CRM Tools Don’t Sell. Well Trained Sellers Do!

CRM Tools Dont Sell Well Trained Sellers Do

Salesforce is killing it!

But Sales Win Rates are dropping! Why?

Salesforce.com just wrapped up another successful DreamForce with the all times high hype for the CRM company and its whole ecosystem. The company has reached an ARR of $10B and still growing at over 25% per year. (On a side note, we are proud to have SF’s Account Executives among Meddic Academy users). CEO Marc Benioff declared: “Just as we’ll be the fastest enterprise software company to reach $13 billion, we’re well on our way to surpassing the $20 billion revenue goal faster than any other enterprise software company in history.”  And the CRM market is not just about Salesforce; there are other large vendors such as Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and others. It’s a market which has had double digit growth since more than 20 years. So one would say the CRM should be delivering all the promises, right?

First problem: CRM not used by sellers

CRM tools are sold more and more but they are not used as much as they should be by sales people. In 5 years, Salesforce’s revenue has grown over 300%, while in the same period of time, the implementation of CRM has only grown by less than 10% according to studies in which sales reps are asked about how seriously they feed and use their CRM (Sources below). The executive management is sold on CRM for all the benefits of integration, the system of record for the customer information and management especially through different departments such as Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Finance, etc…as well as for reporting and forecasting. But what is in it for sellers themselves? Why should they spend an extra 20% to 50% time after each sales action to put in data there?

Second problem: Sellers are failing

Now if only the issue was the use of CRM by sellers, we would say, “… oh well, the benefit is for others in the company not for sellers …” . But it’s worse than that. Win rates and quota achievements are falling year after year in the past 5 years (see all sources at the bottom of this page). Why?

Because:

CRM Tools don’t sell, Well Trained Sellers do!

What increases a seller’s productivity is not asking them for more reporting. That actually decreases their productivity. They need help! They need education, training, coaching and mentoring. It’s so obvious. Sales Enablement, Sales Coaching, Sales Mentoring, Sales Courses and Education is what increases their performance. At MEDDIC Academy we help sellers learn how to focus on winning deals. Our proven methodology, combined with modern learning tools, helps them to better qualify their deals leading to :

  • Shortening the sales cycle,
  • Increasing the deal size,
  • Increasing the win rate,
  • Reporting more accurate forecasts

We need to focus less on tools and more on methodology and education.

Some of our MEDDIC ACADEMY clients declare having achieved up to 200% revenue growth within one year after an extensive training. There were no new tools involved, just methodology, education and training.

CRM Tools Dont Sell Well Trained Sellers Do

CRM Tools Dont Sell Well Trained Sellers Do

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*Sources:
SalesForce.com’s revenue from 2013 to 2018 per the company’s financial reporting.
CRM adoption rate as part of a more complete annual study by CSO Insights: to 2018 Sales Operations Optimization Study.
Win rates and sales quota achievement: Sales Performance Optimization Study / CSO/ 2016 and other similar studies on win rates declining.
Extract: “Over the past five years, the percentage of sales reps making quota fell by 10 percent and the percentage of companies achieving revenue dropped by four percent, according to CSO Insights’ Sales Performance Optimization Study on 2016 Key Trends.” www.ibtimes.co.uk/why-sales-enablement-isnt-working-how-fix-it-1666167 and https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/317934

Posted on October 9, 2018 in MEDDIC, Sales, Sales Management, Sales Methodologies, Sales Training

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About the Author

Darius Lahoutifard, founder of MEDDIC Academy is a Serial Entrepreneur and a former Executive at PTC and Oracle among other software companies. His latest company was Business Hangouts, a Google G Suite live broadcasting app, with millions of users, acquired within 3 years. He is interested and writes about entrepreneurship, startups, technology, enterprise software, SaaS, Sales Leadership, Management, Sales & Leadership Education including specifically the MEDDIC methodology, Marketing, Market Research and more.

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