CRM Consultant

CRM consultant offers tips to organize your business.

CRM consultant suggests 5 tips to organize the relationships in your business and life.

Do you believe that your net worth is directly related to your network of people?  I do.

People. Let’s face it. We can’t live with them and we can’t live without them.

When it comes to success in business, your net worth, your happiness in life, and your DNA-rooted need to belong all tie directly to how you organize and manage your network of people.  Success in life should be about relationships.

My personal feeling is that when I see grown up business people using spreadsheets and business card stacks to manage relationships I get a bit nervous.  And I see this all the time.  Most business owners and executives we work with and meet will agree that implementing a system that people will use is one of the keys to organizational and sales success.

I work as a CRM consultant with business owners, professionals, entrepreneurs and people from all walks of life.  What I notice most of the time is that people are not committed to using a system.  Nothing at all.  No system to manage people and relationships.  No accountability.  No follow up.  No reporting.  No pipeline management.  No forecasting.

I haven’t completely figured out why this is.  I sense it’s because people don’t know what kind of system to use.  Maybe it’s more that they don’t recognize the value of investing in and using any relationship management system, aka CRM.  In the worst case scenario a large corporate team, typically a bunch of non-sales or marketing thinkers, go behind closed doors and spend bazillions of hours and dollars creating a custom CRM system without any input from the sales professionals, line managers or administrative people.  These are typically the biggest train wrecks.

Here’s something else I need to say.  If there’s no system in place to properly manage relationships, activities, follow up, events, insights, notes and comments then there’s typically no discipline in most other if not all other areas of the business.

This is true for small businesses and it’s true for larger organizations as well.  Regardless of the size of your business, if you’re not leveraging a CRM system to grow your business you could be leaving more on the table than you think.

Again, consider this information coming from a CRM consultant and business marketing guy on the front lines with business owners every day.  I get to see everything first hand.  I test drive virtually every piece of software, marketing tool and everything else that comes to clients.  The WealthNet team deals with systems all day long.  Using them, supporting them and teaching others how to use systems that save time and money.

Everything I tell you here is shaped by my early and formative experiences setting up simple and highly effective systems like 3×5 Index cards managed in a small, metal file box.  Back in the day it was THE portable system of the 14th Century!

1. Get a system.  Look.  Business cards sitting next to your keyboard don’t cut it when we’re talking about managing relationships.  Every one needs to commit to a system.  In the context of computers, software and the Internet we’re talking about web-based systems that start out for free.  It’s inexcusable not to have a system.

2. Populate the system.  If you’re ready to commit to using a system to grow your business and impact new sales results, you need to populate the system with top-quality people.  Our team helps clients import entire systems, lists, notes, etc.  Or we build them from scratch.  Either way, you need to add each and every relationship you have now and will attract in the future to one system.  Any good CRM consultant will agree that the more you focus on building a quality list over time the better off you will be.

3. Use the system every day and get everyone in your organization to use the same system.  If you’re the business owner, leader or manager of a team you need to lead by example.  I tell every CEO I meet that if they aren’t willing to be held accountable for using the system then it’s unfair to ask anyone else to do so.

4. Invest in coaching and training.  This may sound obvious but people who buy CRM and other software for business solutions forget to budget and invest in coaching and training.  Good support is hard to get.  But support is different from coaching and training as a CRM consultant.   People learn over time and coaching allows us to connect all the time and learn by doing!  If someone gets stuck they can get tech support for most of our systems.  This is important because without good support someone in the company gets sucked into the job.  Not a good idea because it’s really a full time to be done in house or outsourced to a company like WealthNet Partners.

5. Integrate your system.  I’ve said that people generally don’t have a system.  So upgrading from a 1992 version of ACT, taking a spreadsheet off your hard drive, or dusting off the stack of business cards on your desk is now a top priority.  I always suggest that people integrate their CRM (people), Email, Calendar, Events, and even eCommerce through the same system.  While I started out using multiple systems back in the early 1990′s, I graduated to Infusionsoft in 2007.  Infusionsoft is a web-based system that allows me to manage everything in one place.

I tell people all the time that while I am a huge fan of Infusionsoft and have worked with wonderful clients all over the world who use the system, it’s all about the system.  We love selling and supporting Infusionsoft implementations.  But if a client of ours has a system that they like and they use effectively, so be it.

If you have a system that consists of a program like Outlook and you use another program for email and marketing, great.  If you use a system that’s completely integrated and consolidated, even better.  They key to an integrated system is it’s the one and only place you need to “show up” for every day.  And it’s available any time you have access to your computer and the Internet.

If you’re inclined to evaluate your business and work with an experienced CRM consultant, make sure you do a thorough evaluation of your business model and sales process.  Everyone’s unique when it comes to finding a system to manage relationships and follow up marketing.  Any good CRM consultant or trusted advisor will ask you intelligent questions to explore the best solution for your business.

What is your feeling about relationship management for your business?  What is your preferred system?  How is it working out for you?

CRM Consultant

CRM consultant offers tips to organize your business.

CRM consultant suggests 5 tips to organize the relationships in your business and life. Organize and manage your relationships with a web-based system.