5 Entrepreneurs Told Me Why CRM Is So Darn Complicated

I recently attended a meeting where a group of small business owners shared with me that their customer relationship management (CRM) systems were so complicated to use, and difficult to set up. These were smart business owners, with experience in business – but CRM was a challenge for them.

During our discussion we came up with two solutions.

The business owners who succeed at implementing marketing campaigns don’t first use their CRM system. No, the first tools they use are pens (or pencils) and paper.

What they do is map out their marketing campaigns.

They think about what actions they want a potential customer to take when first coming in contact with the company via their website, email newsletter, social media, or other entry point.

By mapping out your marketing campaigns, before you even use your CRM system, you’ll have a better perspective and feel for how your prospects and customers will interact with your education or sales content.

If you’re just receiving email addresses into a form and sending out an email newsletter, you don’t need to put much thought into that. However, don’t you want to go BEYOND just email marketing? Would you like to do better at educating your customers so they buy from you? And ensure you wow them at just the right time? To do this you need a more detailed and thoughtful marketing plan. It can be simple, but it must be effective.

The second thing I learned is that some of the most successful companies that succeed at CRM rely on an expert to help them. While small business owners can do a lot on their own, CRM, like accounting, law, building construction, and other things, is best done in partnership with an expert, so you can focus on growing your business.

How can expert can help? Marketing experts can best help because first, they know the detail of the CRM system. So they’ll save you the time in knowing the ins and outs of the system. Secondly, your hired help will guide you into creating a marketing plan that’s best for your business and can get you the best results you want.

During our discussion, many of the users wanted to customize their CRM software to make it work with other software. A good programming can do this for you. Furthermore, out of the box, CRM systems are not made for YOUR business specifically. A marketing consultant can help you customize it so it’s fine-tuned for your company.

As you look into leveraging a CRM solution for your business, seek expert help and map your marketing process on paper.