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By focusing on sales cycle effectiveness over sales cycle capacity, small and medium businesses (SMBs) can position themselves for growth. Here are 3 ways a small business CRM can help you stay agile while managing significant growth.

 

SMBs by nature are nimble, flexible and able to develop personal relationships with customers in a way that most larger corporations can’t. They can differentiate themselves from larger corporates easily and, using those points of difference, win business away from enterprise.

On the flip side, once a smaller business becomes a success its managers tend to be focused on the needs created by shrewd growth. The latest Small and Medium Business Trends Report highlighted ‘keeping up with demand’ as the second biggest challenge when it comes to customer engagement, right behind ‘bringing innovative ideas to market.’ 

Small business CRMs are a key digital tool used by SMB leaders to manage growth while staying agile. Here are 3 ways a CRM can create an environment where business leaders get time to work on the business, rather than in it.

1. Saving time through lead management

It's fairly common for SMBs to use search engine marketing to help their business grow. This is a good, cheap way to get leads rolling in. But how do you manage those sales leads?

Do you go through them in order, contacting each one, hoping for a hit? Or do you know which ones to prioritise? Are your salespeople making 100 calls, hoping for 15 high value leads?

Imagine what your sales team productivity would look like if:

  • The introductory work, including branded and personalised email responses, could be automated
  • Actions as a result of those emails could be tracked and followed up on different channels
  • A CRM platform helped you prioritise leads based on high, medium and low value?
  • You knew how many calls were needed to reach those 15 high value leads

This is what we mean by ‘making your people as effective as possible’. Rather than dealing with 100 random leads, if you instead feed a salesperson 15 high value leads, then the entire business benefits.

Smaller companies often think CRM technology is only for the big end of town, but for high-performing businesses of all sizes it’s as essential as a phone and a laptop. With this technology in place, managers can focus on their growth strategy above dealing with new challenges and problems.

2. Staying proactive with sales forecasting

If SMB leaders are struggling to cope with the number of customer calls, then their immediate reaction is to hire somebody, even if the problem may be effectiveness over capacity. They seek solutions reactively to fill holes as they appear.

These reactive solutions, apart from being expensive and mostly ineffective, tend to stifle growth rather than support it. They certainly don’t support the anticipated needs of a growing business.

CRM technology brings more benefits than just boosting a sales team’s success. It allows SMBs to properly forecast sales and be proactive. A data-driven sales dashboard can highlight patterns and trends so you can anticipate your business’s needs rather than making reactive decisions on the fly. It means you can easily identify seasons, markets and regions in which your products are selling.

And it means decisions, like hiring the right talent at the right time, become informed by real projections of your business’s upcoming needs, not reactive.

3. Delighting people using a customer data platform

Small businesses tend to have much closer relationships with their customers – but highly personal service gets harder and harder as your business grows. With a CRM or customer data platform underpinning your business, when a customer wants to discuss an issue, it doesn’t matter who answers or the channel they choose – they can pick up where the last conversation left off rather than having to explain again, avoiding a waste of your team’s time and the customer’s.

The responsiveness and options offered by a great CRM system offer reassurance to the customer that they’re dealing with a professional business, and one that puts the customer front and centre. It makes a business appear larger than it is, without throwing away the small business’s point of difference – flexibility and personal relationships.

You can also create communities that turn your existing customers into brand ambassadors. You can collaborate with them, they can communicate with each other, and these communities – led by your customer service team – can answer each other’s questions while giving you deep insight into their concerns and behaviours.

When your customers are delighted to deal with you, you have a better chance at keeping their business.

Too soon to adopt a small business CRM?

When should a business seek CRM software? I’d recommend from day one, the same time they have their website set up. That’s how vital it is. To avoid the problems caused by a reactive approach to growth, you need to be proactive – ready to scale before you actually need to scale. When people running a business are offered the capacity to think strategically, amazing things can happen.

Learn what’s on the horizon with the Small and Medium Business Trends Report.