Boost Your Business: Free CRM Hacks to Increase Client Engagement & Profits

Hello and welcome to the show. Sorry about the little detour yesterday. Yesterday, I believe what I put up was a there was a quick AQ and answer session with someone I met recently because I joined the APVA as the Association of professional Podcasters and voice actors or something. So it's this international body. So they have branches in I think Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya had their Hangouts recently. So there was the Abuja hangout.

I think that was maybe two weeks back. So I've been getting to know other podcasters and other people in the community. And so Tony Doe, one of the members of the community, reached out for people who wanted to feature on this podcast. And so the recording that you guys got yesterday was essentially AQ and a session. Well, he had sent in the questions via e-mail and then we me and another chap, we recorded the responses.

And so that is what I shared yesterday. So sorry about that Detour. And today we're back with the regular business content and we are taking up from the yeah, customer relationship management. OK, Yes. So that's what we have been discussing before the detour, customer relationship management. What does that mean and why is it important? And so I think two or three days back had gone into the theory of defining customer relationship management, broke down a couple of definitions.

What does the customer mean? What are CRM tools? You know, stuff like that. So this is your first time of listening to the show. Then for this thing to have greater clarity for you to appreciate the full context, then you have to go back to episodes and you'll get caught up to speed. So today we're going to look at specific examples of calendars or Diaries or reminder systems or note taking systems or you know, whatever it is that you can use so you don't forget anything.

And that way you're able to keep your customer relationships on track. Why is this important? Just skip back to two episodes and you get caught up to speed. Summary. It's important because if you don't have something for tracking activities, relationships, obligations, expectations, then you're going to drop. Lots of things are going to fall by the wayside and you're going to end up losing lots of money. You will lose lots of money because your follow up is going to be crap.

Your follow up is going to be poor and with poor follow up you're going to close less deals. And then there are times that some obligations are going to be due on your own end, and if you're not tracking them and things fall through the cracks, then your customers are going to end up really, really unhappy with you. And that doesn't help for repeat business and referral because remember, we're trying to maximize customer lifetime value.

If a lot of this sounds like Greek, skip back two episodes. You'll get the whole gist. So when we came to defining CRM tools, customer relationship management tools, what I tried to highlight then for those of you who listened to the episode, Please remember I was trying to stress that is not about the tools per SE, but it's about the functions, which is the reason why I often talk about on the podcast. I talk about calendars or Diaries or reminder systems or note taking systems or task organization systems or whatever, because it's about the function, not necessarily the tool, at least in the beginning.

So eventually, when you make a bit of money, would make sense to go and pay for HubSpot or pay for Zoho or pay for Salesforce or pay for other CRM tools that are out there. But now in the early days, when it's just you and your wife, you and your boyfriend, you and your business partners, you and your associates, there's about three or four of you. There are some simple tools that you can use to get the job done. And today's episode is going to be devoted to examining, sorry,

excuse me, examining some of those tools now. First off, let's start with paper Diaries and files. For those of you who have a legal background like I do, you'll be familiar with this. For those of you who have a medical background like I don't have you, of course, you'll be familiar with it because it is old school Nigerian in these professions to have paper Diaries and to have files. So this is how it used to work back in the good old days when it came to legal.

By the way, I'm sure that things have moved on since 2006 when I graduated from OAU with my legal degree. I'm sure that things have changed and doctors all do things. Sorry, not doctors and lawyers all all do things digital and computerized now. But back in the good old days, this is how it used to work. You would have a clan consultation. OK, well, I was a brand new lawyer, so actually it wasn't me having a clan consultation per SE.

My boss would have a clan consultation. Maybe once in a while he would send me to confirm a couple of things. But The thing is, a clan consultation would happen whether it was your boss, the chief lawyer doing it, or whether you were being sent out on behalf of the firm. Now, some notes would have to be taken because the client is going to say a bunch of stuff now. Oh, OK, Lawyer welcome. Sit down about this matter. This is what happened.

I was talking to this person. This person said this. That person said that. I got angry. And then we did this. Then we went to Chief Odogu's house, and then we came back. And then, you know, that's basically the person just sitting down and telling stories for two hours. But The thing is, as the lawyer, you are the one who has to be sharp enough, descending enough to be able to figure out like, OK, of the things that this person has said so far, these are the key facts.

