7 Key Tips to Maximize your CRM Strategy
Q&A with Jeremy Greenwell, President of REAL Advisory
Welcome to the Thrower Marketing Group Guest Blog Series! Drawing from our experience in the AEC industry, this series goes beyond marketing to explore key business challenges that many leaders in the industry face. With insights from expert contributors, we aim to share information that empowers and shapes the AEC community.
Many clients we interface with struggle with developing a customer relationship management strategy for their business – one that supports the business goals and creates accountability for those involved. In this blog, Jeremy Greenwell, President & Founder of REAL Advisory, a firm devoted to helping companies reach their maximum growth potential through strategic CRM planning and execution, shares important tips for maximizing your customer relationship management strategy. Let’s get started on creating a plan that works for your business.
Tip #1: Start with “The Why”
Q: How do you begin to build your CRM Strategy – where do you start?
A: With all of my clients, we always start with “The Why”. In Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon shows us that the leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world all think, act and communicate the same way—and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. He calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY. Before you build a strategy, bring the key stakeholders together in a discovery process to determine The Why, so that the strategy will ultimately reflect the purpose for growth and goals of your business.
Tip #2: Develop a Means to Track your Progress, and Adjust from there
Q: What can you do to hold yourself, and others, accountable to your plan?
A: Your plan must be measurable and actionable. Establish metrics to see whether you are on track such as event compliance or completion rate, cadence or frequency of customer outreach, quality of interactions, etc. (there are MANY to consider, BTW). Your plan is only as good as it is executed, so it must be actionable – and afterwards you may address what worked well and what needs to be adjusted for better performance.
Tip #3: Create a Scoreboard
Q: How do you know how effective your CRM Strategy is?
A: I would propose that question another way – How do you know if you are winning? All high-performing teams know, at any stage, whether they are succeeding or falling short, whether they are winning or losing. Take any sport, for instance – what if there were no clock, no scoreboard, no point system, or time, or way to attribute a win versus a loss? Build a scoreboard that any members of the team can see real-time or at least on a fairly regular basis that immediately informs its members whether their plan is performing well, or needs to course-correct.
Tip #4: Identify the Right Customer or Prospect, for the Right Reasons
Q: How many customers or prospects should you incorporate into your CRM Strategy, and how are they selected?
A: Most companies struggle with this, and that is completely understandable, and quite frankly, expected. You have your current customer base that have been your customers for many years, and other prospective customers that are very promising – it’s easy to build a strategy that is so aggressive that it seems daunting that you could hardly manage it. Or – you target what you believe is the right customer, but for the wrong reasons, and it may even spread you and your teams so thin that it actually works against you and you face burn-out. I would recommend asking yourself the question: “Who is the Right Customer – and why are they The Right Customer? We are creatures of habit, and sometimes we do things because “we’ve always done it that way”, or “that’s how we were taught’, and neglect opportunities to change our approach, educate our current customers and prospects, and do things for the right reasons that make us more successful in the end.
Tip #5: Align your Strategy with your Marketing Plan
Q: How do we get our message out to a very large market, while executing a very direct strategy to a small group of individual prospects?
A: Think about it this way: sales is one-to-one, marketing is one-to-many. How will you convey your message in your meeting? What form will it take? How will you convince your prospect of your unique value? Lastly – how will you establish credibility and reach a broader market with your strategic initiatives? All of this is done in lockstep with a marketing strategy – which is developed in conjunction with your CRM strategy – either with your in-house team and/or third-party marketing support.
Tip #6: Build a Buyers Table
Q: How do you ensure that you are developing a real connection with your customer or prospect?
A: At the end of the day relationships are what drive value-added businesses, and relationships are built on trust. But to establish that trust in a relationship you have to first make the connection. We recommend establishing a “buyers table” whereby you align multiple people from your company, with multiple people (I.e. “buyers”) on the customer or prospect side. Increasing these points of contacts on multiple levels, establishing multiple points of contact and building upon those relationships will strengthen your bond with that customer. Oh, and all of those connection points will help tremendously when problems or issues arise, which always will!
Tip #7: Integrate Technology
Q: Once our strategy is developed, how do we manage it day-to-day, and make improvements along the way?
A: I can’t stress this point enough: to be competitive in the modern era of sales, you must incorporate technology in your plan to truly win the market share you desire. We are well past having a strategy on a whiteboard in your office, a word document or PDF that gets circulated around once a year in a planning meeting, or worst case, locked away in the heads of your leaders. Making some even minor investments in technology, or better using what you currently have; to build your key account management plans, capture and leverage data, measure and track progress, and then adjust accordingly to make continuous improvements will maximize your results. You do not want to be a dinosaur – you want to be on the forefront of technology – I assure you your prime competitors are already doing this!
Conclusion: By following these tips, your organization will be in a good position to build strong relationships, strengthen your network and create accountability across your organization.
About the Author: Jeremy Greenwell is the President & Founder of REAL Advisory, a firm devoted to helping companies reach their maximum growth potential through strategic CRM planning and execution. He is a 25+-year veteran of the AEC industry, creating sales programs and managing complex initiatives and relationships for large organizations like McKenney’s Inc., Colliers International and JE Dunn Construction. For more information on his firm and the services they offer, visit: real-advisory.com
