Why Your Business Needs a CRM to Unlock Business Growth [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 70]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

Will Smith
0:00:00
When you're implementing a new CRM and bumps in the road start to happen, the one thing you need to do is

Alex Winter
0:00:07
Join us for Impact Live 2024 in Hartford, Connecticut, this October 14th through the 16th.

Alex Winter
0:00:13
business owners, CEOs, and marketing and sales leaders will learn proven strategies to drive business growth. Attend expert-led sessions on marketing, sales, leadership, and AI, and get a chance to network with industry pros just like yourself. Discover how companies like yours are dominating their markets. Secure your spot at impactplus.com backslash impact-5.

Alex Winter
0:00:37
And for all of our endless customers listeners, we have an exclusive discount code that'll save you a hundred bucks. So when you're on the checkout page, just enter the code ECPOD100 in all caps for a hundred dollars off. We'll see you there at impact live 2024 up in Hartford, October 14th through the 16th. Welcome back to endless customers, the show that teaches you how to earn trust and win

Alex Winter
0:01:01
more business in the age of AI. I'm your host, Alex Winter. And today we are joined by Will Smith. He's a HubSpot trainer and coach here at Impact. Will, welcome back to the show brother. Great to be here Alex, thank you sir. You're very welcome. Thanks for being here. We love having you. We got a great topic today. This is one

Alex Winter
0:01:27
that I feel like we talk about, it's like a broken record, we talk about this a lot but we hear it from business owners a lot so it's relevant and they always ask why do I need a CRM? Why do I need this customer relationship management tool? This mouthful of words, this huge technical piece, it's expensive, it's this, it's that, there's all the excuses.

Alex Winter
0:01:45
Why is it important? Well, why do they need it? Let's just start high level with like,

Will Smith
0:01:49
duh, this is why you need it. Well, leave it to marketing to give us yet another acronym. So CRM, talking about your customer relationship management tool, usually a platform, some kind of software. And I really think that a lot of business owners, they underestimate the value of a CRM

Will Smith
0:02:08
because they're managing with tools that are good enough, not spectacular, not bringing out the performance for their team, but they work. So it's the age old, hey, if it's not broken, why should I fix this? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I've heard that before.

Will Smith
0:02:28
Exactly. Exactly. So there's also another misconception that CRMs are, well that's for the big boys. That's only for the big companies. Only the big and largest companies,

Will Smith
0:02:40
enterprise companies, they're the only ones that, you know, because they have complex needs. So therefore they should have all the tools and the automations and the CRM and all that stuff. So it's really, a CRM is good for anyone.

Will Smith
0:02:53
And so investing the time and resources into implementing a new system like a CRM, a lot of folks, they're like, whoa, wait a second. That's very daunting to me, because I'm already juggling so many other responsibilities. Whether I'm juggling spreadsheets,

Will Smith
0:03:11
whether I'm working on my email inbox, or even like, hey, I gotta get back to that customer on my sticky note. Where did that sticky note go? So, you know, these tools are just good enough, but are they really bringing out the best performance

Will Smith
0:03:28
from you and from the rest of your team?

Alex Winter
0:03:31
Yeah, and that's a huge question. That's a really huge question. I think we hear all too often, for a lot of small business owners, for a lot of entrepreneurs, and for people that are really trying to level up their business, there's a lot of moving parts. You're selling, you're trying to drum up new business, you're tapping into your networks,

Alex Winter
0:03:46
you're trying to manage people and employees, and the list goes on and on and on. And it can be very daunting. And that's where you start to get into some trouble here, where you may think it's good, but could it be better? And I love that question. And it sounds like a lot of business owners tend to tap into their network.

Alex Winter
0:04:02
They have referral-based business, they know people, and that works and can work really well for some time, but like anything, you can only tap into that for so long before you start to get into trouble, and then where do you get these new leads, how do you keep track of them?

Alex Winter
0:04:15
And we were talking about this before we started recording, but it brings me back to our good old friend Pareto with his 80-20 rule, right? Yeah, can we talk a little bit about that and just why this is so important?

