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Today, I'd like us to look at implementing CRM for sales, implementing CRM for your business, for your organization. Now before we head into that, we have to tackle a few questions as usual. First off, we have to define what is ACRM. That's for those of you who are just listening to the show for the very first time. And then we're going to answer the question, why do we need the CRM to improve our sales? So those of you who are stay lights, you've been listening for a long time, you know that the CRM is an acronym and that stands for customer relationship management tool.
Some people say client relationship management. So whatever it is, you get the point acronym for customer or client relationship management. So it's a tool for tracking conversations with people, tracking relationship milestones, both before the close. Well, most people try and track relationships before the close, but then after they collect the money from the clients, they can't be bothered. But then you have folks like me saying that it's not just about tracking the relationship before you collect the money, because even after you collect the money, it pays to still track the relationship, try to nurture the relationship, build the relationship.
Because we're trying to get repeat business and we're trying to get referrals. So the relationship is important both before you collect the money from the customer and after you connect. Sorry, you collect the money from the customer. So what do CRM tools look like today? Today there are lots of digital tools that can be used to track relationships. And the whole point when I say track relationships, this is what I mean.
When you enter into business for yourself in the beginning, you'll find that you're only talking to one or two people in the early days because you're not going to be doing a lot of prospecting. Talking to strangers is going to be hard, and maybe you've only spoken to your friends or family members. You know one or two people at work, so you're not going to have those many clients to talk to. Now at that stage, trying to manage the relationship is going to be easy because you're only talking to one or two people.
So it'll be easy for you to remember when you wake up today that you're supposed to call with Uche back to see how far the proposal, because in the last month, you only would have issued 2 proposals. So in that case, it's easy to manage. You wake up and you know that. OK, I sent one proposal to with Uche and I sent another proposal to Madam Catherine. So it's only two. That's not a problem. Managing those two relationships until the close, trying to figure out where are you in the relationship, what do people owe you, what do you owe them, what the next step you need to do to close the deal, all those sorts of things.
Trying to figure all that out. It's not going to be a problem in the early days when you have one or two customers. Now. The problem is this, especially if you do a good job eventually. From 2 customers you get to three. From three, you get to 5. From 5, you get to 7. From 7, you get to 12. Now, by the time you start multiplying the number of customers you have, managing things from memory becomes really, really, really difficult.
And that's something that I faced early on in my wedding photography days when I was in partnership with my brother. Now, I was lucky that my brother was the kind of person who would wake up and say, oh, today it's February. Didn't Chukudi and Chinaya get married in February? That's him talking to me. I'm like, OK, let me check. Then I'd go and check my file as I go and check the photographs, the place where I stored the photos and I would open it and lo and behold, I would say that OK, they got married on February 2nd and I would now know that it's time to reach out to Chukwudi and Chingi Ray to say what's up, anniversary is coming soon, happy married life, we have the children, blah, blah,
blah. So that is relationship building, that is relationship nurturing. So like I said, since my brother has a fairly good memory because he can remember that oh so, so, so so person got married around this month or around this week. Building relationships was OK while I was in partnership with my brother, but eventually he started looking after the family agricultural export business that we were running. And so I didn't have his memory to Piggy Bank off to, you know,
to jump off of anymore. So that's why my relationship with these sorts of things, customer relationship management tools or using your phone as a customer relationship management tool. That is how this my relationship with this aspect of business or these technologies or these philosophies or tools around business. That's how we started because I needed something that would remind me that this is the month of March. And in the month of March, we have three or four clients who got married last year.
So I'd have to send them, you know, happy marriage, happy new life, How's the family? How are the babies? You know, all those kinds of messages. And also so that I could keep on being in touch with them to try and see how I can get referrals. You know, that whole thing of, oh, how far, you know, Chin AM on your bridal train last year seemed like an OK babe who were chatting just getting married this year, maybe July. So, you know, how far now can I
have her number and all those sorts of things? So by the time you start multiplying the number of customers that you talk to, trying to manage all these things by your head is just not possible. Two or three, that's fine. By the time you start entering 78910, it's it's impossible, it's impractical, and you'll be losing lots of business. Because if you're trying to run this thing from memory, you would have forgotten that during the wedding of Chingere and Chukudi that their bridesmaid Chingere said she's going to get married in July of next year.
So it's it's a lot of details to remember. So you won't remember to call Chingari and Chukudi in March to say congratulations and then see if you can install the information anywhere that their bridesmaid is getting married in July. You'll also forget to ask, you know, how far you know, can I get this babe's phone number and stuff like that. So this is the reason why we need CRM tools. And when I say tracking customer conversations, relationship milestones before the close,
after the close, these are the sorts of things that I'm talking about. And this is how we start losing business. We forget to call our people to say what's up, how have you been? All the equipment is still working well, how's the marriage, How's the children, all those sorts of interactions. And because of that, we don't earn the right to be able to call them to say, hey, we just got some new products in store, 20% off, are you interested to come and have a look and blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. Because you can't have those kinds of conversations with people if you've not earned the right, if you've not been keeping in touch, if you've not built relationships, you just seem like spam because the only time that people hear from you will be when you're trying to collect money from them. So this is the whole gist behind CRM tools. And this is the reason why CRM tools are absolutely necessary.
Now, for those of you who've been saying just about CRM tools online, but you didn't quite get the importance because people don't do a good job of explaining what the CRM tool tool is or why it's necessary. This is precisely the reason why because no CRM tool or poor CRM tool means that you are losing lots of deals and losing lots of business opportunities. So now let's go back to what CRMS, the kind of CRM tools that we have available today.
So there are lots of digital tools there. Everybody knows the fancy ones. So you've heard about the fancy ones like Salesforce? Salesforce, What's this other one again? These people that created inbound inbound, these people that organize inbound conference, what's their name again? I can't remember. Shabba. You get the gist. There are lots of foreign CRM tools. Then we have some local CRM tools. There are free ones like Odo,
that's ODOO. That's a free one. App just installs easily on your phone and you can use that then even for the foreign ones, there's some foreign ones that are denominated in naira that you pay for in naira, like Zoho, that's ZOHO, yeah. See that billboard in Central Business District? Now that's if you're based in Abuja, if you're driving next to the Ministry of Finance. Yeah, at the junction just before Ministry of Finance and I
think of the junction by, is it Ministry of Women's Affairs or something like that? Yeah, that road that is between Ministry of Finance and Women Affairs. You see a billboard there for Zoho and the amount is there. That's for those of you in Abuja. I can't remember how much it is per user or per licensee or whatever. So the good thing about using the good folks like Zoho is because since it's narrowly denominated, then you don't have to worry about dollar fluctuation because for the other ones where you're paying in dollars, we have things continue.
You know with the Nigerian economy, you can wake up and find out that you're paying even though you paid X amount of naira last month, you know the dollar equivalent has changed this month. And so the money has either gone up or gone down, most likely has gone up. So there are free tools out there. Like I said, auto free one, I don't think auto is Nigerian, I'm not sure. Then Zoho, that one is also foreign as well. Now, my advice to folks who can afford these sorts of tools is you can just use your phone because your phone has no taking tools.
It has scheduling tools, it has calendar tools, or there are apps that you can easily download on your phone. They are actually project management tools or not keeping tools, not keeping apps like Trello, like Evernote and things like that. Some people even use Microsoft Excel. But what I'm just trying to say is there are things that you can put on your phone that will ping you and remind you that now we're in the month of March and that is the month where Chigudi and Chiniere got married.
And by the way, after you wish them happy married life and how are the children, their bridesmaid Chinoso is getting married in July. So try and collect Chinoso's phone number because it's three months for the wedding. See if you can hook up something so you can use Excel, Evernote, Trello, your calendar on your phone just to keep track of all these simple functions. And that's how you don't lose track of money. So why do you need a CRM?
OK, I've already hinted at some of that. Because you're trying to manage multiple relationships. In the beginning, when it's two or three, it's absolutely fine, no problem. Eventually the contacts start to multiply and you have so many prospects that it's hard to keep track of them all. Now, if you don't have a CRM tool, you're only going to be paying attention to things that are urgent. The only thing you'll be paying attention to is when you wake up in the morning and then you see a message from your client shouting that you haven't delivered this or you haven't delivered that.
For those of us who used to be in the wedding photography space, you know, we know that feeling. When you wake up in the morning, everything is cool. Next thing, ping him. You see a message from the bride. I said like half hour on my book. You promise me you're going to have the book. 3 weeks, by the time three weeks was done, it is now 3 weeks and two days. You haven't given me the book. I'm angry. And it's not that that it's unprofessional and blah, blah,
blah. So if you don't have a scar, you're going to wake up every day and you'll be paying attention only to these things that are urgent, you know, people shouting at you, people chasing you down, things like that. And you're not going to be proactive in chasing potential deals. You're going to forget to call the people who got married in March to say how far and also to ask for the bridesmaids phone number who is getting married six months from now.
You'll forget all those things. You'll only be paying attention to things that are urgent. So CRM helps you keep things on track, helps you make more money. And for the new business person, when you're starting off fresh, CRM also helps you remember to collect your money because it happens that let's say for the month of July, you have 6 brides and and you were able to collect 80% payment from the six brides. Now you're so flush with cash that you've forgotten that actually you haven't collected 2020 20%, you know, on the rest of them.
