This is a guest post by Adriel Michaud, the VP of Marketing at FunnelFLARE.
Sales used to be simple. You’d drop into a prospect’s workplace or call them, they’d answer, you’d have a conversation, and move on. Now that both sides have layered technology on, salespeople have a lot of problems in their way:
1. Salespeople now have to log activities into their CRM. It’s worth the effort, but not directly related to making the sale and is extra work on their plate.
2. With call screening, prospects “ghost” salespeople more often: they stop taking their calls and responding to emails instead of just saying "too busy" or "not interested."
3. Now that everyone has a virtual calendar in Google or Outlook, prospect's days are super busy, and it can be hard for salespeople to catch prospects at their desk.
4. Separation of marketing and sales causes prospects to fall through the cracks.
Cutting administrative work: No more logging calls
Logging calls and activities to Zoho CRM helps salespeople keep track of more sales opportunities, helps sales managers see what’s happening, and helps coworkers cover for a sick salesperson because they can quickly get up to speed on the account. But it takes time to log all this stuff, and logging activities isn’t really sales.
With inbound and outbound call tracking in platforms like FunnelFLARE, you can record phone calls and send transcriptions and a link to the call recording right into Zoho CRM. This helps handle the brunt of administrative work for calls. No more typing on the phone call!
Many of today’s managers and purchasers are jammed with back-to-back meetings all day. Finding the right time for a sales call can feel like a roll of the dice and the odds are stacked against you. The right time to call is when the customer has a few minutes to talk about your product or solution. As such, calling them when they’re browsing your website or re-reading your emails can be the best time to catch them. FunnelFLARE has a Google Chrome extension that notifies salespeople when their contacts are active so they can make the call and connect.
Salespeople and automation working together in the same sales sequences
While automation plays a big part in 2020, sales can still add the essential human touch that cannot (yet) be automated. Many sales and marketing groups are working hand in hand to perform Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to work on closing target accounts.
Done right, it's a well-executed dance between marketing and sales. Marketing automation builds smart sequences and workflows that guide the prospect to sales. Then sales, having established a relationship with the prospect, can lead the prospect back into the sequence for further nurturing, or take them out of the sequence if they're ready.
In these sequences, sales will often perform a call or send a personalized email that is more involved than an automated one would be. Marketing handles processing the rest until the prospect is truly sales-ready.
Get technology and sales working together
Technology shouldn’t hamper sales; it should free salespeople up to spend more time understanding prospect pain points and skillfully talking about how the product or service meets those needs.
Integrating FunnelFLARE with Zoho CRM is easy. You can learn more about FunnelFLARE integration for Zoho CRM here.
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