Team Management – Pipeline

Pipeline CRM vs. Other Job Management Software for Landscaping

Pipeline CRM — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 07:42:41 +0000

If you run a landscaping business, you know the routine: quote the job, schedule the crew, do the work, move on to the next one. But before any of that, there’s often chaos. Missed calls, half-filled forms, and leads that go cold before you even send a quote.

That’s why most landscapers rely on job management software to keep things running smoothly after a job is booked. These tools are great for scheduling crews, creating invoices, and managing project timelines.

The problem? They rarely help you win the job in the first place. Most fall short when tracking leads, following up on quotes, or staying organized during sales. And as your business grows, you might pay more just to unlock the features you actually need.

Why Landscapers Need More Than Just Job Scheduling Tools

Job scheduling software helps keep things running smoothly once a job is booked: assigning crews, managing calendars, and tracking progress. But for many landscaping businesses, the real challenge isn’t doing the work. It’s getting the work.

To help you decide which software for landscaping to choose, here’s how Pipeline CRM compares to other job management software landscapers often use—Jobber, LMN, and ServiceTitan—across the features that matter most.

What is Pipeline CRM?

Pipeline CRM for landscaping contractors is a sales and deal management platform that helps you keep track of leads, follow up with potential clients, and stay organized during the sales process. With solutions specially designed for landscaping businesses, it helps you stay on top of new business and get the jobs done on time without getting buried in sticky notes and unread emails.

Here’s what Pipeline CRM helps you do:

Track leads: add new leads, update their info, and see where they are in the sales process.
Manage follow-ups: set reminders so no one gets forgotten after that first call or email.
Organize your pipeline: see what’s in progress, what’s on hold, and what’s ready to close.
Customize your workflow: add stages, tags, or fields that match how you actually work.
Use geolocation: see where your leads are located on a map and plan smarter follow-ups and service routes.
See what’s working: get a clear view of where leads are coming from and which ones are turning into jobs with real-time reporting.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Let’s compare Pipeline CRM with our three chosen job management tools across five essential categories.

1. Lead Tracking and Sales Pipeline Management

Feature	Jobber / LMN / ServiceTitan	Pipeline CRM
Lead capture	Jobber/LMN: basic manual entry or web forms. ServiceTitan: call-based or online intake forms with routing.	Manual or automatic capture with customizable forms and workflows.
Sales pipeline visibility	Jobber/LMN: minimal to no visual pipeline. ServiceTitan: “Service Board” shows call status and stage, but lacks full deal tracking.	Full visual pipeline (kanban/timeline) with custom deal stages.
Follow-up automation	Jobber/LMN: limited without integrations. ServiceTitan: follow-up dates available, but automation is limited.	Built-in task reminders, alerts, and deal-stage automations.
Lead source tracking	Jobber/LMN: very basic. ServiceTitan: includes some marketing attribution.	Tracks lead sources out-of-the-box with built-in reporting dashboards.

Most job management tools like Jobber, LMN, and even ServiceTitan prioritize operations after a job is booked. Jobber and LMN offer only basic lead capture (usually name, phone, and email), and tend to rely on add-ons or integrations for any kind of structured follow-up or pipeline visibility.

ServiceTitan does a better job managing incoming leads, especially for trade businesses—it can log inbound calls, set follow-up dates, and display a “Service Board” with lead statuses. But its lead management is still more of an operational add-on, not a true CRM-style sales workflow.

Pipeline CRM, by contrast, is built for sales-first visibility. You get lead management features like customizable pipeline stages, drag-and-drop deal management, automatic reminders, and native tracking of where your leads are coming from: referrals, ads, calls, or forms. That means fewer missed follow-ups and better insight into which channels actually drive jobs.

“Pipeline CRM helps you visualize and understand your sales pipeline in order to grow your business.”

– Praveen B, Mid-Market Digital Marketing Specialist (verified G2 reviewer).

2. Scheduling and Dispatching

Feature	Jobber / LMN / ServiceTitan	Pipeline CRM
Calendar and scheduling	Jobber: drag-and-drop calendar, recurring jobs, automated reminders, on-the-way texts, GPS crew tracking. LMN: basic calendar; dispatching tools less documented. ServiceTitan: advanced crew scheduling, notifications, and tracking on higher-tier plans.	Integrates with Google and Outlook calendars. Salespeople can log visits or follow-ups per contact; shared team view of meetings and tasks.
Geolocation and routing	Jobber: map view with GPS tracking of staff and jobs. ServiceTitan: route optimization and proximity-based crew assignments (premium tiers).	Map View shows clients/leads on a map; supports up to 10 stops per route; optimizes by distance/time; shareable to mobile; usage based on plan tier.
Sales and schedule link	Mostly disconnected: scheduling centers on operations, not sales. Schedules aren’t typically tied to deal records or pipelines.	Tasks, meetings, and follow-ups are linked directly to leads/deals—everything lives inside the CRM, not across separate tools.
Team calendar and updates	Jobber: includes crew calendars and automated customer notifications. LMN: more limited crew scheduling interface. ServiceTitan: rich manager dashboards.	Team-wide visibility into sales activity—reps and managers can track site visits, meetings, and tasks by contact or deal context.

Jobber offers a strong scheduling experience for small-to-mid-sized field teams. Its drag-and-drop calendar, automated reminders, and GPS tracking are useful for recurring work and keeping clients informed. LMN includes basic scheduling tools, but lacks robust dispatch capabilities or deeper sales linkage.

ServiceTitan is more advanced in this category, especially for larger, multi-crew organizations. Its higher-tier plans offer intelligent routing, proximity-based crew dispatch, and in-depth dashboards. That said, it’s built for operations, not sales. The dispatch tools are powerful but siloed from your sales process.

Pipeline CRM, by contrast, ties your sales tasks and scheduling together:

Calendar integration with Outlook/Google lets you schedule follow-ups or site visits directly inside lead records.
Shared calendar views keep your sales team on the same page with logged meetings, calls, and tasks.
Map View shows your active leads and clients on a map. You can create optimized routes (up to 10 stops), save them, and send them to mobile.

For field teams that need to sell and schedule, not just assign crews, this kind of integration reduces busywork and keeps deals moving forward.

