Theory Made Real – Pipeliner Principles into Practice

At Pipeliner, we operate on principles instead of values. The difference between these two terms is significant. Values are dependent upon: culture, time, era, language, business sector, geographical location, and other factors. They are highly contextualized.

Principles, on the other hand, are universal and are totally independent of such factors. An example is the principle of gravity. Gravity is obvious, because if you jump from a height, you will fall down. This is true no matter where you are, what language you speak, what business you are in, or your culture.

The principles we are talking about aren’t in the realm of Physics but in the field of commerce. These principles were defined and developed within the Austrian School of Economics, and more recently by management educator and author, Peter Drucker.

Why have we based our company, and our product, on principles instead of values? Simply because we want Pipeliner CRM to be a tool for everyone. And since these principles apply to everyone, any solution based on them will be extremely beneficial.

Today many companies are asked, ‘What kind of value system do you have?’ To answer the question, they set out to formulate their value systems and express them through mission statements. But at Pipeliner we are operating on principles, which are radically different from values.

Nikolaus Kimla
CEO of Pipelinersales Inc.

Applying Principles

The 6 fundamental principles are:

1. Focus on Results

The primary measure of any organization could be said to be its results—what it achieves. In fact an organization is actually founded for the purpose of achieving results. Along with this, management could be defined as “a profession of achieving results”.

2. Contribution to the Whole

Every aspect of an organization contributes to the whole. Any executive attempting to lead a company to success should not only realize this, but must be able to visualize how each piece contributes; in other words, to see the big picture.

3. Concentration on a Few Things

If one is interested in obtaining results, it is accomplished by limiting oneself to concentration on a few things, to a small number of carefully selected key factors.

4. Utilizing Strengths

In business, as in society, we tend to focus on weaknesses in an effort to fix or strengthen them. A much more powerful method is to concentrate on strengths and bolster them.

5. Positive Thinking

Positive thinking can be applied by looking at it this way: In every problem there is a hidden opportunity for change.

That is the difference between someone who is just trying to “think happy thoughts” in the face of adversity, and someone who can bring about truly positive change. Effective people actually look at a problem or issue and face up to it, instead of glossing over or ignoring it. Beyond that, they seek possibilities and opportunities in every problem.

6. Trust

Finally, we arrive at the most important principle for the future: Trust. From the beginning, trust is a crucial component for ongoing success. Without trust, you can apply management techniques and still miss by a mile. If your employees don’t trust you, how closely will they adhere to your policies, strategies and orders?

Just as values differ from principles, this book differs from others in that we not only express these principles and define them, we show multiple examples, in each case, of how each principle is used in Pipeliner CRM.

Download and read Theory Made Real: Pipeliner CRM Puts Principles into Practice.

The Vital Essentials of Building a Sales Team

In terms of personnel, building a sales team is the most difficult task you will undertake.

There is No Easy Way

There are many vital factors that go into building a business. But the careful building of a sales teamis probably the most important task any business owner or sales manager will undertake. It may seem rather easy: you hire salespeople who, at least by prior recommendation, have proven they can sell. You hire an experienced sales manager. You start selling.

Take it from one who knows: it’s nowhere near that easy. In fact, as I repeat several times throughout this ebook, it is probably the most difficult task that can be undertaken personnel-wise. You have to make sure your reps’ training and experience aligns with your market and the size of company you’re selling to. You have to hire reps that can be self-sufficient, not always relying on inbound leads. Your reps should be focusing on customers and their issues, not simply the product or service being sold. Then, after all that, you have to properly manage them.

While this ebook won’t give you everything there is to know about building a sales team, it will give you the vital essentials which you cannot do without. Start with them, and the rest will fall into place.

When you first start a company, you have immediate priorities. If you don’t make building a sales team one of the first of those priorities, you won’t make it very far at all as there will be no revenue. When you first start up, how can you ensure you’re building a sales team that will truly fuel the company as it grows?

Pipeliner CRM as a Vital Tool

As you’re growing and your sales reps are having to do all of these extra functions, they certainly need to spend as little time as possible on data entry and administration with CRM. Pipeliner, with its totally visual, intuitive interfaces, makes it possible to rapidly manage and control opportunities, making sure all needed tasks are done and that no opportunities go off the rails or are lost.

