Reflecting on nearly two decades in the sales world, few things have been as consistent as the relationship between sales representatives and their leadership. Similar to age-old battles like Microsoft and Apple or ice and fire, reps and managers sit diametrically opposed to one another. While representatives want to simply run their process and sell, their managers are focused on KPIs and quarterly reports; while reps want to focus on sales activity, managers want to focus on sales activity data. These opposing focuses create unavoidable friction found within every sales department, no matter the size or industry.
Luckily, these two decades have also given me the opportunity to search for solutions, none of which have met the ease and effectiveness of Cirrus Insight. A one of a kind sales management system, Cirrus Insight empowers representatives to sell more while giving managers the data they need. Even the oldest battles needed to come to an end at some time, this one included.
All for One...
As if it were built by the Three Musketeers, Cirrus Insight is a single, unified solution that offers premier features for all of its users. Whether in the hands of a sales representative, a department leader, or a CRM Admin, every user can expect to radically improve their Salesforce experience. Like how our three heroes held their trusty rapiers for every challenge they faced, businesses can expect Cirrus Insight to be the only tool they’ll ever need.
1. For Every Instance and Email
Even though there were only three noble adventurers in Alexandre Dumas’s French classic, there is an extensive amount of Salesforce instances and email environments in use today. With so many options and combinations, teams have long faced roadblocks in finding CRM integration solutions for their businesses. Often, in order to be compatible with their CRMs and emails, businesses purchase less superior products — a decision that only amplifies the distance between reps and managers.
Shattering the industry standard in ways I have never seen before, Cirrus Insight offers the first integration tool that is completely compatible with every Salesforce instance and email environment. When I say every single one, I mean it (yes, even outdated environments like AOL and Yahoo). Regardless of the instance or environment, Cirrus Insight will automatically sync all sales activity data directly to the users CRM. Gone are the days of balancing between the best solutions for reps and managers, now everyone can use the software of their choice.
In giving its users the freedom to choose the best CRM and email options for themselves, sales teams can find their optimal sales management platform.
This freedom is perfect for companies of all sizes, even franchisees.
2. Optimizing the Sales Experience
Created to maximize sales and reduce CRM friction, it is only fitting that Cirrus Insight has features specially designed for sales representatives. Immediately after installing their sales management tool, reps can begin optimizing their pipelines with tools like:
Salesforce to Inbox Side Panel
It’s no secret that using Salesforce takes representatives away from actually selling. As a result, users often look to do the bare minimum in order to enter activity as fast as possible. Along with instantaneous data syncing, Cirrus Insight solves this issue by integrating Salesforce directly into a side panel within users’ inboxes. Putting their CRM, email, and calendar into one place, Cirrus Insight makes toggling between softwares a thing of the past.
Reducing the time to manually enter data and switch between platforms, this feature minimizes common CRM friction among representatives. Further, by reducing wasted time and improving data collection, representatives have more ability to optimize their pipelines.
Buyer Signals
Buyers Signals empowers users to better manage their pipelines by leveraging client activity and user data. Giving full visibility to every customer’s life cycle, this feature automatically captures key touchpoints, tracks client interactions, and exposes valuable user insights.
This tool allows representatives to track how their clients interact with their emails, such as opens, link clicks, website visits, and more. In knowing who is opening their emails, when they’re doing so, and what types of materials they’re interacting with, sales representatives can radically improve their sales process. Cirrus Insight even scores these interactions so reps can confidently target the appropriate customers.
Further, the solution will automatically notify reps when prospects are indicating they are ready to buy — sales guesswork can officially be put in the rearview mirror.
Calendar Scheduling
No matter the product, the industry, or the strategy, every single sale is reliant on some sort of interaction between the customer and the representative. Most often, salespeople rely on meetings with prospects and clients to drive their businesses forward. Of course, as the premier management solution, Cirrus Insight has that covered as well.
Calendar Scheduling takes away the back and forth of scheduling meetings. Instead of the constant flow of “does this time work for you” emails, reps can simply give their clients a direct link to their calendar. From within this link, customers can select the best available time that works for both parties; as the calendar’s owner, reps get to set the times clients can choose from. Users can even book meetings on behalf of others, making departments work more fluidly together.
This feature brings scheduling into the 21st century, allowing reps to book more meetings and thus sell — the dream of every salesperson.
