WHICH CRM IS IDEAL (3/4)
(AN EPISODE OF THE DIGITAL STRATEGIST PODCASTING)
[00:00]
Welcome to Web Strategy Viking podcast and in this series that we will be talking about different CRM, these are Customer Relationship Managers, and we already cover wider impactful in this 10 minutes podcast where local business owner, digital consultant or freelancer to be able to appreciate hearing this several sorts of CRMs as viable options and while a lit bit biased with a few of them. Through experience I have tested, handled and still work with a variety of CRMs as I am integrating them with clients from our digital agency.
[00:47]
Having said that, the biggest one or the one that nearly everyone knows when they hear about CRM is Sales Force. Sales Force is designed to be super comprehensive and complicated, it is a monster. When it comes to Sales Force, it is a beast that is used for company with thousands of employees. It is something that integrate a massive world-wide conglomerate. So, for a small-scale business, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense using Sale Force. Sales Force has a lot of different new answers, steps involved to make sure that the process are in place. This is because if you are massive company, you can’t really allow things fall through a crack, you cannot have processes not execute, so you have a lot of checklist and boxes to check off to make sure that everything is complying. So, for a small business, where sometimes all you need is “Hey, I have a new lead, I have a sale, I have someone as a customer”, how do you get something that is just really a fast and easy thing and not expensive (Sale Force is really expensive). There is free CRMs like HubSpot. HubSpot is one of the more popular ones, most people out of the box use it as a rolodex, and it is digital with some up sales in some extra bit that they can use. A lot of people use the Add-ons that HubSpot use like the e-mail outreach, some of the forms to input leads and a few other things. There should be a common place when it comes to using CRM; those are the very basic features but most companies under 100 employees will need for their business. This can help them to have a centralized place, a sign or lead to a sales person that says “here is how we know what you are doing”. A phone call and email address can be added to that lead and if you leave, it can be assigned to another person. If you are using a spreadsheet, it is not 100% clear on who does what, you can’t upload a phone call to a spreadsheet but some people do use spreadsheet as a wage to make that first call. But there is a very rapid and efficient way to make that first initial phone call or email because you can just easily select all the email address and send them messages if you have the right tool, but it is not necessarily the best long-term solution for companies that have longer sales circle. But if you are doing a one call close, then I would recommend a Google Spreadsheet. HubSpot is so nice but you can’t use as a spreadsheet when it is literally just a way for collect a lead, upload all the information and call or outreach and make your sales that way. You can’t just beat that as you have all the information in just one place, you can highlight a row and do whatever you want to do with the information. So those are free and very easy tools if you ae not using the centralized leads, please see this as a very viable means for you to get going and start with that
[04:35]
Some of the custom solution and some of the things that I have seen and worked with are based on the technologies and comprehensiveness. So, while Sales Force is massive and can support, the advantage is that it is not necessarily custom modulated experience because it is kind of geared for a massive business. The development and licensing with Sales Force can go up to 5 figures, while some Sales Force integrations may be closest to 10 figures. But if you think about how you can use open source software (software that you don’t pay a fee for license) or paying a low fee to use a custom CRM, there is Sugar CRM and Suite CRM. These two tools have very low licensing. Sugar CRM is an open source CRM and allow the business to hire a developer to custom or create a solution tailored to their business. And when you can custom develop something to your business, that is when you start to see something kind of revolve, because not only are you able to get something going that is literally made within your website, it is something that build a sense of synergy. However, when you are custom developing a process and must design it in a way that it is integrated and streamlined into your business, there is a time to take for that (there is a design phases). But if you are trying to design something from down-up using a open source library such as Sugar CRM, then you will run into having issue of turn around that is close to 3 months. The impact on my business if it is taking three months to do anything is that I am missing sales. A typical sale for me can bring in $10,000 revenue with a life-time relationship with that customer. One sale can pay for customer integration and some, but if I am waiting 3 months for a Sugar or Suite CRM to be made from ground-up, then it will not be so fun. I am going to be missing out on sales and that is not a good one.
[07:18]
There are some CRMs that you pay for monthly subscriptions. I believe Copper CRM is one that is taking the market by storm and they are making it easy in that no one is doing data entry, in that they are just integrating all the leads from email and syncing it to like a LinkedIn and using prospective tools to get that client attention. That saves a lot of time not to do data entry, and it takes something like $15 - $30 to get your own HubSpot with extra features, which is something that save a lot of time and increase income.
[08:33]
So, one other thing to consider are the others that able to be monthly subscription option but offer more in-dept but can also be customized without having all that impacts to your business by not being implemented. You want this project to do well, you do want it to save a lot of time, you want it to be done professionally, done by someone that you can trust and someone that have good reputation of doing excellent thing. This is where I will be a bit biased, as I am a customer of this company, and something to consider will be Wayne Ramirez Overhead Sales CRM. When I meet with other client, I use Sales Force, this could be Insurance Agencies, Home and Modelling Company that have 3 or 4 locations, they use Sales Force because they are a little bit bigger, not necessarily a conglomerate. But after some time, they start to realize that the process for that is that “What features do you want? Let me just turn it on for you”. Using Zooming Sales CRM, which is also a custom development company that uses a specific CRM and able to build out a CRM in 4 weeks as oppose to 3 or 4 months.
[10:05]
I will be talking about Zoho CRM as one of the best CRM on the market today in the next podcast. So, I will talk to you later, thank you for listening.
[10:31]