

5) X ways to increase sales in 24 hours

6) Hoping you can help

7) Are you meeting your sales (or revenue) goals?

8) Did you meet your sales (or revenue) goals?

9) How to increase revenue over 6 months

10) X ways to exceed your sales (or revenue) goals

11) Offer expires in 5 days!

12) Only a few spots left!

13) One day left!

14) Now shipping!

15) Now available!

16) New: {Insert tagline}

17) {Industry Name} Industry Leaders Only!

18) X Strategies from {Industry Name} Industry Leaders

19) X Sales Strategies {Industry Name} Industry Leaders

20) Worst {Industry Name} sales mistakes of {current year}

21) How {company name} can dominate the {Industry Name} industry

22) Are you on target?

23) How to meet your sales goals

24) X habits toward increasing sales

25) X things you can do today that will increase sales

Next Steps

Next steps are immediate. Ideally, you should have next steps available immediately to make sure the conversation will continue. Sending follow-up emails is just as important. Even the most benign follow-ups can make a lasting impact or serve as an important reminder to your prospect. Your follow-ups should accomplish the following:

• Be thankful
• Be valued
• Demonstrate trust
• Exhibit commitment
• Leave with an actionable item for follow-up
• Commit to a follow-up date/time

Sample next steps email subject lines:

26) Hoping to help

27) {Company Name} Follow-up Items

28) X ways to proceed

29) {Company Name} follow-up items {Insert date of discussion}

30) X Options to get started

31) Next steps to get started

Follow-up Emails

The fortune is in the follow-up, which emphasizes the importance of being persistent in your communications. However, don’t be annoyingly persistent or even pushy. Equally important is that time kills all deals. The longer you wait to follow-up or if you have large gaps in between follow-ups, the more likely you will lose the sale. Follow-up emails can include breakup emails too. In fact, they should at some point. There is no harm in asking for the “no”. It can save you unnecessary time in your follow-up process and it might even give you some insight that can help refine and reshape your sales process with future opportunities.

Sample follow-up email subject lines:

32) 10-minutes to follow-up

33) Friendly check-in

34) Are you still looking?

35) Here’s the info I promised

36) When is a good time to re-connect?

37) Availability for a 10-minute call

38) Are you still interested in {subject}?

39) Is {Company Name} still evaluating {products/services}?

40) Is {products/services} still a priority for {Company Name}?

41) Ready to proceed?

Learn more about how Mothernode CRM can help automate your business processes. Schedule time with an advisor today.

Whether you use a CRM or not, chances are you’ve heard of Salesforce (dot com). After all, their name is synonymous with CRM and they’ve been recognized year after year as being one of the more innovative products, not just in their own market, but in the world. Salesforce is known for its state-of-the-art platform that can be implemented by companies across all industries and sizes, is supported by thousands of developers and integrated applications, and features an award-winning mobile platform. No other company has accomplished as much in the CRM space as Salesforce.

Since its inception in 1999, Salesforce has expanded its product from traditional CRM, primarily focusing on sales and customer management, to establishing itself as a platform for businesses to build upon. Enterprise companies have benefited greatly from this strategy. Over the years, their product portfolio has expanded tenfold to include many solutions that businesses can embrace and benefit from, including customer service, sales tools, data management, and integration with thousands of third-party applications. Salesforce has acquired over 40 companies throughout the past decade in an ongoing effort to improve their platform and capabilities, a methodology that will undoubtedly continue as newer groundbreaking technology emerges. Their marketplace is one of the largest of its kind, with over 3,000 apps, and growing each year. With all of this said, one thing about Salesforce rings true among all of its users: you either love it or you hate it.

Why Small Businesses Don’t Like Salesforce

For more than a decade, we (Mothernode CRM) often compete with Salesforce’s CRM mid-grade plans in the small business market. These are generally businesses earning between $1-million and $5-million in annual revenue and usually comprised of 2-20 users. We have competed against Salesforce when companies were evaluating CRMs, but we have also competed with other CRMs when existing Salesforce customers were looking for an alternative solution once their subscription ended.

When dealing with the latter, regardless of industry or company size, we observed similar responses from companies wanting to leave Salesforce. Interestingly enough, during subsequent conversations with these companies, they predictably detail four primary reasons for leaving Salesforce.

