Effective Saleslogix Consultants

Being effective with Saleslogix means that you need to understand the unique needs to the middle market. These companies are typically not mom and pop shops, nor are they Fortune 1000 enterprises. They are somewhere in the middle, with smaller budgets, but the same basic needs. And since every dollar counts with these businesses, effective Saleslogix consultants need to spend the correct amount of time with them, up front, to ensure that they have high level economic goals they are trying to achieve.

Performing a CRM Assessment

Economic goals are important for any CRM consultant, but I'm bad about repeating myself on topics as important as this. But, before you set your goals, it makes sense to perform a CRM assessment of your company. What does this do? Well, it helps you understand where you are as it relates to CRM. I talk about this on my CRM Analysis page. If you are near the beginning of your CRM evolution, it makes no sense to implement tactics that support strategies more closely aligned with mature CRM initiatives. All this will do is cause frustration and push back, because results will be hard to come by. Don't bite off more than you can chew, in other words.

Effective Saleslogix consultants need to be aware of this, and if they aren't performing this sort of assessment with you, you need to ask them to stop, unless you have performed this yourself and/or developed a complete CRM strategy prior to their engagement. Microsoft CRM provides this sort of assessment process to their business partners, while Saleslogix has not. So, it's important to find out if your Saleslogix consultant has developed their own.

Depth of Consulting Resources

Effective Saleslogix consultants also need access to the talent required to meet your needs. That doesn't mean they need a huge staff! Most firms have access to sub-contractors. By depth, what I really mean is the breadth of experience of their consulting staff.

• Are their programmers right out of school and need to spend more time to figure out how to design solutions for you?
• Do the consultants interfacing with your staff have any business experience, or did they impress you with a 3 letter acronym? It's great to have access to the latest theories, but this is about the real world. Make sure there's some real world experience. A consultant like that will likely challenge you as opposed to saying "sure we can" all the time.
• Do the consultants pull out elaborate methodologies and project management templates, or do they listen to you?  Your needs should be driving everything. You don't fit into a template!

Make sure there is experience beyond Saleslogix, because effective Saleslogix consultants always have it.

Your Case Study

Effective Saleslogix consultants should write your case study as soon as an assessment is done and you've set measurable goals. In other words, near the beginning of the project. I've seen too many examples of projects whose starting point was based on software features. When the case study was written, they had to go back and figure out if and where there were any improvements. Frankly, that's embarrassing for a consultant of any kind.

If you can't write a case study, minus the actual results, then you are taking a huge risk by proceeding with this investment. Large companies set measurement goals because they have to justify their investments to stockholders.  You may be the only stockholder, but don't you have the same standards for your own money?

I can help you find, or assess, effective consultants. Or I might be available to help you directly. Just click the contact button on my navigation bar. I also have a list, on the right, of companies I know to be excellent resources for you.

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