3. Quoting and Estimating

Feature	Jobber / LMN / ServiceTitan	Pipeline CRM
Quote creation tools	Jobber: templates with optional line items and markups; automated email/text follow-ups; client approvals and online payments via Client Hub. LMN: simpler quoting features, less widely documented. ServiceTitan: quoting integrated by plan, primarily focused on operations rather than sales context.	Integrates with tools like Paycove to automate quote and invoice workflows. Logs all deal data, site notes, and client interactions in one place.
Quoting context and accuracy	Jobber stores previous quotes and client details, but quoting is often disconnected from the context of sales pipelines.	Keeps client history, including notes, site visits, tasks, and interactions attached to the deal, giving full context when quoting.
Error reduction and workflows	Jobber automates markups and quote follow-ups but still relies on manual entry. Errors can occur from outdated templates or missing information. ServiceTitan offers CPQ-style quoting at scale.	With Pipeline CRM + Paycove, you automate quoting from deal data.
Tracking and follow-up	Jobber includes follow-up reminders. ServiceTitan can send alerts. LMN basic. Sales tracking is often handled in separate modules.	Quotes sent via email are automatically logged in the CRM using Email Quote Tracker.

Jobber gives service businesses a user-friendly quoting process: you can customize templates, add optional services, and send quotes via email or SMS. Clients can approve and pay online through Jobber’s Client Hub, and the system will follow up automatically if they haven’t responded.

LMN offers simpler tools in this area, while ServiceTitan provides robust quoting for larger teams. However, these features are often geared toward dispatch and field ops and do not include integrated sales conversations.

Pipeline CRM isn’t an out-of-the-box quoting tool. Instead, it integrates with Paycove, automatically turning deals into branded quotes and invoices using CRM data. Because your site visit notes, customer preferences, and sales history all live in one place, quoting is faster, more accurate, and less prone to error.

4. Reporting and Forecasting

Feature	Jobber / LMN / ServiceTitan	Pipeline CRM
Report types	Jobber: basic job, invoice, and payment reports. LMN: limited visibility in public docs. ServiceTitan: customizable dashboards for job costs, tech performance, and ops.	Custom reports on deal stages, rep performance, source attribution, and revenue. Dashboards built for sales.
Forecasting tools	Jobber: projected income based on jobs. ServiceTitan: revenue trends tied to job history, not future pipeline.	Built-in revenue forecasting based on deal value, stage, and close probability.
Real-time updates	Jobber and ServiceTitan offer updates tied to ops activity.	Reports reflect real-time changes to deals, tasks, and rep activity.
Automated delivery	Jobber and ServiceTitan allow scheduled reports via email.	Auto-send weekly, monthly, or custom reports to team leads or managers on your schedule.

Most job management tools like Jobber, LMN, and ServiceTitan focus on what’s already happened—jobs completed, time logged, and invoices sent. Jobber gives you a decent overview of current financials. ServiceTitan takes it a step further with customizable dashboards and deeper operational KPIs. But these reports rarely give you visibility into your future pipeline or help you forecast what’s coming next.

Pipeline CRM flips the script. It’s built around deal tracking and forward-looking insights. You can create reports based on rep activity, lead source performance, or deal stage. Everything updates live, so your forecast reflects what’s happening today, not last week.

That kind of visibility can be the difference between steady growth and chaotic swings for landscaping businesses that depend on seasonal work, predictable staffing, and long lead times.

5. Scalability

Feature	Jobber / LMN / ServiceTitan	Pipeline CRM
Pricing tiers	Jobber and ServiceTitan use tiered pricing, meaning features like quoting, routing, or advanced reports often require upgrades. LMN’s pricing is less transparent.	Straightforward per-user pricing. All core CRM features are included, even at lower tiers.
User and contact limits	Jobber and ServiceTitan may limit features or require per-technician pricing. Some plans cap contacts or restrict access to integrations.	No contact or pipeline limits. Add as many deals, contacts, and users as needed without hitting caps.

Most job management platforms like Jobber, LMN, and ServiceTitan look affordable at first, but once your team grows or your needs shift, you often find key features locked behind higher-tier plans. Want automated reminders? Routing? Quote follow-ups? You’ll likely need to upgrade.

Pipeline CRM keeps things simple. All plans include the core features landscaping businesses need: lead tracking, calendar tools, pipeline visibility, and reporting. There are no contact limits, paywalled automations, or required upgrades just to access the basics.

As one G2 user points out:

“One standout feature is the absence of contact limits, providing the flexibility to grow and scale without the constraints often imposed by other CRM systems. This not only accommodates my current requirements but also future-proofs my usage as my needs evolve.”

When to Choose Pipeline CRM Over Traditional Job Software for Your Landscaping Business

If you’re struggling to keep up with leads, follow-ups, or quotes, Pipeline CRM is built to fix that.

Let’s say you get a dozen inquiries in a week: a few yard cleanups, some design projects, and a big commercial lead. You take notes, send a few estimates, and move on. A week later, you realize you forgot to follow up on three of them—one of which could’ve been your biggest job this month.

That’s where Pipeline CRM makes the difference.

It gives you a clear view of every lead and where it stands. You get reminders when it’s time to follow up. You can see your whole pipeline at a glance—and assign deals to team members, share notes, and stay on the same page without endless back-and-forth.

Pipeline CRM is a smart fit if:

You send lots of quotes, but don’t know how many turn into actual work.
Your crew handles jobs well, but your sales process feels scattered.
You want a tool that helps you win jobs—not just schedule them.
You’re tired of paying more just to add users or unlock basic features.

The Smarter Alternative to Traditional Job Management Software

You can’t grow a landscaping business on booked jobs alone—you need a steady stream of new ones coming in. Most job management tools help once the work is already confirmed. But they don’t help you get the job. That’s the gap Pipeline CRM fills.

With Pipeline, you get full visibility into your sales pipeline, faster quoting with fewer errors, smarter follow-ups, and tools that grow with you—without punishing you on price as your team expands.

It’s a smart switch for landscapers who want more control over their sales process and fewer missed opportunities.

Try Pipeline CRM and see how it fits into your workflow—before, during, and after the job.

Virtual Offices At Pipeline: How Pipeline Has Mastered Remote Working

Yuriy Golovko — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 20:56:09 +0000

Covid-19 has plunged hundreds of companies across the globe into adopting a required work from home policy almost overnight. Many companies were not prepared to adopt and adapt in such a short timeline. Pipeline has been working a partial remote model for over 14 years. In particular, the engineering team which comprises roughly one third of the company has always been 100% remote. We have software engineers in the US, Poland, Dominican Republic, Canada, and more. And coincidently, the rest of the company enabled a work from home option in January 2020 for the Seattle Headquarters based people. Given the abrupt changes companies and teams are making, I wanted to share the best practices we use to ensure high productivity, high morale, and success.