Following are the top four reasons that small and mid-sized businesses have decided to leave Salesforce:

Cost

There are two costs that are related to every mid-market CRM; monthly subscriptions and implementations or setup. Relatively compared to other CRMs on the market, Salesforce’s entry line includes competitively priced monthly subscriptions, based on a per-user, per-month rate. However, unlike many of its competitors, Salesforce requires your annual subscription to be paid in advance. This means your $75/month subscription requires a $900 annual payment (per-user) to start, which can be a significant cost for small businesses, especially if your user count rises over the coming years. You also run the risk of paying for licenses you may not need if you downsize your user count. Implementation fees are far more likely to be on the high-end. In many cases, we heard that their fees were surprisingly unreasonable when compared to other small business CRM, with setup costs beginning at $10,000.

There’s no question that there is a significant market for small business CRM, and Salesforce definitely wants a piece of the pie. But by only accepting annual plans, some customers were left feeling that once their payment processed, they were left on their own, and felt that their subscription lacked the service they expected. It would also seem that Salesforce’s pricing model and sometimes high implementation costs are a way of vetting their customer base. For the small business, the cost of Salesforce can be pricey, but for Salesforce a small business account is insignificant and easily replaced.

Penalizing Business Growth

Another cost increase that many small businesses don’t expect is essentially a penalty for growing. This is odd considering the philosophy behind most every CRM is helping companies grow. However, Salesforce appears to believe that if your business is growing in terms of revenue and employees, then they should be able to tap into your growth and make more money as well. Regardless of whether you like using Salesforce or not, their price increases can break your CRM budget. This is why before selecting a CRM, you should consider your growth and what your long-term CRM costs might look like.

Using Salesforce’s own pricing from their website, we can see how the growth of your business can generate rising costs of your CRM investment.

Assume that your company has 5 users and you’re looking for a CRM. Salesforce’s Lightning Essentials Edition seems like a great place to start with a budget-conscious entry point of $25/user/month (paid annually of course). This would require an annual payment of $1,500 for a 5-user subscription. However, in the event that you add a 6th user, most would assume the cost would increase by another $25/month, or $300/year. But this isn’t the case. Per the specified pricing, the $25/month/user plan is only available for up to 5 users (Out-of-the-box CRM for up to 5 users). This means that once you exceed 5 users you are automatically promoted into the next plan, which increases each user cost to $75/user/month or $5,400/year, which is a $3,900 difference and a 260% increase in your Salesforce subscription.

Complexity

Salesforce offers a variety of training resources, including videos and tutorials, and with the largest community of users, it won’t be difficult to have your questions answered. However, even when you learn how to do something it doesn’t necessarily ensure that the process is convenient or even sensible.

Aside from the aforementioned cost issues, the largest and more common complaints by users relate to the complexities in the processes when using the application. Most users claimed to become frustrated with either the number of steps it took to accomplish more common tasks or the number of screens they would have to bounce between when using the program.

While Salesforce has modernized their application with their new Lightning Interface, some of the legacy processes still remain. Some Salesforce customers who have customized their CRM application find themselves having to remain on their legacy platform and can’t take advantage of the newer, simplified interface.

We have spoken with a number of small businesses over the past decade that used Salesforce, and almost all of them noted that they had simplified their use of the program in order to avoid dealing with more cumbersome processes. As a consequence, many subscribers struggled to fully adopt Salesforce and use the program to its fullest potential, never maximizing its true value. This most likely explains why Salesforce only accepts annual subscriptions, preventing inevitable cancellation before a 12-month term would end.

ROI

Everyone expects a return on their investment, and that is never truer when using software that is geared towards boosting sales, automating processes and making you more efficient in your daily tasks, collectively and individually. That said, Salesforce, like any CRM, requires a healthy adoption and full participation from its users. How you use it will also have an influence on your ROI. If you’re using it to manage contacts and conversations, you’re paying too much and should consider a budget CRM with a monthly subscription.

Achieving ROI as a small business using Salesforce can be a challenge. When considering the complexities and the potential challenges that can come with adoption, small businesses may give up on the more overwhelming processes and never tap into the more advanced components critical to achieving ROI.

Furthermore, when only a few people in your organization really use the program, while others give up or never commit, then the application’s value immediately diminishes. Without 100% buy-in, it will never truly serve as a platform to run your sales and customer service on. In fairness to Salesforce, and any other CRM, you get-out what you put-in. Part of the challenge may relate to stubborn personalities and a personnel issue, not always a software problem. But if the problem stems from new processes being difficult to integrate, cumbersome to use, requiring too many extra steps, then there is a software challenge that should be investigated and addressed.

