January 27, 2022
So, you need a CRM for your investment sales team.
You want to capture leads, report on your pipeline, and ensure that you’re following up in a timely manner after meetings — this is a great thing. It means you’re about to exponentially increase your sales team’s productivity, giving them hours back in their day to do what they do best: set and hold meetings with qualified buyers.
However, deciding on a CRM can also be overwhelming, since there is no shortage of software to choose from.
Some key considerations to make throughout this process should include your firm’s size and budget, among others. And while we aren’t here to choose for you, we can say unequivocally that Salesforce has worked best for the Dakota team over the last fifteen years.
Since 2006, Dakota has raised over $40 billion, and has used Salesforce CRM throughout that time. We’ve empowered our sales team to make entering meetings, meeting notes, and creating reports part of their day to day sales process, so that no one is ever left in the dark on what activities they’ve been doing.
We know that no CRM is one-size-fits-all, but in this article, we’re going to highlight five of the key benefits that come from adopting Salesforce as your CRM. By the end of the article, you’ll have a clear understanding of the value of the platform, and whether or not it’s a fit for your team.
Reporting and following up are key to closing business. They also go hand in hand.
If you’re in investment sales, you already know that nothing is possible without a meeting, but if you aren’t effectively following up after you hold that meeting, you’re leaving money and opportunities on the table.
Salesforce allows you to create simple, easy to use reports to track and share your team’s progress.
You can also run reports to see where your opportunities are, how well you’re interacting with leads and customers, trends in your sales and customer service efforts, and more.
If a sales team has the knowledge of what interests a particular customer or prospect the most, they can meet that person’s needs, build a relationship, and solve problems more quickly and proactively.
This can also be a huge advantage for a customer success team. Salesforce does not make you dig for information, rather it equips you with the knowledge and data you have, so a salesperson or customer success manager can get right down to what matters most.
This saves everyone time and makes your potential and current customers feel understood.
Salesforce’s ability to sync across almost any other platform or application your sales team uses is one of its biggest advantages.
We’re all working out of multiple systems, apps, and email accounts every day, and it can be hard to keep things organized. More than that, without the ability to sync between calendars and Salesforce, sales teams are forced to do double data entry, which takes away valuable time they could be selling and setting meetings.
With Salesforce, you can eliminate this double entry by syncing your other apps and accounts directly into your CRM, saving your sales team time and allowing for even deeper insights into your prospects and customers.
While it’s true that Salesforce can’t do everything, they do have a way to continue to allow you to grow your Salesforce instance: The Salesforce AppExchange.
The AppExchange is a marketplace for Salesforce customers to find any applications that suit their needs. The AppExchange has over 3,000 applications available, and includes everything from increased data and analytics apps to calendar apps, and more.
While other CRMs may allow you to sync across platforms, the AppExchange itself is exclusive to Salesforce.
With sales teams traveling, and other team members working remotely, it’s critical that everyone in your organization is on the same page, especially as it relates to progress being made against your pipeline, and Salesforce makes that incredibly easy.
Once someone logs a note, a meeting, or any other piece of data, the rest of your sales team will be able to see and run reports on it.
This ensures that no one is left in the dark.
As we said earlier, we aren’t here to tell you once and for all which CRM is right for your firm, but in short: yes.
Salesforce works for almost every industry, but was originally designed for the financial space. That makes them better equipped for investment firms than almost any other platform available.
If you’re looking for a better way to collaborate with your team, report on meetings, follow up with prospects effectively, and give your sales team valuable time back in their days, the answer is yes: Salesforce is probably a good fit for you.
Gui Costin is the Founder and CEO of Dakota.
