Have you ever been forgotten?  I am so absent minded at times.  On one occasion I shamefully admit that I left my son at church one evening and went home without him.  “That’s terrible!” I here you think.  Yes, but we all saw the funny side to it later on.

The opposite of being forgotten is what?  Yes you guessed it; being remembered.  How did you feel that last time you were remembered?  How did you feel the last time someone dropped you a line or sent you a card or even a box of chocolates with a note to say “just thinking of you”.

In business it works the same way.  Our customers don’t like to be forgotten, but they LOVE to be remembered.  So how are you going to remember them?  Think about it.  You are busy - busy winning new business, serving clients, doing your admin and so on.  Your time is taken up and what happens is you neglect the relationships that matter in business.  We all do it but there is a way we can avoid doing it and avoid losing customer loyalty as a result.

Using a CRM or Customer Relationship Management system is an essential ingredient to enabling you to manage your business effectively.  You can manage your contact details and you can remind yourself to contact your clients personally and regularly even where there might be no cast iron guarantee that you will get any direct business from it.  No client ever need be forgotten ever again.

Regain Control of your Business

But that’s not all CRM systems can help you to manage and control in your business.  They can also:

1. Help you to track new business opportunities
2. Help you to manage your sales pipeline so you can see where you need to focus your sales and marketing energies
3. Help you to track the performance of your sales team
4. Help improve internal communication and data management
5. Help you to measure the health of your business

Many smaller businesses either have no CRM system or have something very basic, clumsy and difficult to use.  There are systems around though that are very easy to use and yet still very powerful and effective in helping you to manage your business.

Most smaller businesses struggle with their marketing.  One of the main reasons for this is that they don’t have ready access to their bank of existing and potential customers in one place.  The thought of collecting all that information becomes too much and nothing happens as a result apart from putting an advert in a local glossy magazine as a token marketing action.

CRM systems can really help you to take control of your sales, marketing and your business.  They vary in complexity and in price but there is something out there which will suit your business perfectly.

How can we help you?

C21 Consulting can provide you with advice on CRM, help with getting started and ongoing support to ensure you are making the most of your investment in terms of business returns.  We also run occasional free briefings on how to adopt a CRM system.

If you would like more information or help on this please contact us.