Conclusion

While your business has general requirements that are consistent with any organization and industry, such as sales, customer service, customer management, etc., how you address your daily operations is up to you, so plan for a solution that you and your company can use and scale for the years ahead. Perhaps Salesforce is the right solution for you, despite some of the challenges that are more common among users in smaller organizations. Like every good CRM, it has both strengths and weaknesses. If the cost of deployment and upfront subscriptions fit comfortably in your budget, then it’s worth evaluating. As mentioned early in this article, Salesforce’s audience is pretty much divided into one of two camps; those who love it and those who don’t. With this in mind, we hope that the considerations we’ve presented will help you better gauge the CRM market and determine the CRM that will best fit your company’s budget, revenue and growth objectives.

Related:
Mothernode CRM, Alternative to Salesforce
Import your Salesforce data into your Mothernode CRM 30-day trial

Learn more about how Mothernode CRM can help automate your business processes. Schedule time with an advisor today.

You want your customer relationship management (CRM) solution to save time and increase the return on your investment as soon as possible. Yet no matter how good your CRM program is, you won’t get your complete money’s worth out of it without a successful implementation. A seamless implementation is critical to your CRM success.

The largest portion of your investment in your CRM is the time you spend using the program. It, therefore, pays to maximize your investment by early mastery. Commit your team to learning the system in the short term when you launch the program, and you’ll have a staff committed to getting full usage out of your CRM in the long term.

Before you even purchase your CRM program, you need to know what you’ll be in for when you launch it. Structure and planning beforehand are the keys to a successful implementation. Here are seven steps that will help you implement your new CRM successfully:

1. Begin by Selecting the Right CRM

Arguably, the success of your decision to purchase a CRM program depends entirely on the quality of the program itself—and its fit with your company’s needs. To select the best CRM for your needs, you first need to understand both your current needs and your future requirements. What isn’t your current CRM processes doing for you that you depend on most? What do you want to achieve in the future with your CRM’s help? Get your entire team involved in the CRM selection process. Let them suggest ideas about what they would like to see in the new CRM. After everyone has a chance to contribute their suggestions, filter the less reasonable requests.

Next, define your budget and evaluate each system. Take into consideration both what it will cost you to implement as well as the monthly and annual costs. During this step, evaluate at least five CRMs that meet your criteria. Narrow this group of contenders to at least two. Don’t only evaluate the product itself. Consider each program’s implementation, training, and support processes, too.

2. Understand and Illustrate Your Workflow Processes

One of the most crucial components of a successful implementation is to understand your workflow processes. The best way to do that is to sketch out the workflows of everyone in your organization who will use the CRM. To make the most of your chosen CRM solution, you must be able to communicate these essential workflows to your CRM vendor.

Look for any bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and redundancies. Determine the top priorities in each workflow. Look into where you can streamline each process. Which parts must remain? Which areas of each workflow can you change to make them more efficient?

3. Accept That CRMs Won’t Solve All Your Problems

Realize that your CRM solution isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t, for instance, solve your people problems. Once you accept that, you’ll have a more realistic view of what your CRM can do for you. All CRMs are different so make sure you find one that solves your most pressing challenges. Find a CRM that can improve most of your workflow processes in its native environment and has sufficient application program interfaces (APIs) to connect to third-party applications for less critical tasks.

4. Get Help with Implementation Early On

Just as the early years of raising children are critical to their overall development in life, the same is true of how your company adopts your new CRM. The first three to six months are crucial to the program’s success. A successful deployment will bring tremendous value to your company’s return on its investment. Clean your data before you implement the new system. Work with your CRM vendor or a consultant (preferably someone certified in your CRM’s setup and implementation). Get training. Look for recommendations and guidance. This step is critical to a successful implementation. A poor adoption out of the gate is a course that is hard to correct and usually destined for failure.

5. Enlist Executive Sponsorship

The decision to integrate a CRM in your business needs to come from the top down. Department leaders and upper management need to support your company’s need for a CRM. Therefore, once you have your shortlist of potential CRMs, include your leadership team in the evaluation process. Sell your executives on the benefits of a CRM, no matter what their initial perception of the new tool. Discuss the areas you identified as problematic within your workflows with them. Get them to participate in selecting the requirements. Find out what is important to them.

Even more importantly, if your upper management team will depend on the CRM for monitoring data or interacting with other users, all other users are more likely to become more disciplined with their CRM activity. Let the executives deal with employees who resist the change.

6. Appoint a Super User

Determine who will manage the implementation process. Designate that person to be the main contact and relationship manager between your business and the CRM vendor. This doesn’t have to be just one person. This “super user” could also be a small team.

