A Key Reason Using a CRM Is a Must for a Contractor

If you are in the home improve­ment busi­ness and not using a Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment (CRM) pro­gram yet, you need to move this to the top of your list. Not hav­ing or using a CRM will hurt the growth and prof­its of your busi­ness. This post is for con­trac­tors who take their busi­ness seri­ous­ly and want few­er dips in their lead flow. There are plen­ty of ben­e­fits to using a CRM. Yet in this post, I want to focus on one key rea­son and how it will help your lead flow ebbs and flows.

Prospect­ing = More Sol­id Leads & Sales

The one key rea­son you should be using a con­tact man­age­ment pro­gram is so you can keep care­ful track of your prospects, leads, and cus­tomers. Ok, so you keep care­ful track of your deal­ings with con­tacts. So what! How is that help­ful? It all comes down to help­ing you prospect bet­ter and keep your leads and sales stronger. It is strict­ly a num­bers game, folks. If you learn how to use your CRM prop­er­ly, you will have a gold mine of data to help prospect. By the way, you should always be prospect­ing. If you do not make prospect­ing a part of your dai­ly or week­ly task, you will see more ups and downs in your lead flow. Sum­ma­riz­ing what Jeb Blount said about dai­ly prospect­ing in his book Fanat­i­cal Prospecting:

“The 30-Day Rule states that the prospect­ing you do in this 30-day peri­od will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a sim­ple, yet pow­er­ful uni­ver­sal rule that gov­erns sales, ignore it at your per­il… When you inter­nal­ize this rule, it will dri­ve you to nev­er put prospect­ing aside for anoth­er day. The impli­ca­tion of the 30-Day Rule is sim­ple. Miss a day of prospect­ing and it will tend to bite you some­time in the next 90 days.

Then about the ben­e­fits of a CRM, Jeb goes on to say:

“There is no weapon or tool in your sales arse­nal that is more impor­tant or impact­ful to your long-term income stream than your prospect data­base. Noth­ing. Your data­base of prospects is what helps you make a liv­ing now and in the future.”

As much as I know most of you do not like typ­ing in data about your prospects and cus­tomers, I do know that the more you know about your con­tacts, the bet­ter you will be at reach­ing out and clos­ing more sales. Using your CRM prop­er­ly can help you in time man­age­ment by giv­ing you bet­ter data! Here is a quick sug­ges­tion of what I mean: With­in most CRMs, you can tag or cat­e­go­rize your con­tacts. I would rec­om­mend orga­niz­ing your con­tacts by your rela­tion­ship with them. You might want to try some­thing sim­ple like this: A) Rav­ing Fan, B, Hap­py Cus­tomer, C) Cus­tomer: Now and Then, D) Prospect: Aware of Our Com­pa­ny, E) Prospect: Not As Aware, F) Do Not Con­tact, etc. You can make up cat­e­gories that work for you. Then you can use these cat­e­gories as a rat­ing sys­tem. When you need a good call list, you can sort by A‑E con­tacts. Start with your best con­tacts first and work your way down the list. Any­thing you know about your prospects, put it in the CRM. Your data will just get stronger! If you com­mit to using a CRM and keep­ing care­ful records about your con­tacts, you will begin to see a more con­sis­tent lead flow. As a reminder, the CRM does not do the work for you. You have to use the data from your CRM and com­mit to prospect­ing. Prospect­ing and a sol­id CRM work togeth­er to grow your busi­ness. Prospect­ing with­out a CRM just does not work. You will for­get impor­tant details about your con­tacts. If you want to learn more about prospect­ing, I’d encour­age you to read Jeb Bloun­t’s Fanat­i­cal Prospect­ing book. In fact, have every­one read it in your company!