How CRM can help you accurately forecast sales

Amazingly, every day we encounter companies who are still reliant on spreadsheets to control and maintain their sales funnel. Now, whilst there is unquestionably a call for spreadsheets – with some nifty tips and tricks available in those little grey boxes, it absolutely has its limits. Which is precisely why CRM systems were created in the first place, to help companies increase, elevate and enrich their conversations and make better decisions. A CRM system offers businesses the ability to accurately monitor, forecast and plan their sales funnel. It’s the perfect blend of artificial and human intelligence that helps businesses move forward. An incredibly useful tool with a number of benefits, unquestionably, one of the most helpful functions of a CRM is the ability to help business development managers and sales executives manage their pipeline and accurately forecast sales, allowing companies to plan their resources, budget and steps moving forward.

It does this through:

• A clearly defined sales funnel

CRM systems give you visibility and control of the entire sales funnel, which from the very first phone call or interaction allows you to monitor the sales journey of a potential client. Clearly presented in a logical and straight forward manner, this will help you understand the number of potential clients you have and the steps required to close those deals – and gain a far clearer ability to forecast your potential success.

• Data

Whilst gut instinct can be a powerful force, there is nothing more powerful than data. A CRM helps you gain an in-depth understanding of your past sales funnel to help predict the outcome of your current one. With insights offering important statistics into your past success, sales velocity and conversion rate, it is possible to far more easily predict the success of your current sales forecast.

• Healthy data

Not only does a CRM offer data, but it also works to ensure that data is as up-to-date as possible. With the help of workflows and alerts,  organisations can automatically identify when information is incomplete or incorrect along with any missing key numbers, such as a prospects budget and number of employees for example. This can then be reviewed by the appropriate person to help ensure that, moving forward, the data is amended and helps contribute to an accurate and helpful forecast.

• Subscriptions and renewals

Using a CRM you are able to automate the entire subscription and renewal process. Most notably, this allows you to automatically remind your customers when their subscription is due. This removes any human error from the process as well as helping to keep your renewal rates high. This should help you to not only plan far more precisely for your sales forecast, but also allow to you to retain customers. A powerful component of a CRM system.

• Marketing

With a CRM system you are able to clearly monitor the entire sales funnel, meaning you know precisely how a sale reached you – whether it be by word of mouth, online, offline or social media. By tracking and qualifying leads and clearly categorising them by their sources etc, you can gain a clear understanding into what is working for your business, which leads are converting into your pipeline and how those convert into closed business. This, in turn, should help you decide where to invest your money and help you, not only to develop a far better understanding into your sales funnel, but to replicate your success.

If you have any questions regarding investing in your own CRM email us on success@workbooks.com or give us a call on +44 118 3030 100.