Month: October 2018

Deals be opened post closure

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A Deal record is about the progress of a sales opportunity through the funnel. A deal record culminates in a closure. Status changes to Won or Lost or Dropped. After that, we do not permit an changes to the status.

We just made it possible for you to re-open the deal.

So, if you mistakenly closed the deal, you have a chance to re-open it and work on it some more.

For example:

  • You closed a deal as won, but actually it was lost!
  • You closed a deal as Lost- but the customer just called and said you are still in consideration as a vendor.
  • You closed the deal correctly as Won; but the value was wrong.
  • Etc

So, go to the closed deals list, click on the deal value of the closed deal and click on the “Re-open” button of the Deal record that popped up. The deal will then move from the closed deals list to the Open Deals list.

To ensure that this is only done with proper approvals, the ability to re-open a deal is available to admins alone.

Sales lead management

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Lead management in Saleswah

Lead management is crucial. Sales Leads – whether from marketing efforts or from Sales efforts, are the life-blood of a sales operation.

Leads have a very limited life-span. Customer may not be looking at you alone but at other vendors as well. So, getting back promptly is important.

A typical lead follows the following stages through the sales process (before it is “closed”-hopefully as a win, of course):

Sales lead management 1

We are today going to discuss the first two stages of leads management – the marketing lead and the sales lead.

Marketing lead management

Marketing leads are most often nothing more than a name and a contact number- phone or email.

More information is welcome, of course. But typically, we get nothing more than the bare minimum.

The main idea is to get a number and start calling them to qualify their interest. So, after the leads are “captured” in the CRM, it is imperative to get it to the right sales/ telesales person as quickly as possible.

Leads can be added to Saleswah one by one.They can be also uploaded from a spreadsheet.

Lead management: assignment, conversion, rejection

While adding/ uploading we check for a match with an existing contact, based on email address and if found, we attach the lead to the Contact record. Now, this contact may already exist in the CRM but under a different Sales Exec. So, tough luck! The assignment will happen to the person who already has the Contact ownership (and thus Account ownership).

This could be tough for the guy entering the lead but good for the company for whom the executive works.

After the lead is entered and assigned, the responsible user can then reject it (after recording a reason), re-assign it to someone else or work on it. If she finds it valuable and worthy of further follow up, she “Converts” the lead to a Deal. By default all Deals start off as a Sales Lead– the earliest stage in the funnel.

Sales lead management

At this very early stage of the funnel, the accent is very much on trying to “qualify” the lead – find the genuineness of the interest, see if there is budget, start identifying the decision makers and the purchase process.

Saleswah CRM powerful user management features

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There is a lot the Saleswah user account admin can do

Change user password

We now made it possible for the Saleswah user account admin to change the password for any user.

To do this, goto your admin area, and click on Users and Licenses.

Goto the user list.

Yes, it is that simple! Your users will be sent the new password by email.

Deactivate user

The admin can select any user in the above user list and click- deactivate user.

The user will lose access to the CRM immediately. And, the Saleswah user license he had would not become available to be assigned to any other user without a license.

Remember, deactivating the user does not affect the data. All accounts, contacts, deals which were looked after by the user, would continue to be shown under him. Other active users, who had earlier access to his data, would continue to do so. In fact, he would continue to show up in the user hierarchy in all the lists- Contact, Account, Deals, Tasks etc.

As a matter of fact, this helps when a sales executive leaves and a new one is going to join in his place. So, you can transfer “the territory” from old to new with minimal disruption.

Re-assign territory- from old executive to new

  1. Go to the Accounts List.
  2. Use the user hierarchy filter to drill down to the old user who is still showing up. So, now you have only the accounts which are assigned to the old user on screen.
  3. Select the accounts- in bulk and click on Assign accounts- follow instructions to assign to the new user.

Remove user from hierarchy

Once you have re-assigned all accounts from this user to another, then you can remove the user from the hierarchy totally. To do that, go to the Users and License section again. Select the user to remove from the hierarchy and click on Remove from Hierarchy.

 

 

Building Saleswah brick by brick

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What do you need to build a product?

We are on our way- we started years back, we are still building. And we keep adding features, tweaking or revamping UI and we keep adding customers.

It sounds great but it is not so simple, obviously.

We have worked hard for years, made changes to workflows, UI, cut features, added features, changes pricing, run promotions. We have shown the product to thousands. And a few thousands have used and continue to use the product.

And we keep getting better. There are many answers to the web on “how to build a great product”. I personally like many of them. But, the one quality you need – other than the obvious and usual ones like getting to a product market fit, hustle, investing in scale, selecting the right feedback…

And, that quality is patience. Coupled with belief.

Not just yours; but your customers’ too!

You must have faith in your sense of direction. And your customers, especially some of the early adopters must share it too.

You must be patient. There will be problems that will take days to solve. Implementation issues will clog delivery of that new feature that the customers have been shouting for. Perfectly working integrations will suddenly stop working.

No documentation, no roadmap, no stories of “been there and done that”. You need to have patience and you need customers, who have bought into the vision and are willing to wait.

Remember it is a journey. Enjoy the ride.