How Can You Run a Small Business Without a CRM?

Can you run a small service business without a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program? Of course you can. This might be you reading this post. You might even be making money without a CRM. Life might be simple and easy for you not having all this software and tracking features. Yet, I encourage you to read on. Even though you can run a business without a CRM program, and this is just my opinion, I think you will have better results and growth when you implement and commit to using a CRM. Let me explain a few benefits to why I think it is crucial that you consider a CRM for your service company and why it should not be shelved to a future date.
Brief Review of What a CRM Does?
A customer relationship (CRM) program does a plethora of things. For the sake of time, a CRM basically helps you record your interactions with prospects, leads and customers through all stages of the sales process and beyond. An example would be: a lead fills out a form on your website. This lead is then recorded in your CRM system. A salesperson will then create a deal and follow up process with the lead. Depending on the functionalities of that particular CRM, one could have a list of follow up steps for every stage of the sales process: emails to send, follow up reminder and so forth. From a reporting standpoint, a good CRM will allow your staff to run lots of very helpful reports such as: How many leads did you get this month vs last month? or How many leads did I get from the website vs yard signs? It can also track not only the source but the dollar amount won, lost and pending. Some CRMs go even further with advanced reporting.Benefits of Having a CRM
1. Tracking results
If there was one reason to have a CRM it is because you can track results for your marketing and sales. I have spoken to many (yes many) contractors over the years who do not use a CRM and cannot tell me a number of simple answer to questions like:“How many leads did you get last year?” “How many sales did you make off of the web last month? “What was your average sale from web leads vs repeat customers?” “Where are most of your leads and sales coming from?” “How much are you spending on ________?”Would it not be nice to know the answers to questions like these? Once you have answers and have better tracking in place, you’ll be more prepared to make better marketing and sales decisions when new ideas surface.
2. Managing of Sales Staff
A good salesman is not typically great at using a CRM. No, he or she is good at selling but not necessarily in all the details. I have noticed a lot of estimators in the painting business really do not like CRMs. Yet if these estimators do not commit to using a CRM, the tracking I mentioned above cannot happen. They really are hurting themselves as well as the company. So having a CRM and making it a company policy that your salespeople have to use it is vital. Not only should you make it mandatory that they plug in their figures, your or your sales manager can then login and track the results of his/her sales team. I love this feature in a CRM. One can look at all the open bids when times are slow and ask the question, “I see you have 30 open bids this past month. “How do you plan on following up on those bids and when will this happen?”
3. Keeps Your Business More Organized
Nothing like being more organized and making it easy to find things. Although I test a number of CRM, and there are lots of great ones on the market, I use Base CRM for my main program. I love their email feature that plays very nicely with Google Apps. I can send and receive emails directly in Base. So when I am working on sales myself, I try to send emails only with Base CRM. I can tell when a prospect opens my email, for example! I can quickly create task and follow ups within Base for next steps as well. In short, when I use my CRM like I am supposed to, sales do not fall through the cracks. I can quickly look at where I am at and what I have to do next!4. Mailing & Email List
If you want to send out a custom email or mailing list to select clients, a CRM can help you organize and make a customer mail/email list. Believe me, I have had customers that did not use a CRM have a heck of a time coming up with list for my team to use when we were putting together a mailing or email campaign. Sometimes this process took weeks to get a good and clean list. Having your contacts sorted and ready whenever you need it is vital to your marketing and growth.