This 1 Thing Can Make Or Break Your Launch

Speaker 1 Hello, and welcome to this week's version of the UCAN podcast.

Speaker 1 I'm your host, Sarah Jolly Jarvis, and today we're going to be talking around a real life story actually that illustrates the impact of keeping a CRM up to date, keeping your CRM up to date, especially during a course launch, but at any time with your business, particularly when you're looking at cash flow and focusing on leads and ensuring that you have that steady flow of customers into your business.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 before we get started, what is a CRM? Well, a CRM is a customer relationship management tool, okay?

Speaker 1 It is used to enable you to get a clear picture of your leads and those people who are doing inquiries, making inquiries into working with you.

Speaker 1 If you don't have a CRM, don't worry at this stage, or will be revealed later on in this episode. But for now, let's talk around my client Amy and what was going on with her.

Speaker 1 Well, she a course and she was driving new enrollments to that course via a free lead magnet now that's not what I get all my clients to do but in this situation this is what this client was was working on and working too so she was putting out and offering a free lead magnet and then she was then following that up um very much this lead magnet was relevant to her target audience which is obviously really really important so that she is then able to these people want it she's able to identify them as as being you know a really strong potential of um a potential customer.

Speaker 1 And so from there, Rach was to then get back in contact with them once she'd provided them with the resource.

Speaker 1 And then she would find out from them if they wanted more support and more information on that support. Sermie came to this week's

Speaker 1 check-in with me. She's on the Courses That Convert program.
So she gets weekly check-ins with me. And she came to this week's session and she was a little bit despondent.

Speaker 1 She was a bit like, oh, you know what? The cash flow isn't coming in as I was hoping for.

Speaker 1 And, you know, that kind of niggling starts with feeling confident and confident in your offer and the market and everything else and we kind of hit pause on that and I said you know what let's look at where we're at let's take stock of the leads that you've got I obviously always come to these things with a sales and marketing focus that's what most of my clients need and So I'm always looking at the kind of leads and your pipeline and all that kind of element to kind of get a real understanding of what's going on and also really importantly where people are dropping off but that's that's something for another episode.

Speaker 1 So I said you know what let's look at your CRM and let's see where we're up to. Now Amy is quite a new client for me she's been working with me for the last

Speaker 1 four and a half weeks and so she has been in the process of reuse GoHigh Level.

Speaker 1 Having used a number of CRM systems in my lifetime, I have found that GoHigh Level does have it's a really good system for keeping track of. It's a very simple system once people get used to it.

Speaker 1 But obviously, it's part of a much more monstrous software. And so it is quite daunting, particularly to start off with.
So when we got on to her CRM, being a client, she has a sub-account with me.

Speaker 1 So I'm able to access that and have a look. It was clear that she hadn't been keeping it up to date.
She was already cringing and looking uncomfortable before I even opened it up.

Speaker 1 And she said, you know, yeah, I haven't been keeping up to date. I've had it on this kind of scrap of paper and that kind of scrap of paper.

Speaker 1 Having bits of information all over the place does not help you to get clear on what's going on. It doesn't give you that snapshot that a CRM can give you.

Speaker 1 It also doesn't give you that one-stop shop for understanding, okay, what are my actions today? Who am I following up with? Who's it? Who am I expecting payment in from?

Speaker 1 What's going on with this client? It's all over the place, and with it all being all over the place, you've got to remember where you put it.

Speaker 1 And then you've got to make you know it's very easy to drop the ball on a client or two because the information isn't all in that one place it isn't all readily available it's not easy to see if somebody is missing if you're anything like me give me a weekend between my conversation with somebody and

Speaker 1 and rethinking about them and I can quite easily have have forgotten and dropped the ball on things particularly when you're speaking to multiple people a week with information all over the place it meant that we didn't have a clear understanding of how many people had taken up the resource And then from that, how many people had responded when the resource had been sent to them on their DMs or on their emails?

Speaker 1 And then where those people had then dropped off in that process from initial, yes, I'd like the resource, through to

Speaker 1 being booking a call and signing up. And so it was very difficult to identify

Speaker 1 who was to be followed up, what stage people were at.

Speaker 1 There was also a lack of visibility on how many leads there were and therefore how much value was in her pipeline. So then it's very easy to be unsure of, oh gosh, what have I got coming through?

Speaker 1 So it impacts your decision making, obviously, on where you spend your time and where you allocate your time.

Speaker 1 But overall, it can also impact the confidence that you have that people actually want what it is you've got to offer.

