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How we classify your opportunities in sales funnel stages

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The sales funnel stages

Over the last three years we have evolved a lot in our thinking about the sales funnel stages and how we should report them.

Find and surface the leads that you should focus on

We started off with a very radical approach. We got Saleswah to proactively alert the user that there was a sales lead. We used some nifty calculations to see which contacts and accounts were “active” and what more, which ones were active in a “deal-bearing” way. We had our views on which customer facing activities were more important i.e. more likely to result in a sale. So, we surfaced leads in your funnel before you recognized these as such. Pretty cool, huh? Or, so we thought. This was a blog we wrote which explained our thoughts.

About two years back we pulled the plug on this feature. Simple, we never managed to get customers to understand this. This was perhaps before its time in the market or simply poor marketing and/ or hand-holding on our part.

Next up, grade the deals in the funnel

Now, we took a fresh look at the sales funnel stages. Our earlier thought was to get to capture the marketing activities and sales activities that led to a sale and if the action was “hot” in an account, we reported a sales lead- the very earliest stage opportunity in the sales funnel stages.

As we evolved, and abandoned the previous strategy, we started concentrating on the opportunities that the salesperson had recognized as such and created a “Deal” record. We felt there is a huge scope in helping the salesperson figure out where to concentrate his efforts. Let me explain.

A sales funnel has deals which are at different stages of maturity. Some may close the next week, some may close the next month and some may never close. Also, there are various stages of probability that you will win the deal.

Traditionally, the sales review consisted of the manager and the sales executive looking at a spreadsheet with a list of these deals and arguing about the probability of a win and the timeframe of the eventuality. The Sales Executive is the optimist whereas, the manager is more pragmatic if not downright pessimistic! Having played both roles in the past, I knew there is a scope to contribute positively in this debate.

A sales deal requires information – as the salesperson engages with the customer contacts, he gathers more information. The critical information is about the budget, timeframe and decision making. Also, knowing how critical the need is helps her to understand if the deal will be prioritised above other issues demanding management attention at the customer place.

So, the information maturity is crucial in understanding how far down the funnel has the deal come. So we started tagging deals with the calculated sales funnel stages. We called them Prospecting, Opportunity, Investigation, Presentation and Close. For more details, read our previous post on the 5 sales deal stages.

We just changed the names of the sales funnel stages

While this time we achieved a lot better customer understanding and adoption, we felt we needed to make it simpler for folks to understand what the stages meant. So, we renamed them. Now they are called Sales Lead, Prospect, Warm deal, Hot Deal and Close. The algorithm that classifies them as such remain the same with some tweaking to better reflect how Saleswah itself has evolved.

Hope this made sense. Please get back to us to schedule a one on one session if you want to understand more about Saleswah.

How we classify your opportunities in sales funnel stages 1

Sell globally with quotations in any currency

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If you are selling globally to enterprise buyers, then you might need to send quotations in any currency – not just your home country. This is either because of regulatory issues or because of your customers’ internal requirements. There are some countries that allow trade in two or more currencies- Singapore or Hong Kong for instance.

As a CRM, we need to enable two broad things:

  • Actual quotation being made possible in multiple currencies.
  • Reporting continuing to be done in a master currency- so that everyone still compares the same set of data.

It is obvious that there is currency conversion involved. 1 USD is ~ INR 70 today. So, you can’t have a master price list which is in USD and quote the same in INR. Unless you converted. Here again lies a catch.

Why currency conversion does not work in sending quotations in any currency

We have seen multiple currency implementations done by others and how they do it is simple; keep a master price list as before in your “master currency” as defined by the user and then ask him to define the conversion factor for each currency he wants to enable in addition.

Why does it not work? Because of the following reasons:

  1. Selling a product in different countries is not simply a matter of changing the price from one currency to another by the bank conversion rate. There are other markups/ markdowns dictated by market forces like competition, import duties and sales and marketing overheads. For example, a product which you retail for USD 1 in USA might be sold for INR 85 in India.
  2. Different products might have different conversion factors- depending on market forces. You might sell accessories and spares at a higher margin than main products or vice versa.
  3. These factors change frequently – sometimes quarterly.

The best way for sending quotations in any currency

sending quotations in any currencyWe implement multi-currency quotes based on prices lists maintained in as many currencies you specify. These prices are independent of each other.

Every time there is a price change – in any currency, you need to upload a new price list replacing the previous one. And while making a quote, just select the currency in which the quote should go out.

What about sales reporting?

Sales reporting, forecasting and closed deals reports will continue to be done in the “master currency”. So, at the time of specifying the additional currencies, you need to specify the conversion factors.

So, conversion factors are still used after all! But, they are used for reporting- in one central currency. As it was always done.

A few more things we did for sales quotes

We added the ability to edit prices in the quotes. And, now you can add discounts, local tax rates. And as before, you can quote with tax or without- depending on what your local custom is.

Initiate sales meeting using Google Meet from within your CRM

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We released our functionality of starting sales meeting using Google Meet recently. The background to this goes 4 months back.

