Do You Forget What Lead You’re Supposed To Follow Up Or Whether You Sent That Quote And Feel That Customer Management In General Is A Headache?

When you got started in your cleaning business, it was a given that you’d be overwhelmed with all the random acronyms that you needed to learn. Everyone else but you seemed to know what they are!

P&L, KPI, ISP, HR, SPAM, CMS, SEO, CTA and the list goes on….

One acronym, though, is more important than the rest. CRM

Getting on it quickly means you’re spending less time running around like a headless chicken. Would you rather be panicked or be cool as a cucumber running your business like a boss?

Leads, customers, staff, and suppliers demand your attention all day. It’s naive to think you can remember every interaction across the day. You’d have to recall:

who said what, when and why
who you need to get back to, when and how
all the contacts for your leads, customers and suppliers
when you spoke with them last, what was said, what was decided, resolved or promised.

No wonder we are all so stressed.

How can a CRM help us win more business

Lisa McQueen from the Cleaning Marketer says that following up quotes and proposals that you have submitted could be one the most important things you can do to grow your business and win more work. So you need to be able to keep track of your Pipeline, so that you know which Clients you need to Follow Up, which ones are still in Decision Pending and set Reminders to Call them on the day, in which they said they’ll be making their decision.

Our brains are pretty amazing. As business owners, we seem to juggle hundreds of balls at any one time. But that shouldn’t mean we burn out because we want to hustle harder than the rest. CRM software logs interactions with prospects and customers and has some other cool features like tracking:

Inbound & outbound calls
Emails and support requests
Team performance
and even advertising and campaign performance

A CRM is an address book on steroids.

Besides a desktop dashboard, most CRMs offer mobile phone apps that is linked to cloud software. They record when a client calls, prompt you to leave a note, and list follow up action. All emails are stored along with these interactions, so you don’t have to go searching through a clogged inbox. All you need to do is type in the client’s name and bam, the information is there.

This software isn’t exclusive to big corporations. In the world of software there is a tool for businesses both big and small. The small business CRMs below focus on the basics and are easy to get up and running with.

Tools like Copper that I particularly love, are directly integrated into GSuite or Gmail. If you just live and breath on your email, then accessing info such as the last contact with that client, previous phone calls, that status of the Sales pipeline etc really empowers you and your team.

You don’t need Salesforce

When it comes to CRM’s for small business its definitely a case of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). They all have some amazing bells and whistles, but if you are new to the world of CRM’s, choose a simple one. They all make it easy to export your data and import into another, so as you needs grow and change, then you can look at the flashy ones that do everything.