Why nailing your CRM as a wholesaler has never been important 

Your companies CRM system has never been more important. The easiest way for your team to improve sales is to keep their CRM organised. 

The name says it all. Customer. Relationship. Management. Without it, your sales team is tackling their meetings blind, undifferentiated to the competition, with price their only counter to an objection. 

It’s common knowledge that when we build real relationships with our customers, they become loyal and less price-sensitive. With better customer relationships, your sales team is positioned as a helpful customer experience manager, instead of your average sales rep. 

However, it’s common to see a sales team neglect their CRM, despite it directly benefiting their own results. So, firstly we’ll break down some barriers that might be holding back your sales team from using your CRM, then clarify two key ways you can generate more engagement in your CRM from your sales team. 

The barriers to using your CRM

Usability/Knowledge:

Often, your sales team simply might not know how to use your CRM system. It might be too complicated, or learning how to use it isn’t part of their onboarding process and training. If your sales team isn’t actively engaging with your CRM, it might be worth going through how to use your specific CRM system once again. 

Time:

Often an issue with busy sales reps, they simply don’t have the time to upkeep the CRM. When you’re on the road, managing a CRM can seem like paperwork. However, this is only the case when you’re using an outdated, clunky system. 

Using your CRM should be easy, and something that can be done on the fly. 

Complacency: 

Once again, a common issue with busy reps. ‘When the sales are good, why bother?’ I guarantee plenty of busy reps were caught out by the epidemic we’re all facing. When sales slow down, a well-curated, insightful CRM becomes a lifeline. 

Generating engagement from your sales team

The first step to creating more engagement in your CRM system is actively sitting down with your team, uncovering the barriers they are having with upkeeping your CRM and wiping them out. 

The barriers might involve some of the issues we mentioned above, or they might be more individual to your business. However, once you and the team have discussed their barriers, and you actively alleviate their barriers, then the responsibility is placed back on your team. 

The next step is to clearly articulate why your CRM system is in place. Does your team know that the CRM isn’t there to track them, or to only benefit the business? They might, they might not. 

As a sales manager, it’s important that you make sure your team understand that the CRM is in place for their own benefit and is a helpful tool for their job. 

A great way to get your team using your CRM is to create a challenge. It can be over the course of a month or more. The aim can be to write down one personal note about each customer they meet. It could be a thoughtful question for the next meeting or a great time to call them back, right when they will need what you have to offer. 

It might seem a bit staged at first, but once your reps feel the relationship-building based on their insightful and empathetic questions, their buy-in to the CRM system will improve. 

Naturally, their sales should increase too. Which is always handy...

Conclusion:

It’s a tough market out there. However, using our CRM system to our advantage can be the difference between your team hitting and exceeding their targets, or missing them altogether. 

It’s important that we air out and eliminate the barriers your team has around using their CRM, then actively share how and why it’s in place for their own gain, not yours or the businesses. 

How is your CRM working? If it’s clunky, hard to use and not working for you, then we have a great CRM solution for you. We work with wholesale businesses to streamline their entire sales process, and our easy to use, clean CRM system is just the tip of the iceberg with how we can simplify your sales process and drive productivity.