This 1 Thing Can Make Or Break Your Launch - You Can! Inspiring Women In Business

Podcast Summary: "This 1 Thing Can Make or Break Your Launch"

Podcast Information:

Title: You Can! Inspiring Women In Business
Host: Sarah Jolley-Jarvis
Episode: This 1 Thing Can Make Or Break Your Launch
Release Date: November 8, 2024

Introduction

In the episode titled "This 1 Thing Can Make Or Break Your Launch," Sarah Jolley-Jarvis delves into the pivotal role that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems play in the success of business launches. Aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs, Sarah shares real-life experiences, strategies, and actionable insights to help listeners achieve consistent five-figure income months while working part-time.

Understanding the CRM: Foundation of Business Success

Sarah begins by demystifying the concept of a CRM, emphasizing its significance beyond mere customer tracking.

Notable Quote:

"A CRM is a customer relationship management tool. It is used to enable you to get a clear picture of your leads and those people who are making inquiries into working with you."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [00:05]

She underscores that a CRM provides a centralized platform to manage leads, track inquiries, and maintain a steady flow of customers, which is crucial for sustaining cash flow and scaling a business effectively.

Client Case Study: Amy's Struggle with CRM Management

To illustrate the real-world impact of CRM management, Sarah introduces her client, Amy, who faced challenges during her course launch.

Notable Quote:

"Amy is a client who was driving new enrollments to her course via a free lead magnet. However, she wasn't keeping her CRM up to date, leading to confusion and missed opportunities."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [00:05]

Amy's approach involved offering a free lead magnet to attract potential customers, a strategy Sarah doesn’t typically recommend but chose to discuss in this context. Amy's main issue was her disorganized system—relying on scraps of paper rather than a cohesive CRM—resulting in fragmented information and inefficient lead management.

The Critical Impact of an Updated CRM

Sarah explains how an outdated CRM can severely impede business operations, particularly in tracking leads and managing cash flow.

Notable Quote:

"Having bits of information all over the place does not help you get clear on what's going on. It doesn't give you that snapshot that a CRM can provide."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [00:05]

Without an updated CRM, Amy couldn't accurately track the number of leads, their progression through the sales funnel, or anticipate future cash flows. This ambiguity led to decreased confidence in her business strategy and hindered effective decision-making.

Implementing the CRM System: Step-by-Step Transformation

Sarah outlines the process she undertook to revitalize Amy's CRM, highlighting the use of the GoHighLevel platform.

Notable Quote:

"We inputted all the necessary information into the CRM, which provided clarity on her pipeline and revealed that she had generated $7,800 in revenue over the last three weeks."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [Timestamp not provided]

Steps Included:

Assessment: Evaluating Amy's existing CRM setup and identifying gaps.
Data Entry: Inputting initial leads and organizing them into a structured pipeline.
Pipeline Structuring: Creating columns analogous to a Trello board—Potential Lead, Inquiry, Soft Detail, Full Detail, Call Booked, Purchased, Awaiting Payment, and Not Interested.
Revenue Tracking: Accurately recording revenue streams, including payment plans, to provide a realistic view of cash flow.
Follow-Up Strategy: Developing templates and strategies for engaging leads effectively, thereby reducing procrastination and enhancing follow-up efficiency.

Insights and Lessons Learned

Through the CRM overhaul, several key insights emerged that are beneficial for all business owners:

Visibility Equals Control: An updated CRM offers a clear view of your business operations, allowing for informed decision-making.

Notable Quote:

"The pipeline visibility helps you understand exactly where the potential clients are in the sales funnel, enabling you to take action."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [Timestamp not provided]
Data-Driven Decisions: Leveraging CRM data facilitates strategic allocation of time and resources, whether it's generating more leads or focusing on high-potential prospects.
Revenue Realization: Proper tracking can unearth hidden revenues, as seen with Amy's $7,800 discovery, boosting confidence and planning accuracy.
Efficiency and Stress Reduction: A streamlined sales process minimizes stress and enhances productivity by automating follow-ups and organizing customer interactions.

Conclusion: The Transformative Power of a CRM

Sarah wraps up the episode by reiterating the indispensable value of maintaining an up-to-date CRM. She encourages listeners to adopt a CRM system tailored to their business needs, emphasizing that it's not solely a tool for large corporations but a vital resource for any entrepreneur managing customer relationships.

