In today's episode, we dive into the intriguing world of CRM and unravel its true meaning and capabilities. If you've ever wondered what a CRM is and how it applies to your business as a coach or consultant, then this episode is for you. Mary Sue discusses the five W's of CRM: what, who, when, where, and why. In this first installment, we focus on the "what" of CRM. Discover the definition of CRM and how it encompasses both a process and a software. Mary Sue enlightens us about the importance of defining your own relationship-building process and how the CRM software should support it. She also delves into the key features of CRM software, such as contact management and sales management, and highlights the growing trend of all-in-one CRMs. Join us as we explore the world of CRM and uncover its hidden secrets to streamline your business and boost productivity.
Takeaways
- CRM Software Features
- CRM Software Trends
- Tools Misrepresenting CRM
Quotes
"Your CRM is the heartbeat of your business, centralizing contact information, relationship activity, and follow-up tasks in one place. It provides valuable insights into your contacts and their interactions with your business."- Mary Sue Dahill
"CRM is something we should really look into. It will make building out your business systems so much easier."- Mary Sue Dahill
Featured in this Episode
Mary Sue Dahill
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marysuedahill
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
02:33 - Ensuring Software Supports Your Process
05:02 - The Significance of Sales Management and Sales Pipelines
05:59 - Leveraging the Power of Multiple Pipelines in CRM
07:08 - Simplifying Business Management with All-in-One CRM Software
08:05 - Embracing the All-in-One CRM Approach
09:05 - Email Marketing vs. Comprehensive CRM Functionality
10:25 - Streamlining Follow-Up Sequences with CRM's Subdivided Client Lists
11:42 - Enhancing Efficiency through Task Automation and Communication in CRM
13:10 - Conclusion
Product by http://www.heartcastmedia.com
Mary Sue Dahill:
It's the CRM success secrets podcast about productivity with a twist. Hi there. My name is Mary Sue Dayhill, your host. This podcast is for business coaches and consultants tired of working nights and weekends. They are looking for strategies and proven tactics to streamline their business using a CRM and automation. Let's get to it. We are back talking about my favorite topic, CRM. And this is another 5 part series where we're gonna cover the 5 w's of CRM. What, who, when, where, and why of CRM. Hi. My name is Mary Sue Dehill. I am the host of CRM Success Secrets. So those are the questions I always get from coaches and consultants when I tell them about my business. Most have heard of a CRM, but they really don't know how it applies to them and, you know, what it does for them. So let's talk about the 5 w's of CRM. In this 1st episode, we're gonna focus on CRM. So what is a CRM?
So let's start with the definition, and then we will kinda talk about the software that is available for CRM and what claims it is a CRM, but really isn't. So, CRM stands for customer relationship management, and it refers to the principles, practices and guidelines that an organization follows when interacting with its customers. So you can see it covers a ton of different things, which makes it confusing to be honest. The way I like to think about it is that it is both a process and a software. The software gets a lot more Hype than the process does, but the process is actually more important. So the process is about How you manage your new relationships from when you first meet them to maybe when they become a prospect as well as when they are a client. A lot of people call it the client journey, you know, from awareness to interest. I guess some call it commitment to advocate for your business. So all of that that whole process is your client journey, and your CRM should be a key component of that whole process because if you look at your business as a relationship building business, which most small businesses, especially coaches and consultants, It is about a relationship. Your CRM needs to be involved in that whole process.
So your CRM software is important, but it should support your process. I have worked with many clients who are expecting the CRM software to kind of dictate Their process, and that's backwards because only you can decide how you work with your, you know, your relationships, right, your contacts. Only you know that, you like to send out a handwritten note after meeting with them at a networking event. Your CRM is not going to tell you how to do that. So you should define your process first and then implement it in software. So CRM software, we'll get into the specifics of that, but basically, the basic features in a CRM software are the contact management, which is your contact list of people, you know, all their, maybe their email, their phone number, their address, and in a real CRM software, you can put a lot more information in there. You can capture all kinds of things. Maybe they fill out a form, they complete a survey, and all of that is captured on their contact record so that you as the business owner can go to that contact record and find the appropriate information about them at that stage in your relationship building. So CRM software must have a robust contact management feature.
