Shitty tools?

I've been spending a lot of time in the last few weeks talking with enterprise sales reps, learning about how they work in the day-to-day, their biggest pain points, and what they'd wish would be different.


The ONE thing that came up consistently is the insane number of tools to work with and update: CRM, email, calendar, dashboards, intend data, sales engagement, etc. It ends up sucking a ton of time from account execs - doing admin work rather than talking prospects or customers.


Few of the things I've heard:

  • "I end up updating the same information multiple times across different systems"
  • "Everybody finds their own way to stay organized (notepad, OneNote, their calendar, etc.) and it's quite suboptimal"
  • "Information is scattered - you never know what is relevant and what can help you push your deals forward"


I feel that the biggest issue is that most sales tools are built for managers / VPs, not for the individual reps. It's something I've personally lived, but I wanted to see if there were other folks out there that can also relate.


I'm trying to solve this. If you want to share your thoughts or help out, let me know!!


You feel the same?

Attached poll
*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.
๐Ÿค“ Sales Tech
โ˜•๏ธ Workflow and Daily Habits
๐Ÿ’ผ Productivity
8
CuriousFox
WR Officer
7
๐ŸฆŠ
Yup. And no matter how up to date my SFDC is, my manager still asks for us to send him reports.

Dude. Run it your damn self in SFDC.
braintank
Politicker
6
Enterprise Account Executive
This an excuse lazy reps hide behind.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
2
CEO of Sales
Aren't reps intrinsically lazy @braintankย ? Not in a bad way, but like many people say: "Sellers are born and bred to make the most money with the least amount of effort"
braintank
Politicker
3
Enterprise Account Executive
Agreed. Best sales reps focus on revenue generating activities and ignore everything else. Keep your CRM up to date and no one will bother you. If they want you to update 12 tools, grow a pair and say "that's not a good use of my time, how about I use the CRM as single source of truth and you fill out the rest?" Did this with my boss and he was happy to oblige.
GOLFaaS
Politicker
1
Sales Leader
Yes yes yesโ€ฆ.. But itโ€™s bigger than just lazy, itโ€™s vision and purpose. The difference is there are people who see a screw and grab a screw driver, then there are others who get a drill. You can do it the hard way or the easy way. Both get the job done. One just doesnโ€™t make quota
TennisandSales
Politicker
5
Head Of Sales
the first thing that comes to mind as somone who has been in salesforce my entire career, is that most of the time leaders try to use other tools: (excel,trello, ect) to track information that should be kept IN SALESFORCE so we all know where the source of the truth is.ย 

But they dont so we have to go look through 10 different reports, excel reports, apps to learn things or share different data.
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
2
Sales
Who hasnโ€™t had to update a Google doc or share point excel with the exact data youโ€™ve put into your crm. Itโ€™s incredible.ย 
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
Isn't the reason they do that because reps hate using Salesforce @TennisandSales?ย  The problem with these others tools seems to be that they aren't connected to Salesforce either, right?

I agree that Salesforce has to be the source of truth, but it shouldn't be used as a productivity tool either. Thoughts?
TennisandSales
Politicker
0
Head Of Sales
yes it should be a productivity tool.ย 

I think people just dont take the time to understand how they can use salesforce to do what they have these other tools for.ย 

They also dont really understand what they need.ย 

for example a manager will use Trello to track opportunities, when what they need is a more visual way to see how many opps are in what stage. (which can be done in SFDC)
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
Well ideally it should be - you are right @TennisandSalesย . But there is a reason why people have such a hard time to use as a productivity tool - it's not easy to use and intuitive. Thoughts?
TennisandSales
Politicker
1
Head Of Sales
hmm its hard for me to say since its all ive known.ย 

and there are other tools that are awesome that people can use FOR SURE.ย 
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
4
Officer of โ™ฅ๏ธ
this is a manager problem not an IC problem. if ur reps are having to spend shitons of time manually doing things ur tech stack isn't integrated. or you have no set procedures or sales process that ppl follow so everythings a hot mess.ย 

