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Recent Media Coverage of Serex Sales Automation Services

Below are some articles Robert Saul, President of Serex has written for various trade magazines

How to use Sales Data to Build your Business (Un-Edited Version), SOHO Magazine – Winter 2004

“Proper leveraging of sales information can result in very large and unexpected sales growth!”
 
Small business owners typically equip themselves with computers, printers, fax machines, office furniture, phones, calculators and etc. On the computer Business Owners will typically purchase an Office Suite of products that include e-mail, scheduling, word processing, presentation and spreadsheet programs. Once the Office software has been purchased and the business has been operating for a while, typically Accounting software is then considered. Next sales lists are typically purchased and/or created and placed either into a spreadsheet, a word processor document or in an e-mail client.
 
Serex has been in the Sales Automation / Personal Productivity business since 1993. Over the years one very interesting trait that we have noticed among small business operators, is that there is a lot of resistance when it comes to setting up a proper sales tracking system. Purchasing a Contact Management software, in most cases is deemed to be a productivity tool that is too powerful for their “small requirements”. To this day, this type of thinking bewilders me for a number of reasons. One, in 99.99% of the time, sales is the most important facet of any business, typically without sales there is no business. Secondly, smaller companies do not have the administrative support luxury that medium and larger businesses can afford thereby making the business owners’ (and staff) time and efficiencies of paramount importance. The business owner is typically doing everything that is sales related (and unrelated too) which might include:
 
· Preparing a pitch
· Delivering the Pitch
· Preparing and Sending out the Proposal
· Following up
· Organizing Suppliers / Vendors
· Performing Customer Service
· Billing
· Etc.
 
If there are any people who need properly selected, properly setup and deployed sales databases … It is precisely those same people that claim they are too small! They typically need the ability to:
 
· Automate as many of their daily processes and responsibilities as possible
· Systematically address and prioritize all their respective tasks and other interactions
 
Business Owners typically purchase all kinds of tools, but neglect the one tool that can:
 
· Organize clients, prospects, suppliers and even personal contact information
· Manage ones’ (or many) tasks/calendars
· Manage all correspondence including snail mail, e-mail & fax sent to contacts
· Provide an effective integrated e-mailing and snail mail tool that will allow for easy mass merging
· Act as a forecasting tool
· Track all interactions as a history or a note
 
A by product of this type of tracking is that a database of information is being developed. Pitch to close ratios become measurable because if one is diligent in entering interaction information it is possible to measure how many pitches have been made in a given period and how many closed sales have been made in that same period. It becomes possible to quickly send Birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah and any other type of greeting on the appropriate days. Blanket orders can then be tracked and notifications via e-mail or simple on screen alarms can be generated on or before order delivery dates. If consumables are being sold, automated notifications can be sent by e-mail to indicate that the client is due to reorder. The ability to automatically trigger actions based on information in the database is a huge asset .. Have not talked to an active client in 90 days …. Automatically send them an e-mail. A client is close to being a delinquent account receivable … Automatically send them a reminder e-mail a few days prior and schedule a call for the owner of the account on the due date. These are features that can save a fortune in time for any Business Owner.
 
Financial planners have coined a term “KYC” which stands for … Know Your Client! The forms that they have developed are designed to give them precisely the information described above in order to systematically be in front of their clients with all kinds of products and services that the client may need … When the client needs it! “Sales success is largely due to the vendor being in front of the client, when that client is ready to buy”. That is precisely why “Nurture and Permission Marketing Techniques” are now used by most of the successful companies or individual sales representatives. In order to perform these successful marketing techniques, one needs to “know their client”. It becomes very hard to systematically manage a large number of contacts unless one has a sales database. This applies to any industry.
 
One concept that we at Serex believe to be very important, is that, “a sales person is one of the best marketing research agents any company can hire”. Equipped with the proper forms and questionnaires they can easily provide the company with a wealth of information. In order to effectively and systematically use this information, it needs to be entered into a common database.
 
