I Hate CRM Systems, But They Work!

I am coaching a number of sales reps who are being forced to partake in their company’s CRM software. You’d think they were being tortured in some Iranian prison by the way they talk about how much they cannot stand recording every inane detail. They don't understand why they need to participate and see the systems only as "a way for management to keep track of me." In a former life I, too, was committed to similar indentured servitude and hated it every bit as much.

Until this happened...

Several years ago, one of my clients was a company in the MidWest named Wetzel Brothers. To me, they were just another client. I trained two or three of their reps and they were pleased with the results. So pleased, in fact, that the president of the company, Mike Draver, called me to suggest that I call on their parent company, Consolidated Graphics, out of Houston.

Never heard of them, I told Mike, but OK. So, given the name of Rachel Keonig, I began the pursuit of a bigger fish. It took a few calls to get through, but dropping the name of “Mike Draver” helped since he, apparently, had been singing my praises to Rachel as well. Eventually, we spoke.

I related the benefits of the coaching program—Get Sales NOW!—that Mike had been raving to her about. Along the way, she asked where I was from. Since no one knows where Duxbury, MA, is, I told her I was in the Boston area.

“Oh,” she said, “I went to high school in Needham.” Coincidentally, so did I. Apparently, we were two years apart and blah, blah, blah, we talked about school and Red Sox and Rachel told me she’d keep me in mind.

When I got off of the phone, I took the time to fill in all of the information related to the call in my CRM system, including the Needham High School connection. End of story. I moved on to the next item on my to do list.