Ie. if ur using salesforce but dont have LeanData or correctly routed Leads-accounts/opps/customers - get rekt. ur reps will spend a massive amount of time assigning leads, opps/ customers, to the right place so they dont fuckup a good deal or drop a hot one.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
1
CEO of Sales
@SADNESSLieutenantย - interesting! Most of them didn't actually talk about lead routing or opportunity assignments. Their biggest point was related how they managed their pipeline (once deals are qualified and it takes few months to close)
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
1
Officer of โ™ฅ๏ธ
yeah thats true, alot of that you cant really get over I feel like though, especially with updating target accounts/writing notes/taking out garbage ones. but often times reps and AE's dont even realize the amount of manual work they are doing besides that
UrAssIsSaaS
Arsonist
3
SaaS Eater
We keep a really simple tech stack, and everything syncs back to SFDC. So as long as you update Salesloft for outreach and calls then everything pushes back to SFDC and I can pull what I need to know where my team is at. Haven't had anyone on my team complain about admin work.ย 

Set up your stack correctly and its a non issue.ย 
CuriousFox
WR Officer
3
๐ŸฆŠ
@poweredbycaffeineย would agree ๐Ÿ’ฏ
bandabanda
Tycoon
0
Senior AE Mid Market
100%. This is exactly how weโ€™re running things now and we have gong, Salesloft, zoom info, etc. Everything pushed to sfdc and thatโ€™s where you look.

But @ZEnabler, if youโ€™re looking for a tool for ICโ€™s to use, i use Scratchpad. Itโ€™s been a game changer. Take notes for opps, update deal stages, next steps, amounts, closing dates, everything. Helps me update things 2-3x times faster than doing it in salesforce. I can onboard a new AE in less time b/c of it. Check it out.
Sunbunny31
Politicker
2
Sr Sales Executive ๐Ÿฐ
We use SFDC as our CRM and only source of truth.ย  Many of us personally use other tools to keep ourselves organized, but I'm not having to oblige managers/execs by having to maintain redundant reports.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
What are some of these other tools @Sunbunny31?ย 
DungeonsNDemos
Big Shot
1
Rolling 20's all day
I think this is a tough problem to address. You have everyone trying to integrate with everyone else via API's or eventual acquisition.ย 
Besides what you've shared, did you find anything else of note after speaking with these reps for weeks?
bandabanda
Tycoon
0
Senior AE Mid Market
Not sure if you care but Urassโ€™s comment above is the way to go. The sales leader and data manager/team should have everything pushing into Salesforce.

End users should be using that. If itโ€™s too slow, thatโ€™s what apps like Scratchpad are for. Itโ€™s helped me immensely.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
@DungeonsNDemosย - very good point!
I think that updating Salesforce is definitely a pain. Tools like Scratchpad and Dooly do make it easier and more pleasant to update your CRM.

However, I've heard from many AEs that oftentimes, the biggest blocker is getting access to relevant information when/where you need it: knowing what deals to prioritize, relevant similar deals, appropriate playbooks / templates / etc., and more. All in the form of actionable insights. That's where combining real-time enablement to productivity for individual reps is interesting.

Thoughts?
Welcome your thoughts too @bandabandaย 
GOLFaaS
Politicker
-1
Sales Leader
I see what your doing and I donโ€™t like itโ€ฆ.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
-1
CEO of Sales
Being..?@GaaS
GOLFaaS
Politicker
0
Sales Leader
Selling a sales guy is tough. Consider
This a lesson.
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
Well if I was trying to sell something - I would have been a bit more direct. In this case, I'm mostly trying to learn and get educated. You don't have to interact with my post if you aren't interested in sharing a helpful / insightful perspective though
GOLFaaS
Politicker
-1
Sales Leader
Maybe try being more direct lol
ZEnabler
Good Citizen
0
CEO of Sales
๐Ÿ‘ Great lesson.
GOLFaaS
Politicker
0
Sales Leader
The War roomโ€ฆ always helpful and insightful lol not exactly my understanding but cool. Gotcha