Episode 346: Rapid Business Growth: Implement These Strategies
Businesses are constantly searching for ways to streamline their operations and enhance their customer experience. One tool that has proven to be invaluable in achieving these goals is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
In another edition of #AskAdam, Adam Stott and Charlie discuss the importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for businesses of all sizes. Adam talks about the basic function of a CRM, which is to manage relationships with customers and clients.
Adam further explains how a CRM can be an effective tool for personalizing communication with customers and nurturing leads from cold to warm. Investing in a robust CRM system is an invaluable asset for any business.
Show Highlights:
- CRM systems are essential for businesses of all sizes to manage and nurture customer relationships.
- Overcoming mindset and tech challenges is crucial for successful CRM implementation.
- Investing in CRM is a long-term asset that can generate significant revenue for businesses.
- Personalizing marketing and communication efforts using CRM data helps build stronger customer relationships.
- Building a strong client database is a valuable asset that can drive business growth and increase revenue.
Links Mentioned:
Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172
Adams website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
Connect with Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamstottcoach/?el=Pod
Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
Business owners: Monetise social media, get more clients, increase your following, and make more sales: https://socialmediamonetisation.com/unlockfb?el=Pod
Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers: lower your marketing costs, increase ticket prices, and get more high-ticket clients: https://personalbrandunlocked.com/fb-event-reg?el=Pod
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
[00:00:00] Adam Stott: Today’s topic to help business owners is all about CRM, how to grow your database, get more leads, get more clients, get more sales, and get your business working effectively. Take it away then Charlie. Today it’s all about CRM. You’ve been to our school groups. We have our school groups where we’ve got thousands of business owners congregating, asking questions about how to grow their business.
[00:00:25] And what we’ve had this week, the biggest topic this week, is the topic of CRM, managing the database, what you got, my friend, what has been coming up?
[00:00:33] Charlie: So first of all, the first question is, can you explain the key components of CRM systems and how businesses can utilize them to streamline their customer interactions or enhance their customer experience?
[00:00:44] Adam Stott: Okay, great. So yeah, we can definitely do that. So first of all, let’s circle back. What is a CRM? A CRM is a customer relationship management software where we are literally going to manage our relationships with our customers, with our clients, right? So why do we need a CRM? Um, I’m going to explain this in a few different ways, but it’s kind of like this to make it nice and simple and easy for people to understand is when you go out to market and you’re a business owner, you are going to collect and receive inquiries.
[00:01:17] It doesn’t matter whether you’re big or small. Really big old business or really small little business. You’re going to receive inquiries Yeah, and what you do with those inquiries is essentially when you get an inquiry That client is not necessarily going to be 10 ready to go ready to buy from your business super Yeah, and they need to travel towards being a 10 out of 10 super hot so one of the reasons that you have A CRM system for your business is so you can collect those inquiries.
[00:01:47] You can put them into a database and you can manage your relationship with those customers. And it’s something, you know, it’s one of the first things. That every business owner should look to do within their business because when they go and market their business They’re going to be attaining leads.
[00:02:04] They need somewhere to store those leads They need to develop a relationship with those leads and they need to do it on an ongoing basis So every business and every business owner Needs a CRM system for their business to record the inquiries, develop the inquiries and nurture them towards a sale. Now, if you are a side hustle business, there’s been going all of, you know, five minutes and you’re receiving one inquiry a month or five inquiries a month, then you can manage this on an Excel spreadsheet initially.
[00:02:36] And that’s what I did. Like if I take you back to, to 2008, when I first started my business, first ever business I ever started, All of my inquiries went on an Excel spreadsheet. Yeah. And literally I put the inquiry on with the name and the phone number of the person. Has it been traced off? Yeah, and like literally I did it on Excel.
[00:02:52] And for a very small business, That would be a very small step. That would be like a first step. That’s manageable for a small business. But yeah, for a first step. But what happens is you’re going to get bigger. And you know, in today’s world, which is very modern, much more digitalized, you’ve got softwares that connect to everything, right?
[00:03:12] And when you go and you run Facebook ads, you’re going to be receiving leads and you want them to drop into your CRM. without you having to do anything and you want to then continue building that relationship with that person after they’ve dropped into your CRM without you having to do anything. So for example, you generate a lead on Facebook Facebook ad.
