CRM

Top 5 insider CRM tips from sales ops expert you should start using now

Liucija Adomaite
LAST UPDATED
June 7, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.

More and more businesses implement CRM (Contact Relationship Management) systems into their daily workflows. Why? Because it’s incredibly effective.

A CRM platform increases sales by up to 29%, boosts sales productivity by up to 34%, and improves sales forecast accuracy by 42%, a Salesforce study revealed.

The question is how to use a CRM platform to unlock its full potential and boost revenue.

After all, you want to you receive your ROI after implementing a CRM and hit your sales targets. Today, you will learn how to do it.

Lucas Perret, the sales operations manager at lemlist, shared proven and effective CRM tips, so get ready to start implementing them right now.

Meet our expert:

Lucas Perret streamlines revenue processes and drives growth with tech and workflow automation on a daily basis, so he knows the ins and outs of sales operations tools, including CRM.

Lucas shared his insider advice on implementing, operating, and managing CRM systems to get the most out of them.

His CRM tips are so simple and practical that any business can start using them right now and see the benefits on the go. Let's buckle up.

5 top insider CRM tips to boost your sales:

1. Spend time defining and automating lead statuses and lead lifecycles.

Lucas: CRM Lead Statuses and Lead Lifecycles are critical to visualizing your sales activities. They will help your team better collaborate on each lead, know what to do at what steps, and analyze your reporting activity better. So, I really advise people to spend time on this as early as possible because it will help them measure their sales performance more easily.

With it, You’ll be able to get metrics such as:

  • #of leads contacted
  • #of leads that replied
  • #of meetings booked
  • #of new customers

At the end, you’ll know how many leads you should contact to get one customer, and this will help you better organize your activities and optimize the whole process. With workflow automation on your CRM, you can automate lead statuses to save a lot of time from your sales time and measure your activities more accurately. For instance:

  • when a lead receives an email, move the lead status from new to contacted
  • when a lead books a meeting via lemcal, move the lead status from contacted to meeting booked and so on.

This kind of automation is key in a CRM, and I really encourage people to define them very early in their CRM journey.

2. Work closely with your sales reps.

Lucas: CRM is one of the most important tools in your sales team, and they’ll spend a lot of time using it. So don’t overlook UX and ease of use. CRM is very useful for C-level and managers to follow sales activities. But first, it should be a tool that helps your sales team perform better.

My advice is to:

  • make sure to train your sales team on how to leverage the CRM at full capabilities
  • before implementing a solution, let the sales team test each solution you are considering and make sure the tool eases their work and does not add friction to their work
  • when adding new processes to the CRM, always include the sales team in the discussion. For instance, make fields mandatory to complete only when it’s really necessary

3. Don’t do everything with CRM.

Lucas: CRM is great at tracking a sales opportunity, but it won’t help your sales team get great results in prospection, even if they offer some features.

For instance, Hubspot offers a sales engagement solution to their suite. Even if the solution is very convenient, it won’t help your sales team get the best results. For instance, they won’t help you achieve good deliverability (many users reported issues in that domain).

Instead, I suggest you use the best-of-breed approach, where you use your CRM for sales opportunity management and a sales engagement platform like lemlist for your prospecting activities.

To make it work, always check integrations between your tools and try to choose the most flexible tools regarding this criteria.

4. Define the format of your ID to avoid duplicates.

Lucas: At lemlist, we use the company domain as an ID to identify companies within our CRM.

It helps us prevent duplicates when we add data to our CRM.

Since ID is unique, you can only have 1 entry with a value. Which will help you avoid duplicate in your CRM.

However you need to specify a format to avoid to have 2 entries for the same companies, like “lemlist.com” and “https://www.lemlist.com”.

My advice is to:

  • make sure to define a format you’ll use all the time when you add companies to your CRM
  • create a workflow that cleans your company domain to ingest them correctly every time

5. Make sure you log everything in your CRM.

Lucas: Spend time setting your CRM so that all your emails, LinkedIn messages, and meetings are logged into the CRM.

