As discussed in my last post, a well-structured CRM can pay dividends for your marketing consulting business. This can only be true, however, if you actually use it on a daily basis.
In this post, I’ll share suggestions for leveraging the “day-to-day” aspects of your CRM: contacts, tags, and organizations.
Contacts (& Tags)
The well-known axiom asserts that it’s not what you know – but rather who you know. Pause to consider the many people with whom you interact. While only a few are decision makers, there are dozens of others who support and influence your work.
Your consulting business offers a unique opportunity to make a lot of beneficial connections. Sure, some may be more valuable today than others. As any consultant knows, however, high turnover rates can change your paradigm in an instant.
A platform such as Insightly CRM helps you stay nimble as the conditions around you change. In fact, by systematically structuring your contact records, you can capitalize on the changes (instead of feeling sorry for yourself). This is precisely why I always capture my contacts’ social media profiles. This way, if a colleague decides to join another company, I can reach out at a later date. It’s possible that a departure from your current client could turn into a new lead in the future.
In addition to tracking social media accounts, using tags can provide excellent segmentation. As I’ve alluded to, the people within your clients’ organizations fill different roles. These roles define how you engage with the company and how much of an impact you can make. By leveraging tags, contact records can be grouped logically for your business.
For example, in my own business, most contacts fall into one (or more) of the following tags:
- Decision Maker – ultimately decides if I’m worth the money being paid
- Subject Matter Expert – knowledgeable resource who can help me
- Stakeholder – invested in / benefits from the work I do
- Influencer – has sway in the decisions being made
- Roadblock – tends to obstruct the process or work being done
To develop these tags, I asked myself the following question, “If I sold my company today, what groupings would be beneficial to the new owner?” These tags make sense for me, but I would encourage you to pause and ask yourself similar questions.
Organizations
As your consulting business grows, the number of clients served will naturally increase. With each new client comes additional stakeholders, influencers, and other contacts. Without proper record keeping, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
An organization record in Insightly CRM creates links between the people you serve and their employers. By linking contacts and organizations, your own business becomes much more scalable. Perhaps you have aspirations of growing beyond a one-person shop. As you add new staff, the information exclusively in your head becomes less useful.
As an example, let’s imagine that you expand by hiring an account manager. This person’s job will be to coordinate the day-to-day projects for a specific client, freeing up your time to prospect for new business. Onboarding and training is a lot easier when using Insightly CRM. In addition to seeing all linked contact records, your new employee will be a click away from:
- Phone, address, web, and other company details
- Email history
- Activity history and relevant notes
- Files (such as invoices or quotes)
Compare this model to life without a CRM. You would likely spend hours (or days) forwarding countless emails, spreadsheets, and handwritten notes. Instead, your new hire can hit the ground running on day one, thus reducing friction and increasing productivity.
Next Stop, Opportunities
Contact and organization records set the groundwork for CRM success. In my next post, we’ll explore an additional record type that ties everything together: opportunities. Stay tuned for more tips!
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.