Notable Quote:

"A CRM will revolutionize your business by making your sales process easier and helping you make data-driven decisions."
— Sarah Jolley-Jarvis [Timestamp not provided]

Key Takeaways

Centralized Information: Keep all customer data in one place to avoid confusion and missed opportunities.
Structured Pipeline: Organize leads into clearly defined stages to manage them effectively.
Regular Updates: Consistently update your CRM to maintain accuracy and relevance.
Data Utilization: Use CRM data to guide your business strategies and improve cash flow management.
Support and Resources: Utilize available tools and support systems to implement and maintain your CRM efficiently.

Sarah concludes by offering additional resources and support for listeners interested in optimizing their CRM systems, reinforcing her commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs on their business journeys.

Connect with Sarah Jolley-Jarvis:

Email: sarah@ucan.online
LinkedIn & Facebook: Available through the You Can! Inspiring Women In Business podcast channels.

Subscribe to the UCAN podcast for more insightful tips on scaling your business and optimizing your processes.

Transcript

Sarah Jolly Jarvis (0:05)

Hello and welcome to this week's version of the UCAN podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Jolly Jarvis, and today we're going to be talking around a real life story, actually, that illustrates the impact of keeping a CRM up to date. Keeping your CRM up to date, especially during a course launch, but at any time with your business, particularly when you're looking at cash flow and focusing on leads and ensuring that you have that steady flow of customers into your business. So before we get started, what is a CRM? Well, a CRM is a customer relationship management tool. Okay. It is used to enable you to get a clear picture of your leads and those people who are doing inquiries, making inquiries into working with you. If you don't have a CRM, don't worry at this stage. All will be revealed later on in this episode. But for now, let's talk around my client, Amy and what was going on with her. Was she a course and she was driving new enrollments to that course via a free lead magnet. Now that's not what I get all my clients to do, but in this situation, this is what this client was, was working on and working to. So she was putting out an offering, a free lead magnet. And then she was then following that up very much. This lead magnet was relevant to her target audience, which is obviously really, really important. So that she is then able to, these people want it. She's able to identify them as being, you know, a really strong potential of a potential customer. And so from there, which was to then get back in contact with them once she'd provided them with the resource and then she would find out from them if they wanted more support, more information on that support. Sami came to this week's check in with me. She's on the courses that convert program, so she gets weekly check ins with me. And she came to this week's session and she was a little bit despond. She was a bit like, oh, you know what? The cash flow isn't coming in as I was hoping for. And you know, that kind of niggling starts with feeling confident and confident in your offer and the market and everything else. And we kind of hit pause on that. And I said, you know what, let's look at where we're at. Let's take stock of the leads that you've got. I obviously always come to these things with a sales and marketing focus. That's what most of my clients need. And so I'm always looking at the kind of leads and your pipeline and all that kind of element to kind of get a real understanding of what's going on and also really importantly where people are dropping off. But that's, that's something for another episode. So I said, you know what, let's look at your CRM and let's see where we're up to now. Amy is quite a new client for me. She's been working with me for the last four and a half weeks and so she has been in the process of Weuse GoHighLevel. Having used a number of CRM systems in my lifetime, I have found that GoHighLevel does have. It's a really good system for keeping track of. It's a very simple system when people get used to it, but obviously it's part of a much more monstrous software. And so it is quite daunting, particularly to start off with. So when we got onto her CRM being a client, she has a sub account with me, so I'm able to access that and have a look. It was clear that she hadn't been keeping it up to date. She was already cringing and looking uncomfortable before I even opened it up. And she said, you know, yeah, I haven't been keeping up to date. I've had it on like this kind of scrap of paper and that kind of scrap of paper. Having bits of information all over the place does not help you to get clear on what's going on. It doesn't give you that snapshot that a CRM can give you. It also doesn't give you that one stop shop for understanding. Okay, what are my actions today? Who am I following up with? Who's. Who am I expecting payment in from? What's going on with this cl? It's all over the place. And with it all being all over the place, you've got to remember where you put it and then you've got to make. You know. It's very easy to drop the ball on a client or two because the information isn't all in that one place. It isn't all readily available. It's not easy to see if somebody is missing. If you're anything like me, give me a weekend between my conversation with somebody and rethinking about them and I can quite easily have. Have forgotten and dropped the ball on things. Particularly when you're speaking to multiple people a week with information all over the place. It meant that we didn't have a clear understanding of how many people had taken up the resource and then from that, how many people had responded when the resource had been sent to them on their DMs or on their emails and then where those people had then dropped off in that process from initial, yes, I'd like the resource through to being booking a call and signing up. And so