If you’ve chosen a team as your super user, make sure that all team members are on the same page. Ensure that each team member can participate equally in implementation activities, training, and support. When you establish ownership of the project early on and maintain an ongoing relationship, you can manage expectations and tame unneeded requests, avoiding extra costs. The project manager must make sure that the new system meets your company’s core requirements, both short-term, and long-term.

7. Integrate the CRM into Your Company Culture

The sooner you can make your CRM part of your company’s culture and normal workflows, the more quickly your users will adopt it. Include the CRM’s data reporting in your weekly meetings. Once people see how the information is being used, they’ll recognize the relevance of their contribution. Share your end goals with your essential contributors. Seeing its importance, they will make sure their data is well kept and accurate.

Review the data often to ensure quality. Don’t let the adage, “garbage in, garbage out” characterize your usage. When your employees realize that you will scrutinize their data, they will take more precautions when they prepare their numbers. When you analyze the information in your CRM continuously, you’ll be on the road to a successful implementation.

Once You Have Implemented Your CRM, Stay on Top of It

Keep abreast of new features and capabilities that your CRM system may offer in the future. As your company grows, explore product improvements that can benefit your company. Find how you can use your CRM to take advantage of coming business trends.

To take advantage of the new ways customers interact with your business, you need the right systems and processes in place. With the right CRM—rightly implemented—you can interact with your customers more frequently. More importantly, you’ll be able to personalize and contextualize your message to them.

Get the most out of your CRM by using it to generate revenue by better serving and supporting your customers every step along their journey, from acquisition to advocacy. Choose a next generation, omnichannel CRM solution that will support you as you adapt to every innovation that will enhance your relationship with your customers and make your business more efficient. After all, that’s the entire point of having a CRM in the first place. Choose wisely, implement carefully. After your successful implementation, use your CRM to its full capacity to meet your customers’ every need.

Learn more about how Mothernode CRM can help automate your business processes. Schedule time with an advisor today.

With the construction and manufacturing industries back on the rise all over the U.S., Mothernode CRM has just released a new integration with ConstructConnect’s Insight service. ConstructConnect, a service that provides detailed project information to construction companies, gives its clients access to construction projects throughout the United States and Canada. This information includes contacts, companies, specified products, and other details that help construction companies tailor their sales process to each project they want to bid on.

Gain Insight into Critical Construction Industry Data

ConstructConnect’s Insight service gives building product manufacturers access to a huge pool of construction pros—over 1.1 million active contacts at last count. Its project leads database is the most accurate in all North America.

ConstructConnect clients can also limit their searches to a specific region within the country, or specify other parameters, such as project size, location, total value, and more, that fit with their company’s focus. A collaboration of four construction industry leaders, ConstructConnect enhances its clients’ success by providing a user-friendly service through which they can access information about projects.

Manufacturers who specialize in building products can use ConstructConnect’s Insight service to access forecasting tools, historical data, and construction activity to analyze their company’s performance against that of their competitors. They can use this data to engage with companies that specify the products you and your competitors provide, as well as to understand the shifting trends and drivers that shape the construction industry and the manufacturers who supply it.

Yet for most companies who use standard CRM services, that information, though highly beneficial, is disconnected from their sales processes.

Mothernode-ConstructConnect Integration Eliminates the Need for Two Lead Lists

Mothernode CRM, however, bridges that gap. When ConstructConnect clients subscribe to Mothernode’s CRM service, they can connect their Mothernode account to their ConstructConnect one, allowing them to download new projects and updates on a daily basis. These projects are the same ones that have been qualified within their ConstructConnect account, giving them a seamless integration for a decided edge over their competitors.

When clients download project updates from ConstructConnect into Mothernode, Mothernode notifies the company’s sales representatives through email or in-app notifications about updates to projects they follow within their lists of leads and opportunities. With the Mothernode integration, sales reps can stay on top of the projects they are interested in, gaining critical news that can help them land the sale.

This integration allows users to choose which projects they want to download as new leads, adding them to their already-existing sales process so they can pursue them as active leads. Once added, these projects will update automatically when the project does. The Mothernode CRM integration with ConstructConnect includes all of the projects’ details except for some supporting documents, such as plans, specifications, and similar information.

With this integration, users no longer need to rely on their ConstructConnect access to see their project leads. When they integrate their ConstructConnect account with their Mothernode CRM, they need only to access their Mothernode account, freeing them from the challenges of managing two separate lead lists.

To discover how Mothernode can help your building trades manufacturing company leverage ConstructConnect’s data without having your hands tied with two lead lists, contact Mothernode’s sales team today.

Learn more about how Mothernode CRM can help automate your business processes. Schedule time with an advisor today.