Transform Your Small Business into a Sales Powerhouse with CRM

A successful CRM system to attract, keep and growing profitable customers is an appreciating asset:

PC Magazine published an informative article and infographic about transforming your small business into a sales powerhouse with CRM.

Some interesting stats on small businesses that do acquire a CRM solution:

Small- to mid-sized businesses overall had business sales increase by up to 29 percent.
Sales productivity increased by up to 34 percent.
Forecast accuracy increased by up to 42 percent.

Even more beneficial to small and medium businesses is the integration of CRM and accounting solutions, according to the infographic's data. Benefits cited include:

giving a business owner increased insight into past trends

the ability to create more accurate forecasts, as well as

the convenience of having accounts and business history all in one centralized place via a CRM app.

Small business owners can reduce search time when sifting through customer accounts and account history, increase productivity, and take their businesses to the next level.

The lead process starts the transformation of a lead contact to a customer. A well-used CRM system will help to expand and convert lead by:

Organizing leads
Tracking and Managing Leads
Managing Lead conversion

Along with the buyer-sales processes, social media will now be involved to get to know your customer better. You could view how they handle service requests of customers and relationship interactions from Twitter. Lots of invaluable insight can be gained by tracking customers' social media conversations.

Additionally with mobile technology, whether in the office or on the go, your business can also access these social functions. Check out the company's Linked-In account to note key changes in the business, press releases, changes in management, and how their people are linked to others on Linked-In. You may find a third party who can be helpful.

As the lead becomes qualified, sales opportunities are created with a linked sales/buyers process to guide the potential buyer and the sales team. Your well-used and adaptable CRM should have management dashboards to measure performance. Over time the metrics will help you adjust your business to the more important customer trends.

CRM provides the convenience of having accounts and business history all in one centralized place. Information is shared among field sales, inside sales support, marketing, accounting, production, customer service reps, and management. Better decisions are made to more timely needs for today's fast-based business environment.

Email is a core essential communications tool and integration with CRM helps to link those communications to contact and businesses. Contacts that find your marketing materials helpful will respond favorably to education's Marketing content. Interested email recipients will self-select what they are interested in and the time they are interested, thus providing real-time updates for the sales team to follow up quickly.