It's been a month since I began my role with a new company. I've been settling in, getting used to their systems and processes and getting stuck into the nuts and bolts of the role which, ultimately, gets me paid.
I'm in a management role with my key responsibilities revolving around driving revenue; business development is what it's called officially. It means I work with potential customers with the view to on-board them on contracts and accounts. It's a salaried role, incentivised by a healthy commission structure measured annually. The numbers I have to write are pretty sizeable although the industry is lucrative, an essential service, and one that keeps my country moving. So, the opportunities are there, for the right person and with the commission structure being so strong there's good reason to apply myself, which I would do in any case as it's how I am.
It's been going well so far and I have solid opportunities with five or six large companies that, should they all come to fruition, would double my annual budget white easily. Of course, they may not all happen...or will they? I've worked hard though and have a good feeling about them.
One thing that's not going so well is the CRM the company uses. The client relationship manager software is, to be generous, slow, clunky and totally fucken useless. Even the State Manager says that.
To be honest it's not all that bad, but it's far from good. It slows me down through being convoluted to input data, runs slowly, isn't at all intuitive and the reports...well, let's just say I've never seen a worse reporting system in a CRM in all my live-long days.
I've always measured my own progress on Excel spreadsheets of my own design and create them with exactly the metrics I need to track and measure represented ensuring each is relevant. When I started with this new company I decided to roll with their CRM and the reports within it that tracked my KPI's but now I'm not so sure; it's letting me down. I decided today that I'll create my own spreadsheet with the metrics I need represented including formulas that will auto-calculate and create charts and graphs based on the various metrics; it's those I will present to upper-management when required as a summation of my activity. I'll create this spreadsheet over the weekend so I'm not burning company time and will backdate data to the day I started. It should only take several hours on Saturday and once done will be there forever.
At the end of the annual reporting period what will matter will be whether I have reached my budget or not; my plan is to exceed it. I believe in my ability and work rate and know I'll do the work required to put me in good stead to make budget. I think the company believes in me also and don't need to see my phone calls, emails and meetings tracked, along with the other daily activities of my role; they won't have a problem with anything I do if I make my budget. If I was to fall short that's where my activity may need to be demonstrated and justified but...I'm not spending a third of my week trying to navigate a shitty CRM when it could be better spent in front of clients doing business; I've always preferred dollar productive activities over busy work.
How about you folks, do you have budgets and KPI's to meet and do you have to justify your activities? How do you measure your results? Maybe you're the manager and have a team to run...How do you ensure the work is done and, more importantly, how do you empower the team (or yourself) to achieve the desired result?
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
Any images in this post are my own
tfu - the internal system for claiming travel expenses in the County ... 5,000 staff spending an entire afternoon every month to get back their mileage. When I mentioned it, they said, yes, it's old, we've had it five years ... it was old and useless when you got it five years ago.
That sounds familiar. My company car has a plug in GPS unit that operates as a logbook.
I can use the vehicle for private use as much as I like and they give me a fuel card so I don't pay for anything, but every Monday have to plug the unit into my computer, download my trips and mark them business or personal. It's for tax reporting for fringe benefits tax for the company and I understand why it's done, but it's annoying and takes up a half hour of my morning. Not quite an entire afternoon, but long enough. 😳
It's a tough one hey? A company can't really make good decisions without reliable information... and it's hard to get reliable information without really good data... but data takes a ton of effort and time to collect. My guess is some Business Development dude sold them this CRM, and maybe if your spreadsheet works well they'll realise the sunk cost and just bin it... after all, the beauty of getting someone new in is to let you know where things can be done better.
I've actually got to think about this myself... I'm running a project and have an amount of work to be done in 12 months... and we're currently just trying to quantify the amount of work that needs to be done, hopefully then I can figure out a way to keep us on track.
You're exactly right and I said this to my State Manager last week. The problem is someone made a decision on this CRM who is not a BDM and so it was based on a hunch plus information sold to then about what it will do for the company.
In reality it is full of gaps, at the same time as being overloaded with rubbish. It's not flexible or adaptable and, probably the worst thing, is not intuitive.
I use some of the features and will continue to do so, but will swap over to my own spreadsheet for KPI tracking and will use the CRM as a basic address book as such. I wonder how much they pay for it and assume a lot considering it's used nationally.
Good luck with your project and aim hope you find an appropriate way to measure the progress against the target.
J has had to both write and work with/code for interesting CRMs and kind of sighed with some sympathy when I told him of your woes XD
Even though it takes time to create sometimes doing your own tooling works out better for whatever it is you're doing. Despite having tried a few great apps for "productivity" the most success I've had is with cobbling together my own thing using obsidian.
now I also use it for roleplaying notes and am slowly in the process of converting my project notes over as well because
I'm kind of addictedeverything is so much betterAnd there is also a level of satisfaction in doing the tooling ^_^;
you get that too right? Right?! XD
If J was responsible for this CRM I need to have stern words with him! 🤣
And yes, I agree with you on the tooling thing. It's satisfying. I have started putting some ideas down, working out what formulas I need, layout and the metrics I'll track...it's going to happen on Saturday and I am looking forward to getting it set up. I'm certainly not a. Excel nerd, but getting this thing set up will be rewarding.
I think it would have worked and worked well if J had written it, he has standards XD
and probably would have been -_- about the scope creep that inevitably happens with projects like that
Sounds like you have a satisfying Saturday sorted XD
I think one of the problems is developers don't consult those doing the job, the ultimate users. I've used some really great CRM's and I'm sure those have been developed in conjunction with the end-user.
Excel spreadsheet design and snacks on Saturday. I'll be content.
Could just be the difference between an off the shelf solution and a custom built one. One of those is a cheaper outlay but can be tricky to shorehorn in.
Quite possible, in fact I suspect that this is exactly the case. For what I do (the industry) it's not at all suites..sure, it does some basic things reasonably well, but the clunk-factor relegates it to being classed as total shite by myself and most of the others who use it.