So in the beginning, make sure you build a sales team of entrepreneurs—and that you have Pipeliner backing you up the whole while.

Chapter 1: Where Do You Start?

When you first start a company, you have immediate priorities. If you don’t make building a sales team one of the first of those priorities, you won’t make it very far at all as there will be no revenue. When you first start up, how can you ensure you’re building a sales team that will truly fuel the company as it grows?

Chapter 2: Becoming Customer-Centric

Commonly a salesperson learns, in the main, about the products or services they are selling. If a sales team is really going to succeed, it must go well beyond this approach.

Chapter 3: Tailoring to Your Industry

The next step is to ensure that a sales team is precisely focused on the industry they are in. The primary reason for this is that buyers in each industry will have completely different actions. The seller’s actions must be customer-centric for those specific buyers and tailored for that industry.

Chapter 4: The Personality Profile

The sales process and all sales activities must have a precise industry-specific focus. It goes a bit deeper than that, however—for the personality profile of the reps you are hiring must also align with your target industry and even size of business you are selling to.

Chapter 5: The Self-Sufficient Sales Rep

It used to be that salespeople, by necessity, had to drum up their own leads. Today it’s not the same. The majority of salespeople are dependent on inbound leads—those leads which come in off a web site, through advertising or from social media. What might be the more successful approach?

Chapter 6: And, Oh Yes, There’s Sales Management

Overall I believe sales management is certainly one of the hardest jobs there is. You have a multiple burden: finding the right people, putting them in place, developing the right sales process, utilizing the right technology, evolving sound lead generation strategies both inbound and outbound, working with Marketing, working with the Board, and much more. In addition, it all must tie together.

The Small Business’ Guide to Social CRM by Craig M. Jamieson

Craig M. Jamieson’s comprehensive guide to building a successful social CRM strategy is focused on small businesses. Download your free excerpt here.

The era of small business social CRM is upon us. Can you keep up?

Your business and customers have both evolved dramatically over the past several years. Much of this has to do with the explosion of the Internet and of social media. Quite simply, buyer behaviors have changed, and smart businesses must learn to adapt to these changes.

Whereas customers used to rely on your business and your sales and marketing staff to educate them on your product or service, many of these buyers are now doing this research on their own. They are going online, and even a simple Google search will provide them with much of the information that they seek. Moreover, they are asking and getting product recommendations from friends, family, and from people whom they know and trust, and they are using social networking as the preferred platform to secure these. This book covers:

Exploring the key benefits of social CRM for small businesses
Laying the groundwork for social CRM
How to define your social CRM needs prior to any investments
Choosing an implementing your social CRM
Training and best social CRM services
Craig M. Jamieson’s book is a great guide for social networking for your new buyer. Download this free excerpt now!

Praise for The Small Business’ Guide to Social CRM

This book does a fantastic job of describing why every small business needs to build its brand and grow its business by connecting with customers who matter to turn connections into conversations and relationships into revenue.

Jon Ferrara
CEO of Nimble

eBook: The RingLead Small Business Guide to Referral Selling

Learn firsthand how a fast-growth startup grew sales 200% in the first six months with referral selling.

Referral selling is all about helping you acquire new customers

Referral selling is an effective sales strategy because it utilizes a crucial asset: your past and existing customers. In this ebook, Noel Ledesma, co-founder of fast-growth startup Likeable Advertising, shares how he used referral selling to achieve success. This ebook covers:

Getting started with referral selling
Hiring the best people
Managing customer relationships

Read it through, and you’ll know the skills and tactics necessary to implement and roll out referral selling at your organization, and take it to the next level.

The Principles of Entrepreneurs: How Precise Economic Philosophy Empowers Sales

If you’re a member of a sales force, or in sales management, there is always practical information you must know. You need to know as much as possible about your own products. You need to have a firm grounding about your particular industry and market. Today especially you must have as much insight as possible into your prospect companies, their buying processes and their decision makers.

But what about the overall economic environment in which you operate? Seen or unseen, that environment has principles operating every minute of every day. The very idea of sales is actually rooted in economic theory. And while it may seem that such theory would constitute very dry reading, be a struggle to understand and really not needed or desired to operate in the day-to-day sales environment, the exact opposite is true. These principles are in fact easily grasped—and the vision they provide can go a long way to assisting you in understanding the background of your very existence within the business world.