These are the important things that we ought to pay attention to. These are the avenues from where the legal dispute must have arisen. These are the obligations that were due, you know, those sorts of things. So those are the sorts of things that someone like me who was a junior counsel would be taking notes. So you'd have a legal pad or whatever and you just start taking some notes, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know the whole thing of the whole story that the person is saying you take the important notes.

Now, after that client consultation, you guys would head back to the office. And of course, during that client consultation, the thing I would have been writing in would have been my own personal file as a junior lawyer. So we'll go back to the general office. It would be my responsibility to take my own small file, or my small jotter, or my small diary, and then endorse the larger office file or larger office, whatever it is that the firm has.

Because even though I'm the one who went for the client consultation, things have to be done in such a way that any other lawyer in the office would be able to pick up the file, open to a couple of pages, open to the diary and see that OK, with this client, this meeting was had, this is where we are and this is what the next step is going to be. Because I might go and leave, I might be sacked, I might decide to Jack back.

I mean, you never know or Jack back. That's Nigerian immigration, particularly to Canada. So that's the reason why back in the good old days, relatively speaking, because I'm sure there's some people that have been lawyers since the 1950s, but I graduated just recently, 2006. So back then there was lots of paperwork, lots of handwriting that had to be done. And so that is how things worked. So once I endorsed the larger file, and for those of you who are paralegals and junior lawyers, you both, you all went through this.

What would I call it, you guys, right through the same indoctrination or the same whatever. So we all did it. Then you entered the next engagement into the other office diary. And so like I said, other lawyers can now see who you met, what was discussed, items you agreed upon as next step, when those next steps are due and all those things. So that was how official interactions within the law firm back in 2006 would be managed correctly and nothing would get left to chance.

So you can see that paper and pen can work, paper file, paper Diaries, whatever, it can work. And there are industries in Nigeria or sectors or trades that used to do that. I've been out of legal for a while, so I'm not sure how it works right now. But judging with how things have changed with medical because back in 2006, I would say it was the same thing in Nigeria. Anyway, Please remember all the things I'm saying.

I mean for now, Nigeria specific in the cultural sense. So I don't know about how things used to be 2006 in the UK or in most cities in America or in Australia or in Nigeria. That's how it used to be. So medical, yes, back then you would sit down the the doctor would have a pen and write out the oh, OK, 26 year old came in, she has a headache, she has a hemorrhage on the lower left tibia and she has something, something, something, you know,

the write all those things down. But now I've noticed that all the hospitals are entering into everything is all computed up. So doctors are Clackity clack on the keyboard writing everything down but long and short. What I'm trying to say is when we're trying to manage customer relationships and we're trying to keep track of who we're talking to, what stage of the relationship are we at? What do they owe us? What do we owe them?

Who should I be following up on paper and diary can still work because old school legal profession, old school medical, that's how they used to do stuff. So now the problem that some people have with it and there's the question is this high tech? And my response always is, does it have to be high tech? Because there's a wedding planner that I spoke with and I think that was a main thing like this thing is not high tech.

But then that's my response like, does it have to be high tech? Why not just start with what is comfortable, what is available, what you can easily train people on what will work for your business now and then maybe later on, try the high tech thing because as a wedding planner, if you're think you want to be for thinking and or what not and you want to get some fancy CRM. But I mean, The thing is, look at the culture, Look at the time where we are, look at the staff that you have.

Is this something that they're going to use? So I'm not saying everybody should get your pen and papers and Diaries and paper files. I'm not advocating for the use of paper. I'm just saying that it's not such a problem with you guys are starting out with paper. Paper does have some drawbacks, but we'll get to that eventually. So it doesn't have to be tight high tech. Start with work works and give it a try because if you are doing nothing for now, this will help you increase your profits.

Please note that is what I'm driving at right now. Some of you are doing nothing. You wake up every day and you're just freestyling. You try and remember from the top of your head. Now last week I saw Odogo and I saw Ajia Halima, so maybe I should follow up with them this week. You're running things from memory. You might have forgotten that apart from Odogo and Ajia Halima, you also saw Otumba Benga but you forgot about Banga.

You follow up on these two. You end up missing on Bangas business. So for someone who is freestyling now and you start doing paper pen, diary folders, you see things fall out of the cracks less you end up making much more money then. So there's paper Diaries and files. Now back to my wedding planner friend when we're having this conversation, there's online cloud based, which is what she was trying to do for her own wedding planning practice using free things in the Google,

Google Suite. But back then it wasn't called Google Suite. It was just Google and all these things were separate and stand alone. So what she was trying to do at the time was this, which is also a workable solution that after the client meeting, someone would take notes and then store it in Google Docs. So instead of writing it in the office file, somebody would type it into Google Docs under the client's name. So let's say you met with Madam.

