Because a CRM solution is such an integral part of your company’s operation, precisely establishing ROI for CRM is vital. In taking the time to do so, you are also taking the time to fully support and empower your sales efforts for years to come.

This simple guide will put you firmly on track to evaluate CRM ROI for your company–and choose the CRM solution that meets those criteria.

Chapter 1: 3 Steps to CRM Solution ROI

ROI (return on investment) is normally part of every proposal for a software purchase. For a CRM solution, a full ROI statement should not be skimped, and should be given considerably more time and effort than other software purchases.

Chapter 2: CRM Solution ROI: Why Mirror Your Sales Process?

One vital key to getting the most ROI from your CRM solution is to ensure your CRM application mirrors your sales process. Today there is every reason for CRM to mirror a sales process and to gain rapid ROI for a CRM solution—and there exist CRM solutions that make it very easy.

Chapter 3: CRM Solution ROI: Fully Know Before You Go

When CRM solution ROI falls short, it’s because of a failure to gather information from every sector of the company and every individual who will be engaged with CRM, finding out exactly what they would need in a CRM solution, and assessing ROI for each of these areas.

Chapter 4: For True ROI, a CRM Solution Must Be the One You Really Need

Before any particular CRM application has been decided upon, you must consult with anyone and everyone within the company that will have any interaction with CRM at all. You must establish for each what a CRM solution would need to be. Summed up, you will then have a company-wide perspective on the ideal CRM solution for your operation.

Chapter 5: CRM Solution ROI: It Starts with the Sales Force

Often inadequately researched is the impact a CRM application will have on the sales force, along with the potential (considerable) ROI that can be obtained from making the right choice for Sales.

Chapter 6: CRM Solution ROI – It Should Begin with Startup

With a startup, CRM ROI might not seem to be the most important issue to address. Selling product and obtaining clients may appear to be the one and only mandate. But in actuality there is no more crucial time to conclusively figure out CRM ROI than right at the beginning of the life of a business.

Download Maximizing the ROI of CRM now.

Salespeople Are Genuinely Invested in Their Companies’ Doing Well

The Pipeliner CRM blog post by sales expert Tony Hughes inspired this poster.

In the post, Hughes contends that free enterprise selling makes the world a safer and more tolerant place. He argues that selling connects people, exchanges ideas, and improves the way everything is done in the world.

The poster celebrates the idea that selling causes us to understand other people and their cultures, values and beliefs, but in a way where we have empathy rather than judgment.

The poster focuses on how:

• Salespeople drive our economy.
• Salespeople display unique, valuable attributes.
• Salespeople inspire positive social change.

Download this poster and join us in celebrating Tony Hughes’ passionate words! Put it on your wall for all to see!

By now, everyone has heard about England’s Leicester City Football Club and their incredible come-from-nowhere triumph.

You may have heard this story—but did you know that Pipeliner has a very similar story?

• Both came from nearly anonymous humble beginnings, to perform on the world stage.
• Neither had any “star power” to carry them to victory, only their experience and (amazing) talent.
• Both were up against organizations many times their size and financial worth, yet still vanquished them.
• Nobody cared about Leicester City a year ago—but now, everyone does. Similarly, 3 years ago nobody cared much about Pipeliner. But looking at Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, they sure do now.

Find out just how similar their stories are. Now that you know who to watch in English football, learn (if you don’t already know) who to watch in the CRM world!

A year ago when their amazing success story started, it could certainly be seen that Leicester City was going to come up against some very well-financed and powerful clubs (The Manchester clubs, City and United come to mind). Yet the Foxes blasted through competitor after competitor to finally arrive on top, having beaten them all, no matter how big and powerful.

Using the Right KPIs

The use of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is nothing new in business or sales. But if your KPIs are only of the lagging variety—the kind that shows the final results, such as gross sales, net revenue, or products sold—you’re missing out on the entire field of prediction.

This white paper explains how sales management must be conducted through the right combination of leading and lagging indicators, so that management is precise, and catches errors or issues well before they affect your final results.

KPIs are needed which help predict what those lagging indicators will be. These are called leading indicators, and they—along with their skillful combination with lagging indicators—are the subject of this white paper.

Nikolaus Kimla
CEO of Pipelinersales Inc.

The Combination of Leading and Lagging

The combining of leading and lagging indicators give you a full picture of your operation. Moreover, the combination gives you a comprehensive look at your risk, and allows you to make changes to improve the scene before your lagging indicators come into effect.

You should be able to utilize your leading indicators to show how your lagging indicators are going to appear, if nothing changes between now and the time of your lagging indicators. For example, if you add up the value of your opportunities in the pipeline, the percentage chances of their making it through, the rankings of each deal, and other leading factors, you see that, if all goes according to plan, you’ll have $1.5 million for the quarter. If you add up all your leading indicators and see that you’re falling short of your target, you then have time to do something about it.

Lagging Indicators

Far too often, sales management is conducted strictly with lagging indicators. A clue to the problem with analyzing and managing only through lagging indicators is right there in the name: lagging. It means, “what has already happened.” By the time lagging indicators become clear, it is too late to change anything.

But in managing for the future, we need something that will show us how the activities we are engaging in now will impact our figures for the quarter or the year.

Leading Indicators

Which leads us to the other kind of KPIs: leading indicators. Leading indicators could be said to be the KPIs that come between the big lagging-indicator victories.

The Combination of Leading and Lagging

The combining of leading and lagging indicators give you a full picture of your operation. Moreover, the combination gives you a comprehensive look at your risk, and allows you to make changes to improve the scene before your lagging indicators come into effect.

