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Avoid Turf Wars Between Your Sales & Marketing Departments

As a business owner, you just want to achieve your goals. Increasing sales revenue, expanding the number of inbound web leads, and maintaining strong customer satisfaction are a few of your top priorities.

To support these initiatives, you’ve invested in your sales and marketing operations. In fact, you’ve even established separate teams to focus on each function.

In theory, sales and marketing seem like interchangeable disciplines. In practice, these two departments can sometimes have less in common than human resources and IT. For these reasons, entrepreneurs are often surprised by the headaches associated with business development efforts.

In this post, we’ll explore why sales and marketing don’t always mesh – and, what to do about it.

(Disclaimer: This article is written by someone who is more of a marketer than a sales guy, although I have done both. Sales professionals – please excuse any unintentional bias!)

Understand Common Friction Points

Most disagreements can be traced back to some type of misunderstanding.

This is certainly true when it comes to your sales and marketing teams. All things being equal, both departments want what is best for the company. The path to victory, however, is usually where wires get crossed.

Stop and think about the various times conflict has developed among team members. Do you see a common thread? If you’re like most businesses, the following friction points have led to at least a few undesirable outcomes.

Personality types: There are exceptions to every rule, but salespeople are often known to have hard-driving, Type A personalities. There’s rarely a situation that a good sales rep can’t handle. Marketing staff, while also highly motivated, tend to be more analytical and methodical. When presented with a challenge, a marketer will likely ask for the opportunity to review metrics and follow up.

Misaligned goals: Marketers are usually salary-based or hourly. An occasional bonus may be possible, but the majority of their income is predetermined. Conversely, sales reps are usually incentivized by their performance against a quota. I’ve seen situations where marketers grow jealous of the commissions earned by sales staff. Likewise, I know sales reps who consider marketing’s efforts to be a bloated waste of money.

Work patterns: Salespeople can have crazy work schedules. All-day meetings, weekend text messages from clients, and early morning networking events are quite common. Marketing staff tend to have more predictable (“office hour”) schedules. If you’re not careful, this dichotomy could create serious resentment within your organization. Salespeople begin to feel underappreciated, while marketers feel out of the loop.

Communication styles: If allowed, a marketer (especially a content marketer) could use three paragraphs to get a single point across. A sales rep, on the other hand, might not even use a complete sentence.

Key Performance Indicators: Sales reps like leads, but they love closed deals more. Marketers also love closed deals, but they usually spend more time thinking about lead generation. As a result, some members of your marketing staff may rarely (if ever) come into contact with a paying customer.

Terminology: Given your marketing team’s laser focus on lead generation, they’ll probably advocate for a very liberal interpretation of the word “lead.” Demo requests, whitepaper downloads, newsletter subscribers, social media followers – where will you draw the line? Your sales team would probably tell you to only count those that ask for a proposal. You can see where this is headed…

Make Known Your Vision

Here’s the good news – as the business owner, you’re still in charge of the situation. That is, if you choose to take control.

What should you do to reduce the inter-departmental friction? For starters, consider dusting off that vision statement you created a few years ago. If you’ve never bothered to create one, perhaps now is as good a time as any. Starting with the “big picture” allows you to create a central theme for all departments to look toward.

Not feeling creative? Allow me to provide a few simple vision statement examples. Remember, a vision statement is forward-facing and somewhat lofty in nature. If tasked with creating vision statements for the following business types, I might recommend something like:

Software company serving pet food stores:

“Making it easier for pets to be fed.”

Tire retailer serving Kansas truck dealers:

“Keeping Kansas truckers rolling longer – for less money.”

Physician’s office in Boise:

“Striving to improve Boise’s standard of living.”

With your overall vision well-understood, it may be worthwhile to then develop department-specific vision statements. Of course, each department should model its statement to support the company-wide goals. Depending on your management style, it may be best to let department leaders formulate their own recommendations. Or, if you’re a more hands-on owner, you might just share your thoughts on how each department can best support the company’s vision. Either way, invest time exploring how sales and marketing should coordinate their efforts individually and collaboratively to achieve the greater good.