This way, when you go back to specific records after a long time, you’ll have a complete overview of what happened with your lead.

It’s better to have too many logs than not enough since you can filter them from your views if necessary.

So try to integrate:

  • your emails (for instance, Hubspot has a Gmail integration)
  • LinkedIn with your CRM (use tools like Surfe to do this)
  • call recordings (at lemlist all our recordings are sent to the CRM)
  • meetings, prospecting activities, and so on.

Key Takeaways

There are five the most effective CRM tips shared by the sales operations expert.

First, you set up and automate lead processes in your CRM to track sales performance accurately.

Second, you must ensure the CRM is user-friendly for your sales team, involving them in decisions related to its use.

Third, combine your CRM with specialized tools for better efficiency and ensure they integrate well.

Fourth, use a standard format for entering company information to avoid duplicates.

Lastly, all interactions with leads in the CRM must be logged for a complete history. These steps will make your CRM a more effective tool for increasing sales.

Liucija Adomaite
Liucija Adomaite is a viral content writer and organic traffic expert on a mission to help turn ambitious businesses into big names.
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G2 Rating
Price
Best for
Standout feature
Con
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/mo
$75/mo
$2,999/mo
Large, distributed sales teams
AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs
Lack of tracking system
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Sales operations and finance teams
Powerful configurability
Limited training resources and complex to navigate
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Mid-market and enterprise businesses
Comprehensive incentive management
Potentially high cost and steep learning curve
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$15/user/mo
$40/user/mo
Enterprise: custom price
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Collaborative teams
Connected planning
Complexity and steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with complex sales structures
Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy
Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts
Simplicity and ease of use
Lack of features like redirection
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$30/user/mo
$35/user/mo
Custom: upon request
Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software
Ease of use and adoption
Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs
4.8
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights
A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility
Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/user/mo
$50/user/mo
Smaller sales teams
Powerful automation
Lesser user base and average user interface
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with scalable needs
Automated Commission Calculations
Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app
ERP vs. CRM
ERP
CRM
Summary
Backbone of a business's internal operations.
Backbone of customer-centric interactions and operations.
Goal
To centralize and streamline core business processes in a company.
To increase customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and boost sales.
Focus
Internal operations and processes across departments (finance, accounting, inventory, supply chain, HR, and sales).
All interactions with leads and customers.
Manages
Internal business data like financial data, inventory levels, production details, supply chain, HR info.
All customer data like contact info, purchase history, communication history, customer preferences and more.
Users
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, and HR departments.
Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Benefits
Streamlines operations, improves data accuracy, enhances decision-making, boosts collaboration, increases productivity.
Improves customer relationships, increases sales, strengthens customer service, personalizes marketing campaigns, provides insights.
Price
$150 per user per year on average.
$10 to $30 per user per month on average.
PRM Tool
Rating
Feature
Pro
Con
Mobile App
Integrations
Free Plan
Pricing
4.65
star
star
star
star
star-half
Org-wide alignment
User-friendly layout and database
Suboptimal as a personal CRM
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-check
Team: $20/month
Business: $45/month
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Social Media Integration
Easy contact data collection
No marketing/sales features
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-xmark
7-day trial
$12/month
4.75
star
star
star
star
star-half
Block Functions
High customization capability
Not a dedicated CRM
square-check
Limited
square-check
Plus: €7.50/month
Business: €14/month
N/A
Open-source
Open-source flexibility
Requires extensive manual input
square-xmark
Limited
square-check
Self-hosted
$9/month or
$90/year
3.1
star
star
star
Simple iOS app
Ideal for non-tech-savvy users
iPhone only
square-check
iOS only
Limited
square-xmark
1-month trial
$1.49/month or
$14.99/month
3.6
star
star
star
star-half
Smart Contact Management
Feature-rich and flexible
Reported bugs
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
7-day trial
Premium: $13.99/month
Teams: $17.99/month