Will Smith
0:04:25
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of businesses, they get started because the owner or the founder has a great business network and they say, you know what, I could really help the, I have a solution that could really help my network. And so the initial startup is fairly easy because, well, they know the people, they know everyone. And so, but as the business expands, keeping track of every single

Will Smith
0:04:51
customer interaction, well that gets a lot, that gets increasingly more challenging as time goes on. So you mentioned, Alex, the Pareto Principle, and I'm sure our listeners are familiar with it as well, so, but this is where the Pareto Principle is where 80% of the results come from 20% of your activities

Will Smith
0:05:12
and most business owners are probably Burning those mental calories on oh, I got I got to get back in touch with Bob You know my good friend that I've known for about 10 years And well, I haven't I haven't reached out to my best customer in a while I haven't heard from them, so I need to reach out to them So the 80-20 principle basically says if you are spending the bulk of your time

Will Smith
0:05:34
working in the business, getting back to people, leveraging these things, trying to do different things, getting back follow-up, all that sort of thing, rather than working on it, then you're missing out on a potential 80% of the results that come from strategic planning,

Will Smith
0:05:52
that come from decision-making skills that eventually are going to grow the business rather than having the business plateau, or worst case scenario, start to go down. And so if you're burning those mental calories on, I need to touch base, I need to find new leads,

Will Smith
0:06:12
I need to do all these different things, then you're just working in the business rather than growing, working on your business.

Alex Winter
0:06:20
That's huge, that's really huge. And that's something that happens on a regular basis. And you think you're doing the right things because you get busy and it's hard to manage all these these wheels that are spinning at The same time and you end up working in the business and not on the business and that's that's huge So what else do you hear or resistance against CRM's?

Alex Winter
0:06:38
It sounds like price you had mentioned earlier like oh we can't afford that you know and obviously every business is at a different point in their journey when it comes to scale and budgets and all those things but Why is that not a good excuse in your opinion?

Will Smith
0:06:49
Well, that's a common concern that I hear a lot. Oh, it's too expensive. Yeah. And rather than looking at a CRM as an expense, we need to kind of flip our mindset and view a CRM as an investment.

Will Smith
0:07:02
I recently saw a study from Nucleus Research that basically shows that the average ROI for good CRM usage, not just buying it and hoping for the best, good consistent CRM usage, the ROI is $8.71 for every dollar that is spent.

Alex Winter
0:07:30
Dang, I like those numbers. Those are really good numbers. Can we say that again, for every dollar spent, you return $8.70 something cents?

Will Smith
0:07:41
71 cents, yes.

Alex Winter
0:07:43
That's huge.

Will Smith
0:07:45
It is huge because we see it as an expense and not only that, the blurry vision of I have to do all this work to set things up when my sticky notes are working just fine for me or my spreadsheets are working just fine. It's hard to see that future.

Will Smith
0:08:01
Now, are you going to, if you purchase a CRM, the next day are you going to realize that $8.71 for every dollar spent? No, just like anything, good results like that, it's going to take time. And so when it comes to price, if you look at a lot of the different models and a lot of different platforms, many CRM platforms, they offer different tiered pricing models. So of course at Impact, our favorite is HubSpot. So I can easily speak to that as a HubSpot trainer.

Will Smith
0:08:34
So you can look at those tiered pricing models and see what's going to fit your budget. And the nice thing about that is that you don't need the enterprise solution yet. If you're still in startup mode, heck, they have a freemium model that you can give it a try,

Will Smith
0:08:54
try it out, get off of those spreadsheets. Then when you're ready, you can move into the starter model and really, then when you start growing, obviously you're making more money, you're doing better, you can invest more into your CRM and get up to the next level.

Alex Winter
0:09:12
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's something we hear, too, all too often, that budget's a factor. And that's the reality. You know, you're scaling a business, every dollar counts, right?

Alex Winter
0:09:22
And sometimes these CRMs, they can be expensive. And you have to figure out a way to position or look at it through the lens or the perspective of you're making an investment towards your business. You're making an investment towards growth. Because I love my spreadsheets, too.

Alex Winter
0:09:36
And I was definitely one of those people that was in my spreadsheets and I had my system and my sticky notes and don't mess with my system, but HubSpot is a great tool and there are other great tools out there as well If you don't want to use HubSpot, there's all different things you can explore We obviously love HubSpot here but the truth is there's different tiers on purpose so that you can start to get your feet wet and dip your

Alex Winter
0:09:52
proverbial toe in the water and start to see what's gonna work best for you and How you can leverage it to your advantage as a company

Will Smith
0:09:57
I was just gonna say Alex you you remind me of a lot of folks that I've spoken with who I know my system, I like my system, don't mess with my system. As humans we know what we like and we like what we know and so looking past that to a future that may be unexplored and maybe a little bit fuzzy to understand, that's going to be key to really growing your business, to take that step, you know, that leap of faith, and of course,

Will Smith
0:10:29
it's going to be not so much faith, but also a step in the, a strategic risk, to say, I don't know much about this just yet, but I'm gonna step out and break away from what I am familiar with and what I know to get me to the next level.

Alex Winter
0:10:48
Right, right, that makes sense. So, my question, right, is you interface with a lot of clients, you help bridge a lot of these gaps with businesses that aren't leveraging a CRM, that are maybe interested, or maybe they don't even know that they should be using a CRM.

Alex Winter
0:11:01
When you're talking to clients like this, or potential clients, what's that conversation look like? Like how do you get some traction and get people to start to understand? Maybe they're not really bought into the idea of signing up for HubSpot or a CRM.

Alex Winter
0:11:12
How do you navigate that conversation to get them to see the value, and to understand why it's important for their business to grow and just kind of get them on board?

Will Smith
0:11:19
That's a great question, Alex, because so many people with that question, they would launch into features and benefits. Oh, look, you can do this. Oh, look, you can do this. Oh, look, you can do this. All the tools, the contours. Yeah, exactly. Like wow, razzle dazzle, all this great stuff. And sure that that's great that's fun it's nice to look at that sort of thing but ultimately what it comes down to is having the conversation and understanding what your goals are understanding what your business goals are where are you now what are you trying to get to where do you want to really increase your performance so that you

Will Smith
0:12:00
can get to that next level. What's happened in the past? How did you get started? Where are you now? So it's really just kind of peeling back those layers, asking the right questions,

Will Smith
0:12:11
so that you can understand, okay, is this the right solution? So that this way we're not blanketing across, just saying, oh, everybody needs CRM. If you're in business, you need a CRM. It's important to make sure that you understand

Will Smith
0:12:24
those goals and where they want to get to, because then that just makes features and benefits, sure we can talk about that, but ultimately if you can tie the two together, that's the conversation I'd rather have.

Alex Winter
0:12:38
Yeah, that makes total sense, and I love what you're saying, only because this is a tool that you leverage to build into your overarching strategy. It's part of the company strategy, it's part of the mission,

Alex Winter
0:12:48
it's part of where your long-term vision is for where you want to take your company and this helps you Leverage those those pieces to get there. It's not it's not like look at all the features in the shiny object syndrome that sometimes

Alex Winter
0:12:57
Can occur okay?

Alex Winter
0:12:58
So if I'm not a magic wand you're not gonna just purchase pay your bill and just like all my business problems solved No, that's so true because we all too often There's there's two types of people or businesses that we tend to like rub up against where it's like they either aren't bought in and don't really see the value of a CRM

Alex Winter
0:13:21
and we have to bridge that gap. Or the other option is they have a CRM and they're paying for enterprise or they're paying all this money and they don't use it. And they don't use it and it's like just sitting there in the background and everyone's like,

Alex Winter
0:13:31
I don't know who runs that,

Alex Winter
0:13:32
I don't know what people are doing with that.

Will Smith
0:13:34
And that's what we do, the way we've always done it.

Alex Winter
0:13:37
Yeah, yeah, so it's really getting people to see that. So once people see the value, the strategy starts to come together, it's part of the business plan, part of the culture. What's the first step, or what's the next step when you start to talk to these companies

Alex Winter
0:13:50
about starting off correctly, implementing this correctly, creating good habits, that type of stuff?

Will Smith
0:13:56
Yeah, starting off on the right foot, Alex, is crucial. Starting off on the right foot helps you truly maximize your CRM's potential not only now but in the future. So and it all comes down to training. Training whoever's going to own this CRM, whoever's going to be in charge of this CRM, who on the team is going to understand it the best. And so when we train the team this way we show them how to use the system efficiency. To your

Will Smith
0:14:29
point, a lot of folks they come to us and they say yeah I've got this enterprise HubSpot and I just have this gut feeling that we're just not using everything that we could be using. You're absolutely right. I see it all the time. They have this thing and they don't know if they're using or getting the value out of it. And so starting off on the right foot is important. And sure, you can learn,

Will Smith
0:14:55
there's plenty of YouTube videos out there, but oftentimes, you know the old saying, you get what you pay for. And free stuff is good, and it's very introductory and very surface level. But really when it comes down to it,

Will Smith
0:15:09
hiring an experienced HubSpot, in this example, a HubSpot trainer, that can tailor and customize the CRM for your specific needs, help streamline that onboarding process, which is absolutely key,

Will Smith
0:15:23
because, again, people like what they know and know what they like, and this is something brand new. And if the onboarding process does not go smoothly, you're climbing a, that's a bigger hill to climb. Totally.

