Save 4 Hours a Week–Eliminate These 5 Salesforce Time-Killers

As a sales rep, are you spending too much time doing CRM admin rather than selling? You’re not alone. Eliminate these 5 Salesforce time-wasters and have more time for prospects and maybe some extra time on Facebook.

Imagine life without mind-bending, time-ravaging CRM routines. You’d come in to the office, have face time with prospects, build relationships and pitch deals. No more non-productive staring at the monitor, demoralizing data entry like updating leads, accounts and opportunities. Sounds like a little bit of marketing heaven, right? But where would you track your leads, or give yourself reminders? How would your managers get information about how deals are moving forward? According to a research by Implisit, the average sales rep spends almost 4 hours every week updating his or her Salesforce.  This is more than the 3.7 hours spent on office productivity killers such as coffee breaks or social networks. Can you spend more time selling and less time on data entry and Salesforce updates without losing a robust CRM? The answer is YES! Here are the 5 worst time-wasters and how you can eliminate them.

1. Updating Tasks

The average sales rep forks over about 2 hours a week updating Salesforce, nearly 48 percent of the time spent on Salesforce overall. Why are people spending so much time? They’re tracking the actions they’re taking or putting in reminders for their to-do list. But why? Many of these tasks–scheduled meetings and emails sent–already exist in your calendar or email server. By automatically syncing your emails to the lead, contact, account or opportunity, Implisit can save you precious time updating tasks.

2. Updating Leads

Sales people spend 18 percent of their CRM time updating leads. Leads change jobs and phone numbers, among other things, and salespeople must maintain up-to-date information. Then, every time reps contact a lead, they must note the outreach and whether the lead replied. In today’s world, outreach is predominantly done via email and the majority of us display our most updated contact information in our email signature. Simply sync your email with your Salesforce and keep your CRM updated. How? Implisit parses the email signature and makes sure that whenever a lead’s contact information changes, it is fully and accurately reflected in the CRM. You get an 18% time boost to do with as you wish.

3. Updating Contacts

Reps spend 17 percent of their time on Salesforce updating contacts. It’s about the same amount of time as spent updating leads… did someone say waste of time? Yes! Keep all your communications and contact information updated in Salesforce with an automatic sync. Automation keeps both your Salesforce accounts and your mind—fresh!

4. Updating Accounts

How much time do people spend on accounts? Around 8 percent of the time they spend on Salesforce, which equates to around 10 minutes per week. This may not sound like much, but that’s almost 10 hours a year times the number of reps you have! Do the math. Implisit developed a solution that rolls up all of your emails and meetings, automatically syncing them to the account level. All of your accounts are updated in no time!

5. Opportunity to save time on opportunities

Opportunities may be one of the most important items in Salesforce. Sales people spend 8 percent of their time on Salesforce, or 10 minutes per week, updating opportunities. Unfortunately, the average sales person only makes 25 percent of the opportunity updates that should be made. It’s not a big surprise. Who likes to do admin drudgery? Updating opportunities automatically with Implisit’s use of recent emails and calendar events not only saves time, it increases the number of opportunities updated and the frequency as well. Calculate the benefits.

Conclusion

Want to get another 4 hours per week? You got it! Update your Salesforce with emails and events automatically to eliminate the 5 biggest Salesforce time-killers. Say “hello” to more time selling and “goodbye” to admin mind grind.
Ariel Geifman heads marketing at Implisit. Ariel has over 10 years of marketing experience, ranging from start-ups to enterprise including Sizmek, Mintigo, ClickTale & Bristol-Myers. His expertise includes content marketing, online advertising & market research, strategy and analytics. Ariel published dozens of articles and posts on industry publications such as iMedia Connection and Adotas. He holds an MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia.