Month: June 2016

When it comes to content marketing there’s the constant either/or debate—do you push out copious amounts of content: emails, social media posts, blogs; or do you hold out, refine your content and aim for quality?

Of course there are merits to both and some will argue until they’re blue in the face for either side. Time and again it comes down to one main question: How well do you know your customer?

On the quantity side, there is, of course, a sweet spot. HubSpot and Moz did in depth six month studies where they aimed to find the balance between frequency and quality. No one wants to push out mediocre content, but is it better to push out as much content as possible, sacrificing on the quantity, or is it better to keep up on the quality and opt for fewer posts?

Surprisingly, the results were not as cut and dry as you might expect. As it turns out, keeping your customers in constant reach does lead to more sales. Frequent contacts are necessary and can boost your results. However, there is a goldilocks spot where you have frequent enough contacts to reach your customer base and maximize your engagement. Piling on more engagement after that point won’t net the same results.

So, what’s a marketer to do?

Whether you’re looking at B2B or B2C contacts, one of the most important ways to stay on the radar is to be consistent. Consistent, semi-frequent and quality posts over a prolonged period of time will keep you in the forefront of your customer’s thoughts (and keep up your sales). Stay active and regular. Schedule your posts, your newsletter or your customer email to come out on the same days each week. Let your customers learn to rely on you.

Types of contact and content can vary. When you’re talking blog posts, 2-3 a week might be enough, or a regular weekly or bi-weekly email can be a great way to reach your customer base. On the other hand, with social media, the rule of thumb is to post regularly, frequently enough to engage your audience but not so frequently that you overwhelm.

Quality isn’t Universal

Know what quality means for your customers. It is not the same in all industries—there are some universal quality guidelines, but not everyone has the same standard of quality for every post or piece of content. In order to have a killer marketing strategy, you must know your customers.

An internet-based company, marketing, consulting or similar industry might require more attention to research and industry lingo. A small manufacturing company, medical office or other industry may be served by simply sharing research and news with an occasional unique or targeted post. It depends on the audience and what appeals to your customer.

So how do you know? Test, test, test again, of course. Pay attention to your analytics, and use them to guide you. A/B test your mass emails and weekly points of contact. Look at the data to see what appeals to your customer. Listen to customer feedback.

At the same time, don’t live and die by your analytics. Viral content can’t be predicted (or manufactured), and it’s hard (if not impossible) to always know what’s going to strike a chord with your base. If there’s something relevant to the present environment, something exciting happening in your industry, or something unique, fun or creative, share away!

Other ways to bolster your content include sharing guest posts with your audience and expert editorials. Offer how to videos or “interviews with the CEO”. Provide product demonstrations, customer testimonials, and other fun pieces of content to help take the work and dread out of content.

Assuring Quality Content

Have clear guidelines for all your contributors. Everyone from your CEO to your intern should understand the components of what your content needs to look like. Have a style sheet and refer to it frequently. Will your intern write on the same level as your CEO? No, of course not, nor should they. Allow for different levels to target different customers and knowledge bases, but keep the style clear and consistent.

Contributors should understand how to post, where to post and have examples of successful past posts. They should have a timeline, a basic layout and know what the regular CTAs and taglines are for your company. Guidelines will keep things consistent and allow you to shift some of the work of creating content throughout your chain of command.

Guidelines will also protect you when a rogue employee goes off the rails and makes a political post or shares something inappropriate. Provide clear examples of what is appropriate and acceptable for your organization and company and what areas should be either supervised or avoided. This protects you from liability and from offending your audience.

In today’s world of technology, marketing has now become publishing. Every company and organization needs someone who can write for their website, touch their customers online and keep the content flowing for their business. Marketers have to wear two hats—advertising and sales pitches are no longer enough.

Make quality content your priority and post as frequently as possible. Aim for relevant, current and interesting topics and pieces to really engage your customer base and keep your clients reading, clicking and sharing!

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on using Insightly CRM, a tip on running your business, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!

