Sebastián Barbosa O./December 14, 2022 /Dynamics 365/CRM/Sales/ 6 min read

6 steps for a successful sales management process using a CRM

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Real leaders understand that having an intelligent selling and management strategy will keep them frontrunners in such a competitive and changing landscape. One of the main practices for running a successful sales management process is adopting a CRM system to drive and increase sales while organizing customers, prospects, and lead contact information in the most efficient and smooth way.

In this blog, you’ll learn about the essential 6 steps for a successful sales management process using a CRM. But first, let’s start with the basics…

What is a sales management system?

It is a powerful tool that helps the sales team reach their objectives (increase leads, sales, and manage processes) by tracking data, reducing manual tasks, and quickly nurturing leads. Comprehensive systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales or Dynamics 365 for Marketing are one-stop solutions for common business challenges; they’re robust sales management systems that strengthen your customer and lead relationship while aligning sales and marketing; plus:

  • Create & manage your own sales process
  • Control your pipeline
  • Gain insight into potential sales
  • Quickly identify & connect with buyers
  • Professional Social Media platforms integration (LinkedIn)

Key aspects of a successful sales management process

There are different overall aspects to consider depending on the business; however, within a successful sales process, the most crucial elements to manage are:

Sales operations: Building and strengthening a sales team is vital to represent your company while excelling at its sales operations. Having a systematic approach will result in bigger achievements and fewer errors since the sales teams will be on the same page working as individuals within a collaborative unit.

Sales strategy: Every company has a series of processes that helps a business product reach its target users. In order to address these deals and sales cycles, a sales funnel, or sales pipeline will facilitate their completion.

Sales analysis (reporting): It helps you grasp how your sales strategy impacts your company’s success while providing insight (with sales metrics or quantifiable indicators) into the necessary measures to increase sales and find the ideal customer quicker.

What is a CRM, and how can it help the sales process?

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is the system in charge of managing every external and internal customer interaction with an enterprise. This system relies on technology to analyze, organize, and record contact data to elevate every business interaction throughout the sales cycle.

A CRM system focuses on different areas of organizations of any size and industry. For instance, from seamless internal communication to customized marketing campaigns, adjusting to a specific team’s needs and goals. According to HubSpot, 75% of sales managers agree with the fact that relying on a CRM helps drive and boost sales while handling several responsibilities seamlessly and more efficiently.

Therefore, more organizations are witnessing the several benefits of CRM software to make real-time decisions while increasing profit, providing marketers, salespeople, CS representatives, and other stakeholders data-driven insights while supporting companies in the following areas:

  • Lead management
  • Pipeline management
  • Task management
  • Workflow automation
  • Reporting and forecasting
  • Centralized communication and documentation

Building a sales management process with Dynamics 365 step by step:

Different Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions that combine and integrate efficient CRM and business apps will significantly help your sales department processes from start to finish since they are cloud-based solutions that combine ERP and CRM capabilities designed to effectively:

  • Connect
  • Visualize
  • Prioritize
  • Manage every area of your business
  • Integrate disparate operations
  • Bring a user-friendly experience to your customers and employees.

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Dynamics 365 developed several solutions to meet every business need, such as Customer Service, Human Resources, Project Operations, Finance, Power Platform, and much more.

Now, to learn more about how to build your sales management process with Dynamics 365, here’s the 6 selling steps process that will bring value to your organization:

1. Prospecting Leads

Different methods exist to create interest and generate leads to make a deal, such as a web form, email marketing, social media campaigns, and more. For instance, with email marketing, CRM software is critical to collect and maintaining great customer data organization. It is important for more accurate targeting of the right audience for a specific product or event that is being promoted.

Also, you might know how challenging getting and retaining leads is. That’s why a CRM system ensures proper management of the organization’s sales teams while integrating and simplifying collaboration with clients, prospects, and leads. Thus, having a CRM facilitates lead identification to deliver the right information for each one depending on their previous interaction.