it was very difficult to identify who was to be followed up, what stage people were at. There was also a lack of visibility on how many leads there were and therefore how much value was in her pipeline. So then it's very easy to be unsure of, oh, gosh, what have I got coming through? So it impacts your decision making, obviously, on where you spend your time and where you allocate your time, but overall it can also impact the confidence that you have that people actually want what it is you've got to offer so you're not in a position. She wasn't able to say straight off the top of her head, for example, how many people had taken up that resource, how many people she'd offered the resource out to, etc. Etc. So it was very difficult to keep track and understand where she should be spending her time. Should she be spending her time getting more people interested or should she be spending her time following up on the people who had already voiced an interest? For example, if you don't know that information, you're not able to make that decision. The process of getting the CRM up today was to start with, I went through and I helped Amy. I pointed out what we needed to do and I talked her through it. I inputted a few people for her because we're both able to share the same sub account. She was able to go in and add things whilst I got on with other stuff and then we were able to reconvene at a later time so that we were able to look at the information that had then been put into that CRM. The key thing that made such a difference was to understand the revenues. So the prior to the CRM being updated, there was no clarity on what value there were was in her, for example, the leads that she had coming through. And as you sort of progress with the CRM, what you'd look at doing is inputting your stats. So if you have an offer. So her CRM, the pipeline that she'd created, that she were working on, that pipeline was specifically for a product that was just over the $2,500 mark. And so she was then in a position where she could, she'd know that everyone who signed up would create that. But what you don't know to start off with is your statistics on from the number of people who, for example, take up a lead magnet, how many of those will go on to. Because over time, what I have with my pipelines is that you can actually add and provide a value to those initial leads coming in. So the leads that come in you would be. I think the last time I checked my initial leads, the value of those initial leads was something like $250. And then from there, because you know that from there there'll be so many individuals who go on to buy that higher ticket item. And so you can then begin to get much clearer on the actual value which is in your pipeline rather than a guesstimate. Because at the end of the day, those initial people who take up a lead magnet, not everybody is going to purchase your high ticket offer, but a percentage of them will. But if you put their value as that high ticket, you're going to be well excited by the value that's in your pipeline. But it's unrealistic that you're going to get that 100% conversion. So using your conversion rates can help you to understand actually what I can expect from the current pipeline that I've got. As soon as we were able to input all that information, it was really clear that actually where her time needed to be focused was not on necessarily generating more people for the lead magnet, but it was actually following up those people who'd taken up the lead magnet. They'd been neglected because it wasn't such a clear step for her because she didn't have that pipeline on, that CRM in place. Now when I say a pipeline, what am I talking about? It would be easier at this stage for me to be able to show you, but we are on audio and, and so what I will do is talk you through. It's very, very similar to a Trello board in that you have those columns and so at the top of the column you'll have the different types. My I tend to get particularly to start off with, with clients, they tend to run on the same sort of format as myself. The vast majority of my clients are service based businesses. And so it's potential lead, it's inquiry as the next column. The next column along would be soft detailed. So you would be basically saying roughly, you know, this is what I do on a casual basis, nothing specific about a course. But that person now knows that I do X and Y. Okay, that would be your soft detail, your full detail. I tend to full detail on, on a message, on a messenger, on a message, rather than get them on a call to full detail. But a lot of my clients would have, you know, call links sent at that point and then call booked and then full detailed or call complete. And then you would then go on to have purchased or signed up or awaiting payment. And then as a final step, you would have not interested. At this point, I tend to keep my not interested in my pipeline. If they are absolutely not suitable, unqualified, you wouldn't want to work with them, then I will remove them off that pipeline. But a lot of the time I like to be able to see those individuals that I potentially want to follow up with in the future or if situations change, it is very important to keep those notes of those individuals then up to date so that you can reflect on those and refer to them so that you can make decisions in the future. Your CRM literally is only as good as the notes that you've got against those names, because those names, particularly when you're starting with volume, can quickly get out of hand and you have no idea who those individuals are. Having those leads all in one place is the only way to keep on top of them and to make sure that nobody is slipping through the net. It's also, as I said before, a very, very good way of being able to understand where people disappear. Okay, so when I say drop off disappear is when those individuals are no longer in that sales process. So, for example, at the moment with Amy, a lot of people are getting that resource, but they haven't been followed up since sufficiently enough for those conversations to