Self-Service for Insightly Users

Insightly has a self-service model that offers many options to learn how to use Insightly CRM more effectively. A good method to answer questions and learn about Insightly is to open one browser window to view information from the following links while working in Insightly in another browser window. Insightly Resources includes the links below and more, so it’s a great place to select from your favorite kind of documentation and video options to learn about CRM and Insightly. If you’re interested in tutorials, Insightly University has got you covered. From a general overview to record links to managing projects, you’ll find step-by-step video guides to walk you through Insightly. Our Help pages include articles to answer hundreds of questions. With a quick search, you’ll always find answers. And to stay up to date on new product developments, click the Product News section right here on our blog!

Good Calendaring=Smoother Sales Processes

If you have a CRM, it likely has a calendar of some sort, but you need one that really works for your team. It must have reminders, notifications, and recurring tasks as a bare minimum. If it can also include sales pipelines, collaborations with other team members, and the ability to sync with other popular calendars it will work out even better. Robust calendar features save your team the time of double checking deadlines, tasks, and others’ schedules each day. It also lets them avoid double booking anything by having a completely synched schedule. With reminders and notifications, there is no chance of forgetting about a deadline.

Road Heat

In November 2014, SolaRoad, the first road converting sunlight into electricity, opened in the Netherlands. Along the 100-meter bike path, solar cells are embedded into concrete slabs, protected by a centimeter-thick layer of tempered glass.   A similar concept recently gained momentum in the United States, where Solar Roadways received more than US$2 million from a crowdsourcing campaign to drive its patented solar paving technology to the next level. Back in the Netherlands, the consortium powering SolaRoad will test the path over the next three years to determine its efficiency and durability.

Send Us Your Tips

Would you like to share your tips with other Insightly customers? Send them to us!
If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!

Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.

And if you haven’t tried the best CRM around, check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now.

About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Many companies use spreadsheets to organize data such as income and expenses, sales and marketing data, and contact files for mailing lists. Spreadsheets aren’t always the best tool for managing certain types of data. They were actually created to mimic old-fashioned accounting spreadsheets, and can be difficult to use for other types of data, such as mailing lists. If you’ve ever typed what you thought was a proper name into Excel and had it change it into numbers, then you know exactly what we mean.

Yet there are still many companies who continue to use spreadsheets to manage project data, sales tracking, and plenty of business tasks that spreadsheets certainly can handle, even if they weren’t designed for it. But problems arise when spreadsheets get messy and too many users are manipulating the data. That’s where a more robust system might be in order.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Spreadsheets

Companies often turn to spreadsheets instead of other data management options for the simple reason that spreadsheet software is widely, even freely available. Google Sheets can be accessed through any web-based connection, and shared easily among employees working with the same data.
Yet spreadsheets have their limitations. Think about the following advantages and disadvantages of spreadsheets:

Advantages

• Good for the purposes for which it was built – accounting data.
• Software is easily accessible via the web.
• Free spreadsheet software is available.
• Virtually identical software packages make it easy for users to move from one program to another without a learning curve.
• Easy to share among 1-3 users.

Disadvantages

• Data must be typed in manually or made into data files, then imported.
• One mistake can mess up a big chunk of your data.
• Reports can be cumbersome.
• Can quickly become huge and unwieldy.
• Not effective at visually making sense of your info.
• Unless you become a whiz at formulas, it’s difficult to use.
• Not much info can reasonably fit into a tiny box.

Excel was created for accounting needs, not data analysis. As businesses began to rely on more data inputs from different parts of the company, they needed more robust tools to manage and manipulate data. Combine that with the need for better data visualization than spreadsheets can offer you, and you’re looking at the future of data: Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

For companies that need faster, better data, or need data from multiple sources such as sales and financial data in one cloud-based application, a CRM system may be right for you. Insightly is a great example, and we’ll use it to highlight a few specific features below.

A CRM consolidates all of the information it receives into a single program. By using a series of menu pages, it’s also much easier to look at than an array of cells on a spreadsheet. Here’s some of the key advantages of using a CRM:

CRM Advantages

1. Robust Contact Pages. A CRM can pack a lot of information onto a simple screen. With Insightly, for example, each contact has a profile page with a photo (automatically transferred from their email or social media profile), contact details and links to their social media accounts, including a stream of their latest Tweets or updates.

