It's a known fact that Sales people perform better when they have well defined goals. Something to aim for which, when reached, gives that ultimate sense of achievement we all strive for. 

With 2020 just around the corner, it's time to ensure each and every person on the team has achievable and up-to-date goals to focus on for the coming year.

Sounds time consuming, right? Well, in the spirit of productivity, we've introduced some new functionality to Membrain's Goal setting editor, making this task a breeze to complete. 

Get started with goals for your team and download
Membrains Whitepaper and Realistic Goal Setting Kit

It's now possible to configure goals for one person, and then apply those goals to another, with just a couple of clicks. 

And for larger teams with multiple salespeople with similar goals, take advantage of the user management list view and apply goals across the board in one fell swoop. 

Excited to read more? Go check out our Help Center article and learn how to use this powerful new update for easy goal setting across your organization

Or reach out to support@membrain.com and we'll be happy to walk you through it.

We have recently updated our sales calendar in Membrain. You can now select and view the calendars for multiple users simultaneously.

One of the major benefits of this recent update is the amount of time it saves when you are trying to coordinate meetings with colleagues. You no longer have to send emails to check availability or look through individual calendars separately and compare to find a time slot that works for everyone. 

Here is a snapshot of how things look now : 

Each persons appointments are color coded accordingly so you can see the layout easily. We have added a key on the side of the calendar view so you can see the color assigned to each person and still see scheduled activities in a clear organized way. 

Don't forget, Membrain's sales calendar has plenty of great features that you can take advantage of to increase your productivity.

Some of these features include: 

• Integration to Office 365 and Google Calendar
• Sending invites
• Zoom integration
• Booking meetings on behalf of others
• All events auto-saved to the relevant activity stream
• Shared Calendars
• Membrain Meet
• Activity custom fields 

For more information on our sales calendar visit our help center here.

Activity tracking in sales brings lots of benefits to both sales people and to managers alike. With this new update, we're raising the bar and adding the possibility to capture more insights that are important to your business.

Activity custom fields give you control over what information is recorded as part of activity management by your team. Adding a custom field like Meeting Highlights to an Appointment for the salesperson to complete during or after a meeting creates a clear and easy workflow to follow. Or a Conversation Outcome dropdown list to select after a Call with a prospect cuts time and can help salespeople understand what the next step should be, as well as give coaching insights to team leaders on how individuals are performing.

You can get really creative with what kind of information you would like to track in your activities. For example, adding a Scorecard to help your salespeople score and identify suitability to move forward can be very powerful. There really is no limit to what additional information you can capture and share here - we've listed a few examples below to get you started with some ideas:

• Meeting notes - identify the important points or highlights of the meeting
• Phone Call outcomes - quickly give your judgement on the overall feel of the conversation - was it a positive or a negative one?
• Link to a file or site - link directly to a recording of an online meeting to use as a reference point or coaching tool
• Scorecards - identify strengths, weaknesses or suitability with scorecards  after a call or meeting
• Or any other combination of custom fields currently in use in workflows, or create new ones just for this specific purpose

Sound like something you and your team could benefit from? Learn more about Activity Management or drop us a line at support@membrain.com and we'll be happy to show you how it can increase your activity tracking effectiveness.

We are thrilled to share the User Management List View. Previously, the list view has been available for sales projects, prospects, activities, companies and contacts.

The important thing to remember about a list view is that it offers the opportunity to glean a wholistic picture of your information based on how you decide you want to see it.

Here are some key benefits of the user management list view:

• You can view active and retired user information both together and separately according to preference. This will allow you to see each user and whether they are currently active or not, as well as any relevant previous data tying in with their account.
• You can view users individually and according to their sales team so you know which team and which users might need to share more content collateral, or even reward those who are diligently logging in and meeting their goals. The possibilities are endless.
• As an administrator, you can also regulate and view user permissions from this view in an easy to read format.

Goal setting is crucial if you want to be successful. Well defined goals hold you accountable, help you to measure your success and keep you focused. 

An exciting new addition to Membrain's goal setting and performance tracking features is the ability for individual salespeople to create their own goals, leading to a heightened sense of ownership and increased motivation to fulfill these goals.

Previously, only a Membrain administrator could create and manage goals. But in this recent update, it is now possible for individuals to get creative, push their personal limits and set their own goals. 

Not only can this reduce admin tasks for a Sales Coach or Membrain admin, but it also helps create a personal connection to the goal and a newfound devotion to achieving the success that was perhaps missing with predefined goals by a supervisor.

Along with the ability to create and edit goals, individuals can also view their success in real-time, with a visual representation of their progress as it happens, easily accessible from their Personal Profile area.

Want to learn more?

Learn how to get started with creating your own goals in this step-by-step guide Creating your own sales goals. Or download our Whitepaper and toolbox on Realistic Goal Setting in Complex B2B Sales to learn how to set success goals for yourself or your organization.

We've been hard at work adding lots of new features to Membrain's email composer to help you increase productivity while communicating with your contacts.

