Miller Heiman -> CardScan -> Outlook -> Prophet 5 CRM for Outlook.
The perfect combination of sales tools for any successful business.
By Riccardo Tenaglia.
It is strange how it takes a visit with a customer to help you realise how important some of the simplest sales processes are to your business. Little things that you take for granted in the way that you work. I have been running my own business for the past three years. A business started from scratch. I make as much time as I can available to my customers which means my time away from customers and what I do in this time extremely important and crucial to the success of my business.
First let me tell you some of the critical things that I do and then I will explain in context why each of these seemingly trivial tasks is so critical to the success of my business.
On any given day I get back to the office either between customer visits or at the end of the day, I plug in my CardScan scanner and I scan the business cards I have collected immediately into my CardScan database with the appropriate category and time stamped customer notes. This database synchronizes immediately with my chosen Outlook contacts file (standard feature that you setup with a step by step wizard). In turn my Outlook contacts folder synchronizes with my Prophet 5 CRM which sits inside Outlook. Once all my contacts are in and verified I then open the contacts in Outlook and I use the contact to either create an opportunity in Prophet 5 or link the contact to an opportunity that is already created. Once the contacts are in and the opportunity is sorted I then open the opportunity and update the associated Miller Heiman Blue or Gold sheet revising either the contacts importance, their position relative to the opportunity or account and any other information that may need to be adjusted as a result of my customer visit.
Only between customer visits or at the end of a busy day with between five and ten business cards in hand do you have the opportunity to turn all your hard work and effort into something that is meaningful to your business. I see it every day with customers. It is so easy to dump the business cards on the desk and move on to "that squeaky wheel". It is what goes on at the end of the day or between customer visits that makes or breaks most businesses.
Let me share some of these sales processes that are an integral part of my business and let me explain why they are so crucial. Why "not approaching" the sales process in a methodical and disciplined manner is like tossing your hard earned money out the window.
In the past when I have worked for large organisations and when you run the numbers on your salary, car, phone, office space etc and you divide this number by the total number of actual customer visits/calls you make it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that a single sales call can cost hundreds of dollars. Just the act of getting a sales person in front of a customer counting all these costs plus the associated cost of the "marketing engine" that has delivered you to that point is daunting when you put it in terms of simple dollars per sales call.
For this reason discipline and a sound approach to selling and sales processes is critical. Whilst I appreciate various sales people use different sales tools, software products and methodologies the elements are primarily the same.
1. Develop a strategy both short and long term which is aligned with the overall company objectives.
2. Execute the strategy.
3. Manage the opportunities the strategy creates through the sales process.
4. Discuss and Document the results of your efforts to execute the strategy.
5. Assess and refine the strategy at pre determined intervals that make sense to your business and the importance of your strategy.
For my business these five elements when applied in an everyday business environment need to be simple, practical and realistic.
Miller Heiman
I have been fortunate in that I have the luxury of using two important Miller Heiman tools for developing my long and short term strategies. Fortunate and luxury are two words that sum up my appreciation for Miller Heiman and what it has done for my career and my business. I use Blue Sheets (Strategic Opportunity Management) for the short term/localized opportunities that are too complex to manage effectively in my head (typically opportunities that are above a certain price point or value) and for larger strategic accounts that are identified as important long term business partners I use Gold Sheets.
Yes, Miller Heiman can be pricy but in my experience the investment pays for itself a number of times over. It turns an enthusiastic sales guy with boundless energy (Cowboy) into a disciplined trained athlete. It's like military service for a misguided adolescent. That said there is no reason why an experienced business owner who understands his business and the typical sales processes could not spend the time to document and create his own opportunity and account management templates. What is important is that whatever template you choose it needs to be simpe, easy to understand and in a single document it needs to be able to capture all the essential elements needed to quickly assess where you are at with an opportunity or an account and where you are going. If you need a hand with this process drop me a line I would be happy to help or share my thoughts. rt@abditech.com
CardScan
Once the strategy side of the process is sorted then you need to sort out the execution, that is where CardScan comes in. It is clean simple and fast and it addresses one of the largest known hurdles to CRM adoption and use, entering contact information into the actual CRM. Most sales individuals see the value of updating their contact database because it is their lifeblood to good communication with clients. The trick is to remove the hurdle or barrier to getting that same contact information simultaneously into your CRM without re-keying or a complicated process.
Prophet 5 for Outlook by Avidian
Phones these days can store 2000+ contacts and they are easy to synch with Outlook which for now is the default mail and contact database for most businesses. The next trick to streamline the sales process and embed the necessary discipline is to make the act of creating an opportunity simple and a natural extension of contact management. Creating a CRM opportunity is fundamental to tracking, reporting, follow ups, storing associated email communication, appointments, tasks etc. Whilst these CRM features are part of Outlook. If you have used them you will understand when I say that Outlook manages these in a disparate way. Outlook treats contacts, appointments, emails, tasks, notes as separate items with poor grouping, association and relationships between them. For this reason and after a couple of years of searching we found Prophet 5 CRM for Outlook from Avidian and we now swear by it as our sales CRM tool. It is like a management tool for Outlook for businesses whether the business is a single person through to a large user with Outlook Exchange and a large team of sales people.
In summary to be successful in business you need to be actively addressing the following fundamentals, developing a strategy, executing the strategy, managing the created opportunities, discuss document and refine your strategy. For my business the tools we have found to be the perfect combination of tools to manage these fundamentals are Miller Heiman, CardScan, Outlook and Prophet 5 for Outlook by Avidian. Whatever business practices / tools you choose to use they need to be simple and practical to be successfully adopted. It is the process and discipline around customers and customer opportunities that will make the difference between success and failure.
