Ed Marsh Announces Publication of Guide to Creating an Effective Industrial Sales Tech Stack
Ipswich, MA
May 1, 2023
Industrial manufacturers and machinery builders often have very complex sales cycles, working with large buying teams over long projects. But they often fail to build the necessary sales tech stack to help them adequately manage those complexities, improve buyer experience, boost sales efficiency, and increase revenue.
The sales tech stack must include CRM, not just Outlook contact records or traditional spreadsheets. Beyond the CRM core, though, are countless tools that promise to boost results and several that actually will. Even the choice of CRM is often complicated by the question of an ERP module and the recommendation of external and internal IT stakeholders with selection bias but no skin in the outcome game.
Therefore it's critical for executives and leaders at manufacturing firms to fully understand the potential, components, implementation, cost, justification and basic considerations in building a full sales tech stack. This new guide breaks it all down into 15 easy-to-digest pages.
"It's amazing how many mid-size manufacturers don't yet use CRM or barely use the software they have," says Ed Marsh, founder of Consilium and a revenue growth consultant. "That's more than management frustration and wasted money. An inadequate sales tech stack detracts from buyers' experiences, compromises sales efficiency, and reduces revenue growth effectiveness."
Consilium's new Guide to Building the Right Sales Tech Stack covers the full evaluation, justification, selection, and implementation process. It explores a wide range of topics, including:
- The role of technology today - how it improves buyer experience and boosts sales effectiveness
- Who should buy, manage and maintain the tech stack
- Technical decisions, including a single database solution or integrations
- Pricing & budgeting, as well as business justification
- Tips on implementing and maintaining the data and tools
- How sales leadership and management must guide the team to optimize outcomes, and how the tech stack can boost coaching effectiveness
- CRM vs ERP and why that's a really critical choice
- 17 essential components of the ideal sales tech stack
- A note on HubSpot's offering
Marsh adds, "Accountability, sales process, qualification, forecasting, alignment with marketing, sales coaching, and efficiency are all enhanced with a proper sales tech stack. This guide provides a roadmap to success for industrial manufacturing executives."
That's why technology is one of four pillars of the Overall Revenue Effectiveness™ framework. It's a force multiplier for best practices in marketing and sales disciplines.
Too often VPs of Sales waste time creating forecast narratives because pipelines and forecasts are unreliable. Sales reps struggle to connect with prospects because they don't have insights to guide when and how they can do so. Sales process and methodology are casually disregarded because they're not firmly embedded in the sales tech stack.
Companies even implement high-profile CRM solutions, only to find out that customization is costly and cumbersome, or try to use an ERP module that's not really purpose-built. And they miss most of the 17 important components of the sales tech stack. That results in poor adoption and poor outcomes.
Consilium's Guide to Building an Effective Sales Tech Stack is the perfect overview to assist with marketing and sales collaboration, executive study and planning, board of directors familiarization, and coordination between management, finance, sales, IT, and marketing.
The guide is available for free download at https://www.consiliumglobalbusinessadvisors.com/crm-for-industrial-sales
About Consilium Global Business Advisors: Consilium assists American manufacturers in applying process excellence to their business development. In other words, we help lean, well-managed companies with rock-solid bottom lines effectively and consistently grow their top lines to match. We work primarily with mid-size industrial manufacturing and capital equipment companies, guiding them through a journey toward Overall Revenue Effectiveness™.
