How CRM Helps Sales Teams and Individuals

CRM holds a special place in my heart. Throughout most of my career in sales, it’s been one of the most, if not the most, essential tools in my toolbox. It’s more than just software—it’s the backbone of customer relationships, the silent partner that makes the sales cycles smoother and more insightful.

Now, as a small business owner, I handle all the sales for my company. Over the last decade, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that CRM helps remove the need for “thinking” from your work by keeping track of crucial sales data. It streamlines sales processes, allowing you to focus on business growth rather than manual tracking.

I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it is when done right and how frustrating it is when done wrong. I feel like I’ve seen all the scenarios, and it’s time to share some of my thoughts.

This article won’t be a list of reasons, tips, or areas where CRM systems can help. It’s based on my personal experience. Oh, and before we begin, I’ve recently also published sales productivity best practices, it compliments this article really well. 

What CRM Software I Use

Before I dive into tips, tricks, and other fun stuff, I need to explain what CRM system I use and why.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve tried a lot of different CRM systems: Zoho, SugarCRM, Pipedrive, amoCRM, Bitrix, SAP, Siebel, and SuiteCRM, to name a few.

I’ve been on a mission to find a tool that would “stick” — something I’d keep coming back to, even if my curious, geeky mind tries to lead me elsewhere. And I found one.

But there’s a small conflict of interest I should warn you about. While I genuinely love the system I’ve used over the years, I’ve become so proficient with it that I’ve built my career around it.

I became affiliated by offering consulting services for small and medium companies for that system. The system is Salesforce (did you guess it?).

That said, everything I share below is my honest opinion. I stand behind every word at the moment I’m writing this article.

However, my opinion isn’t set in stone, and over time I may adjust it slightly. So, make sure to find me on LinkedIn and follow me. But let’s get back to the article.

Decision Making

So how does CRM help improve sales team members? First things first: I believe the greatest value CRM brings—on both team and individual levels—is the ability to make decisions on your behalf, driving successful sales. Here’s what I mean by that.

Picture this: you’re sitting at your desk, scrolling through a list of prospects, trying to figure out what to do next with each one to close more deals.

It doesn’t seem like a hard task until you’ve got a lot of follow-ups to manage. You may know that moment when you have a huge list of prospects that’s accumulated over time, and now you’re scrolling through it, unsure of what steps to take next to improve sales performance.

I spent some time thinking about why this happens and realized that you accumulate prospects in the “nurturing” phase over time, and you start to forget what was happening with each one. The longer this goes on, the more you lose track of the specifics.

But if you tweak your workflow just a bit, you can completely avoid this problem. With a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, every time you reach out to a new prospect, you can plan your next step while your memories and knowledge about their contact data are still fresh. This ensures you keep up with more customers efficiently.

As soon as you hang up the phone, you immediately plan the next step. Then, you can forget about the prospect until that task is due. Problem solved. This keeps you focused on building more successful sales as your business grows.

Any CRM can help with this, but what I love about Salesforce is that I can filter accounts without tasks. That way, I know which prospects have been left unattended, and I can plan something for each one. Then, I let the automated workflows handle the rest, freeing me up to focus on strategies that increase revenue.

My morning always starts by opening my tasks. I see what needs to be done today, and I don’t have to make any decisions about it—this simplifies my life and helps me get more done.

This seemingly simple solution has turned out to be the biggest productivity booster I’ve ever found, even if it doesn’t sound like it.

Pipeline Transparency

The second major benefit is pipeline transparency—I can see the entire organization’s sales funnel in one report, which allows us to better address customer needs. This kind of visibility is invaluable, not just for sales reps but also for marketing teams, as it ensures everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals.

Now, think about this: how long does it take for you to figure out how things are going within your organization? Do you know who’s working on what? With the right customer information at your fingertips, including detailed purchase history and communication preferences, tracking progress becomes seamless.

What I teach my customers to do—and what has been proven to work best—is to build routines around reports.

Depending on your sales cycle, you can (and should) hold meetings to discuss your pipeline. Not the entire pipeline, but specific areas that require attention. This is exactly where CRM comes into play.

Simply create a report with a “dynamic” filter that shows all your opportunities closing this week or month, and go through each of them. First, do this on your own, and if you notice a lack of activity—whether it’s fewer sales emails being sent or missed follow-ups— bring it to the meeting.

The report frequency will depend on your entire sales cycle—some companies report daily, some weekly, and others monthly. But the result is always the same: you start closing more opportunities.

It’s another simple thing a CRM can help with, but it’s also the whole point of having one.

I’ve seen companies try to do this with Excel, and that’s fine. You can do it without a CRM, but at some point, it’s simply more convenient to do it in software. You can leave comments, have more structure, and in the end, you have better reporting capabilities to improve the overall efficiency of your sales funnel.

