Sales adoption can be a messy, loop-sided process. And it can only help sales managers reap results when the implementation process targets the entire sales team.

If only a handful of sales reps adopt a new tool or sales method, you’ll never see the desired improvement in your team’s productivity.

This is particularly true for CRM adoption. If your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is treated as just another tool where reps must enter data for the sake of updating it, their sales performance will go down instead of up.

The solution? Taking the time to research and select a CRM tool that best meets your organization’s needs. Equally important here is understanding how to use the software so you can educate your team on its benefits and use cases.

With that, let’s walk you through six tips to improve team-wide sales adoption. We’ll also talk about how a CRM can help increase your team’s productivity so you know why it’s a helpful idea to add a CRM to your sales adoption process. 

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Top challenges with sales adoption

First things first, here are four sales adoption challenges that you need to be mindful of:

Complex sales processes overwhelm sales reps

Change in workflow and processes typically meets employee resistance. But this resistance grows if the software to adopt is complex to use.

 In such a case, instead of feeling like the tool makes them better at their job, reps start feeling like it gets in the way of their work. This, in turn, demotivates them, reducing your company’s CRM adoption rate.

Organizations limit their budget and focus on quick results

While certain businesses realize the need for a CRM, they may be short on budget and focused entirely on on-time delivery.

 When this happens, adoption typically falls through the cracks because companies fail to invest resources in the proper implementation of the CRM. They also often don’t foresee how complex the software may be to use on-ground or that salespeople may not be motivated enough to use it.

Experience with poor software does more damage than good

Selecting the right CRM tool is just as important as investing resources in its adoption. Despite this, limited budget or the rush to select a software can lead companies to purchasing the wrong tool

 The result? Low-quality data leading to revenue loss. A survey, for example, learned that 44% of its respondents lost over 10% in annual revenue owing to low-quality CRM data.

Salespeople resist the shift to a CRM

Often organizations enforce using a new sales software without explaining the advantages and value for reps. Leadership also often selects the tool themselves, making reps feel like they’re being dictated, which reduces the CRM adoption rate further. 

6 Tips to improve sales adoption in your company

With the basics out of the way, let’s dive into proven tips to improve sales adoption throughout your sales team:

 

1. Create a sales adoption process

Having clear objectives helps create a well-defined action plan to increase your adoption rate. So start with identifying objectives for your sales adoption process.

Ask yourself: what is my team struggling with? Is it understanding how to use software or are they having difficulty making the habit of using a CRM?

 And while you’re at it, be sure to account for the day-to-day struggles that reps face in their job. Knowing your reps’ concerns helps you strategically position the CRM as the solution to their problems.

 For example, a rep may struggle with identifying when to reach out to leads. In such a case, you can get the employee interested in the CRM by telling them how it will help them with their specific problem.

 Next, create a pilot plan to grow CRM adoption. Aim to start small. Encourage salespeople to use a handful of CRM features instead of the entire feature factory. This way, they can learn the features one by one — understanding the results they’re getting, and better adopt the tool.

 From there, you can encourage reps to try other features. Remember: getting employees to use all features from the get-go can not only be overwhelming but also demotivating as it quickly confuses them.

 

2. Include a CRM in your sales adoption process

A CRM can significantly improve sales processes and empower your sales team with lead and pipeline data that’ll improve their performance. The key, however, is to invest in the right CRM that meets your team’s needs.

 Make sure the software is well-suited to your team’s size and business requirements. You’ll also want to select a tool that:

 This ensures your team can easily navigate the software and has the right resources to learn using it.

 Pro tip: Involve your team in the CRM selection process. Nothing motivates employees to adopt a new product than one that they’ve helped select themselves.

 

3. Educate your sales teams on the advantages of using a CRM

An integral part of a sales adoption process is educating your sales team on not only how the CRM software works but also how it can benefit them.

 Two things help here:

Lean on the case studies that the CRM business shares on their website to explain the benefits of a CRM.

 All the more better if the CRM tool you’ve selected is a recommendation from another business. In that case, you can invite someone from the team to talk about how adopting a CRM helped them.

Instead of presenting a laundry list of benefits that a CRM helps reap, go deep and specific. Talk about the particular struggles your team is facing (for example, lead generation or following up with prospects), and how adopting a CRM will help.

 

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4. Create a CRM ambassador program

Creating CRM ambassadors helps encourage sales adoption using peer-to-peer learning. In fact, 55% of employees first turn to their peers to learn something new, according to an old but trusty source.

 So how do you create CRM ambassadors? Incentivize early adopters to document their processes and results and educate their peers.

 Make sure you involve them in your CRM adoption plan from the beginning. Start with getting their opinion on selecting the right software, having them take demos, and use the tool for trial period.