Remote work success boils down to a great set of tools and accompanying processes and defined culture to enable above and beyond communication. Let’s first talk about the tools.

The Tools

Collaboration and Video conferencing

A high quality reliable video conferencing product is essential. This does not have to be expensive. We have been through many different productssuch as Google Hangouts, Skype, and now Zoom. When Zoom came along it changed our life. We spent so much time fixing and troubleshooting the other products. Dealing with intermittent outages, video hanging, and trouble organizing meetings. Zoom with its Brady Bunch style view of everyone on the call changed our life. It was stable out of the gate. It has always been reliable. Like…always. Our productivity for meetings went way up. We don’t think twice about video logistics. It’s all integrated into our email and calendar clients with ease. A reliable and easy tool is critical.

Chat and Conversations

The next critical piece is a real time communications vehicle. We use Slack. Slack is not just chat for us. It is our platform of all company communications.

Productivity
Let’s start with productivity. For productivity we live and die by slack. Here are some of the various ways we put it to work:

Engineering team technical discussions
Product development discussions
Customer support help from the engineering
Product planning discussions
Innovation discussions.

#daily-updates
Multiple time zones make daily standups impossible. Especially since ours span 9 hours of differences. So we took the standups to slack asynchronously. Meaning, people enter their daily updates when their workday is over on their own schedule. This keeps everyone informed on progress, who is working on what, and if anyone needs help.

#support
Our Customer eXperience team is connected to the engineering team who can help them with difficult customer technical issues in real-time. Our company is above and beyond when it comes to how we want to treat our customers and this channel is vital to the success of that mission.

DevOps

And then there is development and operations, otherwise known as Devops. Here are some key channels

#engineering
All of our design, architecture, and forward looking thinking usually enters through this channel. Engineers talking tech.

#deployments
We deploy our code to production several times each day. And we use slack to do it. “Hubot deploy app: [build | deploy | cleanup]” can be seen regularly by the engineers in slack. Through this channel and “Hubot deploy:status”, everyone knows exactly what is going on.

#operations
Our cloud operations are all monitored and then alerted through slack. If our site has an issue, we know first through slack. Our team uses PagerDuty to be alerted to critical operational issues. While the engineer on call will get an alert through the PagerDuty app, the rest of the team will see the issue in this channel. We dedicate this channel to seeing and fixing performance, security, stability, reliability, and more. This channel is also open to the company in case others want to see what is going on at an engineering level

#circleci
Build status. Like any agile team, we do continuous integration of our code which means after code is committed and pushed, automated tests are run to ensure nothing has broken. The team watches this channel for state of the build

Why So Serious!

It’s not all work and productivity. Maintaining connection with each other is equally important to the success of the whole remote dynamic. Here are some of the channels that add to this dimension

#music
We share our favorite bands, albums, songs, and videos

#trackoftheday
Someone picks one unique song from their music collection that they think people will enjoy

#whatscooking
Photos from the dinner tables of our amazing Pipeliner chefs

#holidaycheer
We get festive virtually!

The Rest of the Stack

There are other tools, that are specific to our specific work and the type of company we are. Thinks like product development kanban boards, code repositories, and of course email, calendars, and documentation. Every company has these, and they become even more important while remote.

The Remote Culture

We sat down as a company and wrote down what is important to us, no matter if we are in an office together or distributed across the globe. This is what we came up with.

Quality of Life
Positive team dynamic
Alignment
Collaboration
Productivity
Progress
Reliability
Engagement
Achieving our goals
Overall satisfaction

If we could achieve these things, we are achieving the company culture we desire. So we tapped the engineering team, who has been doing this since the inception of the company to find out what has been important to them. This is what they said:

#1 CONTEXT
Searchable, text-based record of all decisions and discussions (Slack). Secondly, no side conversations. 1:1 conversations can be started but are moved to #engineering or #operations, so that others can benefit and refer to whatever info later.

#2 DAILY UPDATES
Posting simple and short daily update messages: what I did, what I’m working on, any blockers. Easy and searchable way for everyone to know what’s going on without synchronous communication (#daily-updates channel in Slack).

#3 DISCIPLINE
Communication habits slipping means that communication doesn’t happen, there’s no running into others in the hallway and remembering what you need to tell them

#4 TRUST
Being trusted to work reliably and professionally from home without supervision inspires people to never break that trust. The flexibility the company grants in organizing days outside of required meetings makes life easier, and in return employees have no issue with checking in after hours, doing the PagerDuty on-call rotation, etc. People have a sense of ownership over our platform, and it’s as much a personal mission as a professional one to make sure it NEVER GOES DOWN

Wrapping it all up

There is no replacement for in person spontaneous conversation across a desk, or in the work kitchen. The depth and richness of human connection is undeniable. But a similar world can in fact be achieved in a virtual work environment. Pipeline has spent 14 years providing superior customer service and product delivery using the remote model. It works and the proof is in the product and our customers. The benefits it brings to our employees keep people out of their cars, off the buses, and has a huge impact on our environment. It gives them more time with their families each day. Everyone has their personal list of benefits. If you have questions about being successful as a newly remote team or company, give me a shout!

See Your Pipeline From Every Angle with Performance Pulse

Yuriy Golovko — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 20:37:21 +0000

Your sales data can show you big wins, bottlenecks, coaching opportunities, and improvements. To find these insights, you need to be able to quickly look at your organization from multiple levels and assess performance towards your goals.

Performance pulse gives you the ability to dive deep into your pipeline(s) with configurable visuals so you can access data relevant to your business. At any time during your sales cycle, you can check the health of your pipeline and track Performance Lanes across multiple territories, teams, or even individuals toward your Performance Pulse Goals.

When segmentation and organizational complexities conceal the best path forward, it’s critical to have relevant, up-to-date information handy. A manager might want to know who on their team needs coaching and how to best direct their efforts. They can use Performance Pulse to view each individuals’ contributions by lane, and see where and how to drive improvement.

What Can Performance Pulse answer at a glance?

Who on my team is or is not on track to meet their target?

• What is or isn’t selling?

• How well are my different business lines performing in each of our territories?

• Are we on track to fulfill all current contracts and where should I focus?

With any of your important business questions, Performance Pulse can inform your path forward. Even the most complex business structures can easily access insights otherwise buried in layers of data. With powerful goal tracking and configurable visuals, you can start seeing your Performance Pulse from every angle.

To start using Performance Pulse, visit the knowledge center or call us at +1 (866)-702-7303 and we’ll help you get set up.

Explore more of Pipeline CRM’s features.

