How to use Pipedrive comes as result of one of the many tests on CRM tools we run on regular basis.
Pipedrive became one of the most known CRM in the last 4/5 years. It may be interesting to understand what people find in it that make it so popular.
(Beyond its strong marketing and advertising!)
Pipedrive reveals its best when applied to sales process management. Its best innovation, the Visual Sales Pipeline, empowers salespeople and managers in get an overview at a glance. The sales processes control is easier and more meaningful.
In fact when it was born, Pipedrive CRM was intended to support salespeople on their daily duties. Looking after their own day-by-day deals management: the sales process. Then pipedrive has grown introducing new features also including a leads generation tools: Lead booster. But in its deep core function -which is what pipedrive does best- it remains the best sales process management tool.
Even if Pipedrive is not focused on the team, as collaboration tools are still quite limited and his approach is one-man-band, in its core the Activities Based Selling methodology and the deals management are still unparalleled.
How to use Pipedrive is often misunderstood, it depends on the often oversimplified onboarding that the platform offers. Opening an account and starting using the CRM is presented as opening a word document and beginning to write.
Then users who have no experience of CRM or they just used spreadsheets before may find them stuck or develop bad habits, creating messy processes and ending using it a bit like a spreadsheet.
Likewise starting writing on an empty sheet of paper and being able to produce something good requires know-how, setting up and implementing a CRM requires knowing what has to be done. But even more important, both require a clear “reason why”.
Using Pipedrive knowing what you are going to do and why can shift this experience into something great.
Not having a clear understanding of CRM may turn it into a nightmare. (Likewise with any other CRM tool!)
Pipedrive’s best usage is in the B2B sector, when long, complex sales processes are in place, with salespeople that play a pivotal role in the relationship with prospects and in creating the sales experience for each customer. Last element may be the transaction value: if the average deal value is relevant, then the cost related to using a proper CRM to run each prospect’s deal will be fine. If the value of the product/service sold is trivial, then no CRM will be worth considering.
Be aware: it is not the tool subscription cost that matters, it is the investment to implement the tool in your business that will be excessive: cost that also includes your own time!
But when an organisation has a team of salespeople who keep hustling for new deals closure on a daily basis, then it is mandatory to consider Pipedrive as a sales process management tool.
How to use Pipedrive once implemented in your organisation, correctly mirroring your sales process, then will be simple to tell.
Terms of Pipedrive
- Leads are the new people to pursue for new deals
- Deals are the opportunity to pursue with the counterpart (lead) who is a person on behalf of a company.
- Stages are the sales process step towards the closure
- Pipeline, is the whole sales process offered in a visual overview
- Activities are the task that salespeople have to perform in order to drive each deal to a closure
- Lost is when a deal stops along the sales process and doesn’t convert in a order/contract
- Won is when a deal become a order/contract and the deal’s counterpart organisation (a company) becomes a client
- Project is the new project management feature to run service once a deal is won.
- Campaigns is the email marketing tool to run mailing campaigns on your audiences
- Audience*, is a group of people with uniform characteristics
- Insights is the reporting and forecasting tool to plan and control your team’s workforce load
- Products is the light inventory manager where products can be described in order to link them into deals.
- Workflow Automations are routine triggered by event and performed automatically to excerpt a certain action
- Documents is the internal repository to attach documents on emails messages
- Proposes time enables anyone in select a time slot in your calendar to have a meeting or a chat with you
- Import data is a feature that enables users in upload lists or databases mainly of contacts or organisations
- Export data enables you to download the whole database of pipedrive divided per table. The format will be a CSV file or spreadsheet ready to use, unmanned, into other CRM or digital tools
- Merge Duplicates is a control that finds out contact person or organisations when they match on 2 parameters: name and email for people and name and address for companies
- Not a Pipedrive name