 Essentially, your CRM evangelists are likely going to be folks in your team who are enthusiastic learners who are open to change and trying new technology.

 Once they start seeing results from using the CRM, have them give workshops on their processes and best practices.

5. Offer rewards and incentives to encourage adoption

The key here is to create a well-thought-out incentive plan. Work out what incentives to offer and when to give them. Common incentives to try include:

The incentives you offer each employee, however, depend on whether they’re a star performer, core performer, or laggard. Because different rewards motivate different employees, start with understanding employee motivations. Doing so will help you incentivize reps with rewards meaningful to them. Here’s a complete guide to creating a successful sales incentive program.

Pro tip: Create internal case studies featuring your CRM ambassadors’ successful use of the software. You can also feature other employees driving great results. This approach not only helps reward the employee in the spotlight but also shows other reps how they can drive the same success as their peers.

6. Take a top-down approach

Lastly, it’s essential you use the CRM yourself. Reps are more likely to adopt using a new tool when they see the sales management and higher leadership using and referencing it.

For example, pull up a CRM dashboard in a sales team meeting to signal reps you’re using the software as well. You should also stop uploading customer data in spreadsheets. Instead, create a central database bearing all customer information in your CRM and start referring to it.

Aim to make the software the single source of truth that the entire sales team uses. This way, salespeople will slowly but surely start understanding that using the CRM is now the standard way to do things, boosting sales adoption. 

How can a CRM help in your sales adoption plan

 

A powerful CRM can streamline your sales processes and boost productivity.

By helping solve reps’ daily job struggles such as which leads to target and when to follow up with them, for example, the tool can quickly become a rep favorite.

As reps use it to target leads better, have more contextual conversations with prospects, and close deals faster, you’ll see improved performance.

 Let’s break this down further to show you how the right CRM helps sales managers and their teams:

 

1. Provide a single source of truth

It’s easy to lose or miscommunicate lead data when leads are passed between different sales teams.

 The problem? It leaves salespeople with an incomplete view of the prospect. They also don’t have the full context of how a lead has been engaging with your marketing collateral and other reps. All this prevents reps from taking the best approach to nurturing leads in ways that are relevant to them.

 A CRM prevents such a problem by helping document all prospect and customer information in one place.

 This, in turn, serves as a single source of truth that all reps can access to get a complete, 360-degree view of prospects, including:

  • A quick summary of basic lead and customer information such as their name, company, contact information, and salesperson assigned.
  • A chronological timeline view of each client’s engagement with your business. For example, the emails they’ve opened, and the conversations they’ve had over phone, email, and chat.


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In fact, an easy-to-use CRM such as Freshsales also gives you enriched data of your sales pipeline. This contains highlights such as open deals, active support tickets, upcoming tasks, meeting notes, and more.  

3. Predict leads that will convert

Prioritizing the right leads helps reps reach out to warm and ready-to-convert leads at the right time. This, in turn, increases their chances of closing more leads instead of wasting time on leads that may never convert.

With a CRM featuring predictive contact scoring, this is very much possible. It helps salespeople identify sales-ready prospects by giving each lead a score based on their level of engagement with your business and how well they fit with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Sales reps can use this score to decide which leads to reach out to right away with a sales proposal, which ones to nurture, and which ones to ignore.

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4. Get complete visibility into your sales pipeline

Broken sales processes that are monitored using a bucketload of tools make it difficult for sales managers to get a full view of what’s going on.

Not only is such a lack of visibility into the pipeline challenging for the management but it also makes it tough for salespeople to track and move prospects through their buying journey.

With CRM adoption though, you can track the entire sales pipeline, manage deal stages, and identify stagnant deals. Freshsales CRM, for instance, gives you a bird’s eye view of deals in your pipeline along with a breakdown of how likely they’re to convert.

With deal management, you can also get a forecast of deals to close and the revenue they’d generate for you.

 

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Improve your sales adoption today

Summing up, effective sales adoption is easier said than done. However, dedicating the right resources and time to create an action plan almost always pays off. The key is in knowing your salespeople and what motivates them though.

Identify their struggles so you can position your new sales plan as the solution that can help them improve workflow. It’s also effective to add CRM to your sales adoption plan.

To this end, be sure to involve reps in the CRM selection process and dedicate resources to its implementation. This way, your sales team will be more invested in the initiative and can better understand how to use it.

And remember, choosing the right CRM also takes time. Not only do you need a tool that’s easy to use but also one that offers productivity-improving features.

Using Freshsales CRM, for example, you can automate mundane tasks, improve sales prospecting and lead qualification, and get an overview of all the deals in your sales pipeline.