Author: user

Should your company be implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system?

The knee-jerk answer is yes. One of the keys to improving performance is measuring performance. Without a CRM system, how can one measure sales performance? While the logic of having a CRM system is undeniable, purchasing a CRM system does not guarantee improved sales or that the system will even be used by salespeople or other people in the company.

To get advice on how to successfully roll out a CRM, I had a conversation with Gene Marks, New York Times columnist and small business owner. His business The Marks Group has helped over 600 companies roll out and manage their CRM platforms. Here are the three keys he gave that separate successful from unsuccessful CRM rollouts:

Key #1: Have a Clear Deliverable for the First 30 Days.

Gene told me he gets several phone calls a year from sales managers that go something like this:

“I just moved to a new company. I want you to set-up the same CRM system that I had at my old company. In 30 days, I want to be able to look the following reports: a lead pipeline report, a sales report, and a salesperson activity report.”

Following a call like this one, a CRM system rollout usually goes very well. The key is having a clear deliverable (typically generating specific reports) that can be provided to management within 30 days. Having this early milestone has several benefits. It shows immediate return on investment to managers and mobilizes them to get their team using the CRM system immediately.

Key #2: Have a Dedicated System Admin.

One stumbling block that can derail a smooth rollout is not having an administrator for the CRM system. In describing the perfect administrator, Gene offered up a well-known TV character – Pam from “The Office.” She is a no-nonsense personality who will aggressively push people to start using the CRM system. Also, she is not a sales manager or a “techie,” both of whom tend to be mistakes for picking a CRM administrator.

The first job of the administrator when rolling out a CRM system is to make sure that good data goes into the CRM system. The administrator is the person in charge of collecting the existing data from salespeople, managers, and accounting to populate the CRM system. While salespeople may have to add information into the system about their accounts, the less that they have to do, the more likely they will embrace using the system.

Key #3: Get Management Buy-In.

The last big key to success is management buy-in. By management, Gene is specifically talking about the organization’s sales leadership. Users will object to using a CRM system for a variety of reasons. They often feel that using the system takes too much time, or they are uncomfortable sharing information about clients or prospects. Without a manager standing firmly behind the rollout of the CRM system, these complaints can lead to slow adoption, negating the benefits of having a system.

Before I finish up reporting on my conversation with Gene Marks, I would like to suggest a couple of recent articles on CRM from Fit Small Business, the website for which I serve as publisher:

An Introduction To CRM For Small Businesses

How To Choose CRM Software For Your Business

Here are a few other thoughts from Gene which should also increase your chances of success.

• Rollouts: If you can roll out the CRM system to a few people at a time, the process can go easier than a department-wide or firm-wide rollout.
• Training: Training should be given on an individual and not group basis. Many users are going to have different needs. For example, some people will need information on using the CRM with a smartphone, while others will want to pull certain reports.
• Data Import: Start by exporting data from the firms accounting system, which does not require work by the sales staff and generally already has up-to-date information on clients.
• Security: Many clients bring up concerns about security, particularly when they are considering a cloud-based solution. However, Gene likes to ask if the company thinks that their defenses are better or worse than those of the well-known CRM companies that have invested millions in protecting data.
• Hidden Costs: The main hidden cost (provided there is no “integration” project) is the time spent by the CRM administrator. This can range from a few hours to 3 days per week for Gene’s clients.

No matter what size your business, if you get these keys right, you should be well on your way to a successful CRM rollout.

 

About the Author – Marc Prosser is the co-founder and publisher of Fit Small Business, which provides “how to” guidance to small businesses on topics ranging from small business phone systems to getting press coverage.

In a recent poll by Alignable, the social network for small business owners, 64% of over 1,000 owners selected “word-of-mouth referrals” as the most effective way to acquire new customers. This was the most effective customer acquisition method by a mile—word-of-mouth was 3.5x higher than the next result, social media.

But now what? Since you can’t simply go out and buy word-of-mouth, what’s a business owner to do to actually take greater advantage of it to drive their business success?

Know Your Influencers

Who has credibility with local customers that you can rely on to tell others about your business?

Your customers!
There’s no doubt that your customers are your best source since they have directly experienced what you have to offer. If you provide a great customer experience they are likely to talk about it when asked by a friend or colleague. Be sure to stay top of mind via regular email communications highlighting upcoming events, promotions, and featured products or services.

Local businesses nearby!
Other local business owners are a great potential source of word-of-mouth that’s often left untapped. Already a trusted source for local business information, simply forming good relationships with a few other business owners can result in a significant increase in your word-of-mouth traffic.

