I know I’m a bit of a geek, but I’m a huge fan Excel. I even use it on my Smartphone to keep track of the scores while I’m playing crazy golf with my kids!
But even I would prefer to use a CRM (customer relationship management tool) to Excel, and here’s why:
1) Do you dig through your email inbox to remind yourself of what you need to do for your client next? A CRM will allow you to save your email conversations, so all you need to do is search for the person’s name and you’ll have their entire history (both email and phone call conversations) right in front of you.
2) Need to set a reminder so you don’t forget to call or email that client in a couple of weeks from now? A CRM will do this for you.
3) Whatever happens, you’ll need a client database of some kind. A CRM is better for storing and finding names, addresses and phone numbers than Excel.
4) Need to send emails in bulk to your clients? You can integrate a CRM with your email service provider, saving you a lot of copy and pasting or importing.
5) You can set up your sales process in a CRM e.g. if your process is something like…
The client emails you > you book a discovery call > if you haven’t heard from them in a week you follow up by phone> they either sign up as a client or go back on the list to be called in 6 months
….then you can put that process in your CRM so you know which stage each client is at and you can move them along the process.
6) If you share your client data with your team or business partner you will each have an account in the CRM. That means you have a record of who has done what and you won’t get the errors that arise when you pass an Excel spreadsheet between you.
7) If you set up your CRM now you won’t be struggling to switch over from Excel when your business grows to the point where your Excel spreadsheet really can’t cope. CRMs are very cheap if you’re just starting out, some are even free, so there’s no reason not to start now. Feel free to take my quiz to find out which is best for you.
And if you need any more help please just let me know!