5 CRM Mistakes for Sales Managers to Avoid

Learn how to avoid the most common CRM mistakes when setting up, updating and monitoring your CRM system from Hubspot Pro Jack Williams.

Picture of Jack Williams Jack Williams

Published: 18 Jan 2021

4 minutes read

5 CRM Mistakes for Sales Managers to Avoid

A CRM system can truly revolutionise your sales department - bringing all of your contacts, sales pipeline data and more into one place can increase your opportunities and conversions. However, there are a few CRM mistakes that you should avoid in order to get the most out of your system. 

CRM Mistake #1 - Forgetting your Reps

CRM Mistake #2 - Get your team on board 

CRM Mistake #3 - Integrate everything

CRM Mistake #4 - Fields of fields 

CRM Mistake #5 - Unbox and leave 

CRM Mistake #1 - Forgetting your Reps 

This is maybe the biggest mistake that you can make as a sales manager - to choose a CRM which isn’t suitable for use out on the road. If your salespeople are worth their salt, a lot of time will be taken up by visiting prospects, which although a great thing for your opportunities, can cause a real backlog of vital information. 

This is why setting up your CRM to be easily accessible and updateable from the road is especially important. If your salesperson has just come out of the first meeting of the day with some great information, by visit number four it's likely that some of the details will be lost in the ether. 

By having your CRM set up so that it’s intuitive to use, your team will be able to update the system immediately after every meeting, which can only be good news for your prospecting

 

CRM Mistake #2 - Get your team on board 

A CRM system is only as good as the data within it, and the majority of data is going to be input by your team. If your team fails to adopt the system, either because of the perception that it takes up too much of their time or the system seems too complicated to use, then your CRM is next to useless. 

There are a few things that you can do as a sales manager to make sure that your team is on board before any issues arise. Firstly, lead from the front. Personally engage with the CRM, produce reports from it and show your team. It is your responsibility to convey the opportunities that the new system presents and get your team excited about it. At the very worst, if your team understands that you will be closely monitoring it and taking performance reports from it, they will be much more incentivised to engage. 

The next step is training. It’s not surprising that people who aren't given the appropriate education on a new system engage with it at the bare minimum level or not at all. It’s vital therefore that you give your whole team thorough training to get the most out of both them and the system. 

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CRM Mistake #3 - Integrate everything 

Many sales teams have some sort of legacy software that is either being used to its full potential, or is not meeting expectations. A common CRM mistake is that legacy systems such as Salesforce, or even a website made in WordPress is not integrated with the new CRM system. 

By integrating old systems, there is no element of the sales process that is outside of the single, easy to use CRM - everything is seamlessly stored and used in one place. Once your process for entering data into the CRM is in place, you may find that there is a better use for your legacy system facilitated by the ease of your new CRM. 

 


 

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CRM Mistake #4 - Fields of fields 

This is a technical mistake that many installers of CRM system make. Within any CRM, a line of data about a prospect such as “Name” or “Company” is referred to as a field. When setting up your CRM, there’s an important balance to achieve - having enough data to give you a full picture of a prospect, and not having so much data that you get “field-blindness”. 

Think of it this way, it’s important to know the role of a prospect and their phone number, but not relevant to know every single detail of their life such as their cat’s name or favourite meal. By having all of this irrelevant data stored, it becomes much less efficient to find what you are looking for - and efficiency is the end goal of any CRM system. 

As well as this, if your team tries to input all the data, it will take up too much of their time and more than likely, they will eventually give up. In short, reduce the amount of information required and your team will be more engaged and it will take you less time to find what you need

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CRM Mistake #5 - Unbox and leave 

A CRM is not a plug and play product - it’s one that requires nurturing, adapting to your needs and monitoring. In return, it will give you complete visibility over your whole process from beginning to end, leading to increased conversions, better relationships with your customers and easier reporting amongst other things. 

In order to get all of those benefits, there will be some initial set-up and continual nurturing to develop your CRM into a revolutionary tool that can greatly improve your department. This may seem an off-putting prospect at first, but Axon Garside can assist in setting up your system and establishing best practises to continually get the most of your CRM system

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Free consultations from Axon Garside 

With many factors to consider, we understand that the prospect of implementing a CRM can be daunting. Our Hubspot CRM pros are available for free bespoke consultations to talk through your companies requirements, and how your CRM should be configured to meet your objectives. 

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