The Importance of Sales and your CRM

Sales is a fundamental area of many businesses ability to operate, survive and thrive. Most companies, no matter their sector needs a form of sales to function. Many have a thriving existing customer base; some are always searching for the next opportunity. No matter what level your business operates at, data and sales marry in a fundamental way that is often overlooked. Appreciating their individual functions and how intertwined they are, help businesses to understand their importance when they are considered as a unit.

In sales, nothing is as simple as this idyllic view, however, a suitable CRM solution that is as simple or complex as required and advised can deliver the results in a way that is effortless and a must-have for any sales head. A proficient CRM solution, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows your data, research and sales teams to achieve these goals in a methodical and achievable manner.

Data is logged, manipulated and refined and when captured correctly can provide analysis that can tell you more about your business than you have ever known. Understanding your clients and delivering solutions for their needs will be undertaken with the knowledge that this has been achieved in the past. You will be able to communicate with them in a manner that hasn’t before been achievable.

The traditional sales pipeline is something that has been around for many years and even if you haven’t been involved in sales, you will most probably know what I am talking about. A quick search in your browser displays numerous colourful iterations of the same funnel-like graph. A sales funnel is exactly what it looks like, you fill the top of the hopper with “leads” and these filter through the pipeline as they progress, losing many of the prospective opportunities along the way where you end up with your sale. However, each sales funnel is unique to the business it is intended for, the sale process is always different and the capturing and reporting of that information is what makes your sales funnel. Dynamics 365 allows you to build the data points and then interpret them for your sales funnel. The sales funnel is often referred to as a Sales Pipeline and although the process of sales is, in essence, the same, each stage has its own element of concentration.

This is the generic approach to how a sales process works and in reality, a sale can jump around dependant on many factors and is why I would recommend creating a sales funnel that incorporates a sales pipeline and making this your very own, the marketing surrounding the process can be confusing and not relevant to your field of sales. So it’s worth spending some time understanding this process to ensure you can accurately record relevant data and then report on it. Then transfer these building blocks into the sales structure of your Dynamics CRM solution, so the process is fluid for all to see and use.

Some key takeaways and for the benefit of ease, I am using two very generic terms here to encapsulate who buys from you.

Prospective Client: someone who could purchase from you
Client: someone who has purchased from you

Capture as much information as you can on your Prospective Client / Client
This positive and negative data is equally as important, why did they buy from you, why didn’t they buy from you?
How did you capture their information?
How do you retain this Client?
How do you inform this Prospective Client / Client of new services?

We at TGM understand the importance of a refined sales function in your Dynamics 365 solution and have spent significant time developing bespoke solutions for clients to maximise their sales output. We would gladly discuss this topic further, we are passionate about helping our clients maximise their use of Dynamics 365, so please don’t hesitate to contact us.