So CRM tools makes it easy for those sorts of things because you know, a ping will just flash on your phone that, you know, two weeks to the wedding and the baby still owning you 200K or whatever. OK, yes, also another good idea. Why for those of us who are starting off as self-employed people, starting off new in business, another reason why it's good to use all these invoicing apps on your phone as well, because those are also good tools that you know, ping you like, you know, to ping you to say that you've collected 70%, you know, 30% remaining.
Should I send an e-mail reminder? So excuse me. Yeah, all those things then. OK, Yes, Another thing about CRM is that for those of you who now sell in Teams, because there are a bunch of you who have businesses and you already have some sales people, you know 456 sales people. The CRM allows teammates to access the deals and have suggestions or to try and diagnose other problems. Because if all of you are running Teams and you don't have a central CRM tool and one of you goes on maternity break or one of you falls ill or something.
If everything is on that person's phone or that person's individual Google Calendar, the other people are not going to be able to have access to it to say, OK, we need to service this client. This is what we owe that client and this is what needs to be done next. So that's one advantage of having central CRMS. So if you travel, you know, you go for your brother's burial. Sorry, God forbid you go for your brother's wedding.
That's what I meant to say. So you go for your brother's wedding. Somebody else can just simply check the CRM and say, oh, OK, China here is not here because she has gone for her brother's wedding. We need to service this client. We need to deliver this. We need to do that. This other person owes us this. They can just get it from the CRM too. Then let's see. OK, then one more thing. When you have a CRM, it gets managers off your back because they can see your deal flow and they're either going to be happy with it or not.
But if you've been doing your job, they're going to be happy with it because you can see deal flow and that the deals are progressing. So how do you choose the CRM for your business? It depends. There is no right CRM. It depends on a bunch of things, your company size, the industry, and your budget. You know, these are just some obvious examples of factors that you used to choose. And that's why I tell people that look, all those big, big,
big, big ones, you know, sales force and I'm still forgetting these people, these people that organize inbound conference, I can't remember. But all these big companies, there's no need for you guys paying attention to those ones. In fact, I saw this was sometime last year, I saw one of these online influencers in the Nigerian space was talking about not Salesforce Jai. And hopefully I remember the name before the sorry, excuse me, hopefully I remember the name before I'm done with this recording today.
So she was talking about using an LMS, one of the foreign LM s s is really, really popular. And then she also got the, the babe I'm talking about is a Nigerian, Nigerian babe. So she got one of these LM s s learning management systems for her course because she sells courses. Then she also got the big CRM. And then she did one of these end of year responses, end of year videos talking about why she was canceling membership to this and to this and to that.
So if you go ahead and you say you want the biggest, the brightest and the best, and because of that, you go and buy Salesforce, but really you only have a sales team of two. And, you know, it has all these, it's expensive and then it has all these advanced features and things like that, you know, just wasting your time because you're paying hundreds of dollars per head for features that you're not using and that really don't need at this time.
So it's the same, it's the same thing. So that's why I had to be about to cancel the the membership. No, not membership, the license that she had with the LMS Kujabi. Yes, Kujabi was what she used as her LMS learning management system to sell her courses. So she cancelled the Kujabi because, you know, she's in hijabi. It's not as if she has thousands of students that she's trying to sell accounts to and then things like that.
So if you wake up and say you want to buy the greatest, the best, the whatever, you might not actually need to do that because of your business size or because of the size of your client base or because of the industry that you're in or the budget that you have. So the right CRM really depends on where you are for the right CRM for somebody who is a wedding photographer and only has two people selling for him, it's not going to be the same For somebody who runs a fashion house and has 50 people selling for her or, or the other way around, let's keep it gender,
let's do gender parity. So a wedding photographer female having two people, not the same as one guy who runs the fashion house and has 50 people selling for him. So it depends. So don't over complicate things. Just focus on the essential future. What do you need when it comes to sales automation? There's different kinds of stuff. The people who sell cars for instance, and you have 50 or 30 cars because we have places like that in, in Abuja.
There's what's this guy's name? Is it Keanu Kea? Something Motors is in central business district. That guy's lot is is massive. Guy has like, I don't know if I'm guessing must be like 100 cars then Elisa Day is also here in Abuja, Elisa Day there in Abuja and in Lagos. Although Elisa Day, I think they only sell Toyota vehicles. So the kind of automation that Elisa Day and Keanu that they need is, is different. It's plenty.
It's not going to be the same if you have a simple shop where you're selling back children's back to school supplies and things like that and you know you have two sales people that sell for you. So the kind of sales automation that you need is different. Sales automation, marketing automation, what else? The level of analytics that you need is different. So don't overcomplicate things. Just try and look for a tool that matches you where you are.
Then also try and involve your team get buy in from your people. Let them know that look before you people have been doing things anyhow anyhow, but you know, the business is not really moving. We need things to move. We need to coordinate a couple of things. So because of that, I'm going to buy this, I'm going to buy this. And this is how we're going to start doing things. So you start having those conversations well ahead of time.
