5 Reasons to Use a CRM in Your Small Business
Most small businesses dream of the day when they’ll have more leads and clients than they know what to do with (or can keep up with). But if we’re being honest…you’re probably already there. Unless you’re some sort of wizard, if you’re really (and I mean really) being honest with yourself, you know you could be doing a better job following up with the people who make up your database.
Because in today’s world, it’s not just about the people who have purchased from you in the past and might purchase from you in the future…it’s also about those people who have the potential to tell someone about your brand: your friends, family, and anyone inside your sphere of influence.
Once you start factoring those people in, you’ll quickly end up with a pretty lengthy list of people you need to stay in touch with. I’m not saying you need to hit up everyone on your Facebook friends list to see if they’ll buy from you. But check in now and again. Remind them you exist.
So now that I’ve quickly tripled or quadrupled your list of contacts you need to stay in touch with…how exactly are you going to manage all that?
Enter the CRM. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM’s purpose is to help you do a better job managing, following up with, and staying in front of your leads and customers. There are a few exceptions (this article from Really Simple Systems does a nice job breaking down who does and doesn’t need a CRM), but by and large most businesses definitely need help tracking and managing their relationships with their customers.
Think it might be time to invest in a CRM for your small business?
Here are 5 reasons why you might want to take the plunge:
1) CRMs Save You Time
As a business owner, I bet you’ve wished (at least a hundred times) that you had more time in your day. So what if I told you that you COULD create more time in your business just by paying a small monthly fee?
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I mean, what business owner wouldn’t take that deal?
The right CRM for your business will give you back some of your wasted time. You know, the time you spend trying to figure out when you last contacted a lead or called a client. The time you spend trying to find a phone number or remember a birthday. All of that time you spend doing things that are, quite frankly, a waste of your time and genius.
2) CRMs Make Your More Efficient
Think of a CRM as a second brain. It can remind you to do things, assign you (or a team member) tasks at different points in the customer journey, store all of the information that your overworked mind is likely to forget, and even help you automate parts of your business.
It also allows you a bit of breathing room by ensuring that any leads who do contact you are followed up with immediately…whether you’re with another client, on vacation, with your family, or sleeping.
3) CRMs Improve the Flow of Information Across Your Team
One of the best reasons to use a CRM is to get all of the information that individuals who work in and on your business have stored in their brains into one centralized location. Even if you work by yourself, there WILL come a day when you won’t be a solopreneur anymore.
And trust me when I say there is nothing worse than realizing all of the information your team needs to do the job you’ve hired them to do is locked in your own head…and you don’t have the time to offload it.
4) CRMs Help You Make the Most of the Clients and Leads You Do Have
If you’ve ever resurrected a dead lead and converted it into a sale, you know the power of mining your old leads to find the gold among them. But with everything you already have on your to-do list, it’s easy to let the leads that never converted fade away into obscurity.
A CRM can help remind you to follow up with these old leads. Or at the very least, you can use your CRM to put them on some sort of automated drip campaign to compel them to take action. And your CRM can also help you keep track of the hot and warm leads you do have that maybe just need a few more touches to convert.
5) CRMs Allow Your Business to Scale
You want your business to grow right? So what actions are you taking right now to build the infrastructure and framework that will be necessary to allow your business to scale?
The bigger your company grows, the more you’re going to need an efficient, organized system that houses all of your leads, current clients, past clients, and other contacts in one place. The bigger your company grows, the more people you’re going to need to hire to keep everything running smoothly. Those people are going to need all of the information you have stored in your head, in your inbox, or on your phone right at their fingertips. So don’t get caught unaware…make time now to find the right CRM solution for your business and really learn to use all of its built-in features to your advantage.
So now that I’ve made the case for using a CRM in your small business, you’re probably itching to run out and google a solution. Don’t do that. First, you need to figure out what you really need in a CRM so you can evaluate products and ultimately find the right one for your business. Click the button below to grab my free download with 11 questions you should ask yourself before choosing a CRM:
Want my opinion on my favorite CRMs in the marketplace? Send me a message and I’ll be happy to help!