Let me see Madam OK, Madam BC, Let's say Madam B CS daughter is getting married. You had a meeting with Madam BC. Then there would be a file labeled Madam BC. So that after each meeting, but the file, Madam BC would be endorsed with the records of all the things that were discussed, the ideas that people want to try out, and then things like that. Then when you're done with that, the next follow up date, you would schedule the client's name or the documents name in the Google Calendar.

So that all you have to do is when you guys wake up and you see on Google Calendar something that says Madam BC Whoever is in the office back then, whoever is in the office then in the wedding planning business, all the person has to do is open that file, Madam Busy, read through it. And then they will see at the end that oh, OK, a meeting has been scheduled for Madam Busy for next week Wednesday. And you people are supposed to go over samples for which kind of table napkins she likes or you know, stuff like that.

And then you get the show on the road. So that's how it works. It's the same paper file diary idea, but it's now done online. And the advantage of this, and I can testify to this actually, because even though I started off doing Diaries and pen and paper, I was notoriously forgetting my diary, my pencil and my paper. I show for the client meeting. I was like, I can't believe this. I drove all the way here. I forgot to bring my diary.

And now start wondering, OK, how am I going to keep track of all the things that we talk about? So the main advantage of this is if someone forgets the physical file, yeah, it's not a problem because you can access your material anywhere and anytime as long as somebody has a phone or somebody has a computer. Now the other options that you can use to track customer interactions, track customer relationships, to track all these sorts of things.

There are some people that use Excel sheets. I must admit there are only two instances where I've seen this. One was also a wedding planner based in Abuja. That's my good friend Manny of Sculptors Wedding events. I don't know what they do now, but back when we used to do a lot of work together, maybe some actually we haven't worked together, maybe like, you know, for five years, I'd say. So back then they had an Excel sheet.

The tabs would be like the main, the first list would be the list of everybody. The first tab would be the list of everybody that they met at the bridal show. Then the following tabs would be for those of you who use Excel, you know what it is I'm talking about. But if you don't use Excel 'cause I would like describe it, that was a tab. OK, let me just pretend that everybody knows what Excel is. So the individual tabs as follow will be the names of customers and then all the details will be there in Excel.

So you'll be able to go in and then search and all those sorts of things. Personally, I thought it was cumbersome, but you know my own attitude on these things. If it is what works for you guys, everybody in the team understands, everybody in the team has been using it for several years, then you know what's a problem. So yeah, that's it. Now, apart from Excel sheet. Oh yeah. The second situation was my brother. That's in the family export business that we run now.

My brother is a, comparatively speaking, in our family. He's sort of like a numbers geek. He's a quant. He's a, he's a yeah, quantitative person like my wife as well. So he used to excel up all kinds of things and I thought it was crap until one day when we were analysing where our revenues are coming from and things like that. And I thought it was pretty cool that in one app we could look and see details about particular clients and know what's supposed to do next.

But then we could also enter some kind of function. And then next thing you see how much of your profits are coming from here or how many, what's the percentage of your inquiries that are coming from this place And Excel, wonderful tool. That's for those of you who are math inclined. So, yeah, so that's the Excel. But I have been making a lot of noise about using your mobile phone to serve these functions precisely because now everybody has a smart phone in their pocket.

So this is actually something that can work because everybody has one and nobody has the old Nokia 33 six, you know, those analogue, you know. OK, well, wasn't analogue, was it? Yeah, analogue. The Nokia 3610, the one that you play Snake on and things like that. And then the Nokia 1100, the one that had the light bulb on top, that was a wonderful phone. The battery could last for one whole week. I mean, that was the best phone I ever had.

Wonderful phone. So now we all have mobile phones with that have different functions. It has no taking functions. It has calendar functions, reminder functions, I mean all kinds of functions. Wonderful. And you can use a mobile phone, you can access the Google suite or you can use the the ones that are native to the phone. Like I use a Xiaomi 13 C and I've noticed that the Jiaomi has its own calendar, its own note taking functions, you know, all those sorts of things.

Although I stick to the Google suite because in theory, if my phone gets stolen or missing, I want to be able to buy another Android phone. Just sign in and then everything is exactly where I left it. Now let us see how all of this works so that you guys can appreciate why having some sort of ACRM tool is important to getting your business objectives going. So let's say you want to raise funds and then you visit Odoku Malay because you want to get a $1000 investment.