3. Modernizing the Sales Process
While the sales representatives provide the labor and leg work needed to drive a company forward, the leadership and management team provides the insight to offer direction. Opposite of the needs of their representatives, sales managers largely rely on sales activity to make data-driven decisions. To assist, Cirrus Insight provides sales managers with specific tools that modernize the sales process as a whole, including:
Tracking and Reporting
In order to best lead their operations and provide accurate forecasting, sales leaders rely entirely on data such as email volume, calendar events, tasks, ad hoc phone calls, and more. These items and other key metrics provide important context that is necessary to make strong sales decisions; without accurate and relevant details, the story told by these data points may not accurately reflect the actual situation. Tracking and reporting, however, provides leadership with these key data points — without requiring more work for representatives.
Linking directly with Salesforce, and integrating smoothly with every representative’s pipeline, managers can track and report on everything from email volume to call density. Less demanding than manual data entry, this feature gives leaders the numbers they need without creating CRM friction. Having this data can allow leaders to not only forecast more effectively, but also better coach their team members. Regardless of its direct use, tracking and reporting provides relevant data directly to managers.
Email and Calendar sync
While representatives are focused on their individual pipelines, managers are more concerned with their team’s overall workload balance — it’s their responsibility to keep a pulse on the entire operation after all. With email and calendar sync, sales leaders are able to monitor progress and movement within the accounts that reps manage.
Automatic email sync keeps all customer data up to date by automatically transferring all activity to Salesforce, completely eliminating any need for manual data entry. The bi-directional sync with users’ calendars provide managers with a direct view into every single representative’s schedule. Because all activity is synced directly with Salesforce, leaders can expect reliable and relevant data in every report they generate.
In giving comprehensive access to their representatives' activities, leaders can keep a better pulse on their team and drive more effective sales strategies.
Templates
As the old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Few phrases hold more truth in sales — when we find something that works, you bet it will become part of our strategy. Within a sales operation it’s leadership’s responsibility to identify these best practices, figure out how to replicate them, and then implement them effectively. Of all parts of the sales process, effective communication is one of the most important areas to perfect. Luckily, Cirrus Insight is built to do that too.
The Templates feature allows sales leaders to develop, produce, and distribute proven strategies and materials for sales representatives. Best for new hires or reps transitioning to new roles, templates provide employees with the structure, language, and cadence to effectively sell — even if they have yet to perfect it themselves. Further, templates can be used to create consistency among messaging, as well as strategy. Regardless of use, the templates feature gives leadership the ability to create tools and materials to improve their teams.
4. Expertly Curated Resources
Bear with me as I try to bookend my Musketeers reference by pointing out that the three adventurers were not alone in their successes (the original story was also literally co-authored):
Similar to how the swordsmen, and even the author, wouldn’t be great without some help, even the best salespeople need support and resources too. While Cirrus Insight is an incredible solution based on its merits alone, what sets it apart is its catalogue of expertly curated resources for every scenario.
Whether it's someone that is trying a demo or a long time customer, every Cirrus Insight user has free access to the platform’s Knowledge Base — a central hub for all things data integration. With hundreds of articles written by platform experts, users are just a click away from answering their questions. In the case that a little extra help is needed, or just some human interaction, customers can talk directly to a Cirrus Insight employee from their live chat.
Further, users can learn more about Salesforce, sales productivity, sales strategies, and more from Cirrus Insight’s in-house blog, written by the experts behind the product. If that wasn’t enough, Cirrus Insight even offers a video series for all things Salesforce Admin.
No matter the medium of preference, Cirrus Insight has the resources ready to make anyone into a sales leader.
… One for All
In over 15 years in the sales world, I have seen my fair share of ‘ground breaking solutions’ and ‘game changers’. Often created with one party in mind, these tools fall short when trying to meet the opposing needs of managers and sales leaders. Whether they lack the tools for reps to sync their data, or they simply are incompatible with Outlook, there always was something that fell short. That was until I found Cirrus Insight.
Unlike its contemporaries, Cirrus Insight is not designed for just representatives or managers; instead, it’s designed to improve the sales experience for everyone. As a result, it is built to be complementary with every Salesforce instance and every email environment — truly compatible with every platform. Its extensive catalogue of resources provides users with endless support, meaning any user can become a better sales professional. Further, the sales management system has specialized features for both reps and leaders, giving everyone the necessary tools to succeed. There’s simply no management tool quite like it.
But don’t take my word for it - give Cirrus Insight a free 14 day trial today.