Get Buy In for Each Other’s Value

With the touchy-feely stuff behind you, another worthwhile exercise can be to directly ask for input on how the other department can support the greater mission.

To get things going, you might ask your sales manager questions like these:

  • What can marketing do to make your job easier?
  • Is there certain collateral that can be developed to help close more deals?
  • In what ways do competitors beat us from a branding standpoint?
  • Which types of web leads generate the warmest opportunities?
  • Which types of leads are a total waste of your time to pursue?
  • How can marketing enhance your cross-selling initiatives?
  • Are there automated email campaigns that could streamline sales?
  • What does the marketing department do that really annoys you?
  • From your perspective, how can we improve the value of our marketing efforts?

Ask your marketing manager these questions:

  • How can our sales team make your job easier?
  • Is there any information that sales could provide to enhance our marketing?
  • Would it help if you could communicate directly with customers?
  • Are there any sales metrics that would be useful when making marketing decisions?
  • What ideas do you have for streamlining sales efforts through marketing?
  • In what ways (if any) do you feel out of the loop?
  • What does the sales department do that really annoys you?
  • What can we do to improve our sales efforts?

Asking these types of questions might generate some initial discomfort with your staff. However, after the initial surprise passes, you may uncover some very valuable findings.

Foster Regular, Open Communication

Aside from the occasional company party, how often are key decision makers from your sales and marketing in the same meetings?

No one likes extra meetings. As the owner of the business, your calendar is already jam-packed. However, a monthly sales and marketing meeting might be a wise investment as you attempt to align resources.

What should be on the agenda for this standing meeting? Don’t spend too much time worrying about the formalities. The main point is to get both groups talking, sharing ideas, and discussing mutually beneficial tactics. To increase engagement, you might try covering these basic topics.

  1. Marketing update – a quick update on what marketing is working on and has completed
  2. Sales update – a brief summary of notable deals won and in the pipeline
  3. Discussion – plan on a specific topic for each meeting, such as a new initiative (for example, coordinating a webinar)
  4. New ideas – open the floor to anyone with new ideas, specifically those that relate to both sales and marketing

The first meeting may not go exactly as you planned. It can take a while for people to warm up to this type of forum. However, if you stick to it, you’re likely to build new synergies between formerly isolated departments. You’ll probably also come across some of your best business development ideas, thanks to the creative genius of your team.

Continuously Look for Mutually Beneficial Goals

Webinars are a perfect example of mutually beneficial endeavors for sales and marketing teams. From a marketing perspective, webinars are a great way to generate buzz on social media and through email. Buzz usually culminates in the form of clicks and goal completions, which makes marketers happy. From a sales perspective, your reps will appreciate the opportunity to showcase products and services to the masses, rather than doing individual discussions. The net result? Both departments are happy.

Aside from webinars, what other types of projects can both teams get excited about? Seek out projects that involve not only cross-functional input but actually require collaboration. Here are a few to consider:

  • Case studies are great for building collaboration. Case studies ease the sales cycle, while simultaneously generating online interest. Sales and marketing must work together to schedule client interviews, follow up on action items, and gain final sign off.
  • Competitive intelligence projects combine the unique skills from both departments. Marketing can own the tracking documentation and online research, while your sales staff can provide reports from what they hear in the field.
  • Effective nurture sequences require both content marketing and sales know-how. For example, you might develop a drip campaign for leads stuck in the pipeline. Sales staff can help formulate the timing and general messaging. Marketers can craft the final copy and implement into your marketing automation software.
  • Developing sales collateral also requires a team effort. The marketing team can make it look and sound nice, but the core message must be cultivated by your team on the ground.
  • Defining (or refining) your buyer personas is a task dependent on multiple perspectives. A sales rep can usually rattle off several “typical” buyers he or she deals with. However, this may not be consistent across an entire sales organization, which could serve a variety of industries and geographic regions. Marketing can play an instrumental role in aggregating all of the feedback and synthesizing it into something meaningful.

