Successful CRM deployment will not unfold on its own. It requires a clear strategy, technological support, and the commitment of stakeholders and staff. Most importantly, a well-defined, customized process is necessary to make a smooth transition to a new CRM.
Your sales pipeline is a visual representation of the steps your sales executives take to convert prospects into customers. When properly designed, it plays an instrumental role in forecasting by allowing you to see where prospects are in the buying process and how likely they are to proceed with a purchase.
Your pipeline should be customized to reflect your existing sales strategy and scaled according to your business size and model.
Here are some basic points to remember when creating a sales pipeline:
Sales-marketing alignment is essential for maximizing conversions, regardless of your industry. HubSpot provides an ideal foundation for establishing a "Closed-Lost" strategy that can be used to improve this alignment.
For example, you can revamp your sales process or training platform to address the most commonly cited reasons that your sales representatives are failing to close sales. You can also use the three steps below to keep prospects engaged and better qualify your leads:
Studies show that roughly three in four consumers prefer live chat over other modes of communicating with businesses. HubSpot offers free live chat software that enables you to connect in real time with prospects and existing customers. And because the software syncs data back to the CRM, conversations are conveniently and automatically stored on the contact's timeline. You can even use the live chat feature to capture customer inquiries that arrive after hours.
HubSpot's meetings tool allows prospects and existing contacts to easily engage with you without double-booking your schedule. Additionally, contacts will automatically receive meeting invitations when meetings are scheduled on a contact record.
With a HubSpot Sales Enterprise account, you can easily qualify incoming leads according to the criteria that are relevant to your business. By assigning a value to incoming leads, you will be able to know immediately which leads are "hot" or have the greatest likelihood to evolve into a sale. Be sure to consider multiple variables, including form submission and length of time spent on your website, when designing your scoring matrix.
Here are a few areas to focus on as you review your data:
Establishing your sales process, pipeline, and stages will allow you to cleanly import your opportunities into the CRM. If you used another CRM previously, make sure to map the stages from that CRM to the stages in HubSpot.
Remember that you should create any customized fields and map them to your data before migration begins. Otherwise, you run the risk of inaccurate data mapping.
The ultimate goal of your CRM is to increase revenue for your business. Sales enablement helps your organization achieve this goal by boosting productivity and closed sales while shortening the sales cycle and minimizing customer churn.
However, sales enablement will not magically unfold. It requires sales-marketing alignment, ongoing training, and the delivery of consistent messages to customers.
While sales enablement encompasses many steps, the first and most important task is to update your content. Ensuring that your content is fresh, organized, and relevant to your target audience is essential to improving your conversions and expediting the sales cycle.
Below are some ways to help you optimize your content:
For example, if you launched three new products last month, you can quickly see how each is performing in terms of closed sales. You can also see which products are performing well in specific markets and geographical regions by setting automated reports based on these metrics.
In order to gain the most benefits from dashboards and reporting features, sales managers must encourage sales reps to get into the habit of using their dashboards and reporting features. This will be fairly easy to accomplish if you are switching to Sales Hub from another CRM that offers dashboards and reporting.
Here are some tips to help managers get their sales teams on board:
Depending upon the size and makeup of your sales force, you may wish to designate a point person to work closely with your sales representatives to make sure that they are enjoying all of the benefits offered through their dashboards and reporting features.
The success of your program hinges on three key factors: First, how well you introduce the program. Second, your ability to boost utilization among prospective users. And third, the extent to which users comply with the processes that are featured in the CRM. These three parameters will not magically unfold. But with careful planning and nurturing, you will prosper in each of these areas.
Here are some keys to ensuring that your CRM is successfully deployed:
The path to a successful CRM adoption begins with a robust training strategy. You will have access to Certified Trainers who provide public classroom training as well as private training seminars for HubSpot users. By working with a HubSpot Certified Trainer, you will learn material through videos, certification courses, and written guides.
Support is vital to ensuring that users take full advantage of the many helpful features of a CRM. Members of your organization will have access to a variety of helpful resources and over 3,000 HubSpot partners scattered across 65 countries who can provide advanced implementation services.
Here are just a few of the free resources to which you will have access:
Organized documentation plays an important role in maximizing efficiency during the onboarding process. Creating written internal training guides and videos and placing them in a centralized online location will help new hires master utilization and provide a helpful resource when questions arise.
Consider making some or all elements of your training library available on your website to hep drive traffic to your site and establish your business as an industry leader.
The journey to HubSpot Sales Hub deployment does not conclude with a successful launch. In fact, the journey is only beginning. Once your sales force is consistently using Sales Hub, you need to evaluate the use of the system and identify any unsatisfactory elements of the system and aspects that are halting your efficiency. Make a note of these challenges and make a note of how your team has been resolving them.
Additionally, be sure to take the following steps to maintain your CRM:
Inaccurate or incomplete data can be costly to businesses. Keeping your database clean and updated can give you an edge over your competitors and help ensure that your marketing campaigns quickly reach your intended targets. You should also periodically screen for duplicate accounts or contacts and remove them from your database.
One of the greatest benefits of Sales Hub is the ability to automate tasks to boost efficiency and track opportunities. For example, you can automatically assign leads to representatives based on a prospect's postal code or type of business.
You can also automatically set new leads to "Open" status and automatically switch the designation to "In Progress" when contact is made.
Depending upon the size and nature of your sales force, you may wish to hire a CRM administrator to provide swift onsite support to your sales team. If you decide to hire a CRM administrator, be sure to craft a job description that will help you find a top candidate.
In addition to noting your preference for HubSpot Inbound and Partner Certifications, it is a good idea to note that job duties will include the following:
The HubSpot team is continually developing new tools and initiatives to help users boost efficiency and increase conversions. At the same time, HubSpot maintains a strong focus on facilitating user migration from an existing outdated CRM to HubSpot.
With these trends showing no signs of reversing, the future appears to be bright for new and existing HubSpot Sales Hub users.