Let me know what tools you have found to enhance your business processes. I look forward to your feedback.
The perfect combination of sales tools for any successful business.
By Riccardo Tenaglia.
It is strange how it takes a visit with a customer to help you realise how important some of the simplest sales processes are to your business. Little things that you take for granted in the way that you work. I have been running my own business for the past three years. A business started from scratch. I make as much time as I can available to my customers which means my time away from customers and what I do in this time extremely important and crucial to the success of my business.
First let me tell you some of the critical things that I do and then I will explain in context why each of these seemingly trivial tasks is so critical to the success of my business.
On any given day I get back to the office either between customer visits or at the end of the day, I plug in my CardScan scanner and I scan the business cards I have collected immediately into my CardScan database with the appropriate category and time stamped customer notes. This database synchronizes immediately with my chosen Outlook contacts file (standard feature that you setup with a step by step wizard). In turn my Outlook contacts folder synchronizes with my Prophet 5 CRM which sits inside Outlook. Once all my contacts are in and verified I then open the contacts in Outlook and I use the contact to either create an opportunity in Prophet 5 or link the contact to an opportunity that is already created. Once the contacts are in and the opportunity is sorted I then open the opportunity and update the associated Miller Heiman Blue or Gold sheet revising either the contacts importance, their position relative to the opportunity or account and any other information that may need to be adjusted as a result of my customer visit.
Only between customer visits or at the end of a busy day with between five and ten business cards in hand do you have the opportunity to turn all your hard work and effort into something that is meaningful to your business. I see it every day with customers. It is so easy to dump the business cards on the desk and move on to "that squeaky wheel". It is what goes on at the end of the day or between customer visits that makes or breaks most businesses.
Let me share some of these sales processes that are an integral part of my business and let me explain why they are so crucial. Why "not approaching" the sales process in a methodical and disciplined manner is like tossing your hard earned money out the window.
In the past when I have worked for large organisations and when you run the numbers on your salary, car, phone, office space etc and you divide this number by the total number of actual customer visits/calls you make it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that a single sales call can cost hundreds of dollars. Just the act of getting a sales person in front of a customer counting all these costs plus the associated cost of the "marketing engine" that has delivered you to that point is daunting when you put it in terms of simple dollars per sales call.
For this reason discipline and a sound approach to selling and sales processes is critical. Whilst I appreciate various sales people use different sales tools, software products and methodologies the elements are primarily the same.
1. Develop a strategy both short and long term which is aligned with the overall company objectives.
2. Execute the strategy.
3. Manage the opportunities the strategy creates through the sales process.
4. Discuss and Document the results of your efforts to execute the strategy.
5. Assess and refine the strategy at pre determined intervals that make sense to your business and the importance of your strategy.
For my business these five elements when applied in an everyday business environment need to be simple, practical and realistic.
Miller Heiman
I have been fortunate in that I have the luxury of using two important Miller Heiman tools for developing my long and short term strategies. Fortunate and luxury are two words that sum up my appreciation for Miller Heiman and what it has done for my career and my business. I use Blue Sheets (Strategic Opportunity Management) for the short term/localized opportunities that are too complex to manage effectively in my head (typically opportunities that are above a certain price point or value) and for larger strategic accounts that are identified as important long term business partners I use Gold Sheets.
Yes, Miller Heiman can be pricy but in my experience the investment pays for itself a number of times over. It turns an enthusiastic sales guy with boundless energy (Cowboy) into a disciplined trained athlete. It's like military service for a misguided adolescent. That said there is no reason why an experienced business owner who understands his business and the typical sales processes could not spend the time to document and create his own opportunity and account management templates. What is important is that whatever template you choose it needs to be simpe, easy to understand and in a single document it needs to be able to capture all the essential elements needed to quickly assess where you are at with an opportunity or an account and where you are going. If you need a hand with this process drop me a line I would be happy to help or share my thoughts. rt@abditech.com
CardScan
Once the strategy side of the process is sorted then you need to sort out the execution, that is where CardScan comes in. It is clean simple and fast and it addresses one of the largest known hurdles to CRM adoption and use, entering contact information into the actual CRM. Most sales individuals see the value of updating their contact database because it is their lifeblood to good communication with clients. The trick is to remove the hurdle or barrier to getting that same contact information simultaneously into your CRM without re-keying or a complicated process.
Prophet 5 for Outlook by Avidian
Phones these days can store 2000+ contacts and they are easy to synch with Outlook which for now is the default mail and contact database for most businesses. The next trick to streamline the sales process and embed the necessary discipline is to make the act of creating an opportunity simple and a natural extension of contact management. Creating a CRM opportunity is fundamental to tracking, reporting, follow ups, storing associated email communication, appointments, tasks etc. Whilst these CRM features are part of Outlook. If you have used them you will understand when I say that Outlook manages these in a disparate way. Outlook treats contacts, appointments, emails, tasks, notes as separate items with poor grouping, association and relationships between them. For this reason and after a couple of years of searching we found Prophet 5 CRM for Outlook from Avidian and we now swear by it as our sales CRM tool. It is like a management tool for Outlook for businesses whether the business is a single person through to a large user with Outlook Exchange and a large team of sales people.
In summary to be successful in business you need to be actively addressing the following fundamentals, developing a strategy, executing the strategy, managing the created opportunities, discuss document and refine your strategy. For my business the tools we have found to be the perfect combination of tools to manage these fundamentals are Miller Heiman, CardScan, Outlook and Prophet 5 for Outlook by Avidian. Whatever business practices / tools you choose to use they need to be simple and practical to be successfully adopted. It is the process and discipline around customers and customer opportunities that will make the difference between success and failure.
Let me know what tools you have found to enhance your business processes. I look forward to your feedback.