Create Accountability with Technology

Finally, it’s important to leverage your existing technology and ensure your staff commits to the newly formed departmental alliance. Your team is busy, which means without the right tools, they may fall back into old habits.

Here are a few suggestions for creating accountability.

Calendar invitation: Once you’ve defined a reasonable meeting cadence, send a recurring calendar invite to all participants. It’s better to have that time blocked out several weeks in advance, rather than coordinating a last-minute meeting. As the meeting approaches, your team will automatically receive an email reminder, which is one less thing you’ll have to coordinate. For good housekeeping, consider linking the invitation to a shared meeting agenda document. Also be sure to include dial in (or web conference) details.

CRM: If your cross-functional team plans to review metrics regularly, your CRM is a great place to start. Insightly users gain access to a number of prebuilt and customizable reports that could prove very useful for marketers and sales reps alike. For example, discussing sales revenue by lead source would help both groups refine their efforts.

Marketing analytics software: In addition to reviewing CRM data, consider pulling a few metrics from your marketing analytics package. For example, reviewing which landing pages generate the most leads could help the group identify new conversion-friendly content.

Project management system: After each meeting, there are usually many follow-up items to work on. Make sure tasks are promptly assigned to individual team members with clearly defined due dates. (If you’re already using Insightly, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know you can manage tasks within the app. Click here to learn more about project management in Insightly.) Appoint a project-minded person to circle back and ensure all tasks are completed prior to the next discussion.

Stop the Constant Battle Between Sales & Marketing

Your team is counting on your leadership.

As with anything else worth doing, healing the divide may not be the easiest goal to accomplish. Just keep it simple and take a step-by-step approach. Start by understanding the common points of conflict and continuously encourage open communication. Then, align a portion of your resources around mutually beneficial projects.

In doing so, you’ll grow one step closer to less division – and greater productivity.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.

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CRM for All: Nonprofits

Nonprofits work to serve veritable causes, but they function the same way a business does: through a mix of relationships with customers, resource management and careful planning. As a result, nonprofits aim for many of the same organizational goals as a small business while operating with limited resources and always keeping sight of an overall goal.

For the same reason CRM systems can help small businesses succeed, they can help accelerate and grow nonprofit organizations. Below are four examples of nonprofits using CRM to better maintain customer relationships, grow their contacts and expand their influence around the world:

BECA.org: The BECA.org foundation identifies promising students in Nicaragua and facilitates technical scholarships to further their education. A CRM system proved to be the solution the organization needed to keep track of students and alumni involved with the program as it grew each year. Staff members are able to track each student’s complete history of work, and in turn, offer students personalized support as they apply, engage with, complete and move beyond the BECA program.

BNCC: The British-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce promotes trade and business between the U.K. and Norway, and as its relationships grew (via an expanding stack of business cards) organization needed a solution to help track contact and user details. CRM gives the BNCC team the ability to record membership information and discussions with new contacts, as well as plan tasks and execute events.

Farm Radio International: What does farming and radio broadcasting have in common? For Farm Radio International, the answer is “everything.” The Canada-based nonprofit works with more than 400 radio broadcasters in 38 African countries to reach and educate farmers about practices and technologies that can improve their productivity and boost incomes. Using a CRM system helps the nonprofit manage projects, integrate emails and track conversations with contacts – and within three years of adopting CRM, the nonprofit went from having three projects to managing 25 at once.

Social Impact Studios: Rather than a service-based organization, Social Impact Studios is a creative hub that works with nonprofits and social enterprises to promote social issues through artistry and activism. Since the organization’s work is mission-driven, it needs to manage approximately 40 projects at a time while maintaining relationships with clients and contacts. A CRM helped reduce the nonprofit’s organizational overhead by 20 percent.