We were at a customer meeting – face to face – back when such things were possible, or should we just say, in the “pre-covid” days. Things were already bad and the country was heading for a lockdown.

The customer was grim- his major clients in the biggest city of the country were already refusing physical meetings and were suggesting virtual meetings. Zoom, Webex, Teams- suddenly these were cropping up in everyday conversation.

This was March; we haven’t met since that day- but, as our development team released the integration with Google Meet, I could not but think of our customer in a city 2 hours flight away.

The new paradigm is virtual. All my own meetings are virtual now.

We made it possible to initiate sales meetings over Google Meet from Saleswah CRM.

Virtual Meeting from Saleswah CRM using Google Meet

So, next time you are setting up an appointment in Saleswah, remember to check the box which says “Use Google Meet”.

Why Meet? We like the functional, no fuss interface of Meet. We do not like Zoom, Webex is too heavy. We would probably follow through with Teams (Microsoft Office 365), real soon.

Why is spare parts management for maintenance important

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We went live with one of the most comprehensive implementations of spare parts management in a service CRM recently.

In this post, I will explain the standard workflows that exist in the system. This will help you understand not only how versatile the system is but also, what it does not currently do. Please leave your comments below if you see any opportunities for us to improve. As you know, you can always register for a free trial and check out – not just the spares management module but the entire sales and service CRM.

Guidelines for releasing spare parts, movement and use:

Part number and serial number

Spare parts management for maintenance is really important in any service organization. All equipment may require spare parts during maintenance. All spare items have a part no. They would also have a description. The same part might be used to repair different equipment. Thus, you can optionally map the same part to one or many pieces of equipment. Needless to say, a single piece of equipment may require multiple spare parts.

Parts may or may not have a serial no. Normally you would have serial numbers for high value components or modules used as spares. But, Saleswah handles both the scenarios equally well. Where parts have serial numbers and where parts do not have serial numbers. It is admin configurable so you can define a category of parts as needing serial numbers and Saleswah would handle it.

Who does this tagging help? Obviously, it makes the job of the frontline technician a lot easier.

Who plays an important role in spare parts management ?

An important role is played in spare parts management for maintenance by all front line executives and managers. They can indent for spares and use them to solve service tickets. Other than them, there are 2 roles in the system who can “load the system” with spare stock.
1. Admin
2. Spares warehouse in-charge
Admin/ Warehouse IC also needs to create the spare models and link them to one or more equipment models.

Any “line executive or manager” in a service role (technician, service exec, or service manager) can indent for spares. Any supervisor can approve parts and ship them. Approvals and shipments can be partial or full. All shipments are made directly to the indenter.

Activities related to spares

There are 2 kinds of indents: those specifically for closing a ticket and those for stocking. Any line executive or manager in the service role can indent for spares and any of his direct managers can approve.

The ticket related indents are treated as urgent by the system and are auto-escalated all the way up if needed to the person who has stock.

spare parts management

 

The non-ticket related indents- those which are created to stock up locally on frequently used spares- go through the entire approval hierarchy. The idea is that:

  • every ticket requires at least one level of approval; so at least your immediate manager must approve.
  • if your manager does not approve- it can be that he does not have stock- he can “escalate” the indent to his manager.
  • Whoever approved an indent- for part or full items, must ship.
  • All indents are visible to everyone up the hierarchy; so, a higher manager has the choice to cut through the layers and directly approve an indent.

Ship and receive: anyone who approves, must ship. It of course may be that while approving the indent you do not have parts; so, you can ship only when you get the parts. You of course need to indent for parts to get them.

Spare parts
Spare parts

If you do not have parts to ship in response to an indent, you can escalate the indent to your manager.
You can ship partially or in full.

The cycle is completed when the indenter receives the parts.

Spare stock inventory and usage: When the parts are received by the indenter, he adds them to his inventory- which is his personal stock of spares. Spares are used in repair and maintenance – always related to a ticket.

So, irrespective of how you received the parts in your stock, you can only use them to solve a ticket.

You have full visibility of the entire spares inventory with you and in your direct reporting chain of service users. You also have visibility into the usages and interesting reports can be generated regarding spares usages for tickets, regions, history of spares used by equipment and by user. This helps you maintain control over spares used and draw conclusions over the maintainability of equipment.

Web lead form to CRM leads database

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How to create the web lead form

Web lead form to CRM leads table

Customers interact with you at multiple touch points. They phone, they mail and increasingly they drop a note with their message on your website.

It’s best to provide a structured form to gather feedback or enquiries. But having done that, what should you do with the inquiries that come in. Most web forms will generate an email back to you including the text of response. Those need to be sorted and enquiries need to be marked to the right executive for follow up.

So, we decided to eliminate the email.

Now you can use your Saleswah CRM account to create a lead form and embed the code directly on the page of the website where you want the form to appear. Any submission on the form is securely inserted as a lead into the database.

Once in the database, the Saleswah lead management process takes over. You get an instant alert (on email, browser or even on the mobile app). So, you can get to work on it right away. Qualify the lead further, assess interest level and either reject it or accept and move it further down the funnel.

