A sales executive without a CRM system is equivalent to a writer still using his typewriter!

I’ve heard so many excuses for why a sales executive doesn’t use Organizational CRM, and they range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Examples include; it’s not as good as the one I used in my previous organization, I prefer my paper based system, I have my own and will upload it to the company PC, I find it slows me down having to enter all that superfluous data into the system, and many more!

Any team member using these and other excuses should never be part of an ongoing sales effort. Having said that, there are many reasons why sales executives might be using these cover-ups and they can include; previous bad experiences suffered at the hands of unsuitable managers or even at the hands of their managers, lack of induction training, non-application of organizational tools, in rare cases a desire to keep knowledge away from the organization that employs them. You get my point, none that you want to accept in your leading Organization.

Sometimes, however, it is the unintegrated concept that turns out to be the Achilles’ heel; i.e. organizations with poorly implemented CRM systems that are not integrated into the standard sales process, e.g. still using spreadsheets for reporting, systems that do not directly feed order taking/invoicing/forecasting, etc.

So, if you are a leader of a progressive organization, make sure you have followed the “paper” process and confirm that there is only one process, used by everyone, and that it is designed to eliminate paper.

If you’re a sales executive, engage your organization-provided CRM (none of them are perfect, and sometimes there are good reasons for the differences), speak up, and ask for training, changes, and improvements. But don’t do it unless you can clearly show that you’ve used the system, otherwise it will be clear that yours are just excuses and won’t be taken seriously. You can always go away and join a dinosaur organization that allows you to operate without their approved CRM system; and you know what happened to the dinosaurs.