Learn how a CRM can accelerate your organization today.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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Get More Value From Your CRM With Workflows

When it comes to the customer relationship management systems we implement at clients, most use it at a college level.  They’re following up with contacts, relying on a few good reports, doing some marketing, managing their opportunities.  That’s all good.  However, we do have a handful of clients who are using their CRM systems at a graduate school level.  These are the people who are really maximizing the value of their investment.  These are the people who are using workflows.

Different applications have different names for their automation tools.  But most, like Insightly, call them workflows.  By getting proficient at setting up workflows you can tune your CRM system to run at its most productive level – and use it to automate tasks and ensure that things are always getting done regardless of whether you remember to do them.  Workflows are the core building blocks of an infrastructure built on processes and procedures.  They are an essential part of a company’s value and a key indicator of sound business management.  If you want your CRM system to run on a graduate school level you should be using workflows.  To get started, here are three that I recommend.

Workflow 1:  Website Visitor

When someone visits your website you want to have your CRM system configured to either receive that visitor’s data or get an email notifying you of their visit.  When the information is received, a workflow process should be designed to look at information and assign a task to someone in that visitor’s region to email or call to follow-up.  An automated email can be sent with attached product information if requested. If the task hasn’t been completed a manager is notified.  This way every website visitor is pursued.

Workflow 2:  Trade shows

So many of us spend inordinate amounts of money on a trade show and then don’t do enough follow-up.  Workflows can fix this problem.  When you return from that next trade show, make sure you’ve got the contact information for everyone who visited your booth (most shows provide this) on a spreadsheet.  Import that spreadsheet and then launch a workflow to assign those leads to the right salesperson based on region, specialty or product line.  Let the workflow automatically send a thank you email to the prospect and then assign a follow-up for the salesperson.  If no action is taken, ensure that a manager is notified.  Depending on the action taken (email reply, etc.) branch off to other processes, like sending product details or adding to a future mailing list.  Even if someone is not interested in your products right now, they could be in the future – even years from now.  So what are you doing to make sure you’re staying in touch with them?  A good workflow will address this need.

Workflow 3:  Lost customers

Every month my CRM system runs an overnight workflow that scans my database and looks for contacts with a “customer” in their Contact Type field and then checks their history to make sure that the customer either had a phone call or an onsite visit within in the past six months.  If neither occurred, I get an email notifying me.  This way I can be aware of any customers who may have inadvertently fell through the cracks. It’s happened to me before and I’ve learned that there is nothing worse for a customer to be ignored. Oftentimes when it happens we find out too late – the customer has moved on. A good workflow can ensure this never happens again.

Setting up workflows in a good CRM application like Insightly isn’t difficult.  But let’s also admit that we’re not experts at this – we’re experts at our business.  Don’t let this stop you.  Find and hire a good consultant who’s experienced with your CRM application and pay them to create and support the workflows you need.  Sure, it may cost you a few hundred bucks.  But your return on investment will be many times that.

College is nice. But graduate school is impressive – and more valuable.  What level is your CRM system?

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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About the Author: About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com

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Is a CRM Right for Your Non-Profit Organization?

 

Is a CRM right for your non-profit organization?

For most organizations, business growth is defined by revenues won, customers served, mergers and acquisitions, and, sometimes, public market share performance. Non-profits, on the other hand, track a different kind of bottom line: funds raised, constituents served and social reach, for example.

Still, both types of organizations must plan for growth in a similar way. They initiate, nurture and grow relationships with audiences, which may include consumers, donors, volunteers or prospects. They use resources wisely and pursue goals aggressively. And, they carefully pick technology solutions that deliver the highest return for their investments.

