https://i.imgur.com/WVWimwq.jpg 


A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is a technological tool that allows businesses to store information on leads, potential customers and existing customers as well as your interactions with them.

It can be used to manage customer relationships throughout the entire customer lifecycle, from marketing, to sales and even customer service.

Members of your team can use its CRM to populate customer information as it becomes available. For example Telegram handle, a networking organization chapter or social media account.

Once your prospect becomes a customer, it can be used to track customer service issues or support.   They might write to your business' X account and then follow up on Telegram or in private, and having a CRM  lets you manage the inquiry across all channels without losing track; super useful.  

My business only has four full-time employees, so I probably don't need one, right? CRMs are only for large corporations, right? Wrong!  It can do wonders for you and I've found that not having one was costing me money.

You see, an incoming sales call handled by the administrative assistant can end up in information written on a notepad, for example.    What if a sales rep had a visit to that customer later in the week and stored the information about his visit "in his head"?   Maybe you made some notes about this customer in your Notion.   See where I'm going with this?

Details on your customers can be lost, you might fail to follow up on a call and you'll end up losing sales and doing lots of additional administrative work; time that can be better used on something more productive.

### Cloud-based solutions for small businesses.
 https://i.imgur.com/VwIf41G.png 
[image source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-easy-use-sales-crm-best-software-your-small-jeroen-corthout/)

The above chart has examples of solutions for large enterprises of 10,000 emlopyees and up as well as small businesses.  Most enterprise solutions can cost in the range of $50 to $150 per user, per month, with some premium plans costing upwards of $300!   But small businesses don't need to go over the top to take advantage of a CRM solution.   We use a cloud-bases solution called [Monday.com](https://monday.com/lang/es) that allows us to set up different boards to classify our leads and potential customers and jot down as much information about them as possible. This solution costs about $10 per user per month and has been totally worth it

Here's how it works for us, starting with the sales funnel.

![CRM 1 - Leads & Contacts.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/alex-rourke/23u6Fna5qx8VCmgUrgbUFPHDJnTCYSQkytyFuQ3igooHhC3YWaDQTDD9HE4bRKVrMWE5J.png)

#### Leads and contacts board

Our first part of the sales pipeline starts with the leads & prospects board which has two segments.  The first group is where we write down leads: businesses we've seen on social media, or maybe an ad agency we heard about from an acquaintance.  We usually have not made contact with them yet.

We'll write down information we've found on their website, LinkedIn or a name of an existing contact that might be able to provide that referral.  Once we've obtained their contact information, they'll be automatically moved to the _Contacts_ section and they'll be associated with an account.

One of the two people in sales with reach out via email, phone call, visit, WhatsApp to try to offer a solution for a specific problem and as soon as they are interested in a particular service and request a quote, a potential deal is created.



https://i.imgur.com/eZIJIGG.png 

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![CRM 2 - Deals.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/alex-rourke/23xAa6zkLf1vBG2djQCWCwnTucbP3CWVabbLdGoLNgXYkD2A4c4WLprgkDukU6M8b7NBB.png)

#### Deals
As soon as we send a quote to a prospective customer, we create a deal item, where we can upload the quote document, any information we've provided the prospect, as well as notes on every call, email or text message we've exchanged.   We also classify the deal status into 
- Quote sent
- Negotiation
- Won
- Lost

We can also set a reminder that can automatically trigger an email for us, or notification on Slack, so that we know when to follow up on the deal.

 https://i.imgur.com/a1ViCLT.png 

We classify deal priority into low, medium and high depending on  the ticket amount, customer size and other criteria such as strategic alliances.

If a prospective customer says "no" or has stopped answering our communication, the deal will be moved to lost and we can talk about what went wrong.   They might be contacted in the future about a new deal.    If the prospect says "yes", the deal is moved into WON status and two things are automatically triggered:

- A project is created
- An invoice request is opened
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![CRM 3 - New Projects.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/alex-rourke/23wMePHrMDWkAVc3FnwR77b9rmdawuzk68NqPHfM7TfHucrr7Gk5PK3mfNkmkEjVxGnop.png)


#### New Projects

When a new project is underway, we gather invoice information from the client as well as provide them payment options with us.

The production team also has access to this board, so they know when recording will happen, what equipment, furniture, props, and other media will be used during the session and they are also able to provide both management AND the client have the status of their recording.
 https://i.imgur.com/DxMuUV5.png 

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![CRM 4 - Invoices.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/alex-rourke/23xVMJdCVYikhgFqUzGsDm66uLMo3bweun7JYDgj4LQSGzRSTNpPjG6uAac3mRDnzEvPH.png)


#### Invoices

When a recording date is set with a client, an item is created for the treasurer.   It says invoice pending.   As soon as recording is finished, we go ahead and send the invoice to the client and get ready to get paid!


#### Conclusion


![Signature.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/alex-rourke/23wqw2XdbGQQtTo5jHWtEvhGFT4mwWAZA7VXZbDBpk2j9UJqK8r82rdM4V6SE6N91Hrrg.jpg)


As you can see, It's a simple process, but it keeps everybody focused and up to speed throughout the sales, production, delivery and invoicing process.  Weekly meetings (on Mondays) are kept short and to the point, as everybody knows what they should focus on.  Less time is wasted and customers receive exceptional service.


What do you think?  Could your business benefit from using a CRM?

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All images are my own unless stated otherwise.   I use Midjourney as well as Canva Pro to generate and edit my cover images and signature.

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