“How can we word our employee contract to require them to use our CRM tool?”
Over the weekend, a colleague in my master-mind group shared this question, which he received from a customer: “How can we word our employee contract to require them to use our CRM tool?”
Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore
We got past, “Whoa, don’t be handing out legal advice”, and the conversation got down to what could be at the heart of the problem.
Management need leadership, not lawyers.
We’ve found (my group, and I) that the CRM database enforcement camp (vs. the empowerment camp) is predicated on an authoritarian need to count and control.
Our group’s conversation occurred just after I’d read “The Sales Manager’s Dilemma” by Landy Chase, which made it especially instructive.
What it comes down to is that many managers measure the wrong thing: they conflate a quantifiable effort, such as number of phone calls, with sales results. It’s an outdated measurement that doesn’t hold up.
As Chase points out in his article, “You have a responsibility to (employees) to teach them how to succeed in sales in your business. If you don’t, the performance problem is not them – it is you.”
Now, back to our CRM contract.
My colleague, Len Kamerman, an ACT! Certified Consultant in Toronto, suggested introducing a Technology Agreement as an effective way to get everyone on the same page.
It’s a inspired idea because it highlights that both the company and the employee are accountable for their respective responsibilities.
Download the one-page Everyone Wins! Technology Agreement outline; it’s in MS Word format so you can adapt it to your own system. Encourage cooperation by sharing objectives, communicating expectations, and pledging to invest in the success of your sales team.
Oh, and this is not to be construed as legal advice (our lawyers made us say that).
