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Winning accounts and gaining customers is a natural part of running an organization, but, without the proper tools, it is sometimes difficult to know how you compare with your competitors. Keeping track of your competition's products, sales literature, and marketing methods can help you get ahead in the market. Most CRM systems have a "competitor win loss" report, so you can create a catalog of competitor products and sales literature that offers your organization insight into the competitor's world of marketing and sales. This insight can help your organization develop winning strategies. In another area of CRM systems, most commonly called the "products area", you can enter products and sales literature that you have in common with the competition. This data can show what the competition is selling, for how much, and potentially, how often. While these pieces of information are extremely valuable, knowing what the competition has that you don't is also important. Creating custom views and catalogs will show you what the competition is doing and how it is affecting your organization in terms of sales, marketing, and ultimately, making money. You can run the "competitor win loss" report in either the reports area. You can filter the report before you run it, so that you receive only the data that you need. When using filters, you can usually choose to view only one item, such as competitors or opportunities, or you can choose many different areas to filter on. Because this type of report uses so many different areas of information, we recommend that as you create your competitors in your CRM system, you enter all possible details. Later when you run the report, you will have all the necessary information to accurately evaluate in what areas your organization is losing to the competition and where it is winning. For example, the sales team and sales managers in your organization can use this report to discover which competitors are giving the most challenges. CRM is becoming a required technology in businesses of all sizes. Most people first need to understand what CRM really means before buying into the technology. There seems to be a lack of CRM information and most CRM companies are assuming visitors already know what it is. Their assumption is wrong. Start with the basics and then allow the prospect to dig deeper. With this winning strategy, your organization can broaden its awareness of the competition as well as develop new strategies in sales and marketing. David Cowgill is an avid CRM writer and blogger. For further information please visit: CRM Blog
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