02/16/2008 @ 07:48 by Brandon Hull | Leave a Comment
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Was reading this article about the future of selling and saw an interesting term: “prospect relationship management”. We talk about rapport in selling, but do we talk enough about strategically managing the relationship with prospects, prior to them buying?
Brandon,
Thanks for referencing our posting mentioning PRM. Prospect Relationship Management is about strategically managing relationships with prospects, as you said. However there is a strong message that also comes from that term. It’s this: most out of the box CRM products just doesn’t get the job done for sales people! That’s why adoption is so low–sales management can’t figure out how to get their people to input the data needed for management reports.
ESR asserts that more salesrep-centric applications are needed to help sales people win more business. The good news is that there is software out there now that does get the job done for sales people. One example is The TAS Group’s Dealmaker. It is a front-end to Salesforce.com and other CRM packages that models a company’s sales process and provides reps with structure and guidance on what they need to do to win business.
The term Sales 2.0 refers to the new breed of software that supports selling at the rep level. Here’s a complimentary piece on that: http://www.esresearch.com/e/home/document.php?dA=Sales2.0_1
Dave Stein, CEO, ES Research Group, Inc.
It seems to me that as soon as you turn something into an acronymn, people immediately begin to over simplify the concept in addition to the phrase.
Better strike PRM from your lexicon if you want to leave businesses with any hope of getting it right!
I never understood why relationship management would be restricted to “post-sale” activities anyway. Almost seem we have a license to kill before the deal is signed, only to make friends again after.