There is something about a Spring Clean. Getting things organized, sorting through the junk, pulling things apart and putting them back together again. It can be a cathartic experience. The simple exercise of cleaning a house or backyard shed can easily be translated to the business setting and in particular your CRM.
“Control your clutter or it will control you”. All businesses evolve, change is inevitable and never-ending, so it’s no surprise that your CRM also needs to adapt. Day-to-day processes get invented or refined, new sales territories are devised, pricing offers are revisited. All of these cogs are continuously turning within the machinery of business and unless the systems to support them are also refined a gulf will emerge between what happens on the ground (and in the proverbial corridors) and the systems that are intended to help.
Meagan Francis may have said “Cleaning is a practice, not a project”, and this is an ideal which we should hold ourselves to. But just like most of us the occasional Spring Clean is what we need from time to time.
So, challenge yourself – ask yourself, “Is my CRM squeaky clean, does it need a tune up”?
When was the last time you validated and inspected your processes to see if they match your system. Are there new processes that have evolved on the sidelines – within the proverbial subterranean network. Are your teams following set pathways put in place by a sales leader who actually left 4 years ago and no-one really knows why this process or data is needed?
There is a well-known adage of System-Process-People. And, although it is implied, it’s actually crucial that these three elements are in sync. Nobody is immune to this maxim and here at Sugar, we ourselves have reviewed and overhauled our use of Sugar. I look forward to sharing stories from our own journey.
In the meanwhile, tell me your stories… how do you keep your CRM running smoothly, are you a habitual cleaner or an annual spring cleaner?