You should be able to utilize your leading indicators to show how your lagging indicators are going to appear, if nothing changes between now and the time of your lagging indicators. For example, if you add up the value of your opportunities in the pipeline, the percentage chances of their making it through, the rankings of each deal, and other leading factors, you see that, if all goes according to plan, you’ll have $1.5 million for the quarter. If you add up all your leading indicators and see that you’re falling short of your target, you then have time to do something about it.

Today astute companies have begun to institute ways to evaluate, categorize, and nurture leads before sending into the sales pipeline. In this way, any communication or outreach by a potential customer can be handled efficiently – and every potential lead can be properly identified and passed on to the sales team.

A lead can fall anywhere between “hot” (ready to buy) and “cold” (maybe once interested but has apparently moved on). A company that fully analyzes its sales process places these varying degrees of leads into precise categories indicating their viability. Successful methods of moving them along these categories are found and when they finally arrive at “hot” they are then and only then forwarded to sales reps to work.

Chapter 1: Lead Generation: The Call to Action

The call to action is the most important element of any lead generation activity. It is the part of your email, web page, landing page or other device that causes the reader to act (hence the name).

Chapter 2: Lead Generation: Sowing the Field

The internet dramatically changed yesterday’s lead generation scenario. Today a buyer will conduct extensive online research into your product category, comb through third-party product comparisons and evaluations, scope out trade shows, and interact with other buyers in forums and social media. Any promotion they might receive from you will likely hit the round file (virtually or literally) as they’re busy making up their own minds using their own sources.

Chapter 3: Lead Generation: Purchasing Lists for Leads

Today it is common to leave sales reps doing what they do best: closing sales. The job of lead generation is left to Marketing. As anyone informed will tell you, leads is a quantity game: The more prospective targets you can reach out to, the more leads you will get back. It often happens, then, that marketing will purchase lists of potential prospects instead of manually trying to seek them out, then isolate and promote to them.

Chapter 4: While You’re Home With Your Family, Your lead Generation Machine Rolls On

It used to be that businesses owners would sweat the holidays: leads and sales were not being made. But on a holiday, while your employees are enjoying time with their families, at least your lead generation machine can keep right on chugging—thanks to the internet.

Chapter 5: Lead Management: Nurturing the Leads

Today astute companies not wishing to simply waste the leads they get—whether super hot or lukewarm—are instituting ways of nurturing leads before sending them onto sales. It is part of an overall lead management system that makes it possible to utilize nearly everything that comes in the door.

Chapter 6: Lead Management: Five Cold Calling Basics

Today cold calling is normally done as a part of lead management. This calling is frequently done by an inside sales rep to qualify and make the lead “hotter” before sending it to a sales rep who will be going for the close. Nonetheless there is still a very narrow window in which to interest them, and an inside salesperson must have some basic operating actions and skills to bring prospects up to being “sellable.”

Download our ebook Opportunity Management now.

In this white paper, we explore:

• The importance of both inbound and outbound leads, why there should be a balance, and the basics of tracking and measuring them.
• The value of lead scoring, the criteria you create for scoring, and how it is accomplished.
• How to figure out how many leads you need in your pipeline at any given time
• Managing opportunities, and calculating their priority and value
• Precisely calculating the number of opportunities needed to make a target
• and much more!

Along the way numerous examples are utilized so that you can see how these metrics can be immediately applied to your sales pipeline.

A question in the minds of many businesses these days is: Should we move our business computing operations to the cloud, or should we “stay on the ground?” What are the benefits? What are the risks? Is it safe? Is it cost-effective?

Research has found that the decision for any business to move IT operations to the cloud centers around CRM—primarily because prospect and customer information comprises much of the data storage for a large number of companies.

If your are seriously considering moving your CRM—and overall IT operations—to the cloud there are a number of important issues to evaluate.

Chapter 1. How Secure is a Cloud CRM Solution?

When considering a cloud CRM solution—or a move to the cloud in general—many companies still have a concern over security. Despite these concerns, the move to the cloud continues to grow. What is the truth of the matter?

Chapter 2. How Safe is Your Data?

With data being potentially stored off-shore, potential data ownership issues, and even concerns over safely transferring data, concern over data safety certainly isn’t a minor issue. But as with other cloud CRM concerns, it can be seen that as long as you do you research and make sure to clarify certain aspects of your cloud CRM service agreement, these concerns can be alleviated with relative ease.

Chapter 3. Should You Worry About Service and Performance Levels?

In today’s highly competitive business environment, the last thing a company needs to worry about is the sales force not being able to instantly save to or access data from CRM. Hence a common concern about moving to a cloud CRM is the worry about poor cloud service, slow performance, and outages or interruptions.

Chapter 4. Cost Benefits

Part of the debate over the move to a cloud CRM solution centers around costs. Since data hosting costs comprise a significant portion of any company’s budget, it well behooves an organization to research this point thoroughly and learn the whole truth of the matter: is it more cost-effective to retain data resources on-site, or to move to the cloud?

Chapter 5. Scalability: A Crucial Advantage for a Cloud CRM Solution

If you’re in business, one of your primary objectives is, of course, to grow. As you do, you’ll need your computing resources to keep up: processing speed for larger amounts of data, increased storage space, and applications that can keep up with the demand. It is in this realm that a cloud CRM solution can be of major benefit.

Chapter 6. How Customizable is Your Cloud CRM Solution?

One concern that can come up in deciding on whether or not to move to a cloud CRM solution is, “Will we be able to customize CRM?” It’s a valid concern; a CRM solution should be as tailored to a company as a suit would be customized to the wearer. With CRM, there truly is no “one size fits all”—despite the approach of many traditional CRM developers.

Download Is Cloud Computing Right for Your Small Business? now.