Getting Sales to Adopt the Sales Portal

Last night I spoke to a group of grad students at the University of St. Thomas. I had a blast and thank them very much for being so nice, attentive and interested. I spoke about my Naked CRM eBook and some new work I'm doing with Online Interactions for lead nurturing.

But there's one discussion I can't get out of my head.  The difficulty of getting salespeople to adopt the sales portal. Especially if they work on 100% commission.

Clearly salespeople don't see the value.  They don't see how using a sales portal or CRM will improve their close ratios or pad those commission checks they strive to make bigger. They see CRM as more work. They see Marketing's attempt at providing them a sales portal as not meeting their exacting standards and they stay away, doing things the way they've always done them.

Good enough? Probably not. Not if the company wants to grow.  Not if the company's strategic objectives stretch the level of accomplishments achieved by the sales force today.

So, what do you do?

We talked about that.  The student's company had talked to the salespeople. They had asked them what they wanted and then tried to give it to them on a sales portal. Kudos for them. They are ahead of a lot of companies I work with. The sales reps gave the sales portal a perfunctory try and then said the information wasn't good enough, that it didn't work for them. When asked why, marketing was told that the information  wouldn't work in that part of the country, or some other excuse.

And they went away.

Marketing has tried to get champions from sales to help drive the portal.  Another great idea.  Didn't work.

The company is truly at a loss as to how to get enough buy-in to make the sales portal work.

As I think about this, which is tough without all the facts or hearing both sides, I have to believe that marketing missed something.  That the information they provided either wasn't critical enough that it helped the sales force DO something they hadn't been able to do on their own. Land new accounts or close deals they'd been losing previously.  Maybe instead of making things easier, the way the information was presented made it harder for the sales team to use the portal efficiently.

The company also created a way for the salespeople to ask expertise questions through the portal, but the salespeople kept picking up the phone and calling the experts directly. Even if they did ask a question, the information was kept between the salesperson and the expert via email and didn't become part of the sales database on the portal. Which is a big missing in building an actionable knowledgebase.

To be successful, a sales portal has to deliver results for the salesperson. Information has to be updated and relevant and using it has to produce better outcomes.  But more than that, there has to be meaningful interaction on the portal to drive use. Those interactions had better help sales sell, or it's a waste of time they can use selling.

I wonder what sales would say if they were asked what "good" would look like on a sales portal? I wonder how it measures up to marketing's idea of "good" when asked the same question?  There's obviously a disconnect and until it's found and bridged, the sales portal will remain inert.

Change and adoption doesn't come easily, apparently an understatement in this situation. There has to be process change.  It has to be endorsed from the top.  The expert has to hang up the phone and insist the question be submitted to the portal.  The information should be posted there and the expert should commit to a timely response. And the exchange should be shared to help other sales people and encourage further interactions.  This will also keep the experts from wasting time answering the same questions repeatedly.

The content on the sales portal should be a combination of marketing messaging and expertise insights.  If marketing posts value propositions, do they also show sales how to use them effectively? If a white paper or case study doesn't impress a prospect, does the sales team provide feedback to marketing about how to improve the information and make it more compelling? Are the salespeople invited to submit their success stories? If they won't do it themselves, does marketing follow-up after a closed deal, interview the salesperson and post the story for them to drive adoption?

Do the things the salespeople do at the portal improve their process and get captured into the CRM system to streamline their admin tasks? Or is the sales portal taking more time away from selling without easing some other task?

User adoption is hard. Especially when there is a chasm between marketing and sales. I suggested facilitation from an outside party to help bridge the two departments.  Process change is tough. Payoff needs to happen for all involved.  Getting to the heart of what drives that payoff is what will make the difference.

Tough conundrum.  But solvable, I think. It'll take effort and attention.  A lot of it.

Thanks to the class for having me, to Bob for inviting me.  For the rest of you, please share your thoughts on how getting a sales force on 100% commission to  adopt using a sales portal can be achieved. 

Comments

[Dennis]

if you have any ideas on this topic please let me know.