[00:03:31] We want to make sure there are a number of emails that are building those relationships with that person. Text messages that are building the relationship with the person to nurture that person from a 1 out of 10 to a 10 out of 10 to do business with you. So the purpose of a CRM system is build relationships.
[00:03:49] Getting them warmer from being completely cold. Yeah, well warm up. Nurture have a database and look this increases the value of your business anyway Yeah, because when you come to sell your business eventually first thing you ask is where’s your database? Where’s your database of clients? Yeah, and if you haven’t got it or you go, well, I just started that last year Well, what about the last decade?
[00:04:09] Charlie: You’ve
[00:04:09] Adam Stott: missed out on 10 years worth of opportunity all those
[00:04:12] Charlie: contacts all those opportunities Yeah,
[00:04:13] Adam Stott: exactly. So it’s a very valuable thing and hopefully that that answers. Yeah, you’ve got a hundred century What is that database? Right?
[00:04:19] Charlie: Yeah, no. And I think, yeah, you know, I heard about taking it from cold to warm.
[00:04:23] And yeah, you basically want to nurture them through the sequence and have them as loyal customers. Um, so we’ll
[00:04:28] Adam Stott: just add this very quickly before go to the next one is the most valuable thing that I have within, um, certainly the business where a big business events is, is my, my events business. The most valuable thing I have in the whole business is the database.
[00:04:46] The most valuable thing because I can send an email and fill an event, you know, I can send a text message and fill an event. I can get 200 people on a webinar. With a few emails, right? Yeah. ’cause of the whole database. Yeah. Without having to go and spend tens of thousands of thousand ads buying, buying new people.
[00:05:03] Yeah. Because I’ve already paid for those people. Yeah. So my database is my paid acquisition. All the people I’ve paid for and I’ve built up. The sooner a business owner starts developing their database, the better
[00:05:16] Charlie: because you’re spend less money. Because if you’re, if you’re sending out cold, like trying to get cold leads all the time, all the time, all the time, and you’re not like nurturing the people you’ve already got, then you’re just like throwing money away.
[00:05:24] Do you what I mean?
[00:05:25] Adam Stott: And business owners should kind of look at it like. If you imagine everything going on in your funnel, so essentially any business you’ve got top of funnel, we’ve got the inquiries going in. Imagine just putting a bucket at the bottom of your funnel just to catch all your stuff. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:40] Collect all your people up. I can see. And then instead of trying to put more in the top, maybe you go and have a conversation and some of the bottom are the ones in the take a bit outta the bucket. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:48] Charlie: It’s
[00:05:48] Adam Stott: protection. Yeah,
[00:05:49] Charlie: yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So with that though. What are some of the challenges that businesses might face when they implement in CRM?
[00:05:56] What are some of the the challenges that you face that you’ve overcome? That’s a really good idea. What are the best practices of overcoming these challenges, basically?
[00:06:04] Adam Stott: Okay, so the first thing that there’s a couple of things that people have to overcome when it comes to CRM. First of all, most small business owners are going to have some challenges with tech.
[00:06:16] They’re they’re gonna have some challenges with their mindset and and tech and let’s do it. Let’s do the mindset first. Their mindset is this is how I do it. This is how I currently do it. I’ve always done it like this. You’re gonna feel like this is what I do and they’re gonna feel like this is my method and they’re gonna be saying to themselves, I haven’t got time.
[00:06:39] This only works for me. And they’re not going to see how that would benefit them in the long term. And that’s quite naive thinking. So we need to circle back and really look at understanding that the reason we want CRM is we want this for the long term. Um, by taking a few steps back now, to implement.
[00:06:59] Yeah, you’re going to save a lot of time in the future. You’re going to make your life much, much, much easier. So I think there’s definitely a mindset challenge where people have this mindset going in of do I need a CRM? If I have a CRM, is it going to be harder for me? Is it going to be more difficult?
[00:07:13] And then they’ve got the tech challenge. Um, a lot of small business owners are very tech intimidated. Not their forte. It’s not their forte. Um, They, they struggle with it, but look, let’s imagine that you get a CRM system. And obviously I’m sure one of your questions is what CRM systems are, are there, you know, you’ve got your, your hub spots, you’ve got your infusion soft key, you’ve got, um, you know, active campaign, you’ve got hundreds of them, right?