The Glassdoor Effect: How Building a Strong Review Portfolio Attracts Top Talent

Andrew McDermott — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 14:49:36 +0000

Is Glassdoor really all that important for your business?

It seems like a ‘nice-to-have.’

Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees anonymously review their employers. Many believe that Glassdoor is an essential part of running a successful business. Their rationale goes like this: If your company has (or has had) employees, you should be on Glassdoor.

Are they right?

As you’ll soon see, Glassdoor is a two-edged sword; it’s powerful in the hands of an experienced pro who’s willing to do the work to build a wonderful business and destructive in the hands of those looking to game the system.

Why Glassdoor is essential to your organization

Wyatt Troia, a software engineer, left two scathing reviews for his employers in 2020, “The founders are not skilled nor experienced leaders, with a bias towards pettiness and cowardice,” he wrote.

He followed up by posting more negative reviews on Glassdoor.

Things escalated from there.

His employer responded by firing him; they also withheld stock options promised to Troia during the hiring process. He was initially promised that these options would vest within a year but later found that they wouldn’t vest until 16 months of employment.

This cost Troia more than $100,000.

Then Troia’s former company filed a lawsuit against him. In their suit, they alleged that Troia purchased Google ads to target their company and steer potential hires towards their negative reviews.

What’s the big deal? This is par for the course; this is the risk you take when you write a negative review.

Does Troia’s story matter?

Glassdoor impacts an employer’s ability to attract future employees.

How do we know their platform is important?

Worried employees post questions on Q&A site Quora, asking if they can be fired for writing a negative review on Glassdoor
Glassdoor offers businesses advice in their help section, showing businesses what they can do to deal with negative reviews from current and former employees
Concerned employees ask Glassdoor if they’ll protect their identity if an employer takes legal action against the reviewer
Companies manipulate and boost their Glassdoor ratings by manipulating, threatening, and bullying their employees
This (unnamed) company sent a former employee a legal letter for their Glassdoor review, threatening to sue if they didn’t take it down

What’s the common thread with all of these?

All of these people, companies are behaving in a way that implicitly acknowledges the incredible value of Glassdoor. If Glassdoor reviews didn’t have a significant impact, companies wouldn’t be threatening to sue their employees over it. Former employees wouldn’t be terrified to share their feedback.

A strong review portfolio on Glassdoor is a kingmaker.

Here are some stats on employee branding from Glassdoor for Employers.

Glassdoor and Indeed (via their partnership) reach over 80 percent of online job seekers in the U.S
Glassdoor job seekers who saw one company’s brand 10+ times were 5x more likely to apply than those who saw it once
62 percent of Glassdoor users are more likely to respond to a recruiter from a company that they recognize than from a company they don’t recognize
76 percent of Glassdoor users state their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review
79 percent 4 in 5 Glassdoor users are more likely to apply to an open job if the employer is active on Glassdoor (e.g., responds to reviews, updates their profile, shares updates on the culture and work environment)
65 percent of Glassdoor users read at least five reviews before forming an opinion of a company
89 percent of Glassdoor users find the employer perspective important on what it’s like to work at the company

Okay, that’s kind of compelling. But it really doesn’t say anything about how this will affect your company specifically. Let’s look at some more data, this time from LinkedIn.

According to LinkedIn’s ultimate guide to brand statistics, employer branding produces a…

50 percent increase in qualified candidates
50 percent cost-to-hire reduction
1 – 2x faster time-to-hire
28 percent reduction in mis-hire and employee turnover

What’s employer branding again?

Employer branding is an extension of your company’s reputation. If you’ve done a good job with employer branding, you’re able to answer four stressful questions in a candidate’s mind.

What does this company stand for?
Am I safe at this company?
Will they treat me well?
Do I have a future here?

Your reputation, via employee reviews, answers this question objectively in their minds. Candidates can gain objective evidence via employees and their experiences.

How to attract top talent using Glassdoor and recruitment marketing

Glassdoor is a powerful tool in the right hands.

We’ll need to define our metrics and KPIs before we can attract candidates on the cheap. Data from Employer Brand International’s (EBI) Global Research Study outlines a few common ROI metrics and data used to analyze an employer’s brand.

These metrics and KPIs enable your company to measure performance across a variety of data points, including:

Number of applicants
Cost of hire
Quality of hire
Employee retention rate

If you’re working to improve the culture and satisfaction of your employees, it’ll be easy to improve your aggregate star rating on Glassdoor. It’s important to pursue this — it’s a helpful barometer that shows whether you’re on target with employees (or not).

Here are some steps you can take to improve performance across the four metrics I’ve mentioned.

Step #1: Start with values

According to Jeff Lawson, chief executive at Twilio, your culture is living values; here’s how you apply it. First, write your values down; make them available to everyone in your firm. Next, you create a culture when everyone works together to live these values out in their day-to-day work life.

See for yourself.

Here’s the thing.

If you want this whole values thing to be successful, it can’t be a top-down affair. Management can’t dictate the values of the organization.

That’s not how this works.

Healthy organizations develop their values from the inside out. The tribe, you + your employees, work together to discover your organization’s values.

Why does this matter?

Your employees will discuss these values and the culture of your organization in their reviews.

Take a look.

If you want exceptional reviews from happy employees and top-tier candidates applying to work at your company, this is where you start. If you’re noticing any problems internally, you rework things so your employees see that you’re making a sincere effort.

This produces five-star employee reviews organically.

Step #2: Ask employees to share their feedback

Notice that I didn’t say ‘ask for a review.’

Your employees shouldn’t feel coerced or backed into a corner here. You want them to share genuine and helpful feedback in their reviews.

No helping, coaching, or hinting.

Why is this so important?

Sites like Glassdoor and Indeed provide job candidates with the trusted third-party data they need to vet your company.

75 percent of candidates assess an employer’s brand before they even apply.
52 percent of candidates spend time on a company’s website, monitor their social media profiles (and often key employees) to get a sense of a prospective employer.
Prospective candidates trust employee reviews 3x more than company statements.

If you’ve built a strong and healthy culture, these positive reviews (and a few negatives) will begin to come in. Respond to each review respectfully and fix the mistakes discussed in your negative reviews. Continue to request feedback from new and outgoing employees.

Step #3: Find top tier candidates on the cheap

Sophisticated recruiters rely on the hidden job market to attract top candidates on the cheap? How do they do this consistently when Fortune 500 companies struggle?

They rely primarily on the hidden job market.

The hidden job market consists of all of the available jobs that are not posted publicly; only 20 to 39 percent of all the jobs that exist are posted publicly. That means 61 to 80 percent of all job opportunities are hidden.