Why not only use what comes in the Office Suite? What comes in most Office Suits is great. However the typically supplied e-mail clients are not as well equipped to specifically manage the history of interactions. It is typically difficult to extract a history of interactions (i.e. conversations, e-mails, meetings and actions performed) against a specific contact. In most business environments we highly recommend that a Contact Manager be purchased. These products typically combine a number of useful functions:
· Act as a corporate database
· Act as a task and calendaring tool
· Act as an interaction tracking tool
· Allow for easy extraction of information from the database its’ self
· Act a an e-mail client
· Links to Word processors and spreadsheets
· Act as a knowledge base
 
Hence from one place one can look at their own or any of their colleagues calendars and tasks. Lookup a contact and see all pending activities, all completed activities, all e-mails sent to and received from the contact, delegate new tasks to colleagues and depending on the Contact Management product, one can even use a built in e-mail centre replacing the most common of e-mail clients. The advantage is that when one enters the product everything is there, analyses can be quickly extracted and reported on from one place.
 
We have a very small client who is a Dentist (DR. E). Dr. E started using an anti aging skin care product that is sold through Multi Level Marketing. Dr. E liked the product so much that she told her sisters, colleagues and friends about it. Over a 2 year period Dr. E inadvertently found her self actually selling the product. At first it was quite easy, as there really was no need to take this business seriously. Once Dr. E understood the revenue generation possibilities she realized that this could easily compliment her income with a recurring type of income, something most professionals dream about. Not wanting to compromise or take away from her successful professional life, she decided to automate as many of her processes as possible.
 
Selling skin care requires all kind of information on the client base (remember KYC). This information includes basic tomb stone information, skin type, products interested in, sun tanning habits, skin conditions, birth dates, anniversary dates and etc.
 
Since skin care products are consumables Dr. E tracks the dates of purchases and a few weeks before the estimated date of full consumption, sends e-mails to the clients reminding them to re-order. Since skin care products make for great gifts, she sends the respective spouses of all her clients an e-mail on all birth dates, anniversary dates, Valentines day and Christmas indicating which products are used and maybe required. Included in the e-mail is a web ordering procedure that eliminates Dr. E’s involvement completely!
 
The above automated process is only one of the many automated processes that we have setup for her. The key word is AUTOMATED  all of the above is done automatically! Dr. E does not lift one finger to perform these functions! … Dr. E understands intimately the power of being in front of the client when that client is ready to buy.
 
A few months after formally introducing a “Sales Database” and automating her new business, Dr. E has become one of the top 5 resellers in Canada of the skin care products. Dr. E has now also reduced her professional work week from 5 to 2 days allowing her to spend much more quality time with all her young children and family all the while increasing her income on a recurring basis!
 
Bottom line … This level of success and profit generation would have taken Dr. E a substantially greater effort (or worst, possibly hiring staff) to achieve had she not elected to automate her practice. This again high lights the point … Small operator huge needs!
 
There are many choices to be made from the most appropriate Accounting Package to the most appropriate Contact Management software. The decisions that are taken early on will impact information flow, report generation and efficiencies that ultimately affect the bottom line. Once the decision has been made, it is important to get into the culture of using the selected product. It is important to define requirements, identify processes and plan out the sales/corporate databases accordingly. It also very important to realize that no company whether it is a one man/woman show or a large corporation these days can afford to squander time or is too small to get setup properly, it usually catches up to them. Seek out professional help when doing the planning, the savings in time, mistake preventions and head aches will definitely ensure a Return On Investment.
 
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Biography:
 
Robert Saul, B.Eng
 
Robert is a Computer Engineering graduate from Concordia University and the President of Serex Sales Automation Services. Since 1993 Serex has been a leading North American provider of Customer Relationship Management and Sales Force Automation systems specialized in small to medium sized companies.

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