Will Smith
0:15:37
And so if you need somebody that can also provide a good trainer that can also provide ongoing support, I still keep in touch with some of the folks that have finished their program with Impact saying, hey remember how six months ago you couldn't do this in HubSpot? Well there's a new feature out now and now you can. Yeah. And so ongoing support, all of these things, you know, the right training, the right customization,

Will Smith
0:16:02
having somebody there that knows your business and can help you through it, that's really going to accelerate that return on investment.

Alex Winter
0:16:10
I feel like that couldn't be truer than right now, too, coming off an inbound and coming out of all these new features that have been dumped on us in a great way, there's all this new stuff, but HubSpot, just like any other CRM, like Salesforce, there's always new features coming out,

Alex Winter
0:16:23
there's all these new tools that are coming out, and sometimes it's like drinking from a fire hose, keeping up with it. So you really need to have that expertise, that person who has their finger on the pulse to help bridge those gaps and make sure you're leveraging these new tools to your advantage. Great point there, yeah.

Alex Winter
0:16:38
So what's the process that you take your clients through when you start your training, right? Let's get a little granular here. Hi, I'm Alex, I own a business, I have a CRM. Will, what do I do? Help me, like how do we do this?

Will Smith
0:16:50
Well, I kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier there, but I would start by, Alex, understanding your business. What are your business needs? What's unique about your business? And also, what are your current challenges? From there, I would then customize the training.

Will Smith
0:17:05
Let's say, hey, I just bought HubSpot, what do I do next? I would customize the training to focus on the things that would provide immediate value. Low-hanging fruit. It's cliche but it's true. If I can show you and you can see that return on investment immediately, that's going to that's going to really help accelerate that adoption of the CRM. So customize the training. Yeah definitely customize the training. That's gonna be step two.

Will Smith
0:17:34
And then step three, I would go through setting up the CRM, making sure that, hey, if I'm coming off of something else, another CRM, or even if you're coming off of spreadsheets, hey, let's import that data, let's not ignore it. Your business didn't start the day that you purchased your CRM.

Will Smith
0:17:51
So let's see how we can get, what data do you have? And how can we get it into HubSpot that still makes sense for you, that makes sense for the team? I would then configure some of the automations because I'm sure there's stuff that you don't want to do that could be handled by automation. And

Will Smith
0:18:09
then from there I would make sure that we have tactical hands-on practice using real-life scenarios so that you feel confident using the CRM. And an example of that is if we're in a HubSpot training, I never share my screen. You, Alex, you are driving. I love that. So yeah, it might be a little embarrassing, like, oh, I'm fumbling around, I don't know where to go and everything. And sure, I can fly around HubSpot pretty quickly and everything, but

Alex Winter
0:18:38
what value, what will you learn watching me? No, I would learn nothing. Frankly, if you pulled up your screen and showed me all this stuff, I would remember almost none of it. I have to. No, and that's just, and that's me personally, maybe some people are different, but for me, I have to actually do the thing. And if I do it, it's almost like muscle memory.

Alex Winter
0:18:55
Once I do it a few times, and the more you practice, then I start to remember, then it starts to become second nature. But if I'm just watching somebody else do it, it doesn't have to be a CRM, it could literally be anything else.

Alex Winter
0:19:03
It's the same, the same rules apply for me. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are like that, so.

Will Smith
0:19:07
Gotta do it, you're absolutely right.

Alex Winter
0:19:09
Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:19:10
Gotta do it.

Alex Winter
0:19:11
You help a lot of companies doing this. Do you have a story or something that maybe you could share with us of a company that maybe wasn't leveraging their CRM or didn't want to mess with a CRM and you got them excited, you got them bought in, it worked into their strategy and now they're just like kicking butt?

Will Smith
0:19:26
So I don't have a specific company that I'm going to share a story with but I will tell you what I see so often with companies that are B2B, there is a target account system within HubSpot that every time, nine times out of 10, companies are not leveraging this. So if you're listening out there and you got your HubSpot open, here's where you go.

Will Smith
0:19:51
You go to your company, you go to your companies, your index list there, and then over on the right side, you're going to click on target accounts. And what this does is it rearranges your data so that you're looking at the company rather than the contacts.

Will Smith
0:20:12
B2B businesses don't know this exists. And I see a lot of frustration like, listen, I sell the companies. I mean, yeah, I am gonna talk to Bill Smith at the company as a contact. But one of the most underutilized tools

Will Smith
0:20:30
that I have seen pretty much across the board is the account-based management tools in HubSpot, also known as Target Accounts.

