I am taking a “detour” in this newsletter to talk about a vital part of a speaking business. If you have a speaking business or have ever thought about starting a speaking business, this newsletter is for you.

Do you know what the letters “CRM” stands for? CRM stands for customer relationship management. If you have a speaking business, you have a myriad of leads, contacts and opportunities in which to keep track. Managing these with pencil and paper, spreadsheets, and/or through a myriad of unintegrated tools on your phone, tablet, or computer is a nightmare! Enter the CRM tool.

A CRM tool integrates all facets of customer relationship management in your speaking business into a single integrated tool. A CRM tool is a must for any speaker that own a business. In fact, a CRM tool is a must for anyone that owns any kind of business whether you are providing a product or a service to customers. Why, you may ask?

A CRM tool manages all customer information. This equates to increased revenue and increase time you have to work in your business. Talk to any entrepreneur and they will tell you they wish they could save time working on the business so they can devote more time working in the business.

In this newsletter, we will review the three main services a CRM tool provides to save you more time so you can devote more time to working in your business

• Keeping track of leads, contacts, and opportunities

• Using a business funnel to generate more business and increase revenue

• Leveraging your CRM tool’s analytics.

Keep Track of Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities

There is a lot of information you have to track about each person you are targeting as a possible customer for your business. In addition to name, e-mail, company, phone number, etc. there are notes from meetings with them, recording if they have shown an interest in your speaking services, which of your services they may buy, etc.

The person may be a lead (someone you are targeting but have not talked to), a contact (someone you are targeting and have talked to), or an opportunity (someone who has expressed an interest in your services).

It is imperative you keep track of all this information and assign tasks to yourself to follow-up. The reason it is imperative is you will lose business if you don’t have a system to record your business information and make decisions based on this information.

A CRM Tool greatly assists you in keeping all of your business information organized and readily available to you so you can make the best decisions concerning your business.

However, all this information will be overwhelming to you unless you have implemented a business funnel.

Use a Business Funnel

It is best to think of all the information about your business going into a funnel. What comes out of your business funnel are paying customers you serve and the funds they provide to you for you to serve them. A business without a tool to implement a business funnel is a meandering business that will not be sustainable.

A business funnel is the best way to think about how you turn leads into clients who will pay for the service you render them. I am sure you know a physical funnel has a wide end and a narrow end.

All information that concerns your business whether it is vital to your business or not goes into the wide end of your business funnel. What comes out the narrow end are paying customers; hopefully enough of them that pay you enough money to make your business a viable and sustainable venture.

As you might imagine, leads don’t turn into paying customers overnight. There are definite stages in which you must take action to make this theoretical transformation a reality.

These stages are in an order that must be followed. Even with this being said, it is possible to jump over some stages if your prospective customer is at a following stage. The important thing, though, is to implement the stage order whether you can jump over a stage or not. According to the Zoho One Customer Relationship Management (CRM), business funnel stages are:

• Connection: You have made a connection with a lead

• In Discussions: You are in discussions about how your speaking services solve your prospective customers challenge

• Proposal: Your prospective customer has asked you to send him or her a proposal of your services

• Negotiations: You and your customer have entered negotiations for your services

• Verbal Agreement: You and your customer have settled on the terms of your agreement for the services you will render, and how you will render those services, how much they will cost.

• Contract Out for Signature: You have send a contract to your customer for their signature

• Closed Won – Pending Delivery: Your customer and you have signed the contract and you are both waiting for you to deliver your service

• Closed Won – Complete/Archive: You have delivered your service to your customer and have archived all artifacts (e.g., presentations, videos, documents, etc.). Upsell the same service or other services to the same customer

Keeping track of leads, contacts, and opportunities and implementing a business funnel are necessary activities in a business, but they are not sufficient to running a top flight business.

Leverage Your CRM tool’s Analytics

If you only use your CRM to keep track of leads, contacts, and opportunities and to implement a business funnel, all you have done is spend a lot of your business capital to implement a glorified spreadsheet.

The real power and payoff of a CRM is its analytical measures which will increase your business revenue significantly. Analytical measures are the foundation of making smart business decisions which is the ultimate goal of a CRM.

“Industrial strength” CRMs like Zoho CRM are customizable so you can select the analytics most pertinent to your business. The following is a non-inclusive list of analytical measures from Zoho CRM. These measures may or may not be pertinent to your business. The point is to customize these measures to add to your bottom line – increased revenue.

• Leads this month

• Lead generation measured by year-end goal

• Revenue this month

• Revenue measured by year-end goal

• Opportunities this month

• Last three months of leads created, opportunities created, opportunities won, revenue won

• Leads by source

• Top lead owners (where you got the lead)

• Number of leads created by industry

• Funnel performance

Remember, these are but a fraction of the number of analytical measures of which you can keep track. My advice is to have no more than ten analytical measures of which you keep track on a daily basis.

Again, the power and payoff of a CRM tool is in the better business decisions you will make from the analytical measures you have chosen.

Some things to remember from this newsletter are:

• A CRM tool integrates all the facets of customer relationship management in your speaking business into a single integrated tool. A CRM tool is a must for any speaker that own a business.

• Using a CRM tool equates to increased revenue and increase time you have to work in your business.

• Use your CRM tool to do these essential activities: (1) keep track of leads, contacts, and opportunities, (2) use a business funnel to generate more business and increase revenue, (3) choose the analytical measures most pertinent to your business and use them daily to make better business decisions

Brian Tracy says, “Are you listless? Make a list.” Let me modify this.

Are you listless in your business?

Implement a CRM tool for your business and increase your business enjoyment, peace of mind, and, most importantly, your business’s revenue!

Call to Action

• Immediately implement a business Customer Relationship Management Tool to make better business decisions

• Use the CRM Tool to track leads, contacts, and opportunities and use this information to prioritize your activities

• Establish and implement a business funnel and use your chosen CRM analytical measures to make smart business decisions