What is Sunk Cost, and What Do You Need to Know About It?

Sunk costs are costs that your company has already invested in products or services that must now be profitably recovered through your sales efforts. What does this all mean on the level of the sales force?

Sales Force, Sales Management and the Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is the investment your company must make to achieve a sale, and it has a bearing on every company activity associated with a sales cycle.

Subjective Value: The Key to Insight Selling

Subjective value means the perceived value of your product or service in the mind of the prospect. In sales, subjective value is everything.

Sales Management: What Comparative Advantage Can Do For You

Comparative advantage has an application within the realm of sales management: optimizing a sales force based on differing strengths of salespeople.

Sustainable Value Means Sales Force Effectiveness

Sustainable value has an intrinsic application to commerce, the sales force, and in fact personal lives and even the activities of nations.

Salespeople as Entrepreneurs: What You Really Mean to the World

As a salesperson, you have most likely given little thought to what your activities might mean to the world at large. Believe it or not your role as a salesperson—as an “entrepreneur within the enterprise”—has a more profound significance than you might think.

Download The Principles of Entrepreneurs: How Precise Economic Philosophy Empowers Sales now.

The Pipeliner Manifesto

What is a manifesto, and why have we, the developer of a CRM solution, created one?

A manifesto is defined by the dictionary as “a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives.” This is our public declaration of the intentions behind Pipeliner, and our objectives and motives for the product and for our company.

Pipeliner CRM is many things. It is the most visual CRM on the market–we call it Instant Intelligence, Visualized. It is the first CRM that truly empowers salespeople, and has as its goal the freeing of salespeople so that they can truly flourish and succeed.

But why are we really here? Are we here just to develop and sell a CRM application?

No. Behind the development of that CRM application–and, in fact, behind everything we do–we have a real cause.

There are 5 basic parts to our Manifesto.

1. The Driving Force of Globalization and the Digital World

There is a fundamental transformation happening—actually one that’s been happening for a number of years now but which has reached mammoth proportions and only continues. That is the evolution of the digital world.

A primary focus of the digital world is processes. Another very important focus is the harnessing and use of data trends.

But there is another, radical change brought about by the digital world that must be dealt with head-on, as it will overrun anyone who doesn’t. While the whole world has become interconnected, that means that all the information coming from everywhere is literally available to everyone, practically as soon as it is released. What kind of information overload can that lead to? And what is the solution?

There is also a major overload and complexity in sales–and that is where Pipeliner CRM comes in.

2. Trade is Essential to Growth and Economic Stability

It has been pointed out by several leaders in the Austrian School of Economics over the last 150 years that trade has a peacekeeping element. 2 parties engaged in trade cannot engage in war. If they do, the trade, which is benefiting both sides, ceases. Hence you can see that trade, in addition to many other benefits, greatly assists in keeping peace.

You might notice that today there is a great amount of attention not just on trade, but on fair trade. Fair trade would mean honesty—fairness to people purchasing the product or service, and fairness within the marketplace. But it also includes fair wages to the employees of producers, and benefit to the environment in which products are produced. Using this standard, you can see how vitally important fair trade is in today’s world, in which not only war is a threat, but also environmental ruin and depletion of resources.

How does sales fit into all of this? Simple: Trade is conducted by salespeople. As you might see, salespeople are, in fact, a major force in keeping peace throughout the world.

And Pipeliner is there to fully empower them the whole way.

3. The Positive Sales R(Evolution)

At Pipeliner, our main focus has never been to make it more possible to control salespeople (as seemed to be the mission of many CRM applications), but to empower them and, with every release, make it increasingly more possible for them to sell.

Today, the honest salespeople—whom we believe are in the far majority—are winning out. Why? The broad proliferation of the internet has brought transparency to commerce, business…and salespeople.

In an effort to assist the majority of salespeople—the honest ones—in today’s interconnected world, we came up with what we call today’s Network Selling Model. In Network Selling, the elements shared between the seller and the buyer are those things on which they both must firmly agree for the sale to be a total success and, more importantly, for further successes to follow.

Pipeliner CRM is a major component in supporting Network Selling.

4. Only Sound Education Brings Future Prosperity

To say the least, we are big believers in education—not just about our product, but about sales, leadership and anything else relevant to the world of business in which we can help. Most of our materials are provided free of charge—we really want to help educate and change the business world for the better.