Can CRM solutions benefit non-profit organizations in the same way they serve small businesses? Recently, Insightly surveyed 248 non-profit professionals to learn how they use CRM for to manage projects, grow contacts and expand influence to further their missions. If you’re wondering if a CRM is right for you, consider the below findings from the survey:

  • Issues with organizing information are the No. 1 donor management problem for non-profit organizations.
  • More than half of survey respondents said a CRM helped raise their productivity between 10 and 49 percent. One-third of respondents saw a productivity bump of more than 50 percent.
  • Non-profits must close deals to bring in revenue to support their missions – and managing those client relationships is a primary function for a CRM system.
  • CRM systems increased efficiency and efficacy of donor management for the majority of survey respondents, which helped encourage new donor contributions as well.
  • Nearly 60 percent of non-profits surveyed saw a return on their CRM investment within three months of implementing the solution.

Any new solution adopted by a non-profit shouldn’t simply aim to improve how the business runs – it should help run it better, so the organization’s reach within its community can grow. Learn more about how non-profits find success with CRMs by downloading our e-book: “Increase donations and give back more: How non-profits use CRM to fulfill their missions.”

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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3 Powerful Tips To Get Your People Using Your CRM System

My company has implemented hundreds of powerful customer relationship management (CRM) systems over the years and, without question, the number one obstacle that our clients have faced has been getting people, especially their salespeople, to use their system.  Some companies don’t consider CRM systems to be “mission critical” like accounting, inventory or payroll systems so the level of urgency is not the same.  Those are the companies that generally fail with CRM.  The ones that succeed adopt CRM as culture and know that having a great CRM database will improve their company’s value and profitability.

But the reality is that a CRM system is just a database and to have a great database you have to do the work – more work then maybe before.  The benefits are substantial, but it takes a while before some people see them.  So you have to figure out a way to get your sales and service people using the system, particularly during the first few months, or things can quickly derail.  So how do you get them doing this?  Here are three simple, yet powerful tricks I learned from smart clients.   They all worked.

The Voicemail Trick

Not all salespeople are technical.  But that doesn’t mean they’re not good salespeople.  The last thing you want to happen is your CRM system getting in the way of them making sales. One of my clients, a distributor of delicatessen meats, had this problem. Their salespeople were old school and tech-averse. But management needed to know their activities.  The solution? A compromise.  Management set up a company voicemail and told their salespeople who didn’t like doing data entry to “call-in” their activities every day and…just leave a message.  A high school kid was hired to listen to the messages each evening and update the database.  That way the salespeople could focus more on selling and management still got the information they needed in their CRM system.

The Lead Trick

Ask any salesperson what’s most important to their livelihood and they’ll tell you it’s leads. “Give me a lead and I’ll close the deal,” a salesperson at one client told me. OK, that’s a little over-optimistic.  But the truth is that a good marketing person will generate leads and a good salesperson will take those leads and sell.  A good manager?  She’ll make sure those leads only get distributed through her company’s CRM system.  That way salespeople are forced to go into the CRM system to get those leads and provide the necessary data to get credit for the sale. The way to any good salesperson’s stomach is through his wallet – so start putting leads into your CRM system and watch him go there to get his meals.

The Alert Trick

All good CRM systems, like Insightly, enable their users to setup alerts and reminders so that appointments and tasks aren’t forgotten and nothing falls through the cracks.  But alerts can do much more.  Alerts can ensure that your salespeople are fully using your CRM system.  Say you’re a sales manager and you’re getting alerts sent to you every hour because one of your salespersons isn’t following up on a lead, completing an activity or returning phone calls on time?  What if you’re getting an alert because that same salesperson isn’t updating crucial status fields on a timely basis or even logged into the system in 24 hours?  You’re trying to run a sales group, you’ve invested in a CRM system, and this clown isn’t even using it? Kind of annoying, isn’t it?  Yes it is.  It’s also kind of career-limiting for your salesperson, if you get my drift.

Will either of these three tricks solve the problem of getting your people using your CRM system?  Yes…as long as their complemented by one other thing:  you.  As the executive, manager or business owner in charge of the system you’ve got to be the one to put your foot down and stand behind it.  You’ve got to be the person who declares that your CRM system is every bit as important as your accounting or inventory system and that, in the words of one client of mine “if it’s not in the system it doesn’t exist!” In the end, it’s your system and your investment.  You’ll only get out of it what you put into it.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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Gene_Marksx160About the Author: About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com

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Business Tools We Love (And Recommend)

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Every business needs a little help to run smoothly and efficiently. And while Insightly’s CRM is one of the best tools to help you keep track of everything, there are several others that come in handy. Many of the tools in this list integrate with Insightly, to save you time and effort.

