Thursday, 7 June 2012


What to look for in Sales software

The more we write about the perfect CRM system, the more I appreciate what this type of system can do for a business. We can actually see this system as the perfect PR person for your business, if it had to be a person, I would imagine them to be charismatic, good looking and someone that gets along with everybody. A person who has all your needs as their top priority and can make any job possible with their good looks and charm, everybody just loves this person.

So if this charismatic person (CRM system), claims to have your business’ best interest at heart, surely at the top of his list will be to see that your business generates a healthy revenue.  

The only way to ensure the survival of your business is with a constant cash flow to pay the bills, pay salaries and have a little something stored away for your retirement.  And, if your business does really well, thanks to your CRM system, maybe even early retirement.


Let’s have a quick 101 on some important features of what to look for in sales software:

What should the key sales software capabilities be?

Sales software should be equipped with helplines and guidelines to ensure your sales people do their work effectively. What this also means is that this software should be easy to use and even easier to customise to the sales people’s specific needs, because as we all know everyone is different and do things in different ways.


Like I said: Customisation is king. Dashboards can be customised to the sales person’s specific needs to display the information relevant to what he or she needs to do their jobs properly. These dashboards all work in real-time and is completely interactive to assist the sales people in being on top of their game, to help them track the status of the sales process and to determine what steps to take next. This is an excellent tool to boost productivity as all information is always available.


The ideal sales software should assist in the management of leads and opportunities from the first contact.  This enables the sales people to track the status of each lead and to determine if a lead will end up in a sale and if not to seek out new opportunities. Because of this wonderful capability, it can easily be seen which person will be the best candidate to handle the sale, lead or specific task.


Graphs should be a functionality that can be set in place to track the status of a certain deal or sale to determine what strategy should be followed to close the deal. Analyses of the statuses on these graphs make it easier to determine the next steps to follow.


If a CRM system is seen as a person it should be able to generate personalised quotes to be sent to your clients in a speedy manner ensuring no time is wasted in getting the deal and showing the client that you are truly invested in giving them the best service and your expertise.


Probably one of the most important features should be to manage appointments, specifically managing your sales people’s appointments. Sales software should give the CEO peace of mind: All relevant calendars must be available for view to ensure complete transparency throughout your business. This can also assist in appointment-making as all calendars can be seen for availability.


It doesn’t get any better than this, software that allows all staff members with smartphones to access all their information from their mobile phones. This is the future, people do not even have to be at work to actually do their work, amazing! Productivity is shooting through the roof. Sales-automation software is playing a big part in this by allowing all information to be mobile and available and ready with just a few clicks.

This is it

We always talk about intelligent software that can do just about anything, even make coffee for you, but I’m pretty sure this software can do more than that; it can make you money and lots of it! I think it is time that business owners start investing more time and effort to research and find sales software that resonates with their business and their beliefs and what they stand for.

 In the end, it is all about sales and money. But, keep in mind to find software that will be easy to customise and integrate with your current software and hardware and human resources, of course ;)

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