3 CRM Features for Predictable Revenue

This week in San Francisco, more than 150,000 sales and marketing professionals will swamp the city to attend Dreamforce 2015, Salesforce’s signature event. Like many successful young SaaS companies, here at Agile CRM we’re big fans of Aaron Ross’s ideas about predictable revenue. Salesforce used to be the only CRM company associated with predictable revenue, but times have changed. We’re proud to say that our sales and marketing CRM lets small businesses take advantage of big-business practices aligned around predictable revenue, at a fraction of the cost.

3 CRM Features for Predictable Revenue

Modern entrepreneurs need a more agile, affordable solution that comes with everything you need for sales and marketing, right out of the box. One of the keystones of Ross’s approach is the seemingly counterintuitive idea that “salespeople shouldn’t prospect.” When sales professionals first hear that salespeople “shouldn’t prospect,” they sometimes dismiss the notion as a pipe dream. But the reality is that with the right CRM features and the smart alignment of your sales and marketing efforts, you’ll never be cold calling again.

1. Agile Lead Scoring

Lead Scoring in Agile CRM lets prospects do the work and qualify themselves. The SaaS app automatically builds 360-degree contact profiles with full-cycle automated lead scoring that tracks contact actions on your site, interactions with your emails and mobile messages, social media activity and interactions with your sales and marketing teams. Set the rules for automated inbound marketing, inbound sales and nurture cycles, then end up with buy-ready leads.

• Capture: Agile CRM includes extensive marketing automation tools. Web forms and popups get your lead scoring started the right way. Plus, you can automatically tag new leads the moment you capture them.
• Score: We’ve made lead scoring as easy as sending an email. Add or subtract lead scores automatically based on custom rules you set up in the CRM.
• Qualify: Automatically push leads into a new campaign or assign them to a sales rep when their lead score reaches a certain level.
• Get Real-time Alerts: In-app and HTML5 notifications let you know when an email is opened, a link is clicked, or a lead score crosses a threshold.

Aaron Ross’s “Cold Calling 2.0”

2. Agile Communications

No more cold calling. That’s one of the mantras of predictable revenue, and many new Agile CRM customers come to us seeking a feature set that enables communications with their hottest leads–and complete communications tracking–directly from the CRM dashboard.

• Pre-Qualified Leads: Know when, why and how a lead was qualified before you even start a call or send an email.
• Email Campaigns & Beyond: If a lead isn’t quite ready yet, keep them in a nurture campaign with automated segmentation and personalization. Then when they’re ready and you send them an email manually, that email is tracked in the CRM as well.
• Appointment Scheduling: Agile CRM’s communications suite includes appointment scheduling software that lets you put your appointment calendar online so leads can choose time slots. You can even include an calendar link in emails (automatically or manually).
• Telephony: Our advanced telephony integration includes voicemail automation, call scripts and recording. Call from the CRM, then follow-up automatically on any channel (social, mobile, email, phone) with the CRM’s sales automation.
• Sales Process Automation: Sales specialization is at the heart of predictable revenue, and our software makes it easy to automate the sales process and assign the right leads to the right reps at the right time. No matter the size of your SMB, at least one person should be dedicated to inbound sales and development. Make it easy for them to share leads and data with your “closers.”

3. Agile Gamification

Sales gamification software is only successful if it enables both competition and collaboration. Gamify sales with Agile CRM and you’ll be exceeding your goals in no time–not just for one team member, but for the business as a whole. Personalize, predict, repeat.

• Simplified, Personalized Metrics: Advanced metrics should make your job easier, not harder. Otherwise, they’re just over-complicated metrics. With Agile CRM, every member of your sales team can setup a custom dashboard with a leaderboard (displaying only what you want to see) and dashlets for revenue, appointments, contact activity, and much more. The point is not to add everything in the world to your dashboard, but to focus on the key metrics that are most important to your personal, specialized tasks and goals.
• Predictive Analytics: Our built-in analytics include sales forecasting tools for accurate views of future revenue and customer growth, but our predictive analytics don’t stop there. With accurate web analytics and email campaign stats as well, you can make sure that your entire pipeline is aligned, from inbound marketing to high-level sales.
• Repeatable Pipelines: If something works, create an automated pipeline around it. This sounds like a basic idea, but too many SMBs scramble to figure out a sales process every time, even though they end up taking the same steps every time! Agile CRM’s drag-and-drop campaign designer and custom deal tracks and milestones make it easy to create repeatable pipelines.

If you’ve been considering going over budget with Salesforce to help meet your predictable revenue goals, maybe it’s time for a change. Tired of trying to figure out which Salesforce products, clouds, apps and add-ons your SMB needs, and how much that bundle will really cost you? Here’s how Agile CRM compares with Salesforce. Give Agile a spin today, and you’ll be up and running in minutes: SIGN UP FOR FREE.