These roles are filled via networking.

Bill Todd, former CEO and founder of The Companies Expert, explains how the hidden job market works.

Here’s why this is essential.

1. An abundance of opportunity. There are far more opportunities available in the hidden job market.

2. There’s far less competition: Public job posts receive 100 – 250 responses. Hidden job market posts, 5 – 10.

3. Growth and promotion are easier: You were brought in via networking; you can use it to get ahead.

If you’re looking to attract top-tier candidates, you can use a simple strategy to tap into the hidden job market.

It’s employee advocacy.

Employee advocacy is employee-led, company promotion. An employee advocate is a staff member who:

• Recruits top tier employees to your company

• Promotes your company’s products and services to people in their social circle

• Acts in your company’s best interests

• Functions as a thought leader, product, service, or subject-matter expert

Employee advocates are extremely valuable. They have a significant impact on marketing, sales, and recruitment due to their reach. If your company has the right set of employee advocates, you can draw incredibly talented people into your organization on the cheap.

How do you get employees to advocate on your behalf?

That’s the easy part.

You pay them.

Dr. Bradford Smart, Ph.D., creator of Topgrading, shares a really simple strategy you can use to motivate your employee advocates.

Pay your employee advocates: If an employee is still with the company after six months, you pay both your employee advocate and your referral $1,000. This is a bargain when you realize the average cost of hiring a new employee is $4,129 via public channels.
Have managers refer top-performing candidates: When you hire a new manager or supervisor, ask them to sit down and create a list of the best performing subordinates in their previous company. If you make this a regular part of your onboarding process, finding top-tier candidates is so much easier.

This is how you attract top-tier candidates at a steep discount via the hidden job market. The best part about all of this? There’s less competition for their attention, so that means you won’t be sucked into a bidding war.

All of this hinges on Glassdoor and Indeed.

If prospective candidates see your review portfolio is filled with one and two-star reviews from current and former employees, this isn’t going to work. These top candidates won’t give your company the time of day.

Would you?

If you want these strategies to work, you’ll need to sort things out inside your company first, generate positive reviews, then pursue candidates in the hidden job market.

The Glassdoor effect is a life or death struggle

The survival of your company depends on it.

It may seem like a ‘nice-to-have, but it really isn’t. Glassdoor is an essential website for your company. It’s a two-edged sword, one that’s powerful in the hands of an experienced pro and destructive in the hands of schemers.

As we’ve seen, Glassdoor controls your ability to attract future employees.

A strong review portfolio on Glassdoor is a kingmaker. With consistent effort, you’ll find you’re able to attract top-tier job candidates on the cheap; whether your reviews are positive or negative, no lawsuits needed.

The Agile Sales Team

Zen Newman — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 22:47:22 +0000

Agile sales teams are using techniques recommended within Scrum methodology to better manage and forecast their sales pipeline.

Teamwork can be a valuable asset in selling

Scrum is a system of agile project management which was first developed as a better way to manage projects in the software industry. Its different approach to project management quickly spread beyond the tech sector to virtually every industry that depends on reliably accomplishing large scale projects. Scrum relies on its different organization of a projects tasks and timeline. Instead of a waterfall approach, Scrum relies on breaking goals into sets of discrete tasks that can be accomplished in a certain amount of time and then managing the completion of these steps in a flexible manner. Although originally devised for project management, this same approach is catching hold in the world of sales management.

Creating an agile sales team requires some changes in perspective from the stereotypical ‘lone wolf’ approach. An agile sales team would instead require a higher level of team engagement and lateral accountability across team members. These changes are worth considering because, in a variety of instances, there are potentially enormous sales productivity gains available. The scrum methodology is based on team-wide visibility into each task that needs accomplishing and accountability, not just up the hierarchy, but across it for your pieces of the project that each member is responsible for.

In many industries, sales campaigns revolve around firm dates that are established well in advance. These can range from publication schedules to specific promotions. These events offer an excellent opportunity for teams to get started using scrum as they more closely resemble projects in the typical sense. Since they are events that differ from the normal flow of day-to-day sales, they also offer a greater opportunity to promote teamwork. Getting a team started on their first agile sales cycle takes some planning before the campaign launch. The rest of this article will detail some of the mechanics of how to get your sales team on an agile path.

There are three organizational pieces of an agile sales team that we need to visit: the standup, sprints, and the backlog. Within a sales campaign, there is a kickoff, a hard deadline, and a specific number of accounts that need to be worked on. Additionally, every salesperson and team is tasked with hitting certain goals on account retention, and revenue growth. To complete the campaign and achieve the goals that have been laid down, each salesperson needs to have a clear understanding of the tasks at hand and their route to completion. These tasks are then communicated to the group in a peer-to-peer fashion during the daily standup.

The Backlog

You can think of the backlog as a staging area for tasks that need to be done but haven’t been started yet. In the case of a sales campaign, the backlog is most likely going to be all of the accounts that remain unworked. Ideally, these should be tagged as a backlog to the campaign in the CRM, so that they can be quickly identified and sorted for additional contact via email. Aside from the logistical benefits of being able to sort and contact accounts that are at different stages of the sales campaign, organizing your accounts in this way allows for the correct pacing of sales activity from the beginning of the campaign.

The Sprint

For commission-based sales teams, the Scrum concept of the sprint should be somewhat familiar. The goal is to break the sales campaign down into chunks allowing the team to maintain consistent pacing and course-correct as needed. In this way, the scrum sprint closely resembles a pay period or monthly quota system where specific goals for moving accounts forward through the sales pipeline. At the end of the sprint cycle, the results are reviewed, adjustments made, and new goals set.

The process of predicting what activity will occur during a time period is similar to sales forecasting, but it takes on added rigor when all activity is accounted for instead of just what will be closing. Forecasting based on activity allows sales teams to take into account all of the micro-conversions that occur in the course of moving an account down the sales pipeline. This approach allows for a detailed, rigorous and highly collaborative approach to managing an active sales pipeline.

The Standup

Sales teams are used to weekly and monthly meetings either as teams, or in a one-on-one setting with their sales manager, but the scrum standup functions differently. The goal is for each member of the team to quickly identify what they did the day before, what they’ll be doing today, and what blockers they are encountering. No more, no less. The idea is to provide a quick (and I mean very quick) account of how you’re spending your time to your team members and to help everyone identify any common challenges that may be affecting the group. The goal is to provide peer-to-peer accountability and group-wide visibility into challenges that may be occurring.

Get your sales team pulling as one and watch your numbers start moving in the right direction.