There are also tabs along the top which show your email correspondence with the client, upcoming appointments, notes and documents you’ve saved and more.

2. Sales Management & Forecasting: A CRM gives you tons of additional tools to track your appointments with clients and monitor the progress of a sale. You can schedule phone calls/tasks and view them on a calendar. Each sales opportunity has a “profile” page where you can view relevant emails and documents and track the probability of winning. This, in turn, lets you forecast your overall sales earning, or view your sales funnel”

3. Collaboration: Most CRMs today are web-based, which means instead of installing anything on your computer, you log into the program from a web-browser. This means that you and your employees can login from any device and use the CRM simultaneously. If one user updates a sale opportunity, all others will be notified immediately – you never have to risk working off old information.

How Do I Switch To a CRM?

The one good thing about using spreadsheets for client management is that it will be very easy to import your data to a CRM system. Insightly lets you import data directly from an Excel or .CSV spreadsheet.

By the process of “data mapping,” you specify which column in your spreadsheet corresponds to which value in the CRM. In other words, tell the system which column on your spreadsheet says the client’s name, their company, their phone number, their job title, etc. Then, the CRM will “read” your spreadsheet and automatically create new contact and company pages with all their information filled in.

Alternatively, you can usually also import contacts directly from Gmail or Outlook.

Read more about importing data into Insightly.

How Much Will It Cost To Switch?

As a first-time user, you can usually pay next-to-nothing. A lot of CRMs have free editions that are suitable as long as you don’t have too many users or need too much storage.A user counts as anybody who needs a unique login – to assign themselves leads, schedule appointments, and use the software in general.

Insightly, for example, is free for 2 users and up to 2,500 records – a record being anything you need to save in the system, such as a contact, task, opportunity, etc.

I’m Still Not Sure If a CRM is Right For Me

The key strength of a CRM system is that it keeps client information organized in one place – including email correspondence, appointments notes and documents. This makes it ideal for small businesses that have a fairly long sales process (such as realtors, brokers, or remodelers) as well as businesses who have ongoing relationships with their clients (such as  suppliers, consultants, or IT services).

You might also consider another option alongside a CRM. Retailers should strongly consider a modern POS system that can help track inventory, employees, and customer interactions. You might also consider project management software – but this is another feature Insightly offers with its CRM.

Even those who run a shop, however, or undergo lengthy projects, may still want to consider a CRM if they’re trying to acquire new clients. There’s really no better solution out there for managing leads. What’s more is you can usually sync up a CRM with other web-based systems, such as Basecamp or Shopify, so that data is automatically transferred and shared between them.

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.

Jeremy Marsan is a business analyst and staff writer for Fit Small Business whose areas of expertise include business technology, real estate, and franchising. When not helping small business owners he enjoys many artistic projects, including music performance/recording, blogging, creative writing, and carpentry.

CRM saves time, increases communication, and boosts profits. Why then can it be so difficult to get some employees onboard with your implementation plans?

One of the biggest hurdles frequently cited with the launching of a new CRM system (or any other form of computerized resource management) is that of employee buy-in. We asked the experts how to get around this problem. Here’s what they said.

Involve Employees in Product Selection

A common refrain from experts is that every successful CRM implementation begins before a CRM system is ever selected in the first place. Even if you have a product in mind already, it’s important to involve at least some key stakeholders in the process in order to make the ultimate selection of a product a group decision that everyone feels comfortable with. If nothing else, it will help you determine what specific functionality you need. “This will give you insight into what features your employees feel will make it easier for them to do their jobs,” says Luke Wallace, a market researcher with small business CRM reviews company, Software Advice.” If you choose software with at least a few of those things, they’re more likely to use it.”

Remember that your initial forays into CRM needn’t be an all-or-nothing affair. “Many CRM systems come with free trials so that you can test them out before making any decisions,” says GetApp CRM market researcher Suzie Blaszkiewicz. “Ask members of the team who will be using the CRM often to try out one or two different systems for a week, and then get feedback.”

