CRM Systems - The Guru Kevin Maddison
Systems
Are you like me and have used every CRM system known to man? As a photographer, it’s tough to commit all of those clients that you’re working with into a CRM system and use it to its median percentage. We could easily get distracted and we get bombarded by new systems, new opportunities, and things that will save time and save money. But ultimately, it’s about finding a system that works for you and really bedding it into your systems and not getting distracted by all the other bells and whistles that everybody’s offering at the moment.
About a year ago, my good friend, Kevin Maddison, set me up with a nice, free account on HubSpot and it was all great, the idea behind it, the premise of it, all fantastic. I made massive savings on anything I’d used in the past, where I’d been paying, you know, upwards of £25 or £30 a month for different bits of software and this did a good chunk of that for free. But obviously, it was the commitment of getting all the information in there and utilising it on a daily basis. And that’s a year ago, so 11 months ago, I completely and utterly forgot about it and never used it again. Which is obviously a bit silly, I know you’re saying that, but Kevin obviously spent his time and I put my time into the effort of it, but then the working life just kind of didn’t integrate into my systems because it was new, because it was scary; well it wasn’t really scary, but you know what I mean, it did have a thought process of putting stuff in every day was tricky for me.
Now roll forward to October last year, when everything changed, the work changed, life changed and it meant that I had some support, so Rachel came into the team and has supported me through a lot of my admin tasks and kept me on top of my systems. Now, this was a real game changer, because then all of a sudden it was like, it’s somebody else telling me that I need to do this on a weekly basis or a daily basis. And it’s been a game changer.
Now if you’re not good with systems it’s dead easy to lose leads, to lose potential work, to lose the passing comment that somebody says, ‘Ah, it’d be great to get some headshots done,’ as a one-off line, now how do you capture that and how can you show that visually (I need to see things visually) so that when that person asks again or I see that person, I can drop in those hints of, ‘Oh actually, do you still want to do that shoot?’ Now in the past, it would have either circled around my head and then popped out on a Friday night when I was watching a film or something, but now that I’ve got it all on HubSpot again, we’re rock and rolling for six months now, it’s been a revelation. It’s been great to have all the information in there and I don’t feel as though I lose any leads in the same way at all.
Yesterday, for example, I sent out about four emails to companies on quotes that I’d sent out, maybe in the last month or so. And not heard anything from you, just to have an update. Now, two of those have come straight back and gone, ‘Oh actually, timescale-wise, it’s that the products don’t start yet, but obviously, we’ll be in touch as soon as we can, in the meantime, how are things going?’ kind of thing. Or, the flipside, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, let book a meeting next week.’ So I’ve got two phone calls next week and I’ve got two projects that were just floating in the ether, but now I know I’ve got some certainty around it, they are going to happen.
So this is basically a big shout-out to Kev, that supported me through this. And I know Kev’s running some free sessions in Durham at the moment, to help businesses to get their heads around this, as a starting point for their business to really be able to push forward and know that the information’s captured in the right way. Now, this HubSpot isn’t just for photographers by any stretch at all, Kev actually had to do a lot of manipulation to make it work for me in my head. So, it’s about making it fit for you. This isn’t a sales pitch for HubSpot by any chance, I mean they can give me some money if they like, but actually, it’s just about having that system and having that thing in place. Now, have you got systems in place? Have you thought about this? If any of this rings true to something you’ve been thinking about and you happen to fit within the criteria for Kevin’s sessions, please go and have a look and have a chat, because it’s certainly helped my business massively and taken away so much of that thought process and doubt about quotes and things that you’ve said out there.