While the scrum methodology presented a change of approach to the waterfall method of project management, it is already relatively similar to many of the institutions we all know well in sales. By approaching a sales campaign from the perspective of project management, sales managers can eliminate a lot of the variability currently present in the sales process. By implementing Scrum best practices, sales teams are better able to pull as one by providing much more visibility into the sales process while sharing best practices and holding each other accountable.

Converting to a scrum process requires training for your sales team and an adjustment in perspective. Campaign-oriented environments lend themselves better to scrum methodology than other settings, but there are still opportunities to see performance improvements across the entire team in virtually every sales environment. Teams that can do more, sell more; teams that sell more, earn more. Making your sale team agile can help do just that.

How Millennials Approach Job Searches

Andrew McDermott — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 16:34:10 +0000

What’s the hardest part about hiring? How do millennials approach job searches?

Finding high-quality candidates for the roles in your organization. According to the Jobvite Recruiter Nation report, 58 percent of recruiters stated that a “Lack of skilled/qualified candidates and competition from other employers remain the biggest challenges in hiring quality talent.”

It’s hard for everyone.

In fact, 52 percent of recruiters list improving quality-of-hire as their top priority when filling a specific role.

Why companies struggle to hire qualified candidates

The vast majority of employers are struggling to find qualified candidates for specific positions in their organization. A recent SHRM survey found that 83 percent of respondents have had trouble recruiting quality candidates in the last 12 months.

"More than a third report a decrease in applicant quality across the board, and 45% report a decrease in quality for specific positions."

The question is, why?

Let’s take a look at the top six reasons behind this growing trend.

So to summarize:

Competition from other employers (for the same role)
Interest from candidates who don’t have the work experience or technical skills needed
A low number of applicants or a lack of interest in your company
Low/poor salaries and benefits
Interest from candidates who lack the workplace “soft skills” needed

How are you supposed to fix these problems?

At first glance, this may sound intimidating, as if this is going to take a tremendous about of time, effort, resources, and energy. Yes, it will take work, but the process doesn’t have to be excruciating. In fact, the process can be enjoyable with the right approach.

Let’s take a look at a few of the options we can use to solve these issues.

1. Competition from other employers (for the same role)

The solution to this problem is simple.

Offer qualified candidates what other employers can’t or won’t offer. Are employers offering a higher salary than you can afford? Offer stock options, profit sharing, bonuses, referral fees, or other incentives employees are interested in to attract their attention.

Find creative ways to reward employees for their hard work.

If you’re looking to build a sales team, you could rework your bonus or incentive structure. If competitors offer a large commission, offer a salary with larger performance bonuses that incentivize hard work.

Look at your culture.

Then, reward the behavior you want.

Robert E. Quinn and Kim S. Cameron at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor discovered four types of organization cultures.

1. Adhocracy cultures are temporary and driven by rapid change. These firms reconfigure themselves rapidly in the face of change. They’re adaptable, flexible, and creative in the face of uncertainty, ambiguity, and disruption. If you’re running a sales team, this may mean a lot of turnover, repeatedly retraining your team, constantly shifting roles, or something else.

2. Clan cultures are family-like; there’s a focus or special emphasis placed on mentoring, nurturing, and investing in the growth of those in the clan. It’s all about doing and accomplishing together. Prioritizing employee development is crucial — an emphasis on engagement, commitment, and loyalty are essential and non-negotiable. If you want to retain your employees in this culture, you’ll need to create a system and incentives that quickly integrate new employees into the group.

3. Hierarchy cultures follow a set social structure. These companies focus on perfection, efficiency, stability, and doing things the right way. There are clear lines of authority, standardized rules, and procedures; there are also control and accountability mechanisms. Integrating employees in this culture means you’ll need to place them on the right rung of the hierarchy ladder.

4. Market cultures are often utilitarian; they’re exclusively focused on results. The environment in market cultures is competitive, achievement-focused, and driven by outcomes and prestige, think commission sales. Market organizations are all about winning. They’re advancing all the time, defeating their competitors, moving rapidly towards their quotas and goals.”

Understanding the values framework in your organization is how you surpass your competitors. If you understand your organizational structure, you’ll find it’s easier to create job offers and want ads that appeal to those who are a cultural fit.

Doing this reduces competition dramatically.

This also enables you to create golden handcuffs that actually appeal to the candidates you’ve identified who are a fit for your company.

2. Interest from candidates who don't have the work experience or technical skills needed

If you’ve done the work to create the golden handcuffs, you have what you need to retain employees. What about the avalanche of unqualified candidates knocking on your door? What do you do with them?

It’s simple, train them.

You create a specific program that attracts potential candidates. You can approach this in a variety of ways, depending on your industry, business, product, or service.

Paid and upaid internships
1099 to W2 work arrangements
Temporary or trial employement
In-school recruitment programs

These are opportunities in disguise.

When you train these inexperienced or underqualified candidates, it’s a win/win. There’s no emotional or political baggage from previous employers, no bad habits to unlearn, no unrealistic demands to sort through.

You’re the first.

You get the chance to train these candidates as you see fit.

What if these options aren’t a fit?

No problem, create an option that best fits your organizational goals and objectives. If you’ve created the golden handcuffs, you’ll retain the candidates you train. This reduces the risk that comes with training employees.

Yes, some will leave.

But many of the candidates you invest in will stick with you, especially if they know you’re going to look out for them.

3. A low number of applicants or a lack of interest in your company

If you’re struggling with a low number of applicants, you’ll want to evaluate a few items to identify where the problem lies.

· Poor reputation

· An uncompetitive job offer

· You’re an unknown player

Each of these issues is easy to fix.

If you are dealing with a poor reputation, use reputation management tools like Glassdoor to boost your reputation with candidates and employees. Claim, complete and optimize your company profile. This guide gives you step-by-step instructions you can use to optimize your Glassdoor profile.

Have you done that already?

Reach out to your employees and ask them to anonymously share their feedback, discussing their experience with the company. This needs to be organic; employees shouldn’t receive any incentives or rewards for writing a review.

How does this fix the problems I mentioned earlier?

1. Your aggregate reviews will begin showing up in Google search results in Google maps

2. You’ll receive more traffic and applicants as your visibility in Google improves

3. The quality and quantity of your applicants will improve

You can address each of these problems with one simple strategy. The best part about Glassdoor? It appeals to millennials and garners trust.

4. Low/poor salaries and benefits

Companies with considerable brand strength and strong reputations can attract top talent in spite of their below-average pay.

Tesla is a great example.

