We get asked about CRM software (client relationship management) all the time because Dennis is always harping on the benefits of integrating a CRM to support your client service matrix.
The truth is we were using www.salesforce.com for most of our business, but also some features of Outlook and even some features of Google. And while it wasn’t ideal – it worked well enough.
We have clients who use Outlook, Redtail, Goldmine, and frankly we felt that most CRMs were given the usual review – they were good enough.
The Process we used.
With so many CRMs on the market we set out to pick the very best one, and we had two concerns:
- Our day to day operations at DMW Strategic Consulting.
- Suitability as a platform for our practice management application for financial advisors.
We invested close to 40 hrs total in this process which included several sales calls with the leaders of the contest. We evaluated 12 different CRMs, and we had 15 criteria to compare from a fully functioning group calendar to social media integration, to email marketing, to website integration to overall cost/price per user/license.
Group Calendar
Using salesforce.com group calendar, you can schedule events that are linked to contacts (attendees) and other users. You can login at a later date and see who was at the meeting and you can also add information about what happened at the meeting. All this information will be stored in the Contact Activity History.
This feature is also available through Outlook, but you are restricted to the computer you use Outlook on.
Salesforce.com is in the Cloud (and out of it too when you need)
Our company is very small and somewhat portable. We have 3 full time employees, and various sub contractors. Two of the three of us are always in the same time zone, Dennis is always flying, and our contractors live in different countries and time zones.
We work where it suits us best. Sometimes it’s Dennis’ home office, sometimes mine, sometimes at Starbucks or Bridgehead, and sometimes we are at the lake.
Dennis constantly flies, and is disconnected from the Internet for many hours of the day. So it was important to keep Dennis connected – we had to factor in fatigue too – it had to be easy to update Dennis via his smart phone and we had to be able to get him information in real time.
When Dennis wants to catch up on what went on in the office today, he can be fully updated, through incredible detail via his smart phone while taking a cab to his hotel. When its this easy there are no delays – nobody is waiting for clarification, and nobody (me) has to answer emails about simple questions (what did Bob Smith say?) for example. Dennis, or anyone else for that matter, can find out anything they want to know instantly, from anywhere.
With Outlook and Maximizer, you are limited to your PC – there is no cloud. With Google you are limited to the cloud. Salesforce.com gives us the best of both worlds, and even integrates with our Outlook that we prefer for email communication.
Every question I had, salesforce.com had a feature to answer me
Dennis is constantly adding new blogs to our website, offering ideas on practice management. We want to make sure that everyone that sees Dennis, and follows his blog is informed about a new blog as soon as it is live. This is no easy task, as Dennis has so many followers.
In fact, we were restricted at one time to sending emails to a maximum of 1000 people per day, our database (recently pruned) is close to 4,000. So it took 4 days to let all of our clients know that we had posted a new blog, or updated information. Through a partnering application called Vertical Response I can email all of you as many times as I need to instantly.
Tracking information to tailor content delivery
VerticalResponse will use the contacts and leads in our existing salesforce.com address book, and distribute emails to each of them based on templates I created (they have many sample templates). In addition to just sending out emails, VerticalResponse has really detailed “reporting”. We know who opened the email, what links they clicked, and who unsubscribed.
This allows us to track what our audience likes best, and give them more of it. We can try out different templates, subjects, messages on different groups of clients to see what response we get from each message, and this allows us to refine the message that we send to you.
In short – we can be very specific and precise with our content and delivery.
The DMWSC Application for www.salesforce.com
As you probably know we, partnered with www.cinovate.com, have been building all of our processes and better business ideas into an application for financial advisors.
You know when you see Dennis speak and you think “Wow, that idea is so great and so simple” but you also know you won’t be able to implement it? Its okay – we know it too.
We thought it would be amazing if you could download everything we know directly into your computer, with video tutorials, letters, scripts, campaigns, and a step by step map to follow.
We have that almost completed – after our evaluation we remain sold on www.salesforce.com for our needs internally, but also when we consider what the best platform is for hosting our business development content.
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