Sales Automation – It’s getting great and weird at the same time

Sales automation is strongly on the move now – the times of using a simple CRM seem to be gone. In the last weeks, we’ve checked quite a few, and I admit so far it’s been more confusing than helpful. In most of the cases, the tools only cover some part of the process – leaving you at best with a newly created data silo.

I can’t believe this is IT.

It’s highly fascinating, however, how crass things can get around sales now – open your eyes, and there is a whole new range using bots (well, ok), psychological factor analysis (crystal for example), artificial intelligence (now we’re getting somewhere) or all of them.

Also confusing: The tools are still extremely email-focussed –
wasn’t email considered to be SO 90s? 😉

No, seriously, from my own experience, there is a large tendency that first prospect conversation might happen directly within Linkedin, Xing, Facebook and even WhatsApp.

My inner customer-centric yogi tells me it’s not a good idea to shift too soon to email or rush things too early towards the phone.

The relationship is so fragile in that state, and it’s all about building trust.

Some tools and resources to check out if you’re interested in optimising your sales process (this is my current short list):

• Close.io
• Freshsales
• An excellent knowledge base: The Art of Emails

BTW: Tools in that area often are related to as marketing automation tools – this can or cannot be the same thing.

Take care to map your CRM and sales processes and check on which tools would cover what and how many at which cost would need to be part of your tech stack.