QuickBooks

Accounting can be a nightmare, and if you’re a small business, chances are you don’t have an accountant on staff to help. QuickBooks helps you manage income and expenses to make tax time easier. If you’re not already using another platform to handle your expense billing and sales invoicing, you can use QuickBooks to handle that, too. Not only does it integrate with our CRM, it also works with TurboTax to help at the end of the year when it’s time to send out W-2s and 1099s to employees and contractors.

Dropbox

Cloud storage provides a backup copy of important files, but also makes files accessible from anywhere there’s an internet connection. Dropbox offers both free and paid accounts. You can choose the one that best fits your business and upgrade accordingly as your business grows. Plus, integration with Insightly allows you to link files in Dropbox to contacts, organizations, opportunities, and projects to simplify your workflow.

DocuSign

Whether you need clients to sign contracts, or just want to simplify the employee onboarding process, DocuSign provides a quick, easy, and secure platform to handle all of this digitally. No need to waste time emailing, faxing, or mailing back signed copies. Send documents to clients in seconds and get electronically signed copies back in no time from desktops or mobile devices. Once documents are prepared, you can create workflows that work best for your business to help you automate as much of the process as possible.

Zapier

Zapier is an automation tool that cuts down on repetitive, tedious, time-sucking tasks. While it will take some time to set up your zaps, or actions, it’s a set and forget situation. Zapier works with more than 600 apps, including Insightly, and can do a number of things such as:

  • Create Insightly contacts from Google Contacts, MailChimp subscribers, Gmail emails, and more.
  • Capture form submissions and send them directly to Insightly as contacts
  • Send Insightly tasks to other project management platforms like Trello, Todoist, and Asana
  • Help you manage social media
  • Help you manage your mailing lists

With Zapier, it’s also possible to delay workflows, so you can automatically send follow-up emails to new contacts, or get tasks notifications on due dates. It’s also possible to schedule your automated task creation so you don’t have to worry about making time to do certain chores on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Microsoft Power BI

Reporting is a necessary part of business, but it can be painstaking to spend hours putting the reports together. With Microsoft Power BI, you can expand on the existing reporting tools in Insightly without having to manually transfer or copy and paste data from Insightly to Microsoft. The free reporting tool allows you to analyze and visualize data from your CRM to make it easy to generate reports. Once the reports are generated, they can easily be shared with anyone else in your organization. Records you see in Insightly are also visible in Power BI, so you can create any number of reports to help keep you on track to reach your business goals.

UserTesting

Understanding the user experience is critical for anyone in eCommerce or online marketing. With UserTesting, you have everything you need to find out what your website users are doing and thinking when they visit your website. This platform allows you to see videos of actual users giving you feedback as they use your website, mobile app, or even a prototype of a new web-based product/service. Investing in user experience testing can help you validate decisions at any point through design and development, allow you to influence stakeholders to justify user experience improvements, and develop more effective, targeted products.

A business is only as strong as the team behind it, and when a team is running themselves ragged focusing on minute details of operation, they can’t focus on the big picture. Invest in these tools to streamline everything, and use that extra time to focus on other key areas like product development and customer service.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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6 Ways Technology is Redefining Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry has been among the slowest to adopt new technology, for a variety of reasons. It’s often costly and complex to implement, and the return on investment can take years to see. However, as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow and manufacturing begins to embrace it along with other technology, we’re seeing the many benefits come into play.

Improving Safety

The IoT, along with other technologies, can automate tasks in particularly hazardous areas, such as in underground mining. Mining company Rio Tinto is working on automating the process as part of its Mine of the Future Program.

