Work harder not smarter?
Go ahead and slap your forehead in disbelief when I tell you this – it is hard to sell to someone unless you know who they are. Yet most of the sales people I talk to cries about the ugly state of their data. Most complain that they don’t have time to clean it.
Data, like unrefrigerated milk, goes bad fast. In fact, some pundits estimate that 25% of the database will sour within a year. Add poor import practices and other minor mistakes and bad things quickly snowball. It isn’t until senior management realizes they are making strategic decisions on the back of sub-par data that heads begin to roll.
Blame is a complicated thing. Do you yell at the person responsible for cleaning the data in use, the person responsible for preventing low quality data from getting into the system, the sales people for not updating contact info or the marketing department for not scrubbing the unworkable email addresses? Or should the executive team look in the mirror because clean data was not a strategic priority?
Some organizations try to fix the problem by assigning an intern to scrubbing the data instead of committing to a permanent process change. Others will look longingly for new gadgets, tools, hosted software, widgets, mobile apps or various marketing automation tools to fix the problem. These things can provide a wonderful shiny distraction and maybe an incredible technology advantage…but they are no substitute for permanent process change.
Need to rationalize it to upper management? The ROI for clean data is simple. All things being equal, a company with a larger database of clean prospects will close more business than a company with a smaller database of clean prospects.
Data quality is not a one-time event. Cleaning your data will cost money and so will the process improvements needed to support ongoing data quality.
But in the end it is worth it. Although the option to continue working harder not smarter is always appealing, a fast way to improve sales and marketing success is to fix things that can be fixed. Data quality is one of those things that can be fixed fast.
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Dear Ben,
I appreciate your site. Thank you for your insights and guidance.
In the midst of the financial crisis, there’s a lot of bashing and cynicism towards performance recognition and inspirational efforts in the workplace. Just check any bar in lower Manhattan! It’s a shame.
You’re posts help to work against that trend.
As a VP leading over 100 salespeople, I’ve found that the hard fact is that QUALITY performance recognition works. Not just for morale, but in dollars. I have been using a couple of different tools for retaining good people and bringing in the larger sales figures. A#1 is Design Your
Inspiration ( http://www.dyi.successories.com ), intelligent, customizable with any words or great quotes you want to use. Framed art photography prints.
Again, the quality of these, and the MEANING emparted makes them highly effective for me. So while the cynics shed tears in their beers, we’re laughing all the way to the bank! Thanks again. Jim