During summertime, you might have time to optimize your sales process and tools and therefore I was inspired to share some insights form me, especially if you work in headhunting, recruiting or sales.
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For some years I use 4-5 sales CRM's / tools parallel because there is not the all in one solution, that satisfies me, and I will tell you why. I need all of the following things in my sales process and all tools have to communicate together in the end via zapier automation, but I do not need more than 5 tools for this.

Yes, sales have become more complex and are not just having a phone, pencil, and notebook anymore.

So what must a CRM do for me:

1. Control all relevant contacts regarding duplicates and catch updates from the web automatically,
2. if some contact changes his social media profile or information, that is available on the internet about him/her.
3. Show follow-ups automatically and reminds you, but not by static tasks you set up(e.g. every 2 months or 3 weeks),
4. but via checking your interaction with each contact automatically from your contact behavior.
5. Show sales pipelines, goals and numbers from the sales process and gives you a great reporting and forecast of your expected closings and deals.
6. Is mobile available via app, cloud and laptop.
7. Tracks opening rates, website visits and interactions with contacts you do.
8. Let's you handle a big sales pipeline of at least 1.000 up to 20.000 contacts.
9. Has a good social media integration, especially with LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, Facebook as well as with Apps like slack, zapier, ect pp.
10. Schedules automatically meetings for you in your calendar, sorry, but your assistant will lose her job or has other duties. 😉
11. Catches up leads from email signatures and checks it with the CRM and duplicates.
12. Let's you make calls directly from the CRM.
13. Has nice templates for follow-ups and integrates with live chats and website chats.
14. Syncs all over, so that you have your relevant data everywhere you want and a backup in your email account too.
15. Has a simple and easy surface without clicking around like 10 years before...., lol
16. Works with AI and learns from your behavior and workflows.

And what does it mean in daily business now?
Some examples, because as a headhunter we do sales in both directions: Candidates became clients and clients become candidates and this is why the CRM has also to integrate with the ATS.


So back to the examples:

• There are days, I just work on follow-ups with candidates, clients and just potential contacts from LinkedIn.
• There are days I do have only video calls or coffee meetings and make notes directly to the system via my IPad in the coffee shop.
• There are days I do cold calls like 10-20 per hour and it has to go like BAM BAM BAM. 🙂
• There are days I write emails & proposals and share them with secure, encrypted links with my clients.
• There are days I check my contacts and emails about activities which were 5 years ago or more...and some contacts really appreciate it to get in touch again after such a long time.
• Sales is relationship building, but nowadays it became faster with a 5 or 10 times bigger contact pipeline, then 10 years before, especially if you work in such a competitive craft like the recruiting and headhunting business. 
  
  

Ok, you also should spent at least 300 € per month per user for all the relevant tools you need, which is not much, because they save you so much time at the end of the day, that you can concentrate on 85-90% just on business meetings and relationship building, than on administration and typing into a database. 


So, there is no smart work without paying for the best apps and software, but I do not mean software from SAP, Oracle, Salesforce or Microsoft.


Only picture source: https://www.saleshandy.com/blog/inside-sales-tools/;-)

Tools we are talking here about:

1. www.contactually.com
2. www.fullcontact.coom
3. www.pipedrive.com
4. www.zapier.com
5. www.yesware.com
6. www.leadfeeder.com
7. www.freshsales.com
8. www.freshcaller.com
9. www.tidio.com
10. www.loom.com
11. www.getaccept.com