 

The complete CRM vision behind service CRM development

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When we built the service CRM– we had some very straightforward goals. Some have been achieved, some will be achieved down the road.

Let me do a quick roadmap sharing and also list the design objectives.

Continue reading “The complete CRM vision behind service CRM development”

Email templates for sales campaigns

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We use email templates for marketing campaigns. What is less appreciated is using email templates for running sales campaigns.

Unlike marketing campaigns, sales campaigns focus on more immediate revenue generation activities- tasks that relate to specific funnel stages.

Why do you need templates?

Sales people are busy and there is a lot of demand on their time. They win business when they are in front of their customer- face to face or on phone.

But, there is a lot of paperwork in sales. The need for paperwork stems from:

  1. Cold prospecting- or introduction.
    • Have you ever faced this? You call a prospect and he says, “can you send me a mail saying exactly what you do?” If you sat around and sent out a mail only hours later, he may even forget you called, or the context of the conversation.
    • Having a template for an “intro-mail” is a no-brainer. It saves time. Imagine getting off the phone and firing off the email at the click of a button. It does not have to be complex. It may contain bare facts about your company, how your product relates to his needs and what you will do next.
    • You will obviously tweak the text a little bit before sending it to personalize it.
  2. Meetings notes: minutes
    • You have a meeting. Either on the phone or face to face. If you are sending the minutes, let it be professional. Nicely formatted and the names of meetings attendees recorded in the email.
  3. An email for every occasion:
    • Thank you for a meeting..
    • Thank you for an order.
    • Gentle reminder for follow up on a visit.
    • Update on a commitment.
    • Relevant company news.
    • Sending literature.
    • Response to a demo request.
  4. Email for proposals.
    • Product/ category wise preliminary proposal: cover salient specs, budgetary ideas and success stories.
    • Product/ category wise firm proposal: cover detailed specs, clear budget and other standard terms of business.

How many of these can you automate? To save your time and that of your team? And help win business faster?

What do you need to build a product?

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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.

Understanding the different Saleswah CRM user roles

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Saleswah has 4 types of roles (other than the admin) which are relevant for your users.

a) Sales executive b) Sales Manager c) Marketing d) Sales co-ordinator (telesales/ inside-sales)
There are differences among the roles in terms of what data they get to access or what functionalities are available to them.

A sales manager can do virtually everything that the software allows- except the admin work, of course. He can also see the customer data for all the execs reporting to him.

A sales exec has access to all features/ functionalities but sees only his own data.A sales exec and a sales manager are the 2 types of roles that carry sales targets. They also have “account ownership” – meaning direct responsibility for business generation from named accounts. Sales execs and their managers form a pyramidal structure.

A user in a marketing role can’t perform sales activities like creating a deal/ creating a quote etc. But, he/she can view all data which is visible to the person in the hierarchy he/ she is reporting to. As an example, lets’s say Brian, (in marketing role) reports to Susan and thus can view all data. But he can’t action much. He can of course upload leads, create and run email marketing campaigns etc.

A sales co-ordinator can perform all the activities that a sales exec can- but does not carry targets or have account ownership. Their job is to help a sales executive or a sales team (reporting to a manager) sell. So, they can create quotes, deals etc. But, the ownership, rewards, targets are all those of the account owners- sales exec or his manager.

Like the user in marketing role, a sales co-ordinator only sees the customer data for the team to which she/ he is assigned (the manager she reports to).
I hope this clarifies. The executive team in your organization are the people who can decide the teams and roles of users.

As you know, if you are a sales manager, you can drill down to a lower level in the hierarchy to filter the data to only the level of the executive or the manager below you. This applies to all the lists, reports and dashboards.

The Saleswah Sales CRM dashboard now loads 10-100X faster

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Ever since we migrated the Saleswah CRM to the newer platform, it is winning plaudits and applause from our customers for functionality and visual appeal.

We are making upto the minute metrics relevant for sales available on your desktop. This helps ensure sales reviews with your team are conducted on the basis of same data. There is a catch though.
Every time you log in to the CRM or come back to the dashboard many real time calculations are performed. Large number of queries are fired at the database and the results are aggregated, pivoted, and otherwise “massaged” to show up on your own personalized dashboard.

Mercifully you are unaware of all the complexity at the backend- and that’s how it will remain. Suffice it to say that we discovered recently that the dashboard was literally crawling under the weight of the queries. It was taking a long time to load if the data size for any of the items: open leads, deals, tasks or appointments became large.

We fixed it today. Hope you see a difference.

What is the Sales CRM dashboard telling you?

When you login the default view is that of the current month and current Financial Year. The focus is on giving you a close look at the things that matter to you – the tasks and appointments, the forecasts, the pending or overdue commitments etc.

You can shift the calendar month to go back in time or forward to see what the next month (s) look like. And, you can obviously navigate to the item of interest from the dashboard.

If you want to drill down to the level of a junior, do that. All data on this page and others will get filtered automatically to her level.

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