Sales Teams Hate CRM Data Entry: Here’s How to Make It Effortless

The CRM without data is a sad place. No velocity, no movement, and no insights. But even with data, we can lack all of these. What matters is getting quality data into the CRM. The majority of companies manage to get some basic data in the CRM, like full name, job title, email, and maybe some phone numbers and industry indication. From this point on, most companies struggle with getting an updated close date, next steps, or an updated price. Complete advanced sales data points, like MEDDIC or SPICED, are rare in a CRM. This is a wasted opportunity.

Clean data allows us to make better decisions and, most importantly, helps us close more deals. Sadly, sales professionals don’t always fill out the CRM. It’s really not one of their favorite activities. Even the best sales reps struggle with CRM hygiene. Sales professionals are not to blame. They work in a high-pressure environment, and their job is on the line if they don’t meet their quota. Imagine this scenario: what would you do here?

• You have to spend your time chasing a client to sign a deal,
• calling new prospects to fill up your future pipeline,
• or entering data manually into the CRM.

Any great sales professional will prioritize the first two and eventually spend some late nights updating the CRM. A not-so-great professional would also focus on the first two but never do the late-night work of entering data into the CRM. The thing is, we need the data in the CRM simply to keep track of all activities, but a smart person will also understand that it helps us identify patterns on how to improve. In that regard, data is king and allows great sales reps to be even more efficient.

Let’s look at three examples that create deep insights to close more deals:

1. Next steps on every deal populated
   The "next step" field is small but powerful. It tells us what the next step is in a deal, e.g., “call with a second stakeholder,” “set up a two-week trial,” or “schedule a reference call.” It’s very simple, but it creates velocity. Deals move faster to the finish line.
   
   
2. MEDDIC or SPICED for each deal
   A systematic approach to opportunities reduces the guessing around why some deals are stalling, losing, or winning. In the end, sales is a numbers game. Sales methodologies like MEDDIC or SPICED are powerful in creating a predictable revenue engine. They help us detect patterns, such as whether deals where we don't speak to more than one decision-maker close faster or slower. The potential for insights is huge if the data is present.
   
   
3. Prepare onboarding of your clients
   Every sales conversation is filled with insights that will be relevant to successfully onboard the client. A great sales professional will keep track of those points and note them in the CRM. These data points are valuable for your Customer Success team and make the onboarding experience for clients more successful.

In our work at Revenue Wizards, we always aim to apply these best practices to our clients. We want to empower them so that all of their sales professionals are great sales professionals. We love meeting intelligence platforms like Attention because they deliver exactly that. There are a few meeting intelligence platforms, but not all are able to update the CRM perfectly. The power of this is that sales professionals are empowered to spend more time closing deals and less on administrative work, like note-taking and entering data into the CRM.

The double benefit is that we in RevOps have rich data to identify patterns and make sales reps more efficient, while also having more accurate forecasts. In the end, data is king, and platforms like Attention help us get the data we all need.