[00:07:41] You’ve got all these different CRM systems that you could use, uh, go high level, very good as well. You’ve got all these different CRMs. And there are. Thousands of hours were for tutorials on YouTube for each of these systems. Now if somebody had to watch 10 hours of YouTube videos to understand the technical elements of a CRM, that would be 10 hours well invested.
[00:08:12] Because it’s gonna save them all them. Well, it’s gonna save them thousand hours down the line. Yeah. But you know what? Most business owners won’t invest the 10 hours.
[00:08:19] Charlie: Yeah.
[00:08:19] Adam Stott: Because they’re too in the weeds of their business. Mm-Hmm. They’re in the day to day of their business and Yeah. You know, like the eif always said, you’ve gotta work.
[00:08:27] On the business, not for,
[00:08:28] Charlie: yeah.
[00:08:29] Adam Stott: And the problem that you have with a lot of business owners is they’re working in it, so they don’t take time to step out. So I think the challenges are mindset, tech, and then some people might have a bit of a challenge with investment, um, where they feel like, Oh, it’s another thing to invest in, but the reality is any good CRM system should make you way more than it costs you to have it way more.
[00:08:53] Charlie: That
[00:08:54] Adam Stott: is, that is one of the biggest mindset. Um, things that business owners can do to empower themselves is to always remember the rule. This is the rule of business. First rule of business. It’s not what it costs you, it’s what it makes you. If I invest a couple hundred pound a month in a CRM system, and it makes me 10, 000 pound a month worth of sales, happy days.
[00:09:16] It was 200 pounds. I said business is just
[00:09:18] Charlie: investing, isn’t it? How much can you invest and how much are you going to get back? So you have been listening, it’s good.
[00:09:23] Adam Stott: Good, perfect. So yeah, absolutely. So that’s what I would say. Um, in, in, in those aspects, they’re probably the challenges, mindset, tech investing.
[00:09:33] So letting go of
[00:09:34] Charlie: that ego of I’ve always done it like this, and I’ve got, I’ve got a handle on it. But actually, if it’s growing exponentially, you want to be able to like not miss any of the loose clients, you know, going off somewhere, you want to keep them all in the same database.
[00:09:44] Adam Stott: Kind of when we’re talking about it, obviously, you’ve got different size businesses.
[00:09:47] So if we look at a small business, what does that look like? So CRM for a small business is your one man, one woman army. that’s going out there, uh, there’s picking up business. They need to get hooked and addicted to using the CRM and living off the CRM. That’s what a small business owner does. So what that means, that’s their hub of business.
[00:10:10] That’s where their leads are. That’s where their inquiries are. That’s where they go to update. That’s where they go to keep notes. Now the best thing they can do is live in that system, get hooked on it. Cause if they get hooked on it, That’s going to bode well for the future, because as they grow, they’re going to have a good CRM, and then their team is going to start to use it.
[00:10:30] Now, if we look at a medium sized business, and not necessarily a small business, and we’ll say small medium. So small medium, let’s say you’ve got 10 employees. Then what that 10 employee business needs to do, Needs to make sure that they’re using the CRM for reporting using the CRM for note taking Using the CRM to keep everyone in the business updated and start using it for shared Information and then we transition from being your one man army living off it to the whole Yeah, and and making sure that it becomes a big part of the onboarding process for new business And then as we, and this is a mistake I see in those small medium businesses is the owner uses it, or two people in the business use it.
[00:11:17] Yeah. And then everybody else ignores it. Yeah. And that’s a big mistake. So what you need is within your meeting structure to be talking about CRM, using CRM, reporting on CRM, all of these different things to make sure it gets embedded within the organization. Now, when we say small, And then obviously medium, you know, you’ve got more employees, but when you get to large business, no business that is large is not going to run without an effective CRM, effective reporting structure.
[00:11:47] Everybody needs to use it. Everybody needs to go to it. And that’s where it becomes fairly obvious where it’s more, more difficult. is a small and medium sized businesses. And they’ve got to embrace it, right? They’ve got to embrace this is the way and move forward with it.