At the time of recording this podcast episode on 26th of May, if you raise $1000 for your investment, that is currently 1.468 million naira. Yes, that is the state of our forex nowadays. But anyway, who's to complain if you're able to get $1000? It might be chicken change for the investor, but for us that is 1.46, basically 1.5 million naira. And so you want to raise the funds because you have an idea for fisheries. So you discuss your fisheries idea with Odogo Malay, but unfortunately you didn't do your research ahead of time.

And MODOK, Odogo Malay is only comfortable with the textile industry because that is how he has made his millions and billions from buying Ankara in Sweden or whatever and importing it to Nigeria and then selling to to distributors and wholesalers. So let's say that's how he's made his money. So he's uncomfortable with textiles, but he points out during the meeting that he'll be willing to invest if you can show detailed profits and expense figures.

Because after all, Odogo male, he's a the businessman, he's an able businessman. So he understands Naira and COBOL, so he understands if. OK, the core idea might not know it, but I can see that you put money in here. This is how much comes out at the end of the day. So it gives you 2 conditions. I will invest if you show me profit and expense. Let me see how where the money comes in, where it goes out, how much comes out and if you can find another investor and you say oh thank you very much or Google Malay, I really appreciate it.

You stand up, you don't ballet, you know that's the like the bow something 'cause you have to acknowledge now or Google Malay is a Bros. So you stand up, you acknowledge Bros and then you leave. Both of you agree to see again in one month. Now what happens next? The usual guy man attitude. Now the usual Nigerian attitude is you go along, you try and run a few things but then you forget that yon Odogo Malay said we'll meet in one month.

By the time you remember, six weeks have passed and you try to hit up Odogo Malay again. At this point Odogo Malay, the serious businessman and he thinks this idiot is not serious. And you start going into voicemail and you say that Odogo Malay has entered ghost mode and you think the problem is Odogo Malay. The problem is not with Odogo, the problem is with you. He actually were not serious. You're trying to run this thing from memory, and it will happen eventually when you run these things from memory that you and somebody agree they're supposed to meet on Wednesday and you will now wake up on Friday and like, oh gosh, I was supposed to have been two days ago, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah. I start thinking the other person, so why didn't he send a reminder? I mean, like, who is the person who's chasing after something here? You are the one who's chasing after something. Why do you think this other person is going to remind you? Take the initiative. This is why CRM tools are really important and like I said, doesn't have to be expensive, doesn't have to be fancy. If you did paper and pen with diary, provided you take the diary every day, this mistake would not have happened.

If you used mobile phone with no taking scheduling and all these sorts of apps, these sorts of things would not happen. So that is option one. What happens a lot of the time you do your guy man thing and you remember by the time the time is too late. Now option B, you've left the meeting, you say thank you to Odogo because it's a bigger Bros. You go outside, you get into the car. Before you drive away, you take out your phone and then record the details of the meeting,

whether you want to do voice note or whatever, but you put some sort of record. The thing is, you're supposed to put it down so that there's something you refer to in the future. So you can remember that when me and Odogo had a meeting in his office, what did we talk about? What are we supposed to do, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you're going to do it as a text and you're using an Android phone just like I am, then what you do is you enter into your contact whatever, where you have stored Odogo Malay's phone number under Odogo Malay, you will see a section there that says details or notes.

I think in iPhones it's notes, but I think in some Android phones it's details. Under details you can type a whole lot. I don't know what the character limit is. I think there are some that I've typed up to like 2000 characters and it hasn't blocked me yet to say you've run out of space. So you type out everything there. That way every single time you grab your phone and you tap Odogo Malay before you call, you can see the notes there about all the interactions you guys have had in the past.

By the way, try and make it a summary. You know thing you're not trying to write out scripture here. So just key points. October 26th Odogo Malay meeting objections, agreement, follow up, action points, you know, blah blah blah. 5-6 lines just to remember. So every time you open your phone, I check or do Kumali, you'll be able to see the history of all the interactions. Then once you record nothing in your phone, remember you do all this before you drive away from the venue because this was going to happen.

You drive away from the venue. While you're driving, Mom C calls. She has just one of your cousins who's getting married or this thing is happening in the family or she's coming to town. You should pick up at the airport. Just pick up at the park. And before you know it, that is how like 910 hours would have passed. You had the meeting with Odogo. You didn't write anything down. You started forgetting some of the things that Odogo said.