Organizational Memory

In third place, I’d put something that’s hard to explain until you see it in action, but I’ll give it a try.

Last week, I called an old customer of mine—or, to be exact, a former customer. We had stopped working together because the contact at that company had moved on to a new job, and the new company wasn’t yet our client. Anyway, I gave him a call because… I had a task reminding me to do so.

A year ago, when he had just left the company, I gave him a call, and we agreed to reconnect sometime in the future—but not for at least a year. Now, would you remember something like that if you were just using a notebook? I doubt it.

Long story short, I ended up closing a small deal with him, and now we have a new client. Over time, we’ll likely grow that relationship, but it’s just another example of how valuable the “eternal memory” a CRM provides can be.

With sales software, you store the memory of all your interactions (that are digitized) in one place, and you can return to them whenever it’s the right time. Even if an employee leaves the company, you can open all their accounts, check what requires attention, and assign any account manager to take over the customer.

The same applies to prospects that require long-term nurturing. I hope you get the point.

Control

About five years ago, when I was working at my previous job, we opened an office in a different country. As the CEO and main consultant of the company, I was responsible for hiring the sales people and ensuring all team members were aligned with our goals.

I hired a guy who seemed perfect. He spoke brilliantly, looked sharp, carried himself well—he seemed like a rock star. I decided to give him a chance. But I also asked him to track every single lead in the CRM system to make sure our sales and marketing teams were always on the same page. Let’s call him Mike.

We were generating leads in two ways—through trade fairs and our blog (just like the one you’re reading now, by the way).

We were getting about 1–2 leads per day, sometimes none, and occasionally up to five—not a huge volume.

I didn’t have high expectations for Mike during his first month, but I was checking the CRM every day and noticed that his leads weren’t moving anywhere. I raised the issue in meetings, again and again.

I was told that he simply wasn’t updating the records and that he would do so. Eventually, though, I caught him working on his own startup—by accident, but I had been suspicious. The CRM had given me a lot of clues. I saw that his leads weren’t progressing, and I noticed his activity level didn’t match that of the other sales reps or my own.

This was a severe case, but you’d be surprised how much you can learn once your team starts reporting everything they do into the CRM.

The level of control you gain with a CRM is unprecedented. That alone can be a decisive factor in implementing one.

Objectivity

How often do you hear things like, “The economy is bad right now, we should offer a discount,” or “Customers are taking longer to make decisions these days”? 

These statements happen because you don’t have an objective picture—and neither do your sales managers and reps. As humans, our brains tend to pay more attention to things that catch our attention.

A bad piece of feedback from a client will stick in a sales rep’s memory far better than a simple, “Thanks for the offer, we’ll get back to you in two weeks.”

Now, multiply this by months and the number of people in your organization (including yourself), and you end up with a completely skewed view of your pipeline and priorities. Well, maybe you don’t—but how do you get objective data about your pipeline?

You see, CRM is just a tool. It has no emotions, only rules and fields that you’ve set up. If something’s not going well, the system will simply trigger a rule. It doesn’t care what anyone is saying.

You pull a report, and you see who’s doing well. You pull another report, and you see why they are doing well—or why they aren’t.

CRM systems provide a very clear, objective picture of your pipeline, helping you improve customer service.

Are you getting more complaints than usual? Let’s look into that. An employee suggests there may be a widespread problem? Let’s check how many complaints we’ve received on that topic, looks like there is a customer service issue.. Think you’re not meeting your target this month? Just pull the report—not just a sales report, but a forecast report.

With a CRM, you get objective, crystal-clear business data. Just make sure you do it right. Follow strictly the process if CRM implementation and you’ll be ggo. 

Peace of Mind

And finally, CRM gives you something very valuable—beyond objective control and customer data—it gives you peace of mind.

I love this quote from Rory Sutherland:

“People are surprisingly tolerant of waiting for a taxi. What drives them mad is the uncertainty—not knowing how long they’ll be stuck waiting. Enter Uber. It’s not the speed that’s the real game changer; it’s the transparency. Uber shows you exactly how long you’ve got to wait, and that simple knowledge flips the script. Even if the actual wait time is longer, the mere perception of control—knowing what’s happening—makes the customer experience infinitely more bearable. We crave certainty more than speed; Uber taps into that beautifully.”

In a similar way, CRM platforms provide that sense of control. You know exactly what’s happening in your business—there’s no guessing or uncertainty.

On that note, one last word: My company helps businesses like yours implement CRM systems and enhance sales processes. If you need advice, just drop me a line.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn—I share useful CRM-related content almost every day.

Oh, and by the way, the first consultation is on me. Let’s have a conversation, talk about successful sales process, and see how we can help your business thrive. We also recommend visiting our company website frequently – we explain many things there.

On that note, have a great day!

Cheers,

J.