A recent survey by Robert Half found that 55 percent of workers tried to negotiate their salary during their previous job offer. Haggling is a very good sign that candidates are, at a minimum, invested in the process and willing to fight for what they want.

It’s so much better than being ghosted.

How do you adjust your compensation package, so you’re able to attract A-Player candidates? Start by defining your compensation philosophy.

· If you’re looking to lead the market, your compensation package (across all positions) will usually be about the 50th percentile.

· If you want to match the market, your compensation package will be between the 25th and 75th percentiles. If you’re taking the traditional route, compensation will be between the 30th and 40th percentiles.

· If you prefer to be a laggard, your compensation package is at or below the 25th percentile.

What do you want to do?

If your company already has a compensation philosophy, go with that. If you’re not sure how you’d like to approach the issue of compensation, take some time to think about it. Then, identify the steps you’ll need to take to match your compensation philosophy.

5. Interest from candidates who lack the workplace "soft skills" needed

Topgrading is a proven hiring methodology.

It enables employers to find, hire, and retain the top 10 percent of talent in a given market. One of the things that make Topgrading stand out is its list of core competencies.

These competencies guide you to A-Players.

According to Bradford Smart Ph.D., founder of Topgrading Inc., A players tend to be:

· Smart, intellectual, and business savvy

· Driven to succeed; passionate

· Trustworthy

· Consistent high performers

· Adaptable to adjust to many different personalities

· Surround themselves with high performers

· Very hard workers

· Resourceful; overcome obstacles

· Effective leaders

· Down-to-earth, well-grounded, self-aware, humble

What does this mean for candidates lacking the “soft skills” needed to be successful? You’ll need to determine whether you’re interested in training employees or not.

If you are, you’ll need to provide that.

What if you’re not interested in training candidates?

You’ll have fewer candidates to choose from, but they’ll be ready to go, more demanding, and focused on the work.

What do millennials look for in a position or role?

Remember my previous post?

Millennials are the job-hopping generation. A recent report from Gallup found 6 in 10 millennials are open to new job opportunities; 21% of millennials switched jobs in the last year. That may not seem like much until you realize that’s 3x every other non-millennial group.

Let’s quickly recap what millennials are looking for.

1. Millennials don’t just work for a paycheck — they want purpose. They want to work for organizations with strong values, a mission, and an overall purpose. Compensation is very important, but it’s not the main driver for millennials.

2. Millennials want professional development. They’re not interested in the typical command and control manager. They’re looking for a manager who’s akin to a coach. They want their manager to value them as people and employees; they expect their managers to work to understand them deeply.

3. Millennials want continuous feedback. Annual reviews aren’t compelling for these employees. They want a manager who’s willing to provide feedback on an as-needed basis, using the platforms they’re already familiar with — Slack, Skype, Twitter, texts, etc.

4. Millennials want to focus on their strengths. They don’t want to fix their weaknesses; Gallup data shows that strengths grow infinitely while weaknesses never really turn into strengths. This isn’t to say that it’s impossible; it’s simply not a priority for them.

5. Millennials view their job as a part of their life. They want a good job, one that’s fulfilling and fits with their values and cultural expectations. They’re asking themselves the question, “does this company give me the chance to do my best every day?”

How do millennials suss out these values in their job search?

· They look for the above items (1 to 5) in your landing pages, job descriptions, website, and offers

· They read employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, searching for these keywords and phrases

· They ask former employees, known contacts, and friends of friends about your company, their would-be coworkers, and the role you’re looking to fill

· Finally, they read to the terms and conditions in your offer; the reader employee manuals, download white papers and watched your videos

They’re looking for consistency.

The more consistency and agreement they see across each channel or source, the more comfortable they’ll feel accepting a role or position within your organization.

It’s that simple.

How do you tie all of this together?

Address the problems I’ve identified (items 1 to 5) and create a compelling solution for each of these. Doing this creates the golden handcuffs, incentivizes good employee performance, and boosts A-Player retention. Then, address the issues that are most important to millennials.

Layer your responses.

Use the usual recruitment channels you’re already using but add in tools like LinkedIn and Glassdoor if you haven’t already. Optimize your profile and request reviews from existing employees.

Remember, millennials are looking for consistency.

They want to see that your values are aligned with theirs.

Compensation is important, but so are the other details we’ve discussed today.

Millenials are perpetual job-hoppers

This isn’t because they’re lazy or disloyal.

Millennials are looking for a culture-fit. They want to find the company or organization that provides them with the opportunity and growth they need.

That’s a problem if you’re waiting for qualified candidates.

As we’ve seen, finding high-quality A-Player candidates for the roles in your organization is difficult for most. The competition for well-established candidates is fierce. If you’re willing to train your candidates from the ground up, you have a low-cost source you can mine to attract high-quality A-Player candidates.

Train millennials, and you provide them with the opportunity and growth they’re desperate for. Create the golden handcuffs, and you’ll find you’re able to attract, retain, and grow with the millennials in your organization. Invest in millennials, and you’ll find they’re the easiest part of hiring.

7 Ways to Get Your Sales Team to Use CRM Software

David Smart — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:08:59 +0000

From increasing team productivity to business profits, there are many advantages to using sales team CRM software.

74% of salespeople feel their CRM system gives improved access to customer data, helping them minimize lost opportunities and shorten the sales cycles by 8-14%. One study even shows that CRM helped to boost the profits generated by each sales representative by a whopping 41%.

So, when sales team CRM can bring so many benefits to a business’s growth, why do some salespeople still refuse to use it?

In this blog, we’ll explore why your salespeople don’t use a CRM and what you can do to encourage them to adopt this powerful tool. Let’s dive in!

Top Reasons Your Sales Team CRM Isn't Used

Problem #1: Spreadsheets Hold Back Your Sales Reps

One of the traditional and still quite popular sales tools to track client relationships is spreadsheets. If you’re looking for a more structured alternative that retains the familiarity of Excel, check out our CRM Excel Template. Some salespeople have invested a lot of time mastering and creating templates that accommodate their needs—and they still work pretty well. So, why fix what isn’t broken?

Solution: Showcase the limitations of spreadsheets and how a CRM for sales team makes up for them

The spreadsheet isn’t a long-term solution for growth-driven sales teams. Compared to CRM software, spreadsheets aren’t great at recording texts—which is useful for entering job titles, addresses, or longer notes like for describing a prospect’s pain points.

Moreover, switching between tabs and manually linking data is vulnerable to inaccuracy and time-consuming. After all, unlike a sales team CRM, a spreadsheet isn’t a tool designed to help businesses close more deals but to process numbers. Your salespeople will get more benefits from using CRM tools than spreadsheets.