happen. So what we ended up doing was when we sort of reconvened on that session, we ended up talking about what words we would use, what comments we would use to open up that conversation and to get that individual thinking around additional support. And so those would be the things that you would look to do. Sometimes we avoid actions and steps and things and we procrastinate when we're not 100% sure what to do on them. And so we address that so that that way she can, she can start focusing on that stage in that pipeline. The sort of cherry on the cake for us with this tidy up of the CRM and getting it up to date was that actually she realized that she generated 7,800 in revenue over the last three weeks. The thing was that the reason why she wasn't seeing that land in her account was because a lot of those were through payment plans. And so they were smaller payments that were going to be over a period of time. Now, you know, you can, some people love to have money up front Others, actually, it's quite nice to know that for the next three, maybe four months, you're going to get those smaller payments from those individuals. So for some people it works. I always encourage clients to have a combination of the two. For Amy, she was like, you know what, I'd rather just have it secured and in. And I get that because then you're not having to send check or follow up. Although if you use the right payment systems, they all will let you know for you and recharge for it if it fails, et cetera. But it is just easier to feel like the money's in the bank. So we then went through and looked at, okay, well, we want to incentivize people to pay upfront. Then it's looking at putting additional cost and implications on the pay, split pay, so that we can encourage people to go with the pay in full. The big thing for Amy, though was the realization that that isn't a small amount of money to have made in the last three weeks. And it gave her that oomph, that kind of boost in confidence that she needed to look at future cash flows and what she could be expecting. We were able to look further along to the left of that, of that pipeline to the newer leads coming in and see what potential was in there and what she could expect. And going forward, that data is only going to get better and better. So if you're sat there thinking, you know what, I don't even know what you're talking about with the CRM, then do please get in touch. I've got recommendations that I can make. I can send you my sort of top three. Already heard me mention go high level. I've also used other systems. I also have a very, very simple spreadsheet that I am more than willing to share with you, which we can get you started on the tracking of your customers. A CRM, at the end of the day, is a customer relationship management tool. It is a way to manage your customers and to manage your customer information. It's a way of tracking those resources. And that's what's really, really key here. The important thing is the time efficiencies that a CRM can save. Like, yes, absolutely. You may find that you've generated more money than you're expecting, but it is that time efficiency. So you can quickly see who needs following up and who needs prioritizing. It's making your sales process easier. Sales is probably not something that you thoroughly enjoy doing. And so having that information there, you just go in and you take the Actions, having those comments and messages, templates at the ready so that you can drop those into messenger conversations so that you can get that conversation going and you can move that person along again. It makes it more of a system and it takes away that stress and that worry over it being a sales process. The understanding that the pipeline visibility, the overall what's happening with your pipeline, helping you to understand exactly where the potential clients are in that sales funnel enables you to do something about it, to move people along, to focus on more areas, to focus on generating those leads, for example. It gives you a much better understanding of what's going on. It enables you to make data driven decisions. Okay? So you can use real numbers, real numbers based on what's going on in your business to make choices over where you spend your time, where you spend your resources, okay? It's very easy to think, oh my sales are really bad. Whereas actually it may be that your lead generation needs a little bit of help and you're putting too much pressure on the sales process. It's not just a tool for large companies, okay? A CRM, if you have customers, if you have, I have people who are starting out who, they have beta testers for their business for their first offer and they, I get them to put those customers into a CRM. You have to start somewhere. It is a really, really bad idea to write it off and think, you know what, it's only for big businesses, it's for anybody who has customers. Because if you've got all potential customers, you're talking to people, you're trying to generate leads, okay? So maintain your CRM, okay? Make sure that your CRM is up to date on a regular basis. Use it, okay? I don't want you to think of a CRM system as a way of something I have to do. It's a useful resource, okay? If you can update it, you should be in there daily looking at your leads during your business development time. Looking at, who do I have to sort out? Who do I have to be following up now? Okay? It is a usable resource. If you keep it up to date, it will honestly, it will revolutionize your business. So please do take that on board if you have any questions on CRM. If you would like to find out more around those recommendations, then please do drop me an email at sarahcan online. That's s a r a h@ucan.online. okay? In the meantime guys, please do be sure to subscribe to the UCAN podcast for more tips on scaling your business and optimizing those processes. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn or on Facebook. So I am literally the only Sarah Jollo Jarvis out there. So that's it for me this week, guys. I look forward to speaking to you again next week. Bye for.