Reducing Waste

With the IoT, it’s possible to make adjustments to the supply chain to reduce waste. Through the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID), it’s possible for a company to track inventory completely wirelessly. In the end, this would allow goods to be produced just in time to be sold, avoiding waste of unnecessary inventory, and reducing the need for storage facilities to hold excess inventory. Clothing retailer Zara is already embracing the RFID trend.

Better Quality Assurance

In the past, manufacturing has been focused on reactive quality – dealing with mistakes in the form of product recalls after the fact. Now, the IoT makes it possible to keep quality proactive – fixing issues as they come along, before the product makes it in the hands of the end user. This saves time and money by curbing the amount of rework that must be done and reducing rejection rates.

Changing to an Outcome-Based Pricing Model

All over the economy, we’re seeing a transition to results-based models, This is especially true the case in the healthcare system. Some experts say we’re starting to see the death of billable hours. In manufacturing, many companies are making the switch, too. For example, Spanish rail company Renfe has partnered with Siemens in a performance-based contract. Siemens developed the train monitoring technology that helps keep trains on time 99.9% of the time. And when they’re not, passengers are reimbursed for any delays that exceed 15 minutes.

Expanded Roles

Manufacturers are expanding into wider roles as technology grows. Popular tractor manufacturer John Deere is expanding into partnering with farms. They are creating farm-state-sensing technology to help with crop assurance. Farm sensors and software make it possible to grow more food with less water. Sensors keep machines running smoothly and send information wirelessly to your computer or smartphone. They can also help keep track of everything from temperature to wind speed to keep crops healthy.

Improved Efficiency

The IoT is helping manufacturing to improve efficiency, increase production machinery uptime, reduce the time to market, and provide better insights into buyer behavior. For instance, manufacturers can use a CRM to keep track of vital customer information, including buying patterns. They can see who their best customers are, and make sure they’re taking steps to keep those customers happy, while working to bring in additional customers.

As manufacturers learn more about how people are buying and when, they can adjust manufacturing accordingly – keeping inventory levels exactly where they need to be for greater profit.

The IoT allows the manufacturing industry to get on par with others that have been using it to their advantage for a while. Increased productivity and efficiency allows for better profit, while automation reduces injury risk to workers.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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Overcoming the Barriers to CRM Adoption

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So, you’ve decided to adopt a CRM! Congratulations!

Chances are, you’ve done your research, looked into your best options and are now ready to bring out your “bundle of joy” and implement this amazing, life-changing CRM into your life…

Aaaand then, what happens? Your staff becomes overwhelmed by the thought of change. They have a “who moved my cheese” moment and dig in their heels. Some people use it, but only half the office, and the rest of the office goes back to their spreadsheets and previous methods. You don’t have time to train or implement the software, and even though you’ve adopted it, you’ve left it sitting there alone, unused because you didn’t come up with a strong plan for unrolling the software.

There’s also the problem that, even though you might understand just how amazing and helpful a CRM can be, your employees are in the dark when it comes to the functionality of the software and how it can keep them in contact with your customers. Maybe they’re nervous because they don’t know how easily and seamlessly it integrates programs you’re already using. Maybe they haven’t been informed just how much of a difference a CRM can make in your life.

So, instead of fretting and stressing about this great program you’ve adopted that no one’s using, identify and overcome the barriers standing in your way. Tear down the wall, and start to get your employees on the same page so you can truly move forward with your software.

Barrier #1: Your Office Doesn’t Understand

Why do employees fear change? Because it’s unknown. It’s mysterious. They know what’s working, and how to keep their customers happy. They’re sure they have a system in place to stay on top of leads and meet every sales goal in the pipeline.

Then what happens? A flu virus sweeps into your office during the busiest month of the year, and suddenly no one knows what’s going on and you’re rousing sick, frustrated employees in their pajamas because you don’t understand their spreadsheets and their filing systems. Or worse–someone leaves your office and takes their contacts and information right out the door, and everyone’s back at square one.

