How to make your clients feel special (by using a CRM system)

CRM became such a buzz word in recent years! CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a great concept, which normally is being confused with CRMs (Customer Relationship Management System). What is the difference?

The concept of CRM is that we have to have an ongoing relationship with our customers. CRMs helps us to do that. The challenge we face, as salespeople, is not understanding the concept – we get that – but we don’t have the patience to update the system, filling in paperwork, etc. We do everything but do the essential admin work – cause we hate it! If we wanted to do paperwork, we wouldn’t have gotten into sales!

See, this approach will slow us down, and make us work harder, more hours, have more frustrations (and don’t we have enough?), rather than work smarter, less hours, and generate more sales with very little effort.  But how?

I use a system I call Contact Management System. It is not a software, it is a process. It is simple (cause I need to do it myself), and is working perfectly for me. Here it is:

1. When I meet someone (anyone!), I either take a business card (not just giving mine – that’s pointless), or write down their details

2. I enter their details into my Blackberry, and as soon as possible, sync it with my outlook.

3. I look them up on Linkedin / Facebook / Twitter, and connect with them on the appropriate network (if you don’t know which one is appropriate, please comment below and I’ll answer)

4. I write a note on the contact card – where and under what circumstances I met them. I meet many new people, and it is sometime difficult to remember. (I’ve met 3 Andrew Roberts in the past 2 years – trust me, you need to add that note

5. I make a simple calendar entry, to follow up in a day/week/month/ 6 months as appropriate. I then link it to the contact, so I can see history when we meet.

6. I also try to add their picture to the contact info. How? sometimes I take a picture with the phone, and “add to contact”. (It may feel weird at first, but it is very memorable for both sides.) Another way of doing it, is just copy and paste their profile picture (from Linkedin/twitter/facebook) into the contact.

Why do all that?

To create a relationship, we need to look at the long term. If we meet someone briefly, for a sales presentation, in a networking function, or elsewhere, we get an impression, and leave one. In order to make more sales, we need to know more people, but more importantly – more people need to know about us! People need to remember us, what we do, what we sell, and how we made them feel when we met. If we concentrate on us, giving them our business card, talk about us, and how good we are, we leave a very poor impression, and it is very short lasting.

On the other hand, if we take the time to talk about the person in front of us, take their details, take their picture – it is fun, memorable, and make them feel special!

When you make someone feel special, they’ll always remember you in that context.

Now, imagine this scenario:

You’ve made a great first impression, and a week later you get a phone call. The phone “recognizes” the number, and put a name and picture on the screen. How would you then answer the phone? Would your voice be more excited than if it was just an unrecognizable phone number? For me it does the following:

* When Susan calls, I pick up the phone and say : “Hey Susan!” with a  big smile on my face – I’m excited that she remembered me and called me!

* Instantly, by looking at the name and photo, I remember where we met, and what we’ve discussed. This is important, to be able to pick up the conversation from where you left off. It is also a good time management skill

* By me having an excited voice, I make Susan feel special as well. She’ll love me for it!

* What sometime happens – Susan tells her friend about this salesperson who made her feel so special…

How do you make your customers feel? Will you invest some time uploading your contacts onto your phone, to make people feel good?

As a side, if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of cards in your rolodex, buy a card scanner (www.cardscan.com). It will scan the business card into a database, which you can export to your contact management system (outlook and others). Then you sync with your phone. job done!

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