2. Qualify Leads

In this lead qualification process, your organization will be able to determine if the product is appropriate for the customer’s issues and needs and if the lead is suitable for that product per se. This is quite functional if you’re seeking to increase revenue (which means every company, right?)

Here, the sales department will understand the reasons the customer is buying, what they need, what their budget is, the estimated date to close the deal and more essential questions that need to be clear before continuing to the next step. For this stage, Dynamics 365 Marketing helps you calculate lead-scoring models based on firmographic data, demographic details, and the associated contacts’ taken actions. Scorable interactions can be:

3. Potential Customer’s Needs

After the previous analysis, the sales rep or team must conduct thorough research on the customer’s needs before offering the product or service. At the same time, the detailed study must continue during meetings, calls, and follow-up conversations to address and find solutions to the customer’s challenges and needs.

That data collection is undoubtedly faster and more accurate with the aid of a CRM system, where sales teams can quickly analyze and demonstrate an understanding of customer needs. Additionally, the sales team will be able to perform a deeper and enhanced analysis by having an organized resume and route of the potential customer.

4. Negotiate and Manage Objections

In this negotiation step, the sales team must identify why the customer hesitates in making the next step for closing a deal. There are several factors a customer could face before deciding to accept the product or service: the quality, price, service, delivery time, or lack of information from the salesperson.

It’s imperative to find the real customer’s reason for hesitating to address their concerns through detailed explanations, conversations, and compromises to give them peace of mind that they’re making the right choice of choosing your service or product. Fortunately, by relying on a CRM, you’ll have full traceability of customer conversations and interactions to arrange or document the customer’s history and, thus, be more prepared to manage objections.

5. Place an Order and Close the Sale

CRM systems help to close the deal quickly and more efficiently with the preparation of signing contracts, sending an invoice, tracking payment, assigning the execution to each team, and more.

Having this quick access to mandatory documentation, protocols, and contracts will provide an error-free sales deal without missing relevant procedures or documents for the customer.

6. Follow-up and Repeating Business

After closing a deal, one of the major flops a business can make is leaving the customer behind and stopping providing top-notch customer service, believing the customer is no longer their responsibility. It will undoubtedly result in client dissatisfaction, a bad company reputation, and missed future deals. Therefore, the salesperson must remain in contact with the customer to ensure everything flows properly.

Besides supervising a smooth execution after closing the deal, the sales team must assist the customer when issues or questions are encountered to keep a satisfied customer with successful operations running. Additionally, sending newsletters, invitations, marketing materials, etc., will maintain your customers informed and interested in your current and future products and services. That’s when a CRM facilitates every customer interaction by integrating all customer touchpoints, quickly accessible to the sales department.

Why Dynamics 365 Sales?

Dynamics 365 surely understands how relevant it is for sellers to have their data work for them while focusing on the top priorities. That’s why Dynamics 365 Sales streamlines the seller experience and increases customer interaction, revenue, and sales while saving costs in the process.

Consequently, Microsoft wants to make the selling processes flow better than ever by empowering collaboration tools much more and increasing intelligence capabilities so every seller can:

  • Make quicker use of their data
  • Regain their time
  • Improve productivity with customers

Amongst the several Dynamics 365 Sales capabilities this user-friendly solution provides, you’ll also leverage historical customer data, ERP-CRM integration, complete follow-up control, easy integration, track your competitors, and effortless workflows.

As you’ve noticed, a modern CRM system can substantially improve your sales and overall business operations to boost your organization’s sales while providing high-quality end-to-end customer service. Following these 6 steps will ensure your sales reps and teams a successful sales management process with lasting customer relationships.

Thank you.

I hope you're ready to follow the essentials of a sales management process and that your organization witnesses how a CRM system will transform your operations from day one.

Sebastián Barbosa O.
TECHNICAL CONTENT WRITER

Read more blog entries by Sebastián Barbosa O.

Read more: Dynamics 365 | CRM | Sales

You now know the steps of a successful sales management process. Are you ready to start living this experience?

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