[00:12:01] Charlie: Yeah. Like you said, one of the most important things is your client database.
[00:12:04] So it’s obviously got to be at the forefront of all the employees mind. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think, I think that’s great. And you, yeah, one
[00:12:10] Adam Stott: thing that always stood out to me is I remember many, many years ago, many, many years ago when I was starting out, uh, years and years ago, I always remember listening to a marketer that was saying that your, Your database, your list should be worth one pound per person.
[00:12:30] Per month.
[00:12:31] Charlie: So
[00:12:32] Adam Stott: if you have 10, 000, 10, 000 people in your database, it’s going to generate you an extra 10, 000 a month for your business. If you have 50, 000 people in your database, it’s going to generate you an extra 50, 000 a month. If you have quarter of a million people on your database, it’s going to generate you an extra 250, 000 round a month.
[00:12:50] Charlie: Now,
[00:12:50] Adam Stott: let me tell you as a, as a business owner, marketer, marketing expert, our database does that. We exceed one pound. Per person per month and all of the great markets that I that I know do the same they exceeded So it definitely is an asset that can generate masses of revenue, your list, um, and, and something that can really help business owners to grow.
[00:13:15] I
[00:13:15] Charlie: think that’s a great way of the small business owners who are in that mindset, like, I don’t need to invest or I’m struggling to invest. That’s a great way to like, think about it. Cause you go, well, no, do you not want one pound per client per database then? And they’re like, well, so yeah, you’re saying a month per month.
[00:13:28] So if you’re saying that that’s 10,
[00:13:30] Adam Stott: 000 people in your database.
[00:13:32] Charlie: Yeah.
[00:13:33] Adam Stott: Gets you a hundred and twenty thousand pound a year minimum.
[00:13:37] Charlie: Yeah, so invest in whatever it is for that CRM system It’s absolutely nothing. Exactly
[00:13:41] Adam Stott: and most people That are small business owners. They haven’t focused on building their database.
[00:13:46] And if they focused on building their database, they’d be making more money. And CRM obviously is integral to the whole part of that. Yeah.
[00:13:53] Charlie: No, brilliant. Um, so the final one today, like sort of moving on from that is in what ways can businesses personalize their marketing and communication efforts using the CRM data to build sort of stronger relationships, more personal relationships and drive sales and more customers.
[00:14:08] Adam Stott: Okay, great. I like that. I think they’re really good questions. So first, first thing that they can do is remember what CRM customer or client relationship management. Yeah. I think the first thing that they can do to be more effective is every single time somebody goes on the list, their mindset and their perspective has to be, how do I build a relationship with this person that’s just joined the list?
[00:14:40] Now, people listening will have heard, um, I always remember Gary Vaynerchuk, who wrote out a book many, many years ago called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. And uh, and the principle is the same as value, value, value, sell, which is the same principle, right? So what we need to look at is how do I add value to people continuously without trying to sell something first.
[00:15:04] Yeah. And the relationship. And then I make them an offer. Yeah. And I think the list looking at that, that, that way, if I can go value, value, value, value, value, value, value,
[00:15:15] Charlie: yeah.
[00:15:16] Adam Stott: Offer.
[00:15:17] Charlie: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Adam Stott: Across the time, by the time the person gets the offer, they’re going to want the offer that you’ll make. Much harder
[00:15:23] Charlie: for them to say no, because they’ve gained so much from you.
[00:15:25] They gained that trust. They want to buy
[00:15:27] Adam Stott: from you, right? So, you know, you’re not hiding anything. You’re just doing things the right way and you’re doing what the CRM is meant to do. building a relationship and managing a relationship with people. So I think that what we, one thing that a business owner that’s watching this could do right now is look at all the problems in their industry.
[00:15:49] Look at all the issues in the industry and literally offer tips value around those problems and issues. And when somebody joins their list,
[00:16:01] Charlie: I
[00:16:01] Adam Stott: say, Hey, you’re probably experiencing this problem. Yeah. This is how you get over that. Hey, probably experienced this. This is how you get over that. Hey, you’re probably finding that this is a problem.
[00:16:10] Yeah, exactly. And then that’s value, value, value, value. It’s like, Hey, you know, it helps you with these different problems, but this is the big problem.
