Sales moves from art to science

Sales moves from art to science
By Paul Taylor

Published: March 15 2011 16:22 | Last updated: March 15 2011 16:22

For years, sales and marketing was a pretty haphazard affair in most companies, more art than science.

Sales directors kept contacts in a Rolodex file or on their computer and sales staff worked the phones or hit the road with samples in a suitcase.

Marketing usually meant commissioning an advertisement in newspapers, magazines or broadcast media and perhaps organising a direct mailing campaign.

IT began to change corporate sales and chief marketing officer (CMO) roles in the 1990s with the introduction of more sophisticated contact management and customer relationship management (CRM) systems and salesforce automation tools.

CRM software, in particular, has become a key IT tool to improve efficiency and customer focus.

Harris Products, the metal working products company, chose the CRM suite of SAP, the German software company, to improve control over sales processes and give a more accurate view of prospects.

Lincoln Electric, Harris’s parent company, was able to build a common customer database, establish a standard sales methodology to provide greater accountability, eliminate duplication in reporting and provide better information about sales opportunities.

“We needed one complete version of the truth about our customers, as we couldn't manage what we couldn’t measure,” says Greg Langston, vice-president of sales at Harris.

“[It] changed the way our sales reps sell and we are collectively now more in control of revenue and forecasts. It is also helping us to focus on our customers, and invest in the aspects of the business that directly impact our success.

“It’s all about results and accountability driven by superior information and process.”

Harris reps, who sell a lot of welding equipment, can now see full details of contacts and previous dealings with customers in one place, instead of having to look in various files and databases.

Companies, particularly those in customer-facing industries such as retail and entertainment, and their CMOs are also having to adapt to fundamental changes in media consumption, the rising power of the consumer and the growth of social networking.

Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the California-based CMO Council, says globalisation of markets and digital channels mean that senior corporate marketers are having to develop new skills and redirect marketing spending.

New software tools are helping. “Sales and marketing campaigns haven't historically always been that easy to monitor or measure,” says Bill Ogle, Motorola Mobility’s CMO, who is in charge of building the smartphone maker’s brand.

“However, new tools – most noticeably salesforce automation and CRM – as well as search marketing measurement, together with the emergence of social network channels, have had a huge positive impact in terms of campaign return on investment, ” he says.

Like other companies, Motorola can now much more accurately measure the effectiveness of its marketing.

Many of the technology tools used by marketing and sales professionals are also moving rapidly online and into “the cloud”, where software and IT services are provided over the internet rather than in-house.

Traditional CRM software packages have helped companies manage their interactions with customers and sales prospects by co-ordinating business processes – including marketing, sales activities, customer service and technical support.

But some packages earned a reputation for being difficult to implement and use and for being expensive. These concerns have been a driving force behind the success of cloud-based CRM offerings, pioneered by Salesforce.com.

“The problem with traditional sales and marketing apps was actually getting sales and marketing people to use them,” says Alex Dayon, executive vice-president of CRM at Salesforce.

“That’s because the apps were cumbersome and didn’t always share data across departments, making it difficult for managers to have insight into business performance. Traditional sales and marketing apps were also incredibly expensive and difficult to install.”

By contrast, cloud-based packages promise fast implementation, do not require hardware investment and can be automatically updated. “With a cloud app, you just open a browser, log in and start using it,” says Mr Dayton.

Recent converts include NBC Universal, the media and entertainment company, which wanted to change its advertising sales business.

The company went for Salesforce’s cloud-based CRM service. “Four weeks later, we had 75 per cent user adoption [among the sales team]. That is unheard of,” says John Sabino, senior vice-president of commercial operations at NBC.

Instead of grappling with software, reps can look at all relevant information in one place and have time to focus on clients and identify opportunities. “It gives us a competitive advantage,” says Mr Sabino.

Other companies have found innovative ways to speed up the sales closing process.

Groupon, the deal-of-the-day website that offers local discounts to online consumers, discovered that its sales teams were spending up to 25 per cent of their time chasing and signing contracts. The company turned to AppExchange – an online marketplace for cloud computing applications – and found a digital signature app, EchoSign.

“The normal process for our sales force across the UK and the world, was to get the Groupon contracts signed in person or follow the tedious process of scanning, mailing or posting the contract,” says Ash Mahmud, head of CRM at Groupon UK.

“It wasn’t unusual for a rep to visit a client two or three times to negotiate all the details.”

The sales reps have managed to cut the time taken to close deals to just under three hours.

Businesses are also learning how to tap into social networking and use the online customer relationships they can create for commercial gain.

“Social networks promise to be the next generation of e-commerce engines,” says Matt Anderson, a partner at Booz & Company.

While commerce mediated by social networks is still nascent, some companies are already testing the waters.

For example, 1-800 Flowers, the online florist, has a fully functioning Facebook store where customers can buy and pay for flowers to be delivered.

CMOs are also beginning to tap into social networks to guide product development, attract customers and boost sales.

Dell, the computer company, is using Twitter, to offer customers Twitter-only deals on equipment.

In December, the company also launched a social monitoring centre, Ground Control, designed to track and analyse the more than 22,000 daily topic posts related to Dell, as well as any mentions on Twitter.

“Digital channels have transformed the way customer interactions are recorded and reported back,” says Patrick James, head of marketing, sales and service at Capgemini Consulting.

He says: “We can track when, how and where customers enter digital channels as well as what they do, when they exit and where they go next.”

With sophisticated IT, including superfast memory-based databases, companies can now mine that data in near real time to detect trends and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.

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