Help your employees understand the value and importance of making the change to a CRM. Talk to them beforehand about your sales goals, the current battles they’re facing and what hurdles they hope to overcome. Ask them what’s important to them when it comes to managing relationships with their customers and then find a product that meets their needs. When employees feel personally invested in the product, and know they’ve had a voice in the implementation, expressed their concerns and been heard, they’ll be on board and ready to embrace your new arrival.

Barrier #2: You Failed to Plan (and Now Plan to Fail)…

So you didn’t think about your rollout, or come up with a timeline for implementing your CRM. Even more importantly, you didn’t talk about the guidelines for going forward. You went in with a “if we buy it they will come” mentality, hoping everyone would just get on board once they had access to this great software.

Oops! It’s time to get things back on track. You need to implement a timeline. Sit down with employees and look at what you have coming up in the next few months, and what you can feasibly tackle. Make a policy to use your CRM for all leads going forward, and business of the future, while you catch up on training and execution.

If employees aren’t sure about the functionality, and they’re nervous about learning new programs, have them watch some tutorials and take time out of their busy schedules to really learn the program. It may be hard to press the “hold” button right now and train everyone, but it’s not going to get any easier as you go down the road. Nip failure in the bud by coming up with a timeline now, today, and figuring out a training and implementation schedule ASAP.

Make sure you set your team up for success by training them properly and giving them a chance to try the program. Let them see how much it can actually help. Tell them about integrations with their Google Calendar, MailChimp, Quickbooks and other programs they already rely on. Once your employees are all on the same page, roll out shouldn’t be a problem.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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Are You Ready to Take Your Manufacturing into the Digital Age?

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The manufacturing industry generates more data than any other sector in the economy, but they’re lagging behind when it comes to making the transition to digital. Going to an all-digital management system can be a major undertaking, but it comes with a number of benefits. With the data manufacturers already have at hand, costs can be decreased, production time can speed up, and profits, along with customer satisfaction can increase.

German auto manufacturers are at the forefront of an industrial revolution. They have worked to digitize processes that helped bring ideas to production, as well as sales and delivery, and factory maintenance. By 2030, there is an estimated $1.4 trillion dollar gain by following their lead. The majority of the gains come as a result of better managing processes before and after production while the rest will come from the actual manufacturing process.

Digitizing Pre-Production Stages

Before a product can ever start running on the production line, a lot of work must be completed including research and development, testing, and product launch. Going digital allows the R&D team make better-informed decisions faster. Data integration and analysis makes it easier for everyone involved to work together with partners and stakeholders.

Digitizing the Supply Chain

With supply chain management software, you can get a clearer overview of the raw materials and any manufactured parts that come through the plant, allowing you to better spot potential quality control issues, saving time and money.

A CRM can help in your supply chain management. Keep track of relationships you’ve built with suppliers, distributors, and customers. If and when communication between your staff and any members of the supply chain is strained or challenged, then the supply chain is going to suffer. Use your CRM to keep track of all your contacts, and keep everyone on your team up to date with the status of each contact, allowing you to stay on top of any issues that may arise.

For instance, if a distributor calls upset that their order didn’t make it there on time, your customer service team can make a note of it in the account, so you can discount a future order. Then, you can make a note in the contact with the shipper that details how the situation was handled with them to make it right.

The integrations with other programs you’re already using, such as your accounting software, can help you with sales forecasting.

Using Smart Equipment

Connected equipment can help you keep an eye on maintenance issues, keeping the equipment running smoothly all the time, to make production go faster and produce more. Data analytics can also help you optimize factory operations to make sure you’re using equipment and staff in the best ways possible in terms of scheduling and product delivery. You’ll be able to send customer experience data directly to your product management team to forecast demand, and assist in the design and development of better products.

Though there’s a long way to go before we see industry-wide digital technology adoption, we’re now in the middle of Industry 4.0, or what many are calling the 4th industrial revolution.

 

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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