[00:16:19] Charlie: How
[00:16:19] Adam Stott: about we work on this together? And all of a sudden you’re going to be managing that relationship. On an ongoing basis where you you lead that person towards it towards a buying uh buying decision and I think that You know out of today’s Conversation.
[00:16:35] Yeah, there’s a few things here for people that listen. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:37] Charlie: Yeah,
[00:16:38] Adam Stott: first of all if you haven’t got a crm And you’ve got a business that is a, you know, a small business or a growing business. This now needs to become a priority. You can’t say you weren’t told. It’s been brought up. It’s something that we don’t talk about, right?
[00:16:53] A lot. You know, people want to talk about Facebook ads. They want to talk about Instagram growth. They want to talk about, you know, all these different areas. Um, but one thing people don’t talk about is what we’re talking about. And this is the protective bucket that sits there. Manages your business and helps you grow.
[00:17:12] It’s your insurance, isn’t it? All your clients. I mean, it’s your insurance. Yeah, we call it CRM Insurance on your marketing. It basically is insurance in your marketing because especially those of you If you haven’t got a CRM and you’re spending money on marketing, then you might just chucking it away Because you’re not protecting you’re not protecting that database.
[00:17:31] So I think Get a serum in place and then people like, well, what one should I get? And then obviously you’ve got to go out, you’ve got to do some, some demos. You’ve got to see what you like. Uh, our clients, our mentoring clients, uh, whether that’s our, our gold circle or business circle or inner circle, or whether they’re a part of our, our deal academy, our marketing academy.
[00:17:52] We give them a CRM system because we know how important that is. That’s something our clients get for free. Um, because we understand and we’ve white labeled the best one in the world. We’ve built it for our own purpose, put our own features on and we give it to clients to use because of this. Now, if you’re one of our clients and you’re in one of those things, start using it and get in touch with our team if you’re not.
[00:18:15] And hopefully this helps you to understand the importance of using it. very much. Um, but if you’re not one of our clients, you should become one, right? And then, uh, jump aboard. Yeah. And, and, and then obviously go and do some demos. Uh, in all seriousness, go and do some demos, have a look at what you feel you’re a great fit for.
[00:18:33] Um, there are many to consider, you know, you’ve got your HubSpot, HubSpot, your Pipeline, you’ve got your Infusionsoft, you’ve got your ActiveClaims. And they all do
[00:18:41] Charlie: different things depending on certain businesses, like would some be better for e commerce or some be better, or is it all sort of?
[00:18:46] Adam Stott: Yeah, definitely.
[00:18:47] I mean, if you’re an e commerce, uh, business, uh, Shopify has got some good CRM elements built in, you know, if you’re using Shopify. is quite good. If you, if you are, there are lots of different. So for example, like the wedding industry will have their own one. The automotive industry has their own CRMs. It’s often worthwhile looking at what your industry CRM is being used.
[00:19:10] I think that is also important. Um, so that’s a, you know, a really good tip that’s come out of that question. Um, because there might be one that, you know, and if you’re not sure, look at what your competitors are using. You look at what’s out in the market. Okay. Do a little bit of research, but you are going to want to give your business that insurance for the long term around your serum.
[00:19:30] Charlie: Well, that’s great. I think that’s a great episode. You covered a lot there and you’ve covered exactly why you need a CRM and the challenges faced, um, and the best parts about having it. And then, yeah, what, what ones to use and what to look for. So, yeah, I think, I think it’s a great conversation there. And hopefully the guys at home who are watching this and the business owners are going to jump on CRM straight away.
[00:19:48] Yeah,
[00:19:48] Adam Stott: absolutely. Look, you know, big thank you for watching another episode of Business Growth Secrets podcast. Of course, if you’ve enjoyed this episode. Go and tell us in the comments or share this with a business owner, perhaps that needs to get more organized, that needs to understand how to build their business in a better way.
[00:20:07] Go and help someone out today by sharing and tell us how you enjoyed it. Perhaps if you’re already using CRM, you tell us in the comments as well. And if we haven’t already, I look forward to meeting you in person very soon. Thanks
[00:20:19] Charlie: guys.