Sales for services is different from other areas. Your goal is to impress someone who isn't an expert in what you do while trying to convince them you're the best among the competitors who are pitching the same thing. On top of that, you're not selling a physical product or repeatable service. Rather, you're selling your expertise and skills. Every client and project varies, so each time you sell your services you need to have a tailored and personalized process and focus.
At the root of a successful sales process requires a CRM, which stands for Customer (or Client) Relationship Management. It's critical to utilize a CRM that values the "R" aspect, the relationship between you and your prospective client. After all, your clients are the lifeblood of your business. But when it comes to the traditional CRMs, they're missing functions that truly shape the trust needed to form powerful and long lasting client relationships.
We've compiled four ways traditional CRM systems hinder and fall short for service businesses' sales, and the advantages to using a modern system equipped with these functions:
Instead of building value and nurturing the customer relationship, traditional CRMs require lots of manual effort, focus on selling and are more product oriented. When surveyed, salespeople reported to have spent a large part of their day-to-day on administrative tasks, including 21% of time is being spent writing emails, 17% handling data entry, and 12% scheduling. Having a system that can automatically sync your prospective contacts, emails and meetings decreases the time you spend on busy work by a significant amount.
Instead of juggling multiple tasks all at once and feeling overwhelmed, using automation reduces administrative errors and prevent tasks from falling through the cracks. This in turn will give you more time to focus on building true human relationships. By doing so, you demonstrate your expertise to your prospective clients, and show them that they can rely on you to do the work that they need confidently compared to your competition.
When it comes to a sales perspective, you need technology that provides extra assistance, and doesn't slow you down. Your CRM should be a trusted ally that you can use to stay on track. In your central system access and track all your important client-related information in one place. Especially those times you have multiple responsibilities on your plate, and have to multitask. Maintain everything you need with a CRM system that can automate your admin responsibilities, help you meet your deadlines and ensure your finished work is more reliable and efficiently completed.
Traditional CRMs tend to focus just on the product and selling, rather than the client relationship aspect and keeping your team on the same page. With modern systems like Accelo, you have the power of real-time updates via company Activity Stream, that keeps all of your team members informed with important details including client emails, sales moving stages, and meetings. The various tools grant your team the power to easily connect your pinch hitter aka your delivery team when needed to help push a deal across the line if need be. With everyone working out of one system, efficiently share messages and collaborate together to build the best process and connection with your potential client.
By connecting your sales to the delivery in the beginning stages you're more inclined to proactively meet expectations. When including the project team early in the conversation, you're able to design a plan specific to your prospective client. An intuitive CRM system enables you to build customized workflows, project plan and budget highlighting the client trajectory. You'll make for an incredibly memorable, personal experience that will initiate dynamic client relationships.
Try out a system built specifically for service businesses that will automatically track and share client emails with your team, automate client communications, and easily segment your sales prospects. Sign up for Accelo today!
