"S" is for Simple CRM: When Less Is More

The “S-Curve:” every innovator’s worst enemy. Martha Lagace, from the Harvard Business School explains it this way: When an idea is first made, only a handful adopt it and it slowly gains momentum (the bottom of the curve). Then others jump on and accelerate excitement of the innovation (the steep middle curve), but as more companies join and vie for limited demand in the market, the product’s hype dies down (the top of the S). So how does one avoid the plateau and downfall at the top of the S? How can you jump from one S to another without falling?

Remember the blue bear from the Charmin Ultra commercials that always said, “less is more?” Well that’s the idea here. According to HBS professor, Robert Austin, the trick to a company’s longevity is simplicity “...get great materials, simplify the task down to its essential elements, put your smartest people on it, and force them to listen—to each other, to the interaction between the company and its customers, and to the market,” he says.

Trying to outdo your competition isn’t always the solution. Sometimes it’s better to underdo so as to cut costs and provide some clarity to both your company and your customers. Harvard Business School found in a study that only 7% of employees truly understood the goals and objectives of their company. If employees don’t understand their company’s mission, you can’t expect customers to either, and when customers don’t know what they’re buying, they’re not likely to buy at all.

Gideon Kimbrell from Inc. saw the failure in overcomplex businsses firsthand when he worked at a startup called Moli.com a few years back. “We had more than 20 engineers and managers making up to $200,000 per year, and we were designing software to handle hundreds of millions of users--all before we even had 100 users!” he says. This startup that once had a lot of potential, quickly burned to the ground. “If you can’t explain your business in one or two sentences, you have a problem,” says Krimbell. This seems to be a rule of thumb for most entrepreneurial experts.  

This isn’t to say that your company can’t do complex multi-faceted things. The key is to simplify to make it easy for yourself and for all parties involved.  Take sales management for example. Imagine you just found the perfect recipe for a beverage that exceeds the health-benefits of kombucha, flax seeds, or anything else out there, and all with an eco-friendly twist. Sounds good, right? Now comes the hardest part: distribution.  You need to keep track of which retailers you’re distributing to at what locations, how much you’re selling each unit for, how many units you’re selling at each store, what promotions you’re running, when products are low in stock, potential areas for business growth, and a long list of additional data. You’ll get this data from your field representatives, but doing so through hundreds of emails or outdated excel sheets can get complicated and inefficient. Simplifying this task down to a single field activity management software will save you both time and money.

Through simple CRM software you can keep track of your field reps from your desktop or smartphone while they report their work through an app on their personal mobile devices. This can mean cutting hardware costs as well, as an increasing number of employees today are easily adapting to bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies with their own smartphones. Some apps have GPS and high quality photo-taking capabilities so reps can physically show what they’re doing and where. Other functions include logging travel time and distance, purchase orders, payments, etc. As a manager you can then analyze this data using backend software on your PC.

While this example applies to sales management in the beverage industry specifically, simplicity is crucial in all areas of business. To learn more about the power of simplifying and for guidance on how to simplify your objectives, marketing strategies, and technology usage, download our free marketing brief below!