Alex Winter
0:20:40
Target Accounts. Hope you guys are listening, taking notes. That's a really great tip, Will. Thank you for that. I'm gonna have to check that out myself.

Will Smith
0:20:47
In addition to that, HubSpot has this great knowledge-based article that is, and a lot of their knowledge-based articles are very broad, not very specific, only because obviously HubSpot helps a lot of different businesses and a lot of different verticals and everything. But when it comes to account-based management tools, there is a very specific, tactical, knowledge-based article. So, if you're on Google, check it out, HubSpot account-based management tools,

Will Smith
0:21:15
how to set it up, and then they walk through workflows, how to set those up, and what the strategy is. It's very well done.

Alex Winter
0:21:25
That sounds great, great advice. I really appreciate that. I know our audience is gonna love that too. I'm sure people are already checking that out. So another question for you, this has just got my wheels spinning talking about this.

Alex Winter
0:21:36
What can business leaders do when it comes to picking a CRM? Because I feel like if we go all the way back, right, so we figure out the strategy, maybe have the buy-in, you got them excited about it. Why should they choose HubSpot or another CRM? Or like, well, how do you navigate those conversations and make sure that people are setting themselves up for success?

Will Smith
0:21:52
There is such a discrepancy between how easy it is to buy a new CRM and how difficult it can be to set it up without the right person. And so what I've seen a lot of organizations do is they reach a point with their current CRM and they just say you know what I'm just gonna go out and buy this and they pull out the card it's very frictionless it's it's great sales However, they did not take the time to identify what do we need out of this thing? What are our goals? What are our challenges?

Will Smith
0:22:32
Again, a lot of businesses have a hard time taking a hard look at themselves and saying, what exactly do we need? Which is the value of impact because we always come in and we're kind of the, hey, we're just showing up here, we've done our research, let me tell you what we're seeing about your business. And we can make recommendations off of that.

Will Smith
0:22:57
So that's the difficulty there. It's so easy to purchase, and yet if it's not done right, it's going to be an uphill battle. So what I would recommend is take a good, hard look at your company, your business requirements, and what your goals are

Will Smith
0:23:14
Then take a look at your challenges. Would a CRM help you solve those challenges? then You've got to do your research. Yeah, well figure. Yeah, what what aligns with these goals? What aligns with the challenges that you have if you have one small thing that will not be solved by? This particular platform, it's not the platform for you. But would you know that if you didn't take a hard look

Will Smith
0:23:44
at your organization and what you're looking to accomplish? So take advantage, once you do your research, take advantage of those free trials, take advantage of demos, get a feel for the user interface because, and get some people involved on your team because they're the ones that are gonna be using it

Will Smith
0:24:00
on a daily basis.

Alex Winter
0:24:01
That's a great point, that's a great point. And again, we love HubSpot here, we definitely recommend HubSpot, but we are not sponsored or paid by HubSpot to say that. That's just our own opinion. And ultimately here at Impact,

Alex Winter
0:24:12
we very much wanna help our clients and help the general public at large to make the best decisions they can. So we're just being as straight up and honest with you that you should do your homework, do your research, and figure out what's gonna be best for you

Alex Winter
0:24:23
and for your business. This really, couldn't have said it better myself. Well, good points. All right, this brings me to my favorite part of the show, but I'm gonna put you in the hot seat for a second here.

Will Smith
0:24:31
All right, hit me with it.

Alex Winter
0:24:32
What is the one thing, out of this conversation we had today, talking about CRMs in general, what's the one thing business owners should take away from this conversation?

Will Smith
0:24:42
The one thing that business owners should take away from this conversation is, take a good look at yourself before you do anything that is CRM related take a good look where do I wanna go? Where am I? Where do I wanna go?

Will Smith
0:25:06
What challenges do I have? That's the one thing

Alex Winter
0:25:11
I love that. Gotta take a look at yourself.

Alex Winter
0:25:14
Respect.

Alex Winter
0:25:15
Will, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wealth of knowledge.

Alex Winter
0:25:20
I really appreciate it.

Alex Winter
0:25:21
Thanks for having me.

Alex Winter
0:25:22
Anytime.

Alex Winter
0:25:23
We'll have you back on the show soon.

Alex Winter
0:25:24
You know that.

Will Smith
0:25:25
Awesome.

Alex Winter
0:25:26
All right, brother.

Alex Winter
0:25:27
Thanks, Alex. Thank you. And for everybody out there watching and listening, I'm your host, Alex. This is Endless Customers. We'll catch you on the next one. We'll catch you on the next one.

Alex Winter
0:25:32
Bye!