Use CRM to Replace Work, Not Add to It

Once you have a CRM in place, you’ll need to take steps to ensure it is used intelligently. Bryan Clayton, CEO of online lawn care company GreenPal, says his first attempt to implement CRM was a “total disaster.” “We basically purchased the software and paid an IT professional to install it and the result after six months was that nobody used it,” he says. The reason: “What I didn’t realize was that I was just adding one more task to our salespeople’s list of things to do.”

Later, after learning from his mistakes, Clayton tried again with a new system. He says, “To ensure a successful implementation this time around, I broke down the existing tasks and workflows that our salespeople were already conducting and replaced tasks with new software-related tasks. For instance, previously our receptionist would take many of the new incoming leads from the phone and write them down onto a lead sheet and give it to a salesperson. We replaced that analog task with a digital task and made her job to enter it into the lead into the CRM program, and then a salesperson would work out of the software from that point on.” Clayton says GreenPal was able to get buy-in because the old analog systems were done away with, saving everyone time and effort.

Establish CRM as the Source of “Universal Truth”

Resistance is natural, as workers will often revert to what they already know any time a procedural change is implemented. That can’t be an option, says Jordan Wan, CEO of sales recruiting software firm CloserIQ. “Develop a stance of, ‘If it doesn’t exist in CRM, it doesn’t exist,’” he says. “With a larger sales organization, there are many policies such as commissions, handoff, and territory policies that require just one source of truth. Setting a precedent in which correct CRM usage leads to the most favorable outcomes for each rep will help motivate them to use it consistently.”

By establishing the CRM system as the “bible” for your organization, you avoid confusion and conflict. That said, be careful with levying punishments for failure to use the system. “Negative reinforcement can backfire,” says Wallace. “Instead of punishing the wrong behavior, keep promoting the benefits of the software while incentivizing the right behavior. Consider rewarding those who have achieved an important departmental goal while using the new system.”

Create Key Messaging: Failure Is Not an Option

What if the CRM system doesn’t work out? You can always go back to the old way of doing things, right? Wrong, says Sebastien Dupéré, CEO of Dupray, which markets steam cleaning equipment globally. “Adoption has been a problem for us in the past,” says Dupéré, “and we have dealt with it in a variety of ways. First and foremost, we clearly identified that going back to the old technology was not an option. Once you firmly (but respectfully) communicate this to your employees, they will likely feel as if they have no choice but to get on board. The important thing with this tactic is to ensure that the delivery is appropriate and does not offend them.”

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

About the Author: Christopher Null is an award-winning business and technology journalist. His work frequently appears on Wired, PC World, and TechBeacon. Follow him on Twitter @christophernull.

Going on a business trip to close that big deal?  Good for you.  I’m a frequent business traveler, so before you leave, let me give you a list of great apps you need to download to your smartphone.  You’ll thank me later.

Airline/Hotel App – I’m an American Airlines frequent flier (AA dominates the Philly airport) and my go-to hotel is Marriott.  Which means I’ve downloaded apps for both.  You need to do this for the hotels and airlines you’re using on this trip.  You can get up to the minute info on your flight.  And, if you’re lucky, you may be able to check in to your hotel in advance which means you can avoid having to be in a good mood with the chirpy kid behind the reception desk.  Human interaction is so over-rated, right?

Expedia – Expedia is still the king of travel services.  And you’ll want the king at your side if something goes wrong on your trip.  Maybe you need to book another flight and need to know all options out of the airport.  Or your hotel reservation fell through because you didn’t’ follow the mobile check in instructions and that chirpy kid behind the reception desk morphed into an indignant hipster unwilling to free up an extra room for you.  Humans really do suck, don’t they?  Expedia is also excellent at providing updates and alerts too.

GateGuru – This is the must have app for any frequent business travel.  GateGuru gives a full rundown of food and shopping, by terminal, at just about every major airport in the world.  Got a hankering for a Turkey with Swiss and Ranch dressing at Quiznos ? Of course you do, because who doesn’t? Don’t worry – with GateGuru you’ll find one at the airport you’re going to.  Would you like a scuba diving outfit, a squash racquet or a high definition TV? Have you lost your mind?  You can’t get this stuff at an airport, silly.  You’re going on a flight, not a shopping excursion for God’s sake.

