Driving sales growth with technology

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The key takeaways for staying competitive and relevant in today's environment included using technology to advance and support your sales organization. In an industry that is slower to adopt technology and traditionally reliant on strong personal relationships to conduct business, this can be a challenge.

However, there are a number of organizations that have embraced and are driving sales growth through the use of proprietary or third-party technology solutions. Those tools include online sales or e-commerce platforms, mobile apps and integrated customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

"A mobile app that is accessible through a tablet computer or smartphone gives a sales team the ability to access real-time inventory pricing and accounts receivable information, enter quotes, open sales orders, and input sales leads on the fly," said Anthony Muck, senior special projects manager of DSMi, a software company specializing in the building products industry. "A lot of our customers appreciate how this tool can replace a binder full of sales sheets that are outdated as soon as they are printed."

We at U.S. Lumber Group, Atlanta, Ga., recently began using Salesforce.com for CRM to be responsive to customer requests, consolidate customer information, and facilitate sales.

We've always struggled with information flying around from 90 different directions. Now our sales reps can have all their customer and product information available through their tablets when they're meeting with customers.

Like U.S. Lumber, many organizations struggle with consolidating historical customer sales data and contact information in one place. Housing that information in a central CRM system like Salesforce.com, ACT or similar technologies, can streamline and improve a company's sales and marketing efforts and grow revenue. Access to detailed, accurate customer data means a marketing team can send targeted offers and communications to the right people at the right time and increase conversion rates.

U.S. Lumber's roll out of these technologies began in spring 2014, so adoption across the organization is still underwav. However. the sales representatives who can