In looking through our educational materials, you’ll see that they are totally geared toward application. If you read or learn something, we believe you should be able to turn around and apply it. Otherwise, why learn it? We believe that this is the future of education in general—it will move away from being so theory-oriented and will be completely structured around applicability.

5. The Pipeliner Philosophy Wheel

We think it is crucially important to describe our philosophy because our customer, our partner, the user engaging with us, should understand the underlying concepts that drive Pipeliner. If you understand the underlying concepts, it will empower you to make even better use of the software.

Everything we do is visual–hence we have also created our philosophy wheel to better communicate our foundational philosophy

Downloadable Checklist: Choosing the Right CRM

A convenient, downloadable way to help you keep track of pain points and features that will make your decision easier. Accompanies our ebook, The Everything Guide to Choosing the Right CRM

How Do You Choose the Right CRM Solution for Your Team?

Our downloadable checklist is a great adjunct to our ebook, The Everything Guide to Choosing the Right CRM Solution. With this checklist in hand, you will know what matters most to you and your sales team, so you can make the most informed decision about the kind of system that will work best for your organization.

The checklist is useful in many ways:

Know your pain points, so the solution you choose addresses them.
Understand what features are most important.
Distribute this checklist and find out what your team wants in a CRM.

Download this handy checklist for your team and management and find your decision easier and clearer as you make this important decision.

About The Everything Guide to Choosing the Right CRM Solution

Our Everything Guide to Choosing the Right CRM Solution is designed to help you make a successful changeover to modern CRM. We’ll walk you through all the moving parts, the pitfalls, the pain points, and the methods to help you find the right solution for your organization.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

What to look for in a CRM Solution that will work for your team
The measurable benefits of implementing the right CRM system
How to cope with the challenges that come with change
How to avoid very costly mistakes while choosing a CRM
A resource page of CRM review sites — see what other sales pros have to say about the options you are considering

Visit our award-winning sales blog and find more Sales resources!

Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine

Author Jeanne Bliss writes the customer experience roadmap to transform your business and culture.

Chapter 1: The Chief Customer Officer Role Is Clarity

Chief Customer Officer 2.0 gives you a proven framework that has launched and advanced the customer experience transformation in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies around the world.

And it will take years off your learning curve.

Written by Jeanne Bliss, a CCO practitioner for over twenty years, and pre-eminent thought leader on the role of the Customer Leadership Executive and customer experience, this book outlines in detail Jeanne’s Five-Competency Model. The same model Jeanne uses to coach the C-Suite, Chief Customer Officers, and Vice Presidents of Customer Experience globally. Using her framework, you will discover how to:

Manage and Honor Customers as Assets
Align Around Experience
Build a Customer Listening Path
Embed Experience Reliability and Innovation
Lead One Company Accountability, Leadership & Decision Making

Chief Customer Officer 2.0 will quickly get you into action with a united leadership team, shifting your business focus to earning the right to growth, by improving customers’ lives. In Chief Customer Officer 2.0, Jeanne Bliss provides practical guidance on how to embed the Five Competencies into the way your company develops products, goes to market, enables and rewards people, and conducts annual planning. And she fearlessly shares her leadership tools and ‘recipe cards’ developed over thirty-years as a Chief Customer Officer practitioner and coach, to support and enable your business transformation.

Including over forty case studies of how Chief Customer Officers around the world embed these five competencies, this is the book you have been waiting for. The book that tells it like it really is and gives you the framework to begin to build your customer-driven growth engine — today.

If Jeanne Bliss hadn’t written her first book, I wouldn’t be in the role I have today. Now, ten years later, she continues to provide leading guidance for Chief Customer Officers.

Jeb Dasteel
Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer, Oracle

It’s really very simple: Anyone in business should be thinking about customers, and anyone thinking about customers should be reading Jeanne Bliss.

Don Peppers
Founding Partner, Peppers & Rogers Group

No one knows more about the Customer Experience Leadership Role than Jeanne Bliss. Buy this book to jump-start your learning, get traction and transform your business.

Scott Dille
Senior Vice President and Director of Client and Employee Experience at Northern Trust

Download the first chapter of Jeanne’s book, free!