Essential Technology Tool Kit

Few will argue that digital technology is now essential to a successful sales operation. But which tools do managers actually need the most? And what software do the experts recommend for large sales forces?

James Baldwin is business development manager of Irex, which sells industrial insulation. The firm has 31 branches, each with its own account manager who is a “seller-doer,” according to Baldwin. “They oversee the business.

“We are old school,” Baldwin says. “I have a basic CRM system, but I wish I had a better CRM.” He says Irex account managers are set up to use the system, but, he explains, they do not. They build relationships with prospects in the “old-fashioned” ways, at golf outings and lunches, but they also use Twitter and Facebook.

In contrast to Irex’s “traditionalists,” Baldwin likes quick response (QR) readers to read codes on marketing brochures and in advertisements. He has a QR reader on his iPhone. “I don’t have to pick up business cards, I just read the QR code,” he explains.

Irex does not use digitized lead lists, but Baldwin says its Website is very important. “It’s not just for customers but for other firms that might want to joint venture with us. They can get more information and a point of contact.”

Rich Dean is senior director of marketing and sales at Sutter Physician Services, which sells electronic health-record services to independent physician practices. With a sizable team of reps and support staff, Dean’s chief sales technology is Microsoft Dynamics CRM. He has used Salesforce in previous sales jobs and was wary of Microsoft Dynamics at first. But he has been pleased with its performance, especially the way it integrates with Outlook Calendar and other programs.

Reps use CRM to record daily activity regarding contacts, sales demonstrations, and follow-up activities. Dean knows the close ratio at each stage, so he can make solid forecasts, projections, and strategic changes. He says reps have become disciplined in using Microsoft Dynamics: “They appreciate how it keeps them honest and on plan.”

Sutter reps must demonstrate electronic health-record technology to physicians. Since doctors use tablets, laptops, and PCs, reps carry laptops for the demo, showing prospects how the technology would be used in practice. Offline, reps use these same laptops to update CRM data daily.

Lead gathering is not complex, so Dean does not use digitized lead data. He uses Microsoft Dynamics for almost all sales analytics.

Sales-operations consultant Dylan Gray says Salesforce (SFDC) is the number one platform for managing sales, having used it for 70 deployments with user counts up to 3,500 per firm. He recommends these add-ins, however: 1) an address tool to ensure that all contact information on countries, states, and zip codes is accurate; 2) Super Unfollow Buttons for SFDC Chatter and Chatter’s Unfollow Rules, so that, when a deal closes, these tools automatically remove it from the flow; 3) Miller Heiman’s Blue Sheet for strategic selling and Gold Sheet plug-in for SFDC, which aids account planning; 4) EchoSign and DocuSign for obtaining electronic signatures; and 5) Data.com. When linked to D&B’s database, Data.com cleans and updates data, as well as fills in what’s missing, and it finds contacts for lead lists.

SalesClic is also useful. It uses smart metrics to increase forecast accuracy using historical win rates. If a rep predicts that a just-qualified deal will close in the next quarter but has never closed a deal for this product at this stage within, say, nine months, SalesClic flags it as high risk.

DupeBlocker, another complement to SFDC tools, prevents entry of duplicate leads in real time. Gray also likes the vCard feature in Microsoft Outlook, which enables one-click contact entry.

On personal devices, Gray thinks Microsoft’s new Surface Pro tablet could be a winner. He says, “It has all the capabilities of a laptop, so you don’t lose anything you can run on a laptop. But it is light and portable, unlike a laptop. It can plug into HDMI devices, such as projectors, so you can show presentations on screens. And it has a keyboard and mouse, [which are] familiar to users.”

Gray acknowledges that reps increasingly do not want to drag laptops around, but smartphone screens are too small for displaying information. “Tablets are the answer,” he explains, “but Samsung tablets and iPads are not full Windows PCs, and major corporations require reps to use Windows. Now a tool exists to satisfy reps’ real needs.”

Gray also suggests Dragon software. For use on iPhones and iPads, it allows reps to dictate meeting notes, which the software will translate into text.

The consultant says he has not seen much compensation software used. One reason for this is that sales compensation is not as “clean and formal as you might imagine.” Many firms get comp data from accounting but then apply some subjective adjustments, so they are not willing to code the comp plan into their software.

He is, however, a big fan of Concur’s expense-management application: “Expenses are the bane of a sales rep’s life.” Concur reads credit card statements, “and then,” Gray continues, “you validate and check them. [Concur] is very popular.”

For reps who do some email marketing, Gray says iContact strikes a nice balance between simplicity and ease of use on one hand and functionality on the other.

Gray says that, for sales analytics, SFDC yields only “101 sales reporting.” If managers want to pull data from accounting and enterprise resource planning systems for more sophisticated analysis, he likes QlikView.

“It’s very powerful,” says Gray. “It can pull data from multiple places in accounting and sales and do very sophisticated manipulations and calculations.” For example, managers often want to see what deals have changed between two full, consecutive months. SFDC cannot aggregate that data very well, but QlikView can. And the specialized tool can also produce much more sophisticated, interactive dashboards than SFDC.

As for social media – a must for today’s competitive sales teams – Gray says, “LinkedIn is no doubt very powerful for anyone in B2B. It’s the fastest way to get to know someone you have never met. LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator is well worth it.”

For an enterprise-size sales force, Gray’s tool kit sounds reasonable.

Maintain Your Sales Machine with These Useful Tools

Salesforce: the premier CRM system for sales forces (www.salesforce.com)
Silverpop: a leading marketing-automation application (www.silverpop.com)
Xactly: top-line sales compensation software (www.xactlycorp.com)
LinkedIn Sales Navigator: premium service for reps using this top professional social media (www.linkedin.com)
OneSource iSell: a superb database of business intelligence (www.onesource.com/iSell.aspx)
SAVO: integrated sales enablement for smartphones, tablets, and other devices (www.savogroup.com)
Qvidian: proposal, RFP, and sales-effectiveness automation software (www.qvidian.com)
Hoopla: a real-time leaderboard application to motivate performance (http://hoopla.net)
DocuSign: electronic signatures made easy for buyers and reps (www.docusign.com)
Anaplan: planning and performance management of sales and other departments (www.anaplan.com)