Get Word-of-Mouth with Your Free Alignable Membership
Insightly and Alignable have partnered together to invite Insightly customers to Alignable’s small business social network. Not a member yet? Join your local business neighbors and take these easy steps to help your word-of-mouth grow!

1. Invite your customers and members to Alignable

   Inviting your existing customers and members to Alignable benefits you in two important ways. You get exposure in Alignable’s Neighborhood feed every time someone you invited joins because your name and a link to your profile appears as the “inviter.” And by getting people who know and would recommend you to join Alignable’s social network, you’re making it easy for them to spread the word about your business!

   

2. Share interesting and helpful content in your Alignable Neighborhood

   The best way to get businesses talking about you and with you is to post interesting and helpful content in the Neighborhood feed. Here’s an example of an SEO expert helping other members’ understand how keeping your business profiles (including Alignable’s) up-to-date helps you get better search results:

   

   We’ve seen a merchant organization get dozens of inquiries from potential new members after sharing relevant tips for growing a business. An insurance agent had many members thank him and ask for meetings after posting about things to consider when purchasing employee insurance. So share your knowledge!

3. Make others in the community feel welcome
   A simple way to get to know new potential members and customers is to reach out to them when they join Alignable. Welcome them in the Neighborhood feed and make them feel like a part of the community!

With Alignable, local businesses finally have an easy, online way to connect and discuss issues relevant to them. Make sure you’re taking advantage of every opportunity to be a helpful resource to your local business community, and it will pay off in spades!

We all know great customer service requires attention all year long. Your calendar provides helpful opportunities to connect and focus your customer service efforts during key times during the year.

Your customer service strategy should vary with the season. Depending on your industry, the holidays, back to school, even summer may be your busy time, during your off-peak times it can be helpful to “remind” your customers that you are thinking of them (and they should be thinking of you).

1:  Your calendar

It may seem like a no brainer, but it’s smart marketing. Whatever calendar you use, be it Google, Outlook, or a paper calendar, it is critical that you keep it updated. Being aware of the dates that are important to your customers can give you a real connection. With the Insightly calendar, you’ll be able to view deadlines and due dates and set up reminders (customer birthdays, special dates).

Another advantage to having a strong calendar and customer database is that you can think of new ways to connect with customers. For example, if a number of your customers have children, theme marketing around back-to-school might be popular, or if a number of your snowbird customer-base winters in Florida, you can strategize accordingly.

2:  Fast Website

If you don’t have a fast site, now is the time to upgrade and make sure you can keep your customers engaged and connected during busy holidays. A customer will not wait for a slow-to-load site or a page.  Make sure your website is friendly and easy to navigate.

3:  Smart Sales

If you are a large business, you can afford to compete with other companies on Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Smaller businesses may not have the location or strategy. Decide what works for you, and offer customers more personalized deals (web-based, or offers that coincide with activities your local area). If you live in a football-crazy state, then offer hot deals on game day or in honor of your team. Papa John’s, for example, offers half-off on pizza the day after a Bengal’s win at participating locations. Find a niche that others don’t have to keep your customers loyal and returning.  Or sign up for a business networking site like Alignable – find businesses close to you and create a joint promotion with them.

4:  Help your office get into the festivities

The holidays are a great time to build inter-office connections and improve the relationships between your staff. Loyal staff who stand behind your vision and product can be your biggest marketing allies. Make sure that everyone who works for you loves your company, and knows you are thinking of them during the holiday seasons.

Think outside the usual—December parties and gatherings can fill up the calendar quickly. Host a “We’re Thankful for You” employee get-together in November, or give employees a little Halloween acknowledgement with some candy or a day of silliness. Start your marketing strategy from within and build up a loyal team before you go into the holiday rush.

5: Manage your busiest time efficiently

Fall and winter can be the busiest season for many of us. Retailers are facing a rush in sales. Small business consultants, web-based businesses and others are facing deadlines, pre-holiday setup, and project wrap-up. Everything seems to be due by the end of the year…at the same time no one really wants to be in the office!

Get it all done by using a CRM to manage your workflow, quickly view the stages of every project, assign tasks and make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. Calculate critical due dates, track milestones, stay on top of your customer base, and use your dashboard to get quick insight into how everything is coming along.