Evernote – While in the air, you’ve just thought of the perfect invention:  a toilet seat that flips up just by pressing a foot pedal.  Bingo!  But where to write this down?  You’re on a plane.  No worries.  If you have Evernote on your smartphone you can take notes anywhere and it’ll sync up to the cloud once you get back online.  Evernote can enable you to share notes with others in your company, as long as you don’t mind being ridiculed for your toilet-seat-with-the-foot-pedal idea.

Uber and Lyft – Who doesn’t love Uber?  Or Lyft?  Who doesn’t love the app that allows you to call for transport like you’re a boss, track it by GPS, monitor your trip and pay for it without taking out your credit card?  If you haven’t used these services yet you’re missing out on a better experience than just your common taxi.  And you’ll thank the Uber Gods when you suddenly realize you need a ride to your hotel downtown from that business meeting in the sticks and no taxi service wants to make the journey.  Trust me, Uber will.

Google Maps – I use Google Maps all the time when I travel.  Sure, its driving directions are unparalleled.  But how do you find your way from your hotel to that sushi place a few blocks away without walking around in circles?  Yes – it’s great for walkers too.  Oh, and how did you find that sushi place in the first place?  Yes, Google Maps identifies all the good stuff near where you’re staying.

Expensify – Remember the days when scanned documents could only be stored and the data couldn’t be used anywhere?  Those days are done.  Expensify will let you take a picture of any receipt and it’ll extract the data into a cloud-based expense report for you (or your accounting manager) to review.  The application is so sophisticated you can forward emails from airlines and hotels to an email address you’ll be assigned and it’ll recognize and bring that data into your expense report too.

Snapchat – text message is out.  Snapchat is in.  Besides, how else do you expect to communicate with your teenage kids while you’re away? You don’t expect them to use the alphabet and text you, right?  That’s soooo 20^th century.  A picture’s worth a thousand words.  And then it disappears forever into the Snapchat ether.

Spotify – Remember how those hotel apps minimize human interaction because of mobile check-in.  Well, Spotify minimizes human interaction altogether.  Instead of talking to your seatmate or getting to know your fellow travelers better, you can listen to any song you want anywhere you want and completely ignore everything that’s going on around you.  Bliss.

Kindle App – Once upon a time I travelled with two or even three books in case one wasn’t good.  Now, my Kindle has hundreds of books.  The app works on any smartphone so you can read whether you have a Kindle or not.

Insightly – Oh yeah.  Forgot about those guys.  No biggie – it’s only an app into your company’s entire database, showing you interactions, communications, activities, notes and other data about your customers, vendors, partners and that prospect you’re flying to meet which is why you’re going on this stupid trip in the first place!

Safe travels.  Bon Voyage.  And don’t come back without that deal.

A CRM system is nothing more than a database. And nowadays, that database is more than likely in the cloud. So instead of everyone having their own individual list of contacts in their email At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals.

Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com

You’ve been looking forward to this day for weeks. You are understandably a little jumpy, but who wouldn’t be? If this meeting goes well, you could win the biggest contract of your life. It’s an opportunity that solidifies the future of your company – and your reputation in the industry.

No pressure, right? It’s only your business that we’re talking about.

For some, this situation is enough to cause extreme anxiety and countless sleepless nights. Even the most skilled professionals have moments when they second guess their abilities. For this reason, the act of selling oneself doesn’t always come easy, especially when big money is on the line.

In this post, I’ll offer eight tips to consider when selling yourself to a new client.

1. Show Up

Clients don’t have time for your excuses. They don’t care about how busy you claim to be.

When you show up late (or worse, miss the meeting entirely), you send a clear message that is difficult to overcome. This can sour the relationship before you ever have the opportunity to speak a word. As any sales professional will tell you, objections are nearly impossible to overcome when the bond of trust is already broken.