Secondly, CRMs should also have a sales management component because CRM was started really for sales organizations for managing the relationship building process And tracking the progress of their relationship building through their sales process, through the stages, you know, from when they first Meet them and contact them to all of the follow-up that they're doing to a sales presentation to sending the proposal and Finalizing, the new client relationship. So sales management is important and This includes a couple different things, a sales pipeline, which is like a visual representation of your sales process so that you can put, usually, they're called cards under each stage. You have multiple stages in your process, and you're just tracking where that person is in that stage. So the sales pipeline can be incredibly powerful. I believe that it really helps me to stay focused on the next step in my relationship building with clients. So, and if your CRM does not have this feature, I would wonder if it really is a CRM, if that's what it's calling itself. Most CRMs will also allow you to have multiple pipelines. So, you obviously have your sales pipeline, but maybe you have a networking pipeline or, you know, a partner kinda nurture pipeline. So depending on what your process is, you can create a pipeline for each of those relationship building processes. And that gives you a lot of flexibility. So I consider the CRM the heartbeat of your business because All of your contact information should be coming into your CRM. All of your Relationship activity should be recorded in your CRM, and all of your kind of follow-up tasks should also be recorded in the CRM. So it is your one stop shop for what you wanna know about your contact and your relationship with that person. So, we covered some of the basic features in your CRM software and wanted to kind of expand on where CRM is really going. Lots of software is going towards this all in one trend because small businesses are the majority of businesses, and Trying to have a bunch of different pieces of software that you somehow connect is a little overwhelming for a lot of business owners, So there's a big trend for being all in 1.
So you'll see that a CRM has a lot of other features in it that they think their ideal client is going to need. So what you tend to see in a CRM is Email marketing is included in there, maybe their website, maybe their online booking, They're invoicing and payments, also proposals, anything that a small business owner would need to to manage their software, all of their software in their business. So the software I sell is all in one, and it does have all of those features, which, You know, when a client starts working for me, they love that there's only 1 password that they have to remember and that there's only 1 support team that they have to contact. So That all in one trend to me is something that makes it much easier for Coaches and consultants to manage their business. Also, it really just eliminates a lot of the, Having to connect all the different software and maybe it doesn't work or you just don't know how to do it. So all in one CRM Is definitely the way to go when you're a small coaching or consulting practice.
So there are tools that call themselves a CRM or say they have a CRM that really aren't. But it's not that those tools are bad, it's just that they're not necessarily fully representing what a CRM is. And one of them, Mailchimp , says it is a CRM, and it does have a list of your contacts and maybe their contact information. However, it really isn't a database where you can take notes and keep Tasks, track your history with that person, see when you last met with them. It's missing all of those features. So just be aware that especially tools that were Traditionally traditional email marketing tools, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, MailerLite, those are not Really robust enough to be considered a CRM. They certainly function well for email marketing, but when you're looking at CRM, you're focusing on the relationship building tracking that you wanna be able to do. Now to take that another step further is being able to Automate or segment lists based on all this information. So in your CRM, Because you're tracking all this information, you can segment your list and do much more targeted communication to a list. For example, you have your general kind of subscriber list where they get your newsletters or promotion emails. Then you also have, like, your client list and maybe even you further subdivide your client list based on which product or offer that they have purchased from you so that you send a more targeted follow-up sequence to them. So those are the things that you can really easily do in a CRM. And when you're working with an all in one CRM, Automation is built into these tools so that you can automate those repetitive routine type tasks. It may not it doesn't mean that you have to automate everything, but it could help you kinda take some actions that are obvious. You know, if someone purchases a course that you offer, it could Send that person the login information. It could prompt them to go, engage with the course periodically. It could notify you that you had to purchase. So there's lots of things that an all in 1 CRM can do to, take action on your behalf that you've intentionally defined, notify you or your team of maybe your action that you need to take, like sending a personalized gift, as well as just automating the data about that contact so that you can properly segment them and communicate them to them about, what, you know, that right message to the Right Person at the Right Time method. So I hope this has been helpful in understanding what CRM is, and the variety of features available to you in the CRM software. And, hopefully, you're walking away thinking, yeah, that all in 1 CRM is something I should really look into. So it will again, it will make building out your business systems so much easier.
So thank you for listening, and see you in the next episode. Are your business systems a hot mess? Take the system scorecard quiz at www.worksmarterdigital.com/quiz. You will receive proven strategies to leverage technology in your business. And when you schedule a system strategy session with me, I will personally provide you customized recommendations for your business. So, again, that is www.worksmarteredigital .com/quiz. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the CRM success secrets podcast. Cheers to you, and I hope that your systems are successful.
