Eight Rules of Success
Rule five: Gather data

By Troy Harrison

Most companies don’t know their customers very well. Certainly, some people within the company usually have intimate knowledge of key contacts, information, history and details about customers, but that information isn’t institutionalized as often as it should be—which means it can leave with your salespeople. Remember, you own this data.

To that fact, add this one: The most valuable component of any company’s assets is its customer data. Forget your balance sheet, long-term assets and short-term assets.  Without your customers, and the information regarding those customers, everything else is meaningless. Clearly, some framework of capturing customer data is vital for business success. Capturing and using that data is called customer relationship management (CRM). To get the most out of your sales team, you must have a system to gather this data.

Data Management
There are numerous contact management systems on the market to be used on a personal computer. ACT! and GoldMine are two of the most popular ones, but more are released each year. Data can also be gathered on paper forms (check out www.mackay.com for the “Mackay 66” questionnaire—this is an excellent template).  Essentially, you want to preserve any key information that affects your ability to do business with your customers. This includes (but is not limited to) contact names, company size and any variable data that indicates how much of your “stuff” they can buy.  To implement a data-gathering system, follow this simple process.

Define and Organize
Define the information you wish to capture about your customers. The best way to do this is by identifying your top customers. Your “top” customers are not necessarily those customers who produce the most top-line revenue; they are the ones that produce the most profit. Although some business owners prefer to use profit margin as their favorite measurement, I’m of the opinion that the only thing you can spend is profit dollars. In measuring your top customers, I’d advocate ranking them by profit dollars generated.

Once you have identified your top customers, it’s time to look for similarities and patterns. There should be some common elements that join them. Look for those similarities and then identify them as data fields to preserve. Examples of fields that would fit this definition are Industry, Number of employees, Annual revenue, Square footage, etc. List all of the fields that identify good customers. You’ll also want to list basic information such as name, address, key contacts, phone, etc.

Choose a System
You need to choose a platform for your CRM system—software or paper. I’m a big believer in software systems. They make it easier to run queries and segment your market, as well as generate good reports on your sales efforts.  If you decide to use software, you’ll want to customize your database through the “User Defined” fields to capture your key information. Software also will allow you to preserve notes on activities performed with that customer.

If you decide to use the old-tech paper method, you’ll need to make up some customer information sheets with blanks for key fields and contact information, as well as space for notes. You’ll need to keep copies of the papers in a central location, and your salespeople will need copies as well.

If this sounds like a lot of work (particularly when it’s time to update and correct information), it is—all the more reason to use a database contact manager.

Assign Responsibility
Make the salespeople and customer service representatives responsible for gathering the data in their customer interactions. Your salespeople are not the owners of the data. They are custodians whose job it is to make sure that the data is complete and current. To that end, salespeople and customer service representatives should review customer data regularly with an eye toward completing or updating it with each customer interaction.  

Review Frequently
Follow up to ensure that data is gathered and maintained. This is best done by periodically surveying your database for blank fields, old activities or long gaps between updates and corrections. This should be part of the performance review process. The salesperson’s duty is to keep a “clean house” with respect to the customer data under their control.

Finally, it’s as important to make data accessible internally to sales and service personnel as it is to make it inaccessible to outside personnel. Make sure that your communications and security processes are intact, and review them often.

Troy Harrison is a sales trainer and the owner of SalesForce Solutions, a Kansas City-based sales training, consulting, recruiting and assessment company. You can get more information about SalesForce Solutions and subscribe to the free “HotSheet” weekly e-newsletter by visiting www.salesforcesolutions.net or calling (913) 645-3603.