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Sales, as the inimitable Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross, is a tough racket. It’s about finding the right customers, and finding them before the competition does. And the sales rep who uses all Dynamics has to offer natively — and extends it with the right applications and tools — has a huge advantage over the competition.
Every organization and every rep uses Dynamics differently, but there are a few common threads to uncovering, courting, and closing new business.
- Utilize predictive lead scoring
- Integrate all available prospect info
- Create killer sales proposals in Dynamics
Reveal only relevant leads
One of the best ways to determine who’s a viable prospect for your business is a quick phone call: in just a few minutes, you can figure out if the person is a decision maker, if they have specifics on a project, budget, and timeline, and if they’re truly qualified.
But what if you have 1,000 of these prospects? Are you really going to get on the phone with each and every one of them to see if there is a possible opportunity?
Fortunately, Dynamics has tools that help you automate the sorting of the wheat from the chaff. By configuring predictive lead scoring (such as what you’ll find in Dynamics 365 Sales Insights), you can quickly see which leads have a better chance of closing.
Lead scoring models should incorporate data points from every source available: emails opened and/or clicked, event statistics, webinars attended — and for how long: Did they stay for the whole thing? 20 points. Did they leave after five minutes? Five points.
Lead scores can, and should, include data from “the outside world,” too, such as social media feeds.
Don’t skimp on social
Did you know that D365 can enable social listening, and roll social media data into your CRM?
Most decision-making processes happen outside your prospecting activities. E.g., a lead may attend a webinar, and ask a couple of canned questions, but later on, they “get real” and solicit unfiltered opinions/feedback on your product or services via their social media streams.
Using the Microsoft Social Media application integrated with your CRM helps you capture this info and create a more complete picture of a prospect, as social media data can be automatically added to customer records.
In addition to helping you better understand current, active leads, social listening can help uncover new opportunities and even function as a customer service channel.
In short, social media enables you to meet your customers where they are, and have a more holistic understanding of them. The info gleaned via “the wild” of social media is always less filtered — and often more helpful — than info coming from a controlled Q&A.
Present only professional proposals
With your leads properly scored and each lead’s requirements and opinions fully understood, you should be close to sending a sales proposal. This is the moment when a configure, price, quote (CPQ) extension can make a huge difference.
And while you could use Word or Excel to create a sales quotes, most businesses enjoy higher closing rates by using a CPQ solution to build, send, and track proposals.
The combination of professionally designed proposal templates, dynamic product and pricing configuration, and granular tracking tools means proposals are more engaging, more accurate, and less likely to “die on the vine.”
Sales is a tough racket, but the tools that come with Dynamics — and the applications that extend it — can help make the process faster, and ultimately more rewarding.
