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I do try and keep my football addiction away from this blog where possible but like many today I can't help but be struck down by the news that David Beckham is now set to miss the World Cup this summer due to injury. Now you may be thinking 'what has David Beckham possibly got to do a blog that focuses on sales leads and search?' and believe me, I've had to fight long and hard to find a correlation stable enough to let me write about the subject.But the reason why I mention it today is because the incident pretty much sums up the unpredictability of life. Here is a man who was destined to play for his country one last time. He'd fought all the odds, done absolutely everything right and fate seemed to dictate that David Beckham would make it for one last swan song, one last glorious goodbye. The nation expected it, as did the rest of the world. But one stumble on the turf has completely shattered this entire outlook. And more to the point, out of nowhere it has opened the door for somebody else to step in.And I guess that's what my point really. In business terms, just like football it is simply impossible to guess what will happen from day to day. What may seem an impossible cause one day will suddenly become extremely achievable the next. What's bad news for some, could be great news for others. The message here is things can change very quickly and you need to be waiting and ready to pounce when they do. If you're not tracking your market carefully enough, then you'll miss your opportunity, and as Beckham found out yesterday, margins for error can be very small.
Taken from Sales Intelligence: Preparing for Smarter SellingCRM is proving itself to be an absolute must have in the current market as the above graph shows (I told you I'd try to leave percentages alone. I've moved onto graphs instead). When you consider that the best-in-class companies are achieving quota by a 26% better average than laggards it is clear to see that reducing CRM budget is not an option companies should consider in a bid to cut costs. It has sometimes been assumed that CRM solutions are a 'nice to have' opposed to a 'must have' but that argument no longer stands up. Rather than it being a bonus to know about your customer it really is an absolute necessity as budgets tighten and businesses seek a far more personal experience. There's been a lot of talk about mobile spend increasing, Internet spend increasing, social networking spend increasing, and I can't help but feel that CRM has been largely overlooked in terms of a progressing trend. The solution is there, and the best-in-class are proving that it works.
It's fantastic to finally have this Aberdeen report, it really is. Spending much of my time fighting the cause for the use of sales intelligence solutions it's great to have some numbers to back up my corner. Of course, I don't want to become one of these people who spends his life talking in percentages but a 26% difference in sales quota success is extremely valuable, especially in these tough economic times. (if you don't know quite what I'm referring to check out this news item)What I find more staggering about the figure though, which is not really covered in the report, is that this vast improvement actually comes from making things 100 times easier. It's not like implementing a sales intelligence solution means having to put in more hours to achieve a better goal. Our automated system, for example, quite literally takes away all of the leg work. Everything comes to the right people without them even having to lift a finger.So, really the figure of a 26% improvement for the best-in-class should also note that that 26% improvement comes by doing things a heck of a lot easier! It's no surprise then, that the report concluded sales cycles for those using such solutions are reducing 5% year-on-year whereas the laggards are seeing a 7% rise. What was I saying about speaking in percentages? Oh yeah, 90% of the time, I'll try harder not too.
I'm a man of my word and as promised towards the end of last week, The report 'Sales Intelligence: Preparing for Smarter Selling' is now available to download for FREE by using the following link. It's a really great in-depth look at why companies need automated sales intelligence and I believe it really reflects the values and benefits of what Artesian can bring to the table. This week, I'll be blogging opinion and reaction to the report but in the meantime read the ins and outs at your leisure and get back to me with responses and opinions.
Don't want to be going into too much detail on a Friday afternoon but next week will see the Artesian blog focusing on a report conducted by the Aberdeen Group and sponsored by Artesian Solutions titled: Sales Intelligence: Preparing for Smarter Selling.The report focuses on how the use of aggregated business directories and supporting technologies are helping to alleviate the pressure to acquire new and profitable customers, without increasing the cost of identifying and selling to these prospects. There's some really interesting stuff to examine in further detail and you'll be able to download the entire research piece directly from the blog. Any other bloggers wishing to collaborate on this or get extra info on the eye opening bit of research please just get in touch.
Something that hasn't escaped our notice here at the Artesian hub, is the need for different news at different times during a sales cycle. Potential customers simply can not be placed into one big pen and treated the same. As some creep down the sales funnel ahead of others the importance of relevant news expands. For example, looking for a lead means exactly that. You're looking for something to justify your call, nothing else matters. But if you're on the very brink of closing a deal you want to know everything about that company from management changes to the canteen menu in order to foresee and respond to any potential barriers. With search, it is very hard to section these stages into groups without simply increasing the number of work hours needed to keep track of the diversifying news. Which is why we're working on a far simpler solution which allows customers to track companies through different stages of the process very easily. To steal the wise words of that famous philosopher Tesco, every little helps.
That's right, today marks the 200th post in Artesian blog history. If you've read all 200 I commend you. 150, pretty good going. Anywhere below 100 and I say to you, where the hell have you been?! You've got some catching up to do. Get reading... Go on, I'll wait.....What better way to celebrate than to see the news this morning that online news is now vastly more popular than print. It is now the third most popular news source in the US, closely behind national and local TV stations. The Pew Research center, who conducted the survey said "News awareness is becoming an anytime, anywhere, any device activity for those who want to stay informed". Couldn't agree with you more!Print is very old hack as far as I'm concerned. It's shelf life is limited, it's structure is dated and anyone who drives a happy thought powered Prius will tell you it's shockingly bad for the environment. So here's to the future. Online news, anytime, anywhere, and at the moments that really matter.