You don't just drop something on people like that. You know, it's somehow for people who have been selling one particular way. And then, you know, Monday morning, they just show up and you say, OK, now this is how we're going to do things. You know, you start having the conversation on small, small, you start easing people into it. You let the sales people know that this is what's up, this is where we're heading. This is what we're migrating to.
You let the marketing people know. You also let the customer service people know. Then you also need time to train your team on CRM functions, all the things that you know. How do you schedule this? How do you save people's number? How do you enter a note? How do you generate an invoice? Because some of them allow you to generate an invoice or send receipts and things like that. And this is where YouTube comes in really handy.
Because you'll find that no matter the CRM tool or whatever, you're trying to use the CRM tool, even for those of you who are trying to use Trello for CRM or Evernote for CRM, you can find videos on YouTube where people are talking about, this is how you do this, this is how you do that. This is how you make it work. So YouTube is going to be a very, very handy resource if you're trying to train your team on these sorts of things.
You just get one or two links sent to them. Hopefully don't watch it. They should. You should watch it mainly. That's the topic for another day. We'll get the link share and send it to them. Then some people talk about taking your CRM and then create a custom field, create custom workflows and create custom reports and things like that. Yeah, you can do those things. But in my own opinion, sha the default options that come with any CRM system, In my own opinion, it works fine.
Just start with the default. Don't worry about customizing. Start with the default. Don't start personalizing anything. It is after I use it for a few months and you people start facing challenges that is what will determine what defaults need to be changed by the time you use it 2-3 months and your sales people are complaining that auger, this process does not work for us this process does not work for us. You now know that, OK, change this process, tweak this process, personalize this one,
change the general settings, you know, things like that. But don't just come and start tweaking things. Because if you buy the thing and you start tweaking, you find that because these things can be quite complex and quite cool, you find that every two, two days you're changing something. So just start, just use it. When people start complaining, that will all determine what you need to change, which master settings you need to change, and then things like that.
Then implement gradually. Start with the core functionalities. Some people want to get into everything pretty quickly, like especially that e-mail automation that's sending automated emails from your CRM and things like that. Not a bad idea, but that's something you have to walk up to in the beginning. Just make sure that our sales people are doing the basics, recording the contacts name, storing, storing, OK, storing the contacts name, scheduling activities, you know, saying that we had the meeting one,
this is what we agreed on. Next step is to send proposal. Proposal is supposed to go out February 2nd and then you schedule that, you know, just basic stuff, keeping track of the conversation, then all the fancy things. So excuse me, so all the fancy stuff can be done later. Let me see what else. OK, well, we don't know about 20 minutes. And truth is when it comes to this CRM, the the yawning never finishes. You can't keep going on and on.
So many things can be said from ACRM perspective, but the details depends on things on the case by case basis, case by case implementation. Because if you're trying to implement a CRM for okay, well, let me just be practical. So for two clients that I've dealt with, well, one that I'm actually still dealing with trying to trying to do handle CMCRM implementation for somebody who runs a fashion house and only has two sales people in store is not the same as trying to do CRM for people who run a technical business with two people, two sales team in house and then you know one sales engineer that goes out and stuff like that.
So it just it depends CRM implementation different for different organizations depending on the stage that they're at. Now one thing that I, I must confess even me, it's something that I have failed to over emphasize to some of my clients. But this is something that we have to be ready for when you're getting your people on the CRM monitoring every day or every other day is going to be necessary for teams trying this out.
The first time I have made I have failed here. I've not been able to set expectations for some of my clients about the level of monitoring that is required. So in the beginning, every day or every other day, you wouldn't have to be in there. For some mature organizations that have been using it for a while, the manager might only have to look in one month or maybe once a week. One, at the beginning you wouldn't have to be on everybody's case because it's about habit building and for somebody who was used to freestyling those doing things anyhow anyhow on their own, it takes a while to build the habit.
And then it also causes slowdown in performance because it's a change in workflow. People are stopping and having to write and then things like that. So CRM implementation actually does cause some because some friction. Maybe it's also a cultural thing because like marketing people, marketing people love tools. So you just bring the tools and marketing people just be playing with the tools up and down and just using it anyhow.
But then you know, sales people are a certain kind of person and so there's always drama when it comes to CRM implementation. So if your people have been freestyling before for CRM implementation, there's going to be plenty of drama. But it's going to be worth it, especially when you look at things from a longer time frame as and everything is going to start making sense. So almost 30 minutes. Let me just wrap it up here.
So connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tava Shima Ayede. You can get the correct spelling of my name so you can search for the right person. If you use this link we're listening to this episode from, you'll also get my e-mail address there. So thank you very much for your time and attention.
I'll catch you guys at the next episode.