Speaker 1 So you're not in a position, she wasn't able to say straight off the top of her head, for example, how many people had taken up that resource, how many people she'd offered the resource out to etc etc so it was very difficult to keep track and understand where she should be spending her time should she be spending her time getting more people interested or should she be spending her time following up on the people who had already voiced an interest for example if you don't know that information you're not able to make that decision The process of getting the CRM up to date was, to start with, I went through and I helped Amy.

Speaker 1 I pointed out what we needed to do and I talked her through it. I inputted a few people for her

Speaker 1 because we were both able to share the same

Speaker 1 sub-account. She was able to go in and add things whilst I got on with other stuff.

Speaker 1 And then we were able to reconvene at a later time so that we were able to look at the information that had then been put into that CRM.

Speaker 1 The key thing that made such a difference was to understand the revenues. So

Speaker 1 prior to

Speaker 1 the CRM being updated, there was no clarity on what value there were was in her, for example, the leads that she had coming through.

Speaker 1 And as you sort of progress with the CRM, what you'd look at doing is inputting your stats.

Speaker 1 So if you have an offer, so her CRM, the pipeline that she'd created, that she were working on, that pipeline was specifically for a product that was

Speaker 1 just over the $2,500 mark.

Speaker 1 And so she was then in a position where she could,

Speaker 1 she'd she'd know that everyone who signed up would create that.

Speaker 1 But what you don't know to start off with is your statistics on from the number of people who, for example, take up a lead magnet, how many of those will go on to buy.

Speaker 1 Because over time, what I have with my pipelines is that you can actually add, provide a value to those initial leads coming in. So the leads that come in,

Speaker 1 you would be, I think the last time I checked my initial leads, the value of those initial leads was something like $250

Speaker 1 and then from there because you know that from there there'll be so many individuals who go on to buy that higher ticket item and so you can then begin to get much clearer on the actual value which is in your pipeline rather than a guesstimate because at the end of the day those initial people who take up a lead magnet not everybody is going to purchase your high ticket offer but a percentage of them will but if you put their value as that high ticket you're going to be well excited by the value that's in your pipeline but it's unrealistic that you're going to get that 100 conversion so using your conversion rates can help you to understand actually what i can expect from the current pipeline that i've got As soon as we were able to input all that information, it was really clear that actually where her time needed to be focused was not on necessarily generating more people for the lead magnet, but it was actually following up those people who'd taken up the lead magnet.

Speaker 1 They'd been neglected because it wasn't such a clear step for her because she didn't have that pipeline on that CRM in place now when I say a pipeline what am I talking about it would be easier at this stage for me to be able to show you

Speaker 1 but we are on audio and so what I will do is talk you through it's very very similar to a Trello board in that you have those columns

Speaker 1 And so at the top of the column, you'll have the different types.

Speaker 1 I tend to get particularly to start off with with clients. They tend to run on the same sort of format as myself.
The vast majority of my clients are service-based businesses.

Speaker 1 And so it's potential need,

Speaker 1 it's inquiry as the next column. The next column along would be soft detailed.

Speaker 1 So you would be basically saying roughly, you know, this is what I do on a casual basis, nothing specific about a course, but that person now knows that I do X and Y.

Speaker 1 Okay, that would be your soft detail. Your full detail, I tend to full detail on

Speaker 1 a messenger, on a message, rather than get them on a call to full detail but a lot of my clients would have you know call links sent at that point and then

Speaker 1 call booked and then full detailed

Speaker 1 or call complete and then you would then go on to have purchased

Speaker 1 or signed up or awaiting payment and then as a final step you would have

Speaker 1 not interested at this point. I tend to keep my not interesteds in my pipeline.

Speaker 1 If they are absolutely not suitable, unqualified, you wouldn't want to work with them, then I will remove them off that pipeline. But a lot of the time I like to be able to see

Speaker 1 those individuals that I potentially want to follow up with in the future or if situations change. It is very important to keep those notes of those individuals then up to date so that you can

Speaker 1 reflect on those and refer to them so that you can make decisions in the future.

Speaker 1 Your CRM literally is only as good as the notes that you've got against those names because those names, particularly when you're starting with volume, can quickly get out of hand and you have no idea who those individuals are.

Speaker 1 Having those leads all in one place is the only way to keep on top of them and to make sure that nobody is slipping through the net.

Speaker 1 It's also, as I said before, a very, very good way of being able to understand where people disappear.

Speaker 1 Okay, so when I say drop off and disappear, it's when those individuals are no longer in that sales process.

Speaker 1 So, for example, at the moment with Amy, a lot of people are getting that resource, but they haven't been followed up sufficiently enough for those conversations to happen.

Speaker 1 So, what we ended up doing was when we sort of reconvened on that session,

Speaker 1 we ended up talking about

Speaker 1 what words we would use, what comments we would use to open up that conversation and to get that individual thinking around additional support.

Speaker 1 And so, those would be the things that you would look to do.

Speaker 1 Sometimes we avoid actions and steps and things and we procrastinate when we're not 100 sure what to do on them and so we address that so that that way she can she can start focusing on that stage in that pipeline the sort of cherry on the cake for us with this uh tidy up of the crm and getting it up to date was that actually she realized that she generated 7 800 in revenue over the last three weeks The thing was that the reason why she wasn't seeing that land in her account was because a lot of those were through payment plans.

Speaker 1 And so they were smaller

Speaker 1 payments that were going to be over a period of time. Now, you know, you can...
Some people love to have money up front.

Speaker 1 Others, actually, it's quite nice to know that for the next three, maybe four months, you're going to get those smaller payments from those individuals. So for some people, it works.

Speaker 1 I always encourage clients to have a combination of the two.

Speaker 1 For Amy, she was like, you know what? I'd rather just have it secured and in.

Speaker 1 And I get that because then you're not having to send check or follow up although if you use the right payment systems they all will let you know for you and and and recharge for it if it fails etc but it is just easy to feel like it's the money's in the bank so

Speaker 1 we then went through and looked at okay well we want to incentivize people to pay up front then it's looking at putting additional cost and implications on the

Speaker 1 the pay um split pay so that we can we can encourage people to go with the pay in full.

Speaker 1 The big thing for Amy, though, was the realization that that isn't a small amount of money to have made in the last three weeks. And

Speaker 1 it gave her that

Speaker 1 kind of boost in confidence that she needed to look at future cash flows and what she could be expecting.

Speaker 1 We were able to look further along to the left of that pipeline to the newer leads coming in and see what potential was in there and what she could expect and going forwards that data is only going to get better and better

Speaker 1 so you know if you're sat there thinking you know what i don't even know what you're talking about with a crm then um do please get in touch um there's i've got recommendations that i can make i can send you my sort of top three already heard me mention go high level i've also used other systems i also have a very very simple spreadsheet that i am more than willing to share with you which we can get you started on the tracking of your customers a CRM at the end of the day is a customer relationship management tool it is a way to manage your customers and to manage your customer information it's a way of tracking those resources and that's what's really really key here

Speaker 1 the important thing is is the time efficiencies that a CRM can save like yes absolutely you may find that there is you've generated more money than you're expecting

Speaker 1 but it is that time efficiency so you can quickly see who needs needs following up and who needs prioritizing. It's making your sales process easier.

Speaker 1 Sales is probably not something that you thoroughly enjoy doing.

Speaker 1 And so, having that information there, you just go in and you take the actions, having those comments and messages, templates at the ready, so that you can drop those into

Speaker 1 messenger conversations so that you can get that conversation going and you can move that person along.

Speaker 1 Again, it makes it more of a system and it takes away that stress and that worry over it being a sales process.

Speaker 1 The understanding that the pipeline visibility the overall what's happening with your pipeline helping you to understand exactly where the potential clients are in that sales funnel enables you to do something about it to move people along to focus on more more areas to focus on generating those leads for example and it gives you a much better understanding of what's going on it enables you to make data driven decisions okay so you can use real numbers real numbers based on what's going on in your business to make choices over where you spend your time where you you spend your resources okay it's very easy to think oh my sales are really bad whereas actually it may be that your lead generation needs a little bit of help and you're putting too much pressure on the sales process

Speaker 1 it's not just a tool for large companies okay a CRM if you have customers if you have I have people who are starting out who they have beta testers for their business for their first offer and they I get them to put those customers into a CRM you have to start somewhere okay it is a really really bad idea to write it off and think you know what it's only for big businesses it's for anybody who has customers because if you've got all potential customers you're talking to people you're trying to generate leads okay

Speaker 1 so maintain your CRM okay make sure that your CRM is up to date on a regular basis use it okay i don't want you to think of a crm system as a way of something i have to do okay it's a useful resource okay if you can update it you should be in there daily looking at your leads during your business development time looking at who do I have to to sort out who do I have to be following up now okay it is a usable resource if you keep it up to date it will honestly it will revolutionize your business

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 Please do take that on board.

Speaker 1 If you have any questions on CRM, if you would like to find out more around those recommendations then please do drop me an email at sarah at ucan.online that's s-a-r-a-h at ucan.online okay in the meantime guys please do be sure to subscribe to the you can podcast for more tips on scaling your business and optimizing those processes you can also connect with me on linkedin or on facebook so i am literally the only sarah jolly jarvis out there so that's it for me this week guys i look forward to speaking to you again next week.

Speaker 1 Bye for now.