How often do you find yourself sitting in class learning things that are actually applicable to your everyday life? Before, I couldn’t wait to get out of my college algebra class—if I was given one more formula, I thought my brain might explode!
I held this notion of not learning anything relevant in my classes up until this semester. I was taking notes like I do every day in my Computing in The Business World lectures when I heard the term “Salesforce” used, an application I work with every single day.
I’m an intern at The Selling Factory as part of an outsourced sales team tasked with carrying out sales development representative (SDR) work on a daily basis. One of the applications that is crucial to my job is Sales Force CRM.
If you’re not familiar with what CRM systems are, don’t worry: CRM stands for customer relationship management. Basically, customer relationship management software organizes a client’s information in a way that makes outreach more efficient and personalized. On a large scale, it can also consolidate relevant information from multiple departments using cloud-based tech. So, CRM is a software platform that helps businesses (and clients) better get what they’re looking for from the relationship.
Anyway, when I heard it used in my lecture my head popped up and I immediately zoned in to see how it was being talked about. Using Salesforce as an example, my professor Eric Olson was talking about CRMs and the cloud, explaining how they work, and how beneficial they are.
In today’s sales world, marketing automation is becoming more and more useful to people in the business world. According to SharpSpring, “marketing automation refers to software platforms that help businesses automate their marketing and sales engagement processes to generate more leads, convert those leads to sales, and optimize ROI.”
Automation and CRM are imperative to a clients’ success in terms of sales development representative work (i.e. generating leads) in a significantly faster amount of time than doing it manually. A company can use CRM software for sales-based leads while tools for marketing automation can generate raw marketing leads. The two of them together can help find new customers while efficiently managing current or previous client relationships.
Having this real-life experience on an outsourced sales team is not only great for a resume but a necessity for developing useful life and career skills. Already knowing what CRM software is and understanding tools for marketing automation as a college junior gives me a real-world edge that most companies are looking for in their potential hires.
Ultimately, getting hands-on job experience is much more valuable than solely learning about it in class!