Avoid this embarrassment by setting an appointment reminder in your calendar or CRM. Configure the alert to send you an email before the meeting time. This way, you can ensure you arrive on time. If you’re dialing into a conference call, allow yourself plenty of time to test the connection or install the appropriate software. (Voice-over-IP systems mysteriously act up when you’re running late!)

In reality, most professionals will remember to arrive on-time. However, being physically present does not necessarily mean that you’re “showing up.” Quite the contrary. If you’re tired, stressed, or overworked, your ability to engage can be significantly diminished.

To put your best foot forward, play to your strengths. I’m personally the most creative after I’ve had a cup of coffee. By 4 pm, however, I’m usually feeling pretty frazzled. Therefore, I rarely schedule meetings (especially with prospective clients) in the late afternoon. Also, be sure to budget your time wisely. If the big meeting is planned for 10 am, block off the half hour between 9:30 and 10 am. This will ensure you don’t double book yourself, but it can also serve as a final preparation session.

2. Be Familiar with the Client’s Business

In today’s online world, there is no excuse for being ill-prepared. Within a matter of minutes, you can gain access to a wealth of knowledge about most companies, markets, and industries.

Doing your homework in advance of the meeting serves several important purposes. First and foremost, it shows the client that you care. Remember that the prospect is coming to you for solutions – not more problems. If he senses that you are not taking this responsibility seriously, you stand little chance of winning the contract. In addition, proper preparation makes the conversation less awkward and more productive. Armed with a basic understanding of the client’s business, you immediately have something in common with the prospect. Instead of commenting about the weather (or something equally benign), you can jump right in and make a good impression.

To prepare myself as a marketing consultant, I typically invest at least an hour of research time before a call. I try to familiarize myself with the following data points. (These may not be relevant for an accountant or IT professional, but you get my point.)

• How and when the company was founded
• What the company offers (products and/or services) and to whom
• What geographic locations the company serves
• Who competes with the company

Without investing too much time, I’ll also jot down some thoughts about the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Most marketing plans hinge upon answering these questions, so it’s helpful for me to begin thinking in these terms. In your field of work, there are most likely other similar frameworks. Consider incorporating such an approach into your pre-meeting preparation process.

3. Don’t Brag, But Don’t Be Shy

The meeting has begun, and things are off to a good start. The client appreciates that you seem prepared. Then, the client says those magic words: “Tell me about yourself and what you can do for me.”

Without a game plan, you may not be sure what to say. Sure, you could ramble on about your master’s degree and how many clients you have. You could go into detail about how you’ve grown your staff into the impressive team it is today. Or you could choose to discuss how your fee structure works. Unfortunately, none of these will help you sell the client.

Luckily, you were anticipating this question and are ready to impress. You understand that the prospect is interested in solving his unique problems. Everything discussed in this meeting should relate back to this central theme.

For example, let’s assume that my initial research indicates the prospective client’s website is underperforming. When asked, I might recount a past client’s success story with content marketing. Going one step further, I could then offer printed reports that show increases in web traffic, leads, and search engine ranking (sensitive information redacted, of course). Shifting the conversation back to the prospect’s needs, I would then explain how such results are also possible for his own business.

If you’re shy or uncomfortable discussing your abilities, this is an especially important step to master. Customers are looking for someone to put their faith in. If they get the impression that you don’t even believe in yourself, why should they? Spend time grooming your pitch and becoming more comfortable with a confident, yet humble persona.

4. Ask Questions

If you’ve ever sat through a corporate job interview, the inquiry, “Do you have any questions for us?” may sound familiar. Big companies love to save this one for the very end, just before they mention that they’ll soon be in touch.

Unlike a job interview, there’s no formal Q & A session when selling yourself to a new client. In fact, the relationship is much different than employer-employee. Although both relationships involve the exchange of human capital for financial consideration, a client-vendor relationship should be driven more so by the vendor (especially in the service industry). The client opens the door, and your job is to walk through by continuously identifying, prioritizing, and solving his challenges.

In order to seize the opportunity, it is appropriate to ask questions early and often. In advance of the meeting, formulate a list of questions that you intend to ask. When the meeting begins, open your notebook or tablet and make note of new observations. As the prospective client pauses or runs out of things to say, pose one of your questions. Repeat this process until all of your questions have been answered (or until you’re out of time).

