RainmakerForce Pipeline DNA Report Shows Sales Teams Actually Working for CRM, the Most Expensive Non-Performer in Sales
March 18 2018 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
RainmakerForce, a San Francisco-based sales technology company,
features the “Pipeline DNA Report,” the ultimate report for the
C-Suite that analyzes a company’s sales pipeline and provides
unfiltered information (without sugar coating) of its “goodness”,
rank against industry peers, capacity and capability issues and
whether it can deliver expected revenues. The need and urgency for
such a report has increased from companies nowadays because their
CRM software has become a trash-can of sales data instead of being
an organized database that produces results. Since CRM stores
anything and everything, whether right or wrong, and regardless of
who keys it in or what it is for, it does more damage than good to
sales teams. Instead of working on revenue generation, salespeople
waste selling time in cleaning, interpreting and presenting
information from this untrustworthy data source for progress
reporting and forecasting. In a world of increasing complexity,
leaders are demanding better visibility to sales truths beyond what
their CRM shows and without needing to question the veracity of its
data.
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The fact that CRM fails to increase sales is the worst-kept
secret in the industry. Everyone knows it, but very few find the
time to do anything about it. Those who make it work find
themselves spending sales time on a never-ending and tedious
process of mundane cleaning and updating. Adding pressure to this
is the constant demand from management for up-to-date deal
information and accurate (no-surprise) forecasts. All of this
creates severe revenue bottlenecks and high opportunity costs. So,
companies either hire more people to manage CRM or spend more on
bolt-on applications to CRM that repackage the same untrustworthy
data with fancy graphics. Mack Sundaram, CEO of RainmakerForce
summarizes, “It is eminently obvious that sales teams work for CRM
rather than have CRM work for them. This is where the Pipeline DNA
report shines and reflects the core value of RainmakerForce –
changing the world for the better by questioning conventions that
don’t make sense. Sales is our passion and we strive to show that
value by going beyond the obvious. This report will show the
C-Suite not only how to make CRM work for Sales and increase
customer value but also where it causes revenue leakages and
forecasting blind spots.”
While Sales is a team effort, CRM has not lived up to be a
trustworthy team member. CRM forces sales teams to categorize deal
progress arbitrarily with vague definitions instead of showing the
customer’s buying journey. For example, the CRM stages such as
‘Qualification’ or ‘Proposal Evaluation’ literally show sales
getting done based on the tasks salespeople are doing. Ironically,
it doesn’t show what customers are thinking or how salespeople are
helping them reach a buying vision. It also fails to reveal true
performance gaps or revenue pitfalls. When quarter-end comes along
with high revenue pressure, CRM problems get exacerbated. Companies
get into a mad rush to hit their numbers and ask reps to push
customers to timelines they expect (and not the customers’). As Ken
Krogue’s noteworthy HBR article demonstrates, companies find
themselves in revenue traps and end up making even more
mistakes.
The RainmakerForce Pipeline DNA Report takes a pragmatic
customer-oriented approach to Sales by helping the C-Suite get an
“outside-in” view (from the eyes of the customer) as opposed to
“inside-out” (from the eyes of CRM stages). The report
health-checks sales pipelines (sans the deadwood), covers up
revenue blind spots and also helps companies build revenue
assurance from forecasts. The power of this report is drawn from
the RainmakerForce technology that uses machine-learning, proven
sales techniques, and predictive algorithms derived from millions
of customer behavioral data points in real B2B sales. It rigorously
assesses every deal based on customers’ buying stages while also
ensuring veracity and robustness with direct customer inputs and
the company’s historical data. Sales leaders then get true
customer-verifiable sales intelligence built from the ground up as
well as handy insights to liberate selling time from unproductive
tasks and prioritizing attention on winnable deals, avoiding
revenue traps and creating customer value. “The outside-in
methodology embodied in the Pipeline DNA report manifests our core
value to do Sales right without the need for additional
investments,” adds Sundaram.
It is imperative that Sales be done right from the customer’s
viewpoint and not CRM’s. Brian Burns, the renowned podcaster of The
Brutal Truth of Sales & Selling podcast and author of The
Maverick Selling Method, recently interviewed Mack Sundaram on How
to win in the Perfect Storm of B2B Sales and highlighted the
magnifying problem of ignoring the customer buying journey and
running Sales “from the locker room instead of the field.”
Reworking our approach to Sales will not only limit selling costs
and rep turnover but also improve cash flow and value addition for
customers. The answer is not to buy more technology on CRM and
manage the wrong metrics; nor is it working to solve CRM problems.
Let’s save ourselves the suspense and embrace the fact that Sales
teams need to stop working for CRM. It is possible to smartly turn
it into a performer and revenue producer.
About RainmakerForce
RainmakerForce provides Smart Sales technology built on customer
purchase intentions to help sales teams get 100% revenue and
forecast attainment with no blind spots in pipeline management. It
synthesizes ever-changing deal information into meaningful actions
with a systematic selling discipline, reveals areas of revenue loss
and removes the guesswork from forecasting and bad data. Small,
medium and large teams in hunting, renewals and channel sales use
RainmakerForce to generate consistent sales performance, plug
revenue holes and reliably predict sales numbers.
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RainmakerForceRicha Jauhri,
888-486-9995richa_pr@rainmakerforce.com