When I set out to develop Membrain, I knew the sales profession deserved a better CRM platform. I did not realize that much of what we would develop over the next ten years would echo the work of leading thinkers responsible for major shifts and improvements in manufacturing over the past hundred years.
When I started studying Lean, Six Sigma, Kanban, and other manufacturing methods for continuous improvement, I began to see the parallels to what we were doing at Membrain. And then we made those parallels explicit and drew on learnings from manufacturing to drive our own continuous improvement.
With or without Membrain, you can use Kanban to continuously improve your sales workflows – and win more deals.
“The Kanban Method follows a set of principles and practices for managing and improving the flow of work,” according to Nimblework. The Kanban framework can be applied to any “business process [to] improve flow, reduce cycle times, and increase value to the customer, with greater predictability.”
Kanban operates on 6 core practices:
One thing that stands out for me with Kanban, and that we’ve applied with Membrain, is that it is about managing the work, not the people. It assumes that your people are aligned and want to do good work. In a healthy company culture with good people management practices, this is a safe assumption.
Kanban is about managing the work, not the people.
Then, Kanban can be used to manage the work itself and ensure it is done in an effective and timely manner, without the need to control or micromanage the individuals within the team.
From Nimblework’s definition, it is clear to see how Kanban can help a complex B2B sales team be more effective:
We always wanted Membrain to be a tool that can be used to manage the work itself, rather than relying on motivation or inspiration or superstar salespeople to carry the day. It allows you to focus on desired outcomes and the steps to achieve those outcomes, without the “noise” created by micro-managing people.
In a traditional CRM, you manage people and hope they get the work done. In Membrain, you manage the work flow, and the people get the work done.
Although we didn’t set out originally to build a Kanban platform, I’m proud to say that Membrain is the best tool on the market for implementing Kanban principles within your sales organization. See how Membrain can help you win more deals by making HOW you sell WHY you win.
George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.
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