Problem #2: Your Sales Team Doesn’t See the Value

Another reason your sales team’s CRM isn’t used is that many salespeople feel it was forced on them. This typically happens when they don’t have a voice in picking a sales team CRM tool they like. In addition, learning without proper guidance can also trigger this feeling, especially when they have to ditch spreadsheets and switch to a CRM.

These blockers often cause them to think “I can’t learn this,” or “What a waste of time!” Keep in mind that if sales reps don’t see the value, it is much easier to look at sales team CRM as a threat rather than a useful tool.

Solution: Build confidence by demonstrating the results that can be achieved through a CRM

Invite your salespeople to get to know the CRM. The more they know, the more they will see the positive value of incorporating sales team CRM into their day-to-day tasks. The best to do this is by showing them the results of using a CRM. For example, demo how to automate sending emails to prospects, import contacts from LinkedIn to the CRM, and set up reminders to follow up cold prospects.

You can also ask your sales team CRM provider if they have onboarding videos or a knowledge base to help them familiarize themselves with the tool.

Problem #3: Lack of Support

Still related to the previous problem, the lack of assistance can also make your sales reps refuse to adopt CRM software.

No matter what your sales team’s background is, learning new software takes time. Some learn quicker than others, while some require extra help from the CRM customer service or available guides. Failing to get extra help to learn the ropes leads to higher abandoned CRM rates.

💡 Pro tip: With so many brands and features to choose from, how do you find the ideal CRM for your team? We’ve created an in-depth guide to ensure you’re choosing the right CRM software to minimize the CRM abandon rate. Download the guide here.

Solution: Choose a CRM that offers excellent after-sales service

While some CRM tools provide top-class customer support, onboarding videos, and comprehensive help pages, other CRM software only offers support as a paid add-on. It’s recommended to adopt a CRM for a sales team that has reliable after-sales service. Your salespeople will have the autonomy to solve their problems and enjoy using the CRM even more.

Problem #4: The CRM Software Is Too Complicated

Capturing contact information and other sales-related data is the backbone of CRM functions. Now imagine if inputting this data becomes a hassle and prone to errors. You can understand why your sales reps don’t use the sales team CRM. After all, CRM is adopted to solve your sales problems, not create new ones.

Solution: Choose a user-friendly CRM

It is important to choose CRM software that is easy to use to ensure your sales team will enjoy adopting and keep using it. As a rule of thumb, avoid choosing a sales team CRM that comes with plenty of add-ons to minimize complications. You should also take advantage of the demo or trial period to test the ease of use and integration options.

Problem #5: The CRM Isn’t Aligned With Your Sales Process

The fifth possible reason your sales reps refuse to use a CRM is that it isn’t aligned with the current sales process. Your salespeople have spent a lot of time perfecting a sales process that works. Changing it to fit the offered workflow on the CRM can easily decrease their productivity, deal closing rate, and in turn, your business growth.

Solution: Choose a customizable CRM

Tailor your sales team CRM to match your sales workflow, not the other way around. When choosing CRM software, pay attention to the options for customization. This ranges from customizing the data field, setting the automation rules (for emails, sales steps, reminders, etc.), having multiple pipelines, and granting permissions to users to access sensitive documents. 💡 Pro tip: Besides the ability to customize the sales process and automation workflows, what other important things to look out for when choosing a CRM? Get the checklist here.

Problem #6: CRM Keeps Them Stuck at Their Desks

Some salespeople spend a lot of time outside the office to meet prospects and build relationships. This makes mobile phones their most practical tool to support their day-to-day tasks. If they need to make the extra effort to access the CRM from their laptop, they’ll likely abandon the sales team CRM.

Solution: Choose a CRM with a robust mobile app

Adopt CRM software that offers stellar mobile features. They’ll be empowered to input, update, and repurpose data from anywhere, anytime. For example, they can pull up contacts, conversations, and deal history, and use this to propose irresistible offers on the go.

Problem #7: Incorrect Data Is Bad Data

According to a LinkedIn survey conducted by Experian Data Quality, inaccurate data impacted the revenue of 88% of companies and companies lost 12% of revenue because of bad data.

What is referred to as bad data here is duplicate records and all types of inaccurate data. This makes the collected data irrelevant and loses its function to support the sales team.

Solution: Establish a regular data cleaning schedule

To avoid the curse of bad data, make CRM data cleaning part of your sales team’s routine. You can schedule it on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis.

That said, If you use sales team CRM that offers conditional fields like Pipeline CRM, you can schedule data cleaning more sparingly. Learn more about the conditional fields feature by watching this demo video.

Educate Your Salespeople, and They'll Use the Sales Team CRM

Your sales reps may have other reasons why they don’t want to use a CRM besides the points listed here. Inform them about the benefits they’ll get, both for the short and long term—and ensure they get the support they need to get started and continue using the CRM.

That said, choosing a sales team CRM that matches your team’s language also plays a vital role in increasing the CRM adoption rate. It has to be easy to use, customizable, and has hands-on customer support, among other factors.

For a customizable CRM software that comes with a short and easy learning curve, as well as a legendary customer service team, try Pipeline CRM. It’s made with powerful features without the complications like many other big CRM brands. Try Pipeline CRM yourself. It’s FREE for a 14-day trial!

FAQs on Top Reasons Sales Reps Don’t Use Their CRM

1. How do I get my sales team to use CRM Software?

The first step in encouraging your sales team to use CRM is to educate them on the benefits. Show them how CRM can make their job easier in many sales areas. For example, CRM automation can help them send email campaigns, and smooth integrations with other apps allow them to automate lead generation and capture—all leading to shorter sales cycles and higher deal closing rates.

Therefore, consider choosing a CRM that offers automation and vast integration options like Pipeline CRM. Check out our automation feature and integration list.

2. Is it effective to use Excel as a sales tracker?

Compared to a CRM, using Excel as a sales tracker isn’t effective. It comes with plenty of limitations that hurt sales-driven businesses. For example, a spreadsheet isn’t ideal for handling complex data relationships, causing incorrect data capturing and lost opportunities.

Learn more about the differences between spreadsheets and CRM for sales team, and how using CRM software can boost your deal closing rate in this blog.

3. Which sales team CRM has the best customer service?

Pipeline CRM is known as one of the best CRMs that offers excellent customer service. We offer unlimited phone, chat, and email support for everyone, regardless of your chosen plan. Give us a call and you’ll be on the phone with an expert in a couple of rings!

Learn more about our world-class customer service.