The sales academy The noCRM.io Academy

Becoming a better saleperson

You Don't Need a CRM! An incredibly simple and efficient web based software to help your sales teamstrack to track and close their deals without spending hours filling out forms.

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Table of contents

  1. 1Organizing your sales activity
    1. Our philosophy
    2. Prospects vs. Leads
    3. Prospecting Lists, Leads & Client Folders
    4. Status vs. Sales Steps
    5. Defining Key Information on Leads
    6. How to Categorize Leads, and Why It's So Important
    7. Contacts Management: How to Manage Multiple Contacts in the Same Company
    8. Admin, Team Manager & User
    9. Customizing Your Account Interface
    10. How to Develop the Right Sales Process to Close your Deals
  2. 2Organizing Your Daily Activities
    1. How to Build a Sales Process
    2. Every Morning, Know Exactly What Leads You Need to Work On
    3. Follow Up the History of Your Exchanges & Bcc Email Conversations
    4. Set Reminders and Synchronize Your Account with a Sales Calendar
    5. Sort Activities for a Better Understanding of Your Leads
    6. Extended, Compact & Pipeline Mode
    7. Create Several Pipelines to Analyse Different Sales Processes
    8. Make your Most Important Leads Stand Out
    9. Find Leads by Using Filters
    10. How to effectively prospect and qualify leads on LinkedIn
  3. 3How to Win at Cold Prospecting
    1. How to Organize your Cold Prospecting
    2. When and How to Use Propsect Lists
    3. Only Turn a Row into a Lead Once the Contact is Qualified
    4. The Importance of Using Column Names
    5. Magic Columns
  4. 4Working on the Go
    1. Mobile Sales App
    2. Using the Speech Recognition
    3. Scan your Business Cards
  5. 5Adding Leads from External Sources
    1. By E-mail
    2. From your Partners
    3. From a Contact Form
  6. 6Follow up your Business Activity - Understanding How it Works and Collaborating
    1. How to Successfully Manage a Sales Team
    2. How to Implement an Activity-Based Selling
    3. Analyzing Sales Activity by Category or by Salesperson
    4. Sales Performance Analysis: Get Total Insights
    5. Find the Leads That Have Been Pending for too Long
    6. ROI of Specific Actions, or of a Specific Month Activity
    7. Using the Activity Feed to Manage your Team
    8. Follow Activity Every Morning Thanks to the Daily Sales Activity Report via Email
    9. Exporting your Data for Reporting or Marketing Purposes
    10. Activity Based Selling: The Best Technique To Reach Your Business Goals
  7. 7Manage your Existing Customers
    1. Following up on your Won Clients
    2. How to Manage Upsells and Renewals vs Post-sales Process
  8. 8Connect noCRM.io to Other Apps
    1. How to Connect: Zapier, API & Direct Integration
    2. Send Notifications or Fire Actions Based on Events
    3. How to connect noCRM to your own Information System
  9. 9Rolling out noCRM in your company
    1. Framework for a successful rollout
    2. Guide to a successful onboarding of your team
  10. 10Additional Sales Resources
    1. The Sales Expert Directory
    2. All there is to know about SPIN Selling

Prospects vs. Leads

When you are selling a product or service to a new client, there are two types of potential customers: Prospects & leads. These concepts are not the same, and understanding their differences is crucial to improving your sales process.

When someone reaches out to you; it's known as a lead. That contact is qualified; they have a requirement and are interested in your product or service.

However, when you have to make the initial move and present the product for the first time to a contact; it’s an unqualified prospect. Otherwise known as a prospect.

Most sales reps need to manage both prospects and leads. Some only handle the first, while others take care of the latter. It largely depends on the structure and how the sales department is divided. They certainly shouldn't be handled the same way, and that's where many of the traditional CRM systems go wrong.

A sales rep needs to transform a prospect quickly into a lead with minimal fuss. They can start working on trying to convert the business or cancel it if there's no further interest.

Prospects can become leads, but they can also amount to nothing. It's essential that you manage such transitions efficiently without exerting too much energy on lower-quality contacts. For this, it is necessary to have a clear prospecting organization.

Furthermore, when there is an identified lead, i.e. a qualified prospect, the sales rep needs to focus and make sure they never forget about the next action (e.g. call, send out an e-mail, arrange a meeting, etc.).

Prospects can be managed on a spreadsheet, whereas leads can’t. Leads require a precise follow-up; they need to go through the sales funnel. Calls and meetings have to be set up, and so on.

You need to know the last thing that happened to progress to the next step. It's not possible to do that on a spreadsheet.

Where is it possible to manage both prospects & leads easily and efficiently?

Manage prospects and leads with noCRM.io

Inside noCRM you import the spreadsheet with your prospects into what we call Prospecting Lists. When a contact becomes qualified (they have shown interest in what you have to offer), you create a lead in the system with a single click on the (+) button. If not, you cancel the row using the right-click menu and forget about it.

Once a prospect becomes a lead, you manage it like any other – with proper reminders that can sync with your calendar, with a sales funnel, a to-do page, etc.

View also: Create leads from Prospecting Files

Next read: Prospecting Lists, Leads & Client Folders