We are living in the age of instant. Instant coffee. Instant news. Instant shopping. Because we live in an instant age, our prospects and customers expect quick responses and quotes. Every minute that they are waiting on us, increases the chances of them going somewhere else to have their need met. It may not be fair, but it is the truth.
So we ask “why do I need a CRM?”
As business owners and salespeople, we need a CRM to help us communicate with prospects and customers without delay. A CRM is a tool that helps us shorten our sales cycles, close more sales, and reduce Follow Up Fatigue. It’s that simple.
Now that we have established the foundation of why we need a CRM, let’s look at what a CRM can do for us so we can nurture prospects and customers and elevate ourselves above our competition. After all, the whole purpose of a CRM is to help you build and nurture a relationship with each prospect and customer. It helps you be more efficient and effective with your marketing, sales, and internal teamwork through automation, delegation, and accountability.
A good CRM will help you:
- Track prospects, referrers, and opportunities.
- Create preset targets for marketing campaigns.
- Communicate automatically to prospects and clients.
- Help you understand your audience better and connect with them.
- Automate actions for every contact to make follow-up easy.
- Deliver messages to social media channels based on your contacts’ social media profiles.
- Tracks projects and set automatic actions and reminders.
- Create dashboards for reporting, forecasting, and business goals.
- And say goodbye to spreadsheets so you can maintain all contact info in one place.
On the flip side, let’s take a look at what happens in your sales cycle without a CRM.
- Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. They are everywhere. Multiple spreadsheets with multiple purposes create unnecessary stress. (I see them in my dreams.)
- You are always in reactive mode instead of proactive mode. (Take one step forward and two steps back.)
- Deadlines are missed. AGAIN!
- We can’t remember what the customer said. (What was it that they wanted again?)
- Follow Up Fatigue kicks in which means you need to keep an ample supply of Tylenol on hand.
- Arguing and the blame game becomes a part of your sales team’s DNA.
- Another meeting (just 5 minutes of your time, please).
- Prospects are forgotten. (What did they ask for?)
- Clients are forgotten. (Who?)
- Prospects and customers go somewhere else (queue music: “It must have been love, but it’s over now…”).
Running a business without a CRM can be the difference between customer growth and stagnation/abandonment. You do not have time to find the right spreadsheet with the correct information, follow up with a sales team member and wait for a response, or respond to a customer when we have time. You need to be able to access customer information any time and anywhere. You need to be able to respond or automate responses. You need to be transparent with other sales team members so you can effectively support each other. You need a CRM that can help you nurture prospects and customers quickly and effectively. If you do not have a CRM, contact us today to schedule a CCC CRM demo, and learn how we configure our CRM to help you meet your business goals. Call 301-332-0613 or fill out the form below.
