Control the Sales Pipeline (CRM)

Most flooring retailers are enjoying good sales presently. Even record sales. Right now, we might not be giving much thought to how effective our salespeople are because we are struggling to get it installed. Sadly, we can’t rely on this situation to be the case forever. In fact, forecasts indicate the market will cool over the coming 12 months. We want to establish good sale processes now, so we don’t get caught out.

Do we know how many leads our salespeople are working with at any given time? How many potential clients have taken samples, and how many have had us measure? Do we know the reasons leads are lost? Do we know the conversion rate for our business and each of our salespeople?

“…forecasts indicate the market will cool over the coming 12 months. We want to establish good sale processes now, so we don’t get caught out.”

If so, you have good control of your sales pipeline. Unfortunately, very few flooring retailers have this level of visibility into their sales process. Most retailers have good control of the operational aspects of their business, but most are operating blind when it comes to sales.

My own experience in flooring retail was that we grew our business by focussing hard on the sales to quotes conversion rate. It was a key measure by which we measured our salespeople, and it was key to growing our sales year on year.

In the early years, our systems were largely manual; I still had blind spots in my sales process. I could calculate the conversion rate of quotes to sales and calculate the dollar value conversion rate. While these were very powerful data points, they overlooked how effectively we converted all leads into sales. I didn’t know how many potential customers my salespeople talked to, took samples, and how many agreed to a measure. I didn’t know how many opportunities we were burning or why they were burned.

Not only did I not have visibility on this information, neither did my salespeople.

“Do we know the conversion rate for your business and each of our salespeople? ”

Our salespeople are arguably the most critical element in our business, but we don’t give them the tools to be effective, and we don’t readily have the means by which to measure their effectiveness.

Flooring specific IT systems have given flooring retailers the ability to better see and understand what is happening in sales. Until recently, however, there has been a gap. There hasn’t been a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool specific to flooring that integrated with a flooring specific business management system.

If you want to get better control of your sales pipeline and if your want to give your salespeople the tool they need to sell more efficiently and effectively, you need to be looking at a CRM tool that will work in your business. They are not new. The challenge has been they are generic, can be overly complex for our needs, and are expensive. Also, the data these CRM tools collect sits outside of our business management system leading to expensive customisation or double handling of data.

“If you want to get better control of your sales pipeline and if your want to give your salespeople the tool they need to sell more efficiently and effectively, you need to be looking at a CRM tool that will work in your business.”

The RFMS CRM app is a new entrant to the market; it integrates with the RFMS business management system and Measure Mobile. From the app on a tablet or smartphone, salespeople and sales managers can see all current leads and the total value of those leads. From the app, the salesperson can communicate with the lead, book a measure, and generate a quote. At a glance, they can see all opportunities and exactly what stage they are at and how long it has been since they were last actioned.

If you would like to see what RFMS might offer your business, we would be happy to have you join us for an online meeting.