6: Use tags to manage critical demographic information

Target your marketing strategies to the various demographics of your customer base using tags. You can sort customers based on age, location, and any other key bits of information. Perhaps you want to send a card to all customers, but a more personalized item or small gift to your key patrons. Loyal customers and clients can be tagged to help you tailor your strategy to each.

7: Feel good by giving back

The holiday season is a charitable time of year, and even if you can afford just a small donation from the proceeds of each sale, it will help customers choose you (and feel good about it). If you can’t afford to donate from your bottom line, try to think of new ways–offer to donate an “in-kind” item to a nonprofit’s silent auction, or get a few employees to volunteer at a local school event. Offering military, teacher or other discounts can also help your organization build its goodwill reputation.

8: Go beyond the card

Let’s face it—many holiday cards go straight in the trash, some without being opened. In these days of mass emails, many e-cards face the same fate. Some customers display cards briefly and a beautiful card can be appreciated, but to get the most out of your message, get creative. A mailed card is a great strategy, but a postcard is less expensive, can be easily printed in bulk, and gets your message read (even if it’s on the way to the bin).

Printing in a “handwriting” font, an alternate color, or if you have time, with a small personalized message can really set your message apart from all the others. All messages should include clear contact information, a link to your website, and something novel—a cute story, an anecdote, a great product, or a customer testimonial. Get yourself noticed!

9: With very little reward…

…You can reap great benefits! You’ll be surprised at what a little something sweet, a hot cup of coffee, or a nibble of holiday cheer will do to get customers to stop. Don’t believe it? Visit the grocery store on sample day and you’ll see how many customers turn out for a quick nosh.

Print your company’s message on candy wrappers, personalized napkins, or coffee cups. When customers have a sweet snack in their hand they will pay extra attention to your message.

10: Tell your story

Keep your website updated with testimonials and quotes. Ask customer to discuss what makes you different or how you touched their lives. Reach out and connect online or to the community around you. During the holidays customers love shareable photos, funny little pictures, and warm personal touches.   Use these on social media and your website to connect with customers. Keep your website updated and keep your information current. With some smart strategies in place, you can enjoy that holiday vacation time and ring in the new year with confidence!

Let us know if you have ideas of how to be creative during the holiday season.

A few weeks ago we received this enthusiastic post from one of our customers in Germany.  We thought that we would translate the post and share it.  The original post is in German is here.

 

At an event during Social Media Week in Hamburg last February, a freelancer told us excitedly about the CRM Insightly, which is specifically aimed at start-ups and SMBs. We were looking for a suitable CRM for plus3trainings, and since Insightly can be linked seamlessly with Google Apps, we decided to test the software.

Now, we are enthusiastic users and continue to discover more and more functions for us (more on that later) and also observe that the San Francisco-based team continually develops the software. For example, the Android app was recently completely revised, and since the end of September the app has been in the public beta phase. This beta phase is an example of what we like so much about Insightly. In the associated Google Plus group, beta users can indicate not only directly related errors but also leave suggested new features. And they get a reaction, typically someone answers from the team and explains if and when the feature will be available.

There are many reasons Insightly has been valuable to us, but the top three reasons are explained below.

1. We have a place to store important email communication. Insightly makes it fast and easy to store mail communications. You simply click on the Insightly widget directly in the mail in Gmail.
2. We can easily tag our shared contacts. This is a convenient feature that we use often. For example, in July this year we celebrated our one year in  business with a breakfast, and in order to create a guest list, each of us went through the shared contacts and tagged our guests. We were able to put together our guest list for invitations in no time.
3. We can document our acquisition-progress for individual “chances”. These are then linked with all relevant emails and contacts. For repetitive processes you can save the individual project steps as a template and reuse.

Insightly impressed us so much that we have already repeatedly recommended the software in counseling and training, when we see a real added value for our customers. For example, in advising a start-up from the production area, we recommended Insightly because it was looking for a cloud-based CRM that can be linked to Google Apps.

About the Author:  Andrea König from Hamburg (Germany) is working as a freelancer specializing in IT-communication. In 2013 she founded plus3trainings together with Holger Ahrens and Marcus Hampel. The team supports companies and their employees with trainings, change management and support surrounding cloud-based software like Google Apps, Podio and Insightly.

I have a client who manufactures custom furniture. Last month he spent more than $150,000 on a specialized woodcutting machine. He needed about 10 minutes to make the decision. “It was a no brainer,” he told me. “I know for a fact that I can do a half a million of business on that thing alone in just the next year. The Return on Investment obvious.”

“How about a CRM system?” I asked him. “That will only cost you less than a thousand bucks a year.”