Some of the more common questions I find myself asking prospective customers, include:

• Where do you want your company to be in five years?
• What bothers you the most about your current marketing strategy?
• What aspects of your marketing are working the best?
• What marketing ideas have you always wanted to try but never did?

Questions like these are truly invaluable to both parties. It forces the client to think about the big picture, and it helps you better understand how you fit into the puzzle.

5. Identify the Problem (Not the Symptoms)

Some people just love to dwell on the symptoms instead of fixing the real problem. If fact, it’s quite natural to do so. Dealing with problems is typically more difficult (and expensive) than simply complaining about the side effects.

It may be tempting for you to join in on the drama, but that’s not your job. Your job is to remain objective and provide solutions. If you sense the conversation shifting toward an airing of grievances, step in and refocus the discussion.

For instance, if the client continuously jests about the disorganization of his staff, you could choose to laugh along with him. This approach, however, offers few opportunities for you and continued heartburn for the client. Rather, you might inquire about the company’s current project management workflow. What types of software (if any) are team members using to stay on track? Who is accountable to whom?

By asking these types of questions, you’ll begin to identify the real problem. Only then can you begin to offer viable solutions.

6. Schedule the Next Meeting

There is a reason why supermarkets sell candy bars at the point of sale. Shoppers have worked up an appetite, and nothing satisfies hunger like something sweet. For many consumers, the impulse is too great to resist.

In a similar way, the client has invested valuable time into the meeting with you. Naturally, you have impressed him and left him feeling hungry for more. There’s no better time to ask for a follow up meeting than right now.

How do you do this? I like to say something like:

“Based on our conversation, it seems like there is a good potential fit here. I took quite a few notes and have a few things to follow up on. In the meantime, would it make sense to get something on the books again for next week? What times and dates work for you?”

Some might argue that you should push for a close now, instead of asking for a follow up meeting. I understand this argument; however, in most lines of work it is unreasonable to ask for a contract after the initial meeting. If you’re that good, then by all means push for the close. However, getting the client to agree to meet again is certainly not a failure.

7. Remember to Follow Up

The meeting went well, and you were successful at scheduling the follow up meeting. This offers you a few days to sort through notes and formalize your thoughts. Unfortunately, you’re a busy person and requests from existing customers are piling up. If you’re not careful, the next meeting can sneak up without you noticing.

With the right tools in place, this situation can be avoided. Many CRM systems, such as Insightly, allow you to create tasks for leads or opportunities. Once enabled, Insightly will alert your inbox a few days in advance of the meeting. You can clear the task (once completed), or you can update the due date to be reminded again at a later point.

Before the day of the meeting, it is usually wise to send your prospect a confirmation email. Keep it brief and reaffirm the time and date. Also, take this opportunity to solidify the positive impression you’ve already made. Include a bulleted list of the main topics previously discussed and propose an agenda. In doing so, you make yourself look good, but you also gain the upper hand by guiding the discussion.

8. Make it Easy to Get Started

After your next meeting, it is quite possible that the prospect will want to move forward. What will your proposal be? Don’t be caught off guard!

Whatever you propose, make it understandable and incremental. Avoid overly complex rate cards and pricing schemes. Keep it simple.

When a client wants to work with me for the first time, I typically present one of two options. Option one is a “marketing audit,” which is usually a flat one-time fee. Option two is a simple hourly rate. I propose the option which I think best fits the client’s needs (and budget). If the client is amenable, I will send him an engagement letter (two pages long) and ask for an approval before getting started. (To keep yourself organized, it may be wise to upload your proposal and engagement letter to your CRM for future reference.)

The fewer barriers you place in front of the client, the more likely it is that you’ll win the job.

Take the Next Step to Selling Yourself

Opportunity is everywhere. If you have the right skills and you believe in yourself, I’m confident that you can be successful. Selling yourself does require a commitment to continual change. It also requires you to be strategic.

Get started on a more effective sales process today. Your next big client is waiting to meet you!

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of 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.