Donna
Siegel

Get All That Information Into Your SFA System

A sales force automation system has the potential to revolutionize selling, giving you a powerful tool for capturing and using customer information. But time constraints can slow down the adoption of your sales force automation system. Here are some ideas to help your team Get All That Information Into Your SFA System.

But when you actually begin the implementation, you find that your salespeople are reluctant to convert from their current method of managing their prospects to the new sales force automation system. In spite of their agreement that the system will make their lives easier and will lead to more closes, your team members are still making notes about their prospects on yellow legal pads, stuffing their notes into folders in their drawers and using their desk calendars to schedule appointments.

One of the major reasons for the reluctance to change is the lack of time. A sales force automation system requires time from salespeople for two reasons:

1. They must invest their time to learn how to use the technology, how it functions and how to integrate it with their selling process.
   
    
2. Then they must spend time entering information about each prospect and each sales activity.

If there is one commodity all salespeople are short of, it's time. They're so busy running from meeting to meeting, writing proposals, phoning prospects and doing all the other tasks they're assigned that they can barely keep up with their current activities.

And then comes sales force automation. This is one more task they have to add into their hectic schedules. And while they're mandated to use their sales force automation system, most often, salespeople find ways of either putting the task off or doing it in the most minimal way.

If your salespeople are telling you they don't have the time to convert their paper information to sales force automation, here are ways you can help them make the change.

1. Develop a conversion strategy
Before your sales team begins to enter the first piece of data into the new sales force automation system, you need to develop a strategy for your conversion. Ultimately, your goal is to input all valuable data on every customer and prospect for every member of your sales team, but this can be an overwhelming task to do all at once. Instead, you need a strategy to figure out how to best approach the conversion.

Your reps have both customers and prospects. Your first goal is to define where to start with this long list of contacts. Have each of your reps develop a total list of all their contacts. Then have them identify those contacts requiring attention: active prospects and customers who need contact during the next quarter.

Take a look at the categories of information your team is currently keeping on each of their customers and prospects, regardless of how they keep this information. Build a list of these categories. Then divide the categories of information into three:

1. Necessary information: essential information your salespeople need to work with this prospect at all
   
   
2. Valuable information: information that is most likely in the near term to advance the steps in the sales process
   
   
3. Added information: other facts that will be useful at later stages in the relationship with the prospect

Build your strategy starting with the high-priority contacts and the necessary information. That should significantly reduce the size of the initial task of getting your sales team started.

2. Set a schedule
The next step is to set a schedule for converting the three types of information to the sales force automation system. Set specific dates by which each salesperson is going to have the information converted. As you explain the schedule to your reps, reinforce in their minds that the benefits that will come from having the information readily available.

3. Provide training in bite-sized pieces
At the start, the sales force automation system may seem overwhelming to use. There are so many different functions, and the only way salespeople are going to learn how to use it effectively is to spend time in training. But they don't have time for this training and, besides, they can't learn all of the functions at the same time.

In addition to your strategy, you have to have a training plan. Learning the system needs to be broken down into small units, perhaps no more than a half-hour in length. Even better would be to design portable training units that can travel with the sales reps.

4. Provide data input assistance
In some cases, the salespeople are not the best resource for inputting the current information about contacts into the new sales force automation system. If so, you need to think of some alternative sources to accomplish this task. You may want to look for available talent within your company who can help out with this task, or you might want to hire temporary clerical staff who come on board specifically to help with this task.

5. Keep current with new prospects
While existing information needs to be added to the sales force automation system, your sales force will also be coming in contact with new prospects. Have your salespeople add complete information on each of these new prospects as they gather the information.

6. Monitor the process and results
Whatever your strategy for getting current information into the system, it's important that you monitor the process from beginning to end. That way, you can bring additional resources as needed to make sure the entire plan gets implemented.

Get all that information into your SFA system

sales force automation salesforce SFA CRM contact manager customer relationship management information

A sales force automation system has the potential to revolutionize selling, giving you a powerful tool for capturing and using customer information. But time constraints can slow down the adoption of your sales force automation system. Here are some ideas to help your team Get All That Information Into Your SFA System.

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Donna Siegel

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