Stop Complaining and Solve the Problem: The Hard Truth About Why Your Sales Team Does Not Use CRM

I've been responsible for architecting, operationalizing and managing CRM and marketing systems for over a decade. I'm also in the Marketing Operations business and care deeply about data. Yes, I said deeply, and I am not being ironic.

During my career I've been part of more conversations than I can remember where marketers (me included) lament the lack of data at their disposal due to low adoption of CRM by the sales team. They say they're on the road too much. They complain that it's too hard. They just refuse to see the value.

Then come the helpful (please read sarcasm here) suggestions. Reduce their commissions if they don't use it. Get your sales leaders to enforce it. Refuse sales support requests if the deal isn't in CRM. Of course you can try all this, but experience has taught me that in the end you'll have unhappy sales people and more bad data.

While attending a recent marketing conference I was dismayed to hear the exact same discussion. I think there is comfort in the conversation (I've been there and it felt good to blame those pesky sales people), but it's really just passing the buck and missing the point entirely.

Slow Down and Listen Up.

If you are responsible for CRM within your organization, or if you are a sales or marketing leader with influence over CRM functionality, there is a solution. But only if you first truly understand the problem. And to fully understand you have to listen to your users.

When your sales team tells you that it's too hard, that they are on the road too much, that they don't see the value - believe ...