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Customizable Interface
Customizable for teamwork
Pricey for personal use
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
Standard: $24/member
Premium: $39/member
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Integrated Calling
Integrated Calling
Too sales-oriented & pricey
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
Startup: $59/user/month
Professional: $329/user/month
4.8
star
star
star
star
star
Business Card Scanning
Business Card Scanning
Mobile only
square-check
Limited
square-check
$9.99/month
4.45
star
star
star
star
star-half
160+ app integrations
Comprehensive integrations
No free app version
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
$29.90/month or
$24.90/month (billed annually)
Capterra Rating
Free Trial
Free Plan
Starting Price (excluding the free plan)
Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan)
Best for
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-check
€15/month/seat billed annually
€792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat
Versatility and free plan
4.2
star
star
star
star
square-check
30-day
square-xmark
But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations
€25/user/month
€500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI)
Best overall operational CRM
4.3
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-xmark
square-check
Limited to 3 users
Comprehensive incentive management
€52/user/month billed annually
Small-medium businesses and automation
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-xmark
€14/seat/month billed annually
€99/seat/month billed annually
Sales teams and ease of use
4.1
star
star
star
star
square-xmark
square-check
Limited 10 users
$9.99/user/month billed annually
$64.99/user/month billed annually
Free plan for very small teams up to 10
CRM goal
Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months.
SMART Breakdown
1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation).
2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking.
3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements.
4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives.
5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date.
Actions
Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation.
Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior.
Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads.
Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up.
Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization.
Outcomes
Increased sales and revenue
Improved marketing automation ROI
Marketing and sales alignment
Data-driven marketing optimization
Table
CDP Software
CRM Software
Approach
Data-centric
Customer-centric
Focus
Interactions across various channels and touchpoints, both online and offline.
Sales, marketing, and customer service interactions.
Functionality
Automatically collects, organizes, tags, and makes data available in real-time.
Helps businesses track customer interactions, sales pipelines, prospects, and service requests.
Goals
Personalized customer experiences across all channels.
Better customer relationships, streamlined processes, and improved profitability.
Benefits
Data integration, management, and accessibility, allowing for detailed analysis and segmentation.
Better communication within teams and with customers by organizing information about customer interactions and history.
Data Handling
Handles both identified and anonymous data, stitches together various data points.
Deals primarily with identified customer data.
Use Cases
Personalized marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, content customization across multiple channels.
Managing campaigns and leads, enhancing customer service, providing better customer support, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples
Insider, Bloomreach, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CDP
HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM
CRM
Free plan
Best feature
Best for
Con
1. HubSpot CRM
square-check
Sales automation
Sales teams
Up to 1,000 contacts
2. Insightly
square-check
Custom fields
Basic needs
Not enough info about the free plan
3. Agile CRM
square-check
Deal and sales pipeline tracking
Small teams
Up to 10 users
4. Zoho CRM
square-check
Lead and contact management
Businesses of all sizes
Limited to 3 users
5. ClickUp
square-check
Unlimited tasks and unlimited members
Personal use
Up to 100MB storage
6. EngageBay
square-check
Live chat
Small and midsize enterprises
Up to 1,000 branded emails per month
7. Bitrix24
square-check
Unlimited users and 5 scrum teams
Big teams
Up to 5GB of cloud storage
8. FreshSales
square-check
Easy to use and simple setup
Beginners
Up to 3 users
9. Mailchimp
square-check
Very beginner friendly
Marketing teams
Send up to 500 branded emails per month
Type of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached
Related
Involved
Format
Paid advertising
Social media or YouTube channels
Dedicated website or blog
Focus
Quick income
Your niche
Your audience
Engagement with your audience
square-xmark
square-check
square-check
square-check
square-check
Very close connection with your audience
Pro
Little effort
Higher credibility thanks to your niche
Long-lasting and scalable
Con
Paid ads cost a lot
Potential for bias since you don’t use the thing you promote
Require time, effort, and dedication

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