Does a Small Business Really Need a Customer Relationship Management System?
A CRM for small business owners — is it worth it?
The short answer is yes, but let’s back up a bit — what is a CRM and why should I care?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM system (also known as CRM software) is a piece of software designed to help you manage your relationships with your customers and potential customers.
The idea is this — instead of meeting someone at a networking event, grabbing their business card, sticking it in a desk at work (or, god forbid, a Rolodex), and then trying to remember to follow up in a week, forgetting, following up in two weeks, finding out they’re not ready to buy yet, trying to remember to follow up in a month, forgetting, then randomly remembering them 6 months later…
Instead of doing all that, you enter your new friend into your CRM.
Your CRM does the work for you.
Now, you probably know this — you know that a CRM is great for a large business, that a CRM makes it simple to keep track of dozens and hundreds and thousands of customers and potential customers, that it’s perfect for a team of salespeople and customer service representatives and marketers.
But what about for a small business? Sure, you might find a CRM built for a small business, but is it actually worth investing in?
Do you need a CRM for a small team?
What if you only have a single sales person?
What if that single salesperson is you?
The Small Business and Solopreneur Can Benefit From a CRM
In fact, in many ways, you can get more out of a CRM than a large corporation can.
The main value of a CRM comes not from its ability to store contacts or reams of detailed data on your potential prospects.
The main value comes from its ability to automate repetitive tasks and save you time.
Automation is a beautiful thing.
Your time is valuable, and whether you’re a salesperson or running the show yourself, sending emails to follow up with prospects is not the most valuable use of your time.
Now, don’t get me wrong here — the activity itself holds value. Following up with potential customers and existing customers is critical to the growth of any business.
But this is something that can be handled with automated emails, or even automated phone calls (though we’ll stick to the emails for this post). Your time is not best spent making phone calls or sending emails, especially if you’re owner/operator/CEO/head honcho.
There Are a Handful of Activities That You Have to Do Each Day/Week/Month/Year That Only You Can Do
Your employees can’t do it.
Your salespeople can’t do it.
It can’t be automated, and teaching it to someone else would take a great deal of time and effort (and involve a lot of potential mistakes that your business can’t afford).
If you have more time to do those few things that no one else can, those few things that add more value to your business than anything else you do, then your business benefits.
And even if you’re not the CEO, even if you’re a salesperson or a marketer or a customer service representative, this still applies.
No matter what you do, there are things that only you can do — that’s why you have the job, after all.
A CRM lets you spend more time on those things and less time on lower-value tasks that can be automated.
Your Brain Isn’t Perfect, but a Quality CRM Is
We love helping our clients set up CRMs to flow perfectly with their business processes and their own unique way of doing things day to day.
You can’t keep everything your business needs trapped upstairs — unless you’re a memory savant, you’re going to forget things, let things slip.
A CRM ensures those slips don’t happen. We’ll help you find the right one and get it set up perfectly.
Click the button below to contact us about CRM set up.