“Yeah, still thinking about that,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”

Welcome to my world. As someone who recommends customer relationship management systems I’m always meeting smart business owners who are always looking to make money. They’ll invest when they can calculate a return on that investment. They take risks, but their aim is to minimize those risks. And buying a CRM system is a risk. These are smart people and many can’t figure out if it’s worth it. Do you have the same issue? Obviously, you’re not alone. So let me help you. It’s just math.

You’re probably reading this on Insightly’s blog so it’s only fair to use Insightly as our example. Forget the free edition – let’s assume you’re splurging and want to get the Standard version for your ten user group, which, at a whopping $7/user/month will set you back $70, or $840 for the full year. But you should never consider ROI for just one year. Good investments take a little longer to return that money. So let’s look at a five year return – a reasonable time frame considering that you’ll likely keep your CRM system that long. Your cost for Insightly over that period would be $4,200.

When calculating ROI you never just want to get your money back. You want to earn from your investment. Otherwise, why spend the $4,200? You can stick it in the bank at 5% a year (or even 1% at current interest rates!) and it’ll make you more money over five years then if you’re trying to get your money back. You want this investment to at least bring you back $6K at a minimum. Hopefully more.

So now comes the math. If you’re looking to bring in $6K over the next five years that’s $1,200 per year, or $100 per month. Your question is this: Will this investment earn me $100 per month over the next five years? Will it? Now comes the no brainer part.

If implemented the right way, CRM systems do three things. It ensures that nothing falls through the cracks, no customer or prospect gets ignored, no task is forgotten. It ensures that no one in your company looks like a dope, that they know all that’s going on with your customers and prospects, that the right hand knows what the left is doing. And finally, it builds an intangible value in a business, creating an asset of customers, partners, prospects and others that make up your community, an asset that’s worth something to a future buyer or investment.

Now sit down and look back over the past few years. How many sales were lost because customers were ignored? How many quotes and proposals were forgotten and not pursued? How many customers are being undersold because you are not considering additional products and services that they may be interested in? How many customers are not considering more services from you because they’re not hearing from you enough? How many customers just disappeared because an issue wasn’t followed up timely or even fell through the cracks? How many customers of customers (and friends, and vendors, and partners) could have been referred to you by your customer with just a little better communication?

You know this. You probably know this off the top of your head. But sit down, think, pull out some files, go through your accounting system and make a list of all these people. Forget five years, just do this for the twelve months. And then associate a dollar value – the dollars lost or opportunities missed. Add up that dollar value. Does it add up to more than $6K? And that’s just from this past year, right? Yeah, I thought so.

Congratulations. You just validated the ROI of your CRM.

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

When you run a small business, you want to focus on following your passion. Unfortunately, all of those pesky back-office tasks still need to be done.   All of the steps below take less than five minutes — and you can do all of these things and more at WaveApps.com.

1 minute: Capture that Receipt

You get a receipt for a key business expense, and you keep it in your bag, wallet, or binder to file later, right? Wrong!

Use a receipts tool to immediately store your receipt online. Even better, use a receipt tool that pairs with an accounting tool, and you can have impeccable records in seconds.

2 minutes: Give your Accounting a Jumpstart

If your accounting system relies on hours pouring over a spreadsheet, or getting frustrated with your accountant at the end of the year when he asks questions about your post-it notes, bags of receipts and bank statements, there’s a better way.

Connect your bank account to an online accounting system. Then, watch as the magic happens. All of your expenses will load automatically, meaning you’re well on your way to organized accounting — in only two minutes.

3 minutes: Create Track-able Invoices

So you’ve taken the first step, and started creating invoices for your customers instead of just asking for a check. Good? Absolutely, but you can do more.

Instead of using a free template builder, use proper invoicing software. You’ll suddenly be able to keep track of those invoices, and get better insights into who’s paid, what invoices are overdue, and even if your customer has viewed the invoice.

4 minutes: Start Accepting Credit Cards

A few years ago, high fees and stressful set-up processes barred small businesses from accepting credit cards. Now, it’s never been easier.

With clear no-nonsense fees that are lower than ever, and simple set-up processes, you can be accepting credit cards in under four minutes!

5 minutes: Organize your Transactions

One step left — organize your transactions. Jump into that online software you connected your bank account to, and organize your expenses.

Do this every few weeks, and you’ll save yourself hours of time and frustration come tax time.

For free software that does all of this and more, check out our partner Wave at WaveApps.com.