Send Later, Undo Send and Drafts give you more control when crafting that perfect email. Read on to find out more.

Powerful new options available to you right now are:

Drafts - crafting the perfect email can sometimes take time. Write, review (procrastinate if you wish) and let your email simmer before you decide your masterpiece is ready to send.

Send Later - timing is everything. Decide when you want your email to be sent for maximum engagement. Quickly choose some predefined options, or select the exact date and time to deliver your message at the optimal time.

Undo Send - We've all done it. Hit the send button and realise instantly that you've forgotten to include the content you promised, or left someone out of the CC. No drama! A few seconds to undo send is all you need to right the wrong and keep your professionalism in tact.

There are lots more sales-focused features to take advantage of with Membrain's email composer and Sales Inbox. Try them out today and see how Membrain can raise the bar and help you communicate easily and professionally with your contacts, every time. 

When something happens automatically, but with an added sprinkle of magic that lightens your workload, we like to say it happens "automagically". And boy do we love automagic things here at Membrain. 

The most recent feature to get the automagic treatment is email and appointment tracking. We know how important activity tracking is to salespeople and sales managers alike, so read on to learn how this brand new feature can track even those activities you create outside of Membrain, with zero effort from you.

But first, let's rewind and take a quick look at Membrain's own email and calendar features.

The Sales Inbox and Sales Calendar are powerful tools that allow you to manage your emails and meetings right from the Sales Project or Prospect you're working on, without having to leave Membrain at all. Working like this means all the activities you carry out are saved to the relevant Activity Stream immediately, helping you (and your team) keep track of progress and at the same time work towards your activity goals.

Coming soon: Email Drafts, Send Later and Undo Send

But for those of you who have a favourite email client that you've used since the dawning of computers, or a calendar app that you just can't live without, it can be a tough transition to move 100% to Membrain's Sales Inbox and Sales Calendar. And we get that. So here's where we added the magic. 

How does it work?

Once you've got Membrains integration to Office365 or GSuite enabled, you can choose to allow Membrain save the sales related emails you send and receive via your email client and relate them to their relevant Sales Project or Prospect in Membrain. So no more saving emails to Membrain from Outlook or Gmail, if and when you remember to do it. Its all taken care of automagically, without any effort from you.

And of course, no two Membrain accounts are the same so Membrain Admins will find company-wide options to manage just how this works based on your own unique Membrain setup.

Keen to try it out?  Check out our article on setting up Email integration with Membrain.

Or Email or call us and we'll walk you through the options available and help you get started.

As a salesperson you may often find yourself on the move from place to place. With our recent improvements to Membrain Go (Our mobile application for iOS and Android) you can now upload images and files easily while you are on the move.

Getting your work done over the course of the day while going from appointment to appointment is a great way to avoid having a bunch of things in the queue when you return to the office.  

Here are some of the benefits:

You can jump into your Membrain Go email composer and send out files to your customer right away.

Or while doing a site visit you can upload images or documents directly to the sales project or prospect.

To get started with the mobile app and take advantage of these new features check out our Membrain Go help center article.

A well defined process should coach and guide you as you work with  prospective clients.

But in complex B2B sales, this process also needs to be flexible enough so it doesn't inhibit innovation or adaptability to different scenarios.

To overcome this, we've introduced Dynamic Steps for Prospecting, allowing you to gauge the progress of an individual prospect, and add or remove steps based on information discovered during research, or how the prospect responds in their own unique way.

In this simple example, we're adding one more phone call attempt before sending the Pre-exploration email template (as per the process) potentially impacting how the contact responds when receiving that email.

Being flexible with the process, and adding (or removing) steps like this can help you stay on track of each and every prospect in a campaign, freeing you to do your best work while making sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Using scorecards as part of your sales and prospecting efforts gives you crystal clear insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each opportunity in your pipeline.  

We understand the value this can bring, so we're excited to announce a new and improved Scorecard experience, raising the bar and making Scorecards even more insightful and visually engaging.

Membrains Scorecards can be used in lots of ways, not just for highlighting concerning areas in an opportunity or prospect before they become a potential risk. They can help you and your team make Go/No Go decisions at crucial milestones. And even help improve probability rates across your pipeline, ultimately resulting in more reliable forecasting. 

And coupling Scorecards with Qualifiers adds an extra layer of sophistication to your process, guiding your team on the next steps to take in a more complex sales process.

So whats new?

With this recent upgrade of Scorecards, we've added additional functionality giving you lots more clarity on scores and an improved user experience. Here are the main highlights:

• An "always on top" visual score indicator, with minimum and maximum ranges on a scorecard
• Additional clarity on a completed scorecard, so you can easily see all the responses as you work through the questions
• Colour coding on answers chosen, to help drive the results home
• Improved user experience with fewer clicks for a smoother workflow
• An aesthetic overhaul that makes working with scorecards a more enjoyable experience

Haven't checked out Scorecards yet?  Take a look at this article which gives some sample scorecard ideas along with step by step instructions on getting started in minutes!