Tag Archives: Customer Relationship Management

CRM Revisited: It Should be Your #1 Priority Heading into 2015

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs aren’t only the future of business; they’re the present. And they aren’t just for Fortune 500 companies anymore either. Like with most technology, competition, economies of scale, and innovation have driven costs down significantly. Now, you can even get a basic version of a CRM program for free. Without a doubt, acquiring and implementing a CRM program is my #1 recommendation for businesses of all kinds looking to grow and increase revenue.

Whether you’re an independent freelancer, a sales mercenary who is compensated by getting to “eat what you kill,” or a large and complex company, there is a CRM program out there for you. Regardless of your budget (or even a lack thereof), you can customize the level of sophistication of your CRM program as they all have various subscription levels. Most integrate with your email provider of choice and have a mobile app too. Additionally there are an incredible amount of third-party add-ons you can incorporate depending on how robust your operations processes are.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like building a CRM program is a cheap and easy task, far from it in fact. So keep in mind when considering which CRM program is best for you that the cost typically exceeds that of the user license fee. They require a significant amount of time and commitment, especially in the beginning when you’re just getting started. Don’t let that deter you however, as the ROI (while seemingly intangible at first) will more than make up for it, assuming it’s implemented correctly. In fact, the average ROI of a CRM system is $5.60 for every $1 spent.

CRM systems allow you to track and store vast amounts of data about your customers and prospects. The more data you have about your sales cycle that is accurate and relevant, the more deeply you can analyze that information to gain insight that will not only help increase revenue, but ultimately help you improve:

Close rates,
Customer service and retention,
Length of sales cycle, and
Forecasting efforts and projections.

Just as important, CRMs also help you automate your sales process. The more automated your sales cycle and follow up efforts can be, the greater volume of deals your business will be able to close as opportunities will be less likely to slip between the cracks.

By now you are probably either thrilled by the amazing potential a CRM program can provide, or perhaps you’re overwhelmed by the thought of endless amounts of data. If you’re like me and skew towards the former, below is a list of the necessary things to consider before rushing into it, along with some things to keep in mind after you’re fully operational.

Conduct an “audit” of existing processes and database.
Clean up your existing data to avoid the dreaded trap of “garbage in/garbage out.”
Code your database to more easily identify priority contacts, “ABC”.
Perform a sales cycle analysis, what are the typical steps involved and the time frame?
Customize CRM pages, fields, and layouts with your appropriate specifications.
Training of users/administrators.
Import your database and start beta testing.
Integrate with your existing systems, i.e. email, QuickBooks, etc.
Reporting and sales forecasting.
Ongoing maintenance, monitoring, updates, and improvements.

While implementing a CRM program can be relatively time‐consuming and expensive, if you do it right, the benefit to your business is invaluable. Don’t dismiss CRMs and cloud‐computing as trends that will soon go away, otherwise your competition may have already long passed you by the time you’re ready to get on board. With just over a month left in 2014, now is the perfect time to start planning and conduct your due diligence to start 2015 with yet another resolution.

Bootstrappin’: How to Launch Your Business on a Barebones Budget

Starting a business today is far easier than anytime in history. The caveat is that it depends on what type of business however, thus I’m primarily referring to professional service businesses (i.e. consulting, accounting, real estate, photography, legal, etc.). The type that don’t have the overbearing regulations attached to them or endless red tape to acquire permits and licenses, on the contrary those probably have more hurdles than ever (particularly in the US). But if you’re like me, and want to start a consulting or other service business, you can do it quicker and cheaper than ever, not to mention minimize overhead so you can compete with larger competition.

Before I begin, I want to emphasize that every single business is different and has various requirements, so while I’m speaking from a more general manner, please make sure to do the appropriate research regarding your specific industry and niche to make sure everything is legitimate.

Establishing Your Entity: My attorney friends may not be too happy to read this, but you don’t necessarily need one to establish your business. You don’t always need an automated service like Legal Zoom either. If you’re certain of the structure you want to use and don’t plan on having partners (which require more complex operating agreements, etc.) than in most instances you can go directly to the source and bypass additional fees (they can range anywhere from $150 to $1,000+). In my case, WIMS, Inc. was established in Coral Gables, FL so I used Sunbiz and set it all up for around $75. I will say that in most instances seeking counsel from an attorney is invaluable and worth the cost, however.

Website: Nowadays you can create your own website for free, using sites like Wix and 1and1. They have many elaborate templates to choose from so that you don’t have to start from scratch or learn to write code. You can simply swap out generic text for your own as well as graphics to completely customize it. It even ads easy to incorporate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) functionality. The catch of using these for free is that you can’t use your own domain name (they include theirs in the free versions) and there may be some ads. However, it’s quite affordable to create your own domain name (costs typically around $15 a month) if you’d prefer to go that route.

Email: By now it’s no great revelation that you can get great email service for free using Gmail. In most cases businesses can even get away with solely using a Gmail account (not to mention you get the added benefit of the also free Google Docs). However if you want to step up the professionalism a notch and create an email account using your domain name it’s relatively affordable to do so. For example, when I registered my domain name with GoDaddy, it also allowed me to leverage a custom email account via Office365 for about $10 a month. I find both to be well worth the cost.

Blog: Another one that is far from a novel idea, but you can start a blog for free using sites like WordPress (my personal preference) or Blogger. This is a great marketing tool that when coupled with social media can be very powerful, and all it costs is time. Providing thought leadership type content to your network demonstrates your expertise and adds value to the services you provide. Of course, there are upgrades to the service as well that are both affordable and worth it as your blog’s following begins to grow.

Marketing: I’m going to keep this section short and sweet as most of you know the usual suspects that can help market your business for free (yes, I’m referring to social media). My personal favorites: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. If what you’re selling is more visual (photography, hairstyling, tattoo artist) consider Pinterest too. There are plenty others as well.

CRM: CRM programs used to be thought of as these overly expensive and overly complicated Big Brother like programs that only the big boys could afford. Not anymore. Now you can get access to simpler CRM programs for free. My favorite is Insightly, it has a web based version coupled with a free app. Can’t beat it for the price!

Financing: If you need to raise money and aren’t able to get financing from a bank (you can’t show “2 years worth of income” when you just started, HELLO silly bankers!) consider crowd funding. Kickstarter is a good one, as is GoFundMe, which leverages your social media accounts to spread awareness. They’re “free” to start but make money by taxing 5% per donation or so (but hey 95% of something is better than 100% of nothing)! Although I’ll admit, I’ve recently set one up without much success yet.

Freelance Income: As you’re getting started you may need to build up some short term income with smaller projects as you build your network. Consider sites like Elance (I use it and love it so far) or others like Fiverr and Freelancer. There are million of projects searchable by expertise that you can do online or in person depending on location. Typically you get paid using PayPal (you do have PayPal right?), which is great, if you don’t have a fancy credit card machine. Although one solution I’m evaluating now is Square as I’ve heard good things.

Loose Ends: Just wanted to touch on some other things to consider in this paragraph. For one, you can get free digital storage space at either (or all if you’re a true hustler) Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box. For business cards, (which some people don’t even use anymore, although I advocate for them still) check out either Vista Print or Moo. Lastly, office space, this can be one of the hugest overhead expenses around. Do you really need to pay a ton of money each month in rent? I advocate a mix of home office, Starbucks, or local library (free internet!). But if you need tangible office space you can look at some of the shared office spaces from places such as Regus, or if you’re in Miami, Pipeline Brickell.

So there you have it, just some of the ways to start your business on the cheap. There are plenty others of course but I wanted to hit on some of the main ones to help get your started (if you have others please share in the comments!) Keeping low overhead is one of the ways to remain competitive with larger competition, so be relentless about every dollar you spend and you’re business will stick around long enough to start being profitable. Good luck!

WIMS Client Spotlight: iTourMobile

iTourMobile is a start-up technology company that provides a customer relationship management platform that enables clients to offer rich and interactive digital experiences to their clientele on mobile devices, Facebook, and websites. Its also the future of the interactive mobile & social customer experience. The platform provides a soup-to-nuts experience for clients as there is no need for technical staff, and they also offer marketing, consulting, and production services to get their clients started.

What is an interactive experience? It’s a fun way for users to interact with surroundings using a mobile device that really helps our clients stand out. Embark on an adventure, scavenger hunt, and find local deals or discounts. GPS based experiences combine audio, text, video, and images to create fun and educational experiences for any guest, for both outdoor and indoor locations!

iTourMobile is much more than just another travel/city-guide app as it’s CMS (content management system) and analytics features make it an invaluable resource to businesses. Content is hosted on our content management system and virtual private servers that let you control your content. Updates and additions are free, unlimited, and in real-time. Benefit from detailed analytics reporting on the number of downloads and see where and how people are engaging with your organization.

The unique range of content offerings for users also sets iTourMobile apart, by offering exciting features like the ability to go on movie excursions (e.g. a Harry Potter Movie Experience and a Dark Knight Trilogy tour among others), ghostly expeditions, and outdoor adventures. The benefits of this technology expand across a variety of industries, including: cities, tourist destinations, museums, entertainment, zoos, historic attractions, universities, amusement parks, speedways, and wineries.

iTourMobile leverages iBeacons, which are changing how customers experience retail, museums and indoor locations, and other experiences. This allows them to help clients:

Improve processes with mobile devices
Strengthen their brand and customer loyalty
Increase revenue
- Mobile marketing tools like advanced push notifications to help drive engagement and sales
- Mobile e-Commerce
- Location based advertising and promotions
- Mobile ticketing
- Mobile donations lets users donate with ease and share it on social media
Save time and money
Collect analytics and feedback
- Track participation, donations, time spent at each location, survey
  answers, the most and least favored locations, and devices.
- Interact with customers.
Improve customer interactions and communication.

About iTourMobile

iTourMobile is a technology, design, and consulting firm helping organizations to connect with their customers and to enhance their customer experience through technology. The company offers a hosted content management system (CMS) that lets organizations create engaging and entertaining virtual tour experiences on mobile devices. iTourMobile is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business by the Federal Government and a SWaM vendor in the state of Virginia. For more information, please visit https://www.itourmobile.com/.

About WIMS Consulting

WIMS, Inc. was founded by Mike Simmons in 2014 to provide marketing and business development consulting services to entrepreneurs and small businesses alike. Mike discovered his passion for assisting entrepreneurs while in his previous position, however he wanted to be able to focus on working with these like-minded people directly, and without the bureaucracy and bloated costs associated with working with larger firms.

So I Moved to Charlotte for a Girl…

Well THE girl. And if you knew Claire you’d understand. I like to think she’s the Daisy Buchanan to my Jay Gatsby, except I’m still working on building the fortune of course. The other difference, which is a fortunate one, is that we still have the opportunity for the happy ending Gatsby and Daisy never got.

Mike Simmons, CEO of WIMS Consulting, and Claire Hosmann

To make it happen I had to move from the city I love and lived for the past decade, Miami. After nearly 6 months of this new adventure, in hindsight I’d still make the same decision every time. Not only did I take a big chance moving to a new city to be with the love of my life, but it also led me to taking another risk by starting my own business. It’s not every day you get the opportunity to pursue both of your biggest dreams at the same time.

In order to find true happiness you need to take chances on the things that matter. Life is tough though, and it makes holding on to your comfortable and predictable job, or your same circle of friends, the easy and safe choice. But the only way to grow is to get out of your comfort zone and chase after the things you want in life.

Alas, rather than settling for a job working for someone else, and having to start over, I decided to start my own consulting firm. I had been planning on how best to do this for a couple years, yet while having a comfortable and mostly enjoyable job it was tough to work up the courage to take the leap of faith. I found myself over-thinking and second-guessing myself. I kept postponing my dream for tomorrow when I would have more time and money saved, like that would ever happen!

Sometimes you just need to jump and hope for the best; otherwise you risk living a life of regret. To me, that’s a fate far worse than trying and failing. It certainly hasn’t been easy, and it’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but so far it’s been the most fulfilling as well.

Fortunately, with the help of technology, my business can service clients all over the country and even the world. So moving to Charlotte doesn’t mean I have to completely forget about all the relationships I’ve built in Miami. I will absolutely keep working with clients and helping people there too. I’ll even be pursuing business where I grew up in PA and CA as well. I don’t plan on stopping there either. They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but I certainly plan to try. And hopefully I can help many other aspiring business men and women to the day same.

I know I have a long way to go, and I haven’t figured everything out yet, but I’ve learned so much along the way that I wanted to start a blog (as if the world needs another blog!) to share my experiences and insight with all you like-minded entrepreneurs and young professionals out there. Who knows, perhaps it will help me finally finish the book I’ve been “planning” on writing for years now too.

The purpose isn’t just to tell you stories or offer suggestions with how to market your business, but to create an open dialogue and share ideas and resources in a collaborative manner. I can admit that I don’t have all the answers, but I believe you can learn something from every single person out there if you’re willing to listen.

The WIMS Guide as I’m calling it, will discuss a wide range of topics that impact the daily (and future) lives of entrepreneurs and young professionals alike. It will feature regular posts from me, along with a variety of featured authors to ensure a well-rounded, dynamic, and fresh perspective. If you have an idea or desired topic you’d like to discuss, or if you’d like to be one of our featured authors, please don’t hesitate to reach out. In the mean time I hope you enjoy and perhaps learn a thing or two along the way!