CRM magazine has an excellent article on strategies to ensure that your sales team is happy with your next (or first) CRM system. As they point out, CRM adoption has been surprisingly low in spite of the very clear benefits it often brings. But in many ways this isn’t surprising considering the dual problems of a very independent sales force used to doing things its own way, and the way in which managers and executives usually introduce CRM initiatives, as top down tracking mechanisms.

CRM magazine’s advice to start courting the sales staff early, and refrain from giving them a traditional pitch, since they’ll be able to spot that from a mile off. Instead listen to and observe them in action, trying to figure out where their needs and bottlenecks are. Try to show them how CRM software can solve their problems and make their job easier. And most importantly, make sure that the entire sales team, not just the sales executives, have some sort of say in the buying process. Getting the whole team invested and excited early will save you lots of time and frustration later.

In fact most of the article’s advice, especially the very concrete tips provided by Diane Corrado, vice president of CT Corporation, can be tweaked to work on any Luddite in any part of your company who is resisting a new technology system. Play your cards right and these technophobes can become some of your biggest technophiles, once they see how new software can make their jobs that much easier.

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