So do this in your car before you take off. You now schedule a reminder. Put that reminder then on your phone for one month. That way you are not going to forget this meeting. You won't wake up six weeks later and think, ah, I should have had a follow up meeting with Odogu about raising 1000 lbs for my business. Then you also set another reminder to call Odogu in three weeks and three days. Remember he said one month, One month is 4 weeks.

So it's not a bad idea. If you call him up after 3 1/2 weeks, you say ah Odogu and let's say I should greet you, remember our meeting, blah blah blah. You say we should see again in four weeks, should I come back to the office, blah blah blah. You know that whole thing. But basically a reminder call. So this is also useful because Odogo is a busy man, he might have forgotten. So this is also a good way to make sure that he remembers and he will now tell his PA to schedule the meeting and then all that.

So the chances of this meeting going forward increase because you have set this reminder and you've taken action. So excuse me then before you leave. I know this sounds like a lot, but The thing is the more you do it, the easier it gets and you develop shorthand for taking your notes. So it actually happens. Sharp, sharp, sharp. Then you can also now call your business partner Yamasi. Let's say you met with Odogu Friday, you now call Yamasi.

Yamasi, what's up? Let's meet on Friday. You now shall do that in the calendar. Now the whole point. So excuse me, sorry about that. The sore throat is gone, but unfortunately, I had a couple of speaking and coaching engagements, so my voice is being stretched to the Max right now. So I need to start researching, you know, all those funny things that people do, you know, drink ginger in the morning, drink honey in the afternoon and blah,

blah, blah. And maybe I should get the voice coach. OK. What was that? Yeah. So you call Yamasi and you shell into your phone. And the reason why you're calling Yamasi is because Yamasi is your business partner. She studied accounting, so she's better at numbers than you. So the whole point of having this meeting with her is to tell her, look, I'm able to go on Friday. Odogo said no problem, $1000, I'll be, I can get you that money so long as you provide these numbers for me.

I tell ya Missy, why I start working on these numbers so we can get her $1000. So you tell her. She starts preparing the figures. Of course you also schedule reminders to be sure that everything on track. Because if you tell ya Missy start getting these numbers, but you don't follow up on her, you find out now find out in three weeks that it's almost time for the meeting with Odogo and ya Missy doesn't have the thing there.

So maybe even set a rolling reminder for every five days so that you can now check about Yamisi. Yamisi offer profit and loss share everything is there. The figures Abego, the meeting with Odogu is coming is $1000. There's no small money. So please, Yamisi, I beg do this thing. This is our future. Then Odogo also said that he would drop the money if you can find another, another investor. So you now schedule on your phone that OK, this is Friday,

Sunday when I'm in church, let me stop by Deaconess Okuni because she's a respected member of the community. And the idea is that if she can invest, then Odogo might also be convinced because Deaconess Okuni is somebody that everybody knows. So Odogo, he respects her. If she drops money, he too he will drop. Then you also now schedule a note so that you can call the PA of Malam Sanusi and then schedule a meeting. You also put that on your calendar.

Your rationale for doing this is the more the better with the Kanesukuni in my click, Well, if it doesn't click, at least you're still talking to my Amazon, UC, and a couple of other people to see how you can raise money through them. So the more investors, the better. Now, let me stop with all these details because my story is getting stretched and stretched and stretched. But the point that I'm trying to recommend and that I hope you guys get is because of all these pings, because of all these notifications, because of all these notes, because of all these reminders, you can see that you're now getting closer to getting your $1000

investments and for your business to succeed because you're not running things from memory. And there's something external to you that is going to be reminding you and prodding you that this is what you haven't done. This is who you need to see. This is who you need to follow up on. This is what you have to do next. So these are examples of free tools that you can use if you're a lawyer or if you're a startup founder, you want to set up a fish factory, you're a wedding planner or whatever it is you want to do.

This is how you can manage relationships and dealings with clients and other stakeholders. So it doesn't matter what industry you're in. These are examples of free tools. This is where you will start. Eventually you would need something more complex, but when we get there, we'll get there. Today. It is fine to start with your phone. It is time. It is fine to start with pen and paper. It's fine to start with diary because you're not trying to run things from memory.

So plan your dealings with customers and stakeholders properly, make sure you don't drop the ball and you should be fine. 30 minutes. So let me bring today's episode to a close. So that's all for today. Please connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then connect with me on LinkedIn. The name is Tavishima Ayede. Can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from the link.

We're currently listening to this episode, so thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording.