The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
get on up nation when was the last time
you thought about your insurance
coverage for me it is not very often but
I know for a fact that you sleep soundly
at night knowing that you have it that
means it’s important and that means you
need to understand what it is that you
have it means you need to understand
where your liability is and you need
someone that you can trust to have that
conversation with several years ago I
met Mike Higham at an AWT convention of
McGowan Insurance Group and at the time
I had our insurance through a local
broker who is an extremely nice guy and
we had had our auto policies with him
for years and when I started my company
I naturally called him and he got us
coverage the thing is he did not
understand the water treatment industry
so he was giving us the best coverage he
knew to get us without understanding the
industry I had a conversation with Mike
at that convention and he asked some
very good questions questions that I
didn’t have the answers to and I’m sure
glad he asked those questions because
folks I did not know to ask them but as
soon as he asked them I knew that I did
not have all the coverages that I need
think of all the coverages out there
property general liability professional
liability workers compensation employee
Practices Liability folks there’s even
insurance for cyber liability and I have
to tell you I did not know to ask about
that one but Mike did because this is
what he does he serves the water
treatment industry and he knows that
there is a potential liability because
of the remote access that we do with our
controllers not only did he get me the
right coverage with the right company he
was able to give me
advice on making sure that we had proper
policies in effect to make sure that we
were protecting ourselves and our
customers a lot of insurers can only
write through one insurance carrier
McGowan Insurance Group represents
dozens of carriers like Donegal
Insurance and when we go to renew I
can’t tell you how awesome it is that
they are able to look at multiple
suppliers to make sure that we’re
getting the best coverage but we’re also
getting the best value I know without a
doubt because McGowan Insurance Group
understands the water treatment industry
that we are getting that each and every
time we renew with them they do
liability benefits bonds they are a full
service agency give the fine folks at
McGowan Insurance Group a call today and
tell them that trace ascent you or visit
them on the web at mcg OWA in I NS GRP
com
welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we’re scaling up on knowledge so
we don’t scale up our systems everybody
tres Blackmore here your hosts or
scaling up h2o and folks it is May 22nd
and you might not know this but it’s
National Maritime Day yes it’s actually
National Maritime Day and that is
celebrated in the United States to
recognize the maritime industry think of
all the things that we have because we
have a maritime industry that holiday
was created by the United States
Congress on May 20th 1933 so now you
know of course you also know that we
have our own holiday a water treaties
holiday it’s not just one day it’s an
entire week it’s always the first week
of October so this year it’s going to be
October 5th through 9th and that is
where we celebrate each and every day
October 5th through 9th something about
water treatment so we always do
something special on scaling up h2o to
celebrate that not sure what that’s
going to be but you better believe we
are going to make it special because
that is our holiday and we are going to
celebrate it together
also the association of water
technologies is having their annual
convention and Expo right before
industrial water week and that’s going
to be September 30th through October 3rd
in Louisville Kentucky now I’ll keep you
up-to-date for anything that comes up
regarding how the AWT is going to handle
the convention when it comes to deal
with Co vid 19 this is all new territory
we’re all figuring it out together
but when there is information about the
convention I will be sure to share it
with you speaking of code at 19 I think
we can all take some positive lessons
from what we
experiencing in dealing with a pandemic
I think we all realized that we can
accomplish a lot more things from home
than we originally thought of course we
can work remotely a lot of us have been
doing that already but now that it’s
been a necessity we’ve learned that we
can do so many more things at home I
know personally I’ve been doing more
video calls than ever and I’ve been
connecting with clients more than ever
because I don’t have to travel so folks
I just have to say that if it weren’t
for Cove in nineteen I would not have
used video conferencing as the tool that
I currently use it as it is save time
and it’s allowed me to continue to
connect with people without having to go
out in traffic and as you know Atlanta
Georgia has a very bad traffic problem
it’s so easy for us to think about all
the things that koban 19 took away from
us but when I hear so many people say
you know I was home for dinner each and
every night I connected with my family I
reconnected with people that I haven’t
spoken to in a while and then my story
with we’ve connected with all of our
customers in a way that we’ve always
wanted to do but because of this
incident we’ve been able to do it folks
take a moment think of all the positive
things that have come out of the
pandemic and I think we can all learn
from that and carry that forward and if
you look at it we are stronger for the
ride this podcast scaling up h2o and the
rising tide mastermind held weekly
webinars so we could stay current on all
the coded 19 topics I know I learned a
whole bunch during that time I received
a whole bunch of questions from people
that either got answered from the
webinar or they wanted me to reach out
and get those questions answered by a
particular speaker so I want to thank
everybody
that helped me out with that if you have
not seen some of the webinars you can go
to scaling-up h2o comm forward slash
webinar and all of those webinars are
listed on that page you can also go to
the scaling up h to a web page and just
go on resources and you see we have a
special coated and 19 button there that
you can press during all this stay at
home orders
I heard that so many people were getting
caught up on their documentation I’ve
heard of people implementing and
updating their CRM and I bet there’s
some listener out there that is saying
what the heck is a CRM well CRM is a
customer resource management tool the
bottom line is it is a tool that allows
you to take advantage of all the work
you’ve already done and all the data
you’ve already collected and then use
that in a way that makes you more
profitable it makes you more efficient
and simply it makes your life easier
folks we can take the data we already
have we can learn what we’re doing and
that allows us to do it better and a CRM
is a tool that allows us to do all of
those things but I know for a fact
because I’m included there’s just so
much information about CRM
where do we get started and if we have a
CRM sometimes we feel like we’re so far
behind on getting the information into
the CRM we never even start well today
we’re going to be talking to CRM expert
Risa Gooding Risa is going to help us
understand the importance of a CRM but
she’s also going to give us some tips to
help us overcome the hurdles that we are
all experiencing if we are thinking
about or if we are currently
implementing a CRM system so scaring up
nation if you will please help me
welcome Risa Gooding
my lab partner today is Risa Gooding of
cacao Media Risa how are you today I am
fine how are you doing I’m doing very
well I’m very excited about our
interview I have so many questions about
what it is that you do and how you can
help all of us that need help with what
it is that you do but before we get into
that you have got such an interesting
story and we’re gonna we’re going to
talk all about CRM and and how you help
companies with that but so the scale it
up nation can get to know you a little
bit better do you mind telling us a
little bit about yourself so sure so I
am originally from Trinidad and Tobago
it’s a small little island in the
Caribbean but I know I live in Israel so
twelve years ago I moved to Israel and I
really fell into this whole concept of
marketing while in Israel you know
because when I came to Israel I did not
know Hebrew and I was thinking how can I
get a job I first began teaching and
then realized kids and I are not friends
so I should get a laptop where I don’t
have to interact with people and then I
eventually got a job in marketing
because of my needs of English so I
began doing marketing and then I fell
into the whole digital marketing will
and today this is where I am I’m doing
digital marketing and CRM sales
processes for start-up companies and
traditional companies as well well most
of our listeners are water treaters and
you’ve actually had some experience in
that industry tell us about that
yeah it was so crazy that you know right
after I graduated from university my
first job back in Trinidad was actually
working for the water company now we
never really appreciate what it takes to
get water so it sucks and while working
there my job was mainly to actually go
into different rural areas and areas
that had water problems to help see how
we can improve the efficiency of them
getting water or just even installing
water pipelines in those areas for them
but what was shocking for me I remember
it so clearly was in one of our research
reports because I was like a research
analyst in that position one of my
reports I discovered that 50% of the
water that we are pumping from the dams
to the different homes I actually lost
on the way because there’s so many poles
and defaults in the pipeline systems
that getting what is – what is it homes
so this I was like no we and there were
so many pieces so many houses that did
not have wards and 50% of it was just
being thrown away Wow
so what do you do about that so this is
the this is like really crazy because I
thought first of all I must say though
this problem was unique to us and I kept
you know thinking about it all the time
even up to today I was just before I was
getting ready for this podcast I saw an
ex-fix interview that was actually
talking about other countries who suffer
from the same problem especially in
Latin America in these places because
these systems are so old and they don’t
really take time to change them so I
remembered back then when the company
was trying to do is replace the
pipelines and but the infrastructure was
very complicated to replace it’s not
something that you know the seemingly
happy new how the technology to really
do so they would start a project and
they will do different parts but it was
difficult to really complete the entire
process within a specific period of time
so I think the problem still exists you
know they can’t really solve it’s even
in a couple years I’ve been gone 12
years I don’t think it’s been solved yet
so I think they just managed to minimize
and decrease the amount of water that’s
being lost but it is always going to be
a problem because the systems are very
difficult to replace we have that
problem over here in the States as well
I live in Atlanta Georgia
I’m not sure how much loss we have in
our water systems but I know for a fact
that we have one of the oldest sewer
infrastructure around and it has not
been upgraded as it should have been and
there are issues all the time with that
and to try to offset that
super prices are going up almost each
and every billing cycle so you know that
making sure the infrastructure is doing
what it needs to do is a problem no
matter where you are I think everybody’s
dealing with ya because even in my city
here in Israel I see they have a serious
sewage problem every couple days some
sewage erupts because this is Israel
right there now thousands of years old
so they’re in the system I realized –
also does have a lot of issues but you
know it’s not something you really hear
about Israel’s what the problem is
mostly for because we have such a long
dry season and the primary source of
water for us is from the lake of galilee
they do actually you know pursue and
kind of request that people are very
conservative with their water usage you
know to take shorter parts don’t dude
what’s your daughter’s and things like
that right it’s everybody’s
responsibility to take care of such a
valuable resources as water no matter
where you are as I was reading up on
your biography I found something very
interesting that you went to Israel for
a two-week vacation and so far that two
weeks has lasted 12 years tell us about
that came to visit but I just thought
that we’ll check it out and see how it
goes and go but something about this
place something about essentially really
stuck with me and I remembered seeing a
job advertised with the international
school here and I said you know what
maybe I steer this along then just get
his job in see how it goes but one thing
led to next I got the job I got I was
excited by it I was doing well in it and
then I got another job and I got another
job and that’s how I see it because each
time I was like doing um more and more
basic things and you know Israel I
always say it gives me the platform to
really leverage my abilities in ways
that I could not even imagine because
you know it’s very that is very
Caribbean light so what do you do you
know you basically don’t have as many
options as is your will because Israel
is also very much since the start
opposed so the exciting things I get to
do with four different startups and see
how they are really pushing them
on trees and recreating different things
it’s like having the front seats throw
in a basketball game basically it’s like
you get to see every tactic every plate
and be if you can’t be better not be
better if you have such access so this
is what I’m enjoying really being here
having the access and really leveraging
my professional skills well I think the
whole scaling-up nation is going to
enjoy the access that we have to you
because you are a CRM master so what I
would like to do is explain to the
scaling-up nation what a CRM is and what
are some things that we need to consider
if we’ve never even heard of a CRM
before yes and that’s a very good
question because this is my mission I
have decided that expensi 20 is my
mission to educate especially
traditional companies like companies
over the existing or in 20 30 50 years
and still operate on Excel sheets ok I
cannot tell you how many companies are
going to and they’re like me so why do I
need to change I make billions of
dollars or millions of dollars and it’s
ok I’ll be the CRM I have an Excel it
tells me what I need to know but first
of all let’s start from the beginning as
you said so what is a CRM CRM stands for
customer relationship management so it’s
a platform that really allows you to
manage your relationships with prospects
and leads and customers and how do you
manage your relationships with them is
by making sure you have updated
information about them so you can have
for example personal information in like
a first name your last name their email
addresses um in 8 countries that they
come from any kind of information you
need to capture about that prospect but
you also want to understand how are they
interacting with your online activities
for example so you want to actually
track as well some of that information
in terms of the attributes and the
activities so the CRM will show you all
of these things it can show you how the
people come to your website what pages
they look like they look at you know it
can also show you all different
information of what stage they are in
your buying cycle if you
get your customer how your Sears reps
are interacting with them how many calls
in making how many emails they’re
sending when last will be contacted so
it really really allows you to have a
full 360-degree view of your sales
processes and how your customers are
interacting with your business but
what’s more important is why do you need
a CRM and not just use Excel so my
biggest takeaway and my biggest advice
to such companies to see the city is two
things first of all you’re working too
hard
because anybody who’s using Excel to run
their business has to be on top of that
Excel which means they are actually
calling their sales reps every night to
find out what is it do because it’s not
being automatically updated this Excel
so they have to spend time actually
filling all the Excel every time they do
some activities which is taking over the
time they could be studying and instead
of doing administrative work so you want
your seal seems to be much more
efficient and with a CRM helps you do
that instead of having them spend time
updating excels secondly as a manager
you too are spending too much time
having these calls and meetings with
your sales reps instead of just looking
at the dashboard in your convenient time
and seeing what has been done for the
day or the week or the month so you
don’t need to call your sales rep and
take away his time again from actually
selling the ask him so then you talk to
that customer last week what happened to
that prospect we met at the conference
where you asked for this deal at we
spoke about last week you can see all of
that information in a platform now one
of the biggest and I think the most
important things that I do see at the
very end that I think really gets them
to think is the fact that today this
millennial generation will not stay in
your job for more than 1.5 especially
Sears people they don’t stay in your job
for more than 1.5 years so what does
that mean each time you have a return on
your salespeople it means they’re taking
the information with them so if they did
not update that Excel if it did not like
really find a way to transfer the
information to you before they leave
then they take away a chunk of your
business with them
so you don’t want these things to be
happening and you want to have full
control you want to have full visibility
so these are the three main takeaway
points I really used to advise companies
why they should invest in a CRM system
today and not just depend on Excel when
we talk about CRM I know there’s still
some confusion out there in the scale it
up nation we brought it up a couple
weeks ago when we spoke with Eric Russo
a certified water technologist that was
episode 111 but so many people have
called in and they wanted to know
exactly how can a CRM work for their
water treatment business so many people
are in the baby boomer generation and
they’re just used to keeping those
things in their heads and then we have
Millennials that are coming in that are
used to using different apps so now
we’ve got different formats that each
set is using how does a CRM easily bring
that together and more importantly how
do we make sure that both sides are
using it yeah so adoption for sure is
one of the biggest issues and again
adoption really stems from the fact that
if people don’t understand how to use it
that they will not use it so you have to
actually think about how it is you’ll go
into implemented CRM in your business
even before you purchase it I have the
same thing with even regular startup
companies that they decide to buy a CRM
but they haven’t thought of the process
of implementing it within the company so
instance there for a couple of months
before anybody touches it and then they
would call me to come in and help train
them and set it up so as a water
treatment company I would definitely say
first of all again having the CRM as a
platform or as an app is working
interchangeably so you can download it
as an app so you have it on your phone
and everything that it will so the
millionaire’s get updated like that and
you can also have it as a platform that
it operates from a browser so the baby
boomers who could feel more comfortable
with you right now can use it like that
again what you want out of this CRM is
of is one collective platform or one
collective solution that is collecting
all the data about these prospects
customers and sales people activity
right now I am sure no one has that one
system that is giving them all of that
information so when you don’t have a CRM
in place these are the disjoints and
views you have because you cannot see
your business you know so 360 degree so
this is the main reason you want to get
a CRM in your business let’s look at the
sales process so if we were to find a
new prospect and then we sent them
either mailings or emails and then
finally we got an appointment with them
and then that appointment led to a
survey that survey led to a proposal
that proposal led to maybe a couple more
meetings and then finally a sale what
will the CRM do for us in that process
so a couple things first of all all of
those stages the CRM will help you
manage it more effectively
so without the CRM how will you actually
report this information either you have
to have it in the Excel where somebody
is updating it or you have these weekly
monthly meetings where you give these
statuses by emails or you have some
reports that you’re running to do it so
it’s not in a system that is more
technologically advanced that allows you
to pers saw these things in a very easy
way and include it in a very easy way so
CRM will just allow you first of all
because you will have what is called a
pipeline set up with those different
stages and then you can just drag and
drop the prospect from those different
stages so from the time you have a
meeting book to the time is exciting to
contract for you he got he receives a
contract all you do is you just drag the
information of the prospect from one
block to the next and it updated status
of the prospect so you don’t have to
write anything you don’t have to tell
anyone anything
it happens now again one of the biggest
advantages is the automation hicieron
will offer so for example your manager
your boss might ask you each time you
close a deal he wants to know so each
time that happens or each time you book
a meeting he wants to know you have to
send him an email
see that instead of Sierra one set of
notifications that each time that starts
as changes to a meeting or to do that’s
being Luis it was sending automatic
notifications in your management team so
they know that this day was just close
by you so they don’t have to wait but
everything happens in real-time so this
kind of relays the pressure off of these
sales people as well to deliver news
because the bosses and they can get it
in real time
so these I think I need two main
advantages and really helps because
again it gives you management see
invisibility that they didn’t really
have and they don’t have to wait for
sales reps update them they can go to
the system and see these things
themselves and one more thing I would
like to see is that when you’re sending
emails especially this is one of the
biggest problems emails and phone calls
when sales reps actually make emails to
send emails or make phone calls again
they have to summarize the interaction
because nobody has a visibility of what
emails they sent unless they access the
inbox but with the CRM you can connect
your inbox to the CRM and every email
his sensor prospect is actually logged
under that prospects name so you can go
now into that CRM look at the prospect
and see all the interaction a
salesperson or anyone had with that
prospect which again saves you this pain
of losing an information if the sales
rep left or more importantly it gives
you an idea of what kind of interaction
your sales reps are having with your
prospects you know I’m listening to that
and I know for a fact that we have
people out there in the scaling up
nation listening thinking oh my gosh I
have to implement this CRM I have to
Train people I have to get them behind
it so they actually use it and they’re
thinking that this is going to be a
massive headache but what you described
is now we’ve got an automated system
that is user-friendly that allows people
to use it more quickly meaning they are
going to use it and we don’t have to
rely on updating spreadsheets which
probably as you mentioned half the
people aren’t updating them as they
should so my hope is that people out
there that we’re thinking that this was
going to be a big
headache they can see that this is
actually going to simplify their
people’s lives and simplify their
businesses but I know there’s always
some issues and implementation can you
walk us through what we need to be
considering if we said you know what
reset you’ve convinced us we need to
reach out to a consultant to help us or
we just need to get a CRM what are some
things that we need to be considering to
start that in our company
yes for sure so again one part I would
always say that customers and companies
have to think about before inventing a
CRM is first thing look at your current
database understand what your current
database looks like understand the
information you want to have collected
in your CRM because really this is the
biggest pain points of companies when
implementing a CRM they don’t have any
organized format of that database so
even if they were holding internet so a
lot of the times they don’t even know if
an email address is valid in that Excel
they know the place it has moved on to
another job or because Frances’s you
know doesn’t think cysts anymore
so we CRM also help you clean up some of
that but you do have to spend time to
make sure that in some of the leads and
some of the contacts you’re entering is
relevant but the most painful point I
believe for clients in my experience is
having the team adopt this CRM like how
do I make sure that these guys use it
after I spend money and spend time to
bring in an expert like myself to
actually set up things so part of my job
is always starting from understanding
how they would today and just setting up
some quick wins for them that don’t fit
them and don’t require anything from
them so when I go into a company and I
get the friction from my sales teams I
usually start with two things I just say
please just let me connect your inbox
silly CRM
all you have to do is know that your
emails will be logged into the CRM
that’s it
I’m to let me also give you a meeting
kill in the link for example so when you
want to book a meeting with a prospect
you don’t have to go in the back
for often send up to seven emails trying
to figure out what is convenient here
you have a meeting link you can just
click on it to see your availability and
choose the time that’s convenient for
you so I may start off with something
that simple for them let them see how it
works how are they interacting it and
these two things are so automatic that
they don’t have to do anything but
continue working me really usually do
and it takes me five minutes to set that
up and what will happen is in the
backend everything is being updated
accordingly so any interaction that
seriousness having with the contact is
in updated in CRM any meetings that he’s
booking is updated in CRM so we can
start there and then he can see that the
his time and his meetings are becoming
more efficient because he has reduced to
things having to report on what’s
happening and also having to book
meetings with clients so again my tip
will be just to find quick wins that
will take nothing out that we see as
people to do but it will take like five
minutes of setup and they can continue
working as they are and then gradually
you can upgrade them and show them other
things as they begin to understand the
value of the system you can definitely
see where this is going to save a lot of
time and in my own company I know we’re
not updating the things that we need to
update which means we don’t have the
metrics that we need to properly help
our salespeople so tell us a little bit
about the metrics that we can pull from
a CRM yeah sure think about how you
should actually start your sales process
most times your salespeople should have
an idea of who is the ideal customer
right so they should not just be
shooting in the dark trying to figure
out who they want to talk to but they do
have an idea of the exact prospects
they’re going after or the exact types
of companies they want to go after so
the first thing is CRM is doing for you
automatically is collecting that
information about contacts who visit
your site so for example platform
becomes one which is something I’m very
familiar with because it’s it fast for
my use mostly they have a proprietary
database of over 20 million companies
which means that anytime someone hits
your website they
can automatically tell you which country
they came from which company they came
from and what pages you visited on your
site and that’s without anybody entering
any information because you have it
cookies policy on somebody’s browser so
once they accept the cookies you’re able
to track this information about them so
a salesperson always trying to prospect
let’s say he’s trying to prospect
coca-cola he can’t get anybody in cookie
cutter for awhile for example when
coca-cola has a unique IP address so if
somebody from coca-cola comes into your
system or just goes to your website
without downloading anything or entering
any form you your sales rep will get
notified that hey somebody’s in critical
is on your site and then they can do a
LinkedIn or something and trying to
figure out who will be the most valuable
person that they can reach out to to
figure out who it is
now because of gdpr pub squats or any
platform cannot give you more
information than that so they don’t give
you the business name and they can’t
give you places email or anything like
that because it’s private information so
that’s one thing now once you have such
data now your reports are becoming
richer so you’re able now to you know
set up reports for example to see which
countries or which states are being more
active for you in your website so you
can see where your sales rep should
spend more time it can also show you how
to actually separate active buyers from
passive buyers you know those people who
just always shopping around
we call them window shoppers you don’t
intend to buy anything but they always
on your site so these are one type of
buyers who can make you think that they
are ready to buy but then you have those
who will be actually downloading stuff
interacting with you so they are more
active in the process so your sales
people are able to get better
information and better reports that says
hey these groups of people are high
priorities to focus and contacting them
because they are active buyers when they
see group of people they don’t really
come from development company or
development country or they don’t seem
to have the budgets they go to buy your
product right now so you can put them in
a new genus in case one of them fight
but you don’t have to focus your
attention on them because remember at
the end of the day you won’t just see as
people to be focused on closing these so
big they too also want to go after only
those contacts that are highly relevant
and highly
convertible so they don’t want to waste
time with somebody who’s just shopping
around so the reports you can get will
actually help them to be more efficient
and as a manager the reports you may
want to see is how productive your team
is being how many calls immediately how
many emails they send how many contacts
they have been in contact with you know
when was the last time they contacted
someone so these are all the types of
reports you can get out of a CRM without
even talking to your sales people I know
we talked about on this show that when
you track something it simply just gets
better because you’re looking at it and
that’s the great thing about a CRM is
that it can pull all of these numbers
without you having to do it manually
just based on the workflow that you have
set up most serums have automatic
reports that’s already set up there for
you so once you interact to the CRM keep
it updated the reports will be generated
for itself and it will even email you
the report every week or every month if
you wanted to so you really have less
work to do all your job is supposed to
be doing is to spend more time analyzing
the data so you can understand what to
do better how to be more efficient this
is supposed to be the jobs of the team
city not spending time actually doing
your work and generating these reports
what are some of the options out there
when we’re talking about serums
their main today actually you know I was
just doing a workshop today and telling
a class that you know there are 7,000
platforms out there today for marketing
at Sears
so people can get lost in what
technology is but I’ll talk about it
before that exist which are Salesforce
most people know Salesforce and I’ll
give you a bit of inside information
because again I see a lots of companies
run into the problems of investing in
the CRM because they spoke they’re very
good sales rep without understanding
what they’re getting into so I want to
spend some time actually helping you
audience
stand how do they actually choose a good
CRM okay so the big four you have a
Salesforce hotspot Soho and Infusionsoft
you do have Microsoft Dynamics as well
which is okay but this is a very
customized platform so most companies
wouldn’t use it just like that
so the drumming player he seals first
hotspot Zulu and Infusionsoft now CS
force is most popular because it’s the
American company and I mean Oxford and
all of them American companies but CS
was was the first really so they came
into the market first and they really
have a big standing market share but
Salesforce is a very highly customizable
platform and a very expensive platform
so today most companies don’t even
understand especially when they’re
startups they don’t understand their
sales process yet they don’t understand
what direction they want to go to so
when they spend $25,000 a year in a
platform and it just sits there it
becomes painful because you can’t spend
that level of money and not know what
you’re getting into or what you need to
do so Salesforce is really good for
companies who have a very solid process
that they have not done and now it’s
also highly customizable so if it is
that you know companies and have channel
partners all over the world or they have
manufacturing facilities and they need
this complicated sales process fine CS
force can’t be justified for the ROI but
most companies don’t need something that
complicated and you have hotspot which
gives you a free CRM again I want to
repeat it’s a free CRM for up to 1
million contacts so HubSpot is trying
for you to understand – how to build
your sales processes and gives you the
opportunity of not making the mistake of
paying for something I’m never using it
so it’s free you can right now open it
down just to a top spot that comes free
CRM google it open an account and upload
your current action excel today play
around with the processes you see there
see how you want to set up differences
processes in it and see if it works for
you and if
good for you then you can upgrade the
other features which are these marketing
features in HubSpot more so you can then
do better lead generation campaigns or
any kind of outreach you need to do with
your database so that’s absurd and
HubSpot so then giving the CRM free by
the marketing features are what you pay
for and then you have Soho which is also
like for me Comfort midsize companies
it’s also bit complicated it’s not as
simple as hotspot but it’s not as
complicated as Salesforce but it’s and
also not as expensive but it’s not free
I think it costs almost like five or ten
thousand dollars a year but still if you
don’t have a process in place there’s no
need to invest in something like this
yes unless you really feel you need it
and then you have Infusionsoft
now Infusionsoft is mostly for small
businesses it really works good
especially for let’s say you have like
lawyers and consultancy firms and
dentists and solopreneurs these types of
people can benefit because of the cost
point so Infusionsoft will cost you
around $200 to $400 a month which is
like fourteen hundred a year so again
it’s not too expensive but it allows you
to manage your leads as well as do some
marketing as well in it so these are the
four platforms and these are the
considerations you need to think of if
you know you don’t have a sales process
in place yet so you want to change
things every six months every two months
then try the free versions first before
you invest in anything that requires
your commitment I know you’ve worked
with a lot of companies that had nothing
that they were tracking they were just
doing things as they occurred and then
you created processes for them and you
put all those processes in the CRM what
are some differences that those
companies are now experiencing
yesBut sure so one of the main things
they would always see mmediately is the
upturn in time that they see as people
actually spend actually doing their work
of selling you know because before this
was always their frustration they demand
so much of this is people always pulling
them in some meeting always wanting to
know updates and they upset when they
don’t be there targets so
this is one thing that they immediately
saw a big difference and that he says
people were able to spend more time
selling and not doing administrative
work so this is one the second thing was
even improving their customer
relationships because again today buyers
are very empowered they do it like cool
polling they don’t like hold outreach so
to have a better process of out reaching
to your customers and being very
personalized in that outreach the CRM
and our processes really help them do
that because now we can set up ways like
for example I was set up sales email
templates for them in the CRM that they
can pull and plug and play into the
emails when interacting with the
customer so this helps them actually you
know not make mistakes and have a very
also unified language about their brand
and about the company because again you
know what usually happens is that you
may say that your company does XYZ but
by the time the salespeople speak to a
couple people they’re saying your
company does a B and C so you know the
having these disjointed messages online
confuses prospects so having one
templates and having certain things set
up for them that they just use as
probably having clear books for them
having presentation sets up for them
that they just grab and attached an
email but also having them giving them
more insight so one of the things and he
says people always appreciate is that
they can actually see how prospects are
interacting with them better so they see
when a prospect opens an email they see
when a prospect fits in the link in the
email it just sends so now they know
it’s an opportune time to pick up the
phone and call them but of course they
don’t get freaky and say hey I just saw
you opened my email don’t do things like
that right because most people don’t
even know exactly most people don’t do
this kind of tracking exists for them so
you just pretend you don’t know you’re
just calling out on for incidents but
again they were able to close more tears
because of these more personalized
interactions we’ve been talking mostly
about sales but we have a lot of sales
and service companies in our industry
how do you use a CRM for service right
so more sierens don’t allow usage for
service because this is
like what Zendesk is offering with
tickets in kind of fun process but top
spot because they understand you wanna
manage everything they do have a service
hopper within their CRM so hotspot is
the only platform that allows you to do
everything anyone so you can do your
marketing you can use this and you can
do a service in hotspot so we service
hopper is similar to send us where you
basically people can you know open in
tickets if they have a question or
problem with your product or service and
your super customer service team can
follow up on everything now why does I
like really how Huff but I set it up
because again it’s not disjointed right
be service people are often not involved
in the process of the marketing or the
sales but when they do get a ticket it
might be helpful for them to understand
first of all how did this prospect find
us what kind of marketing activity did
it do and how was it sales experience
for them so now they can understand how
to have a more informed kind of approach
to providing that service now if you’re
using another system you don’t always
have all of that information available
to you so you’re sometimes just looking
at the problem and attacking the problem
and just strengths of the problem but
understanding the whole basis of this
customers journey gives the service
people a bit more empathy or a bit more
understanding of how to deal with this
particular customer because again the
goal of anything we do to their sales or
marketing or service is to give a very
personalized and human approach okay so
we shouldn’t be look talking like robots
we shouldn’t be talking just because
like when you call a bank and somebody
in a foreign country answers you you
don’t want then disjointed service
because you’ve interacted with that
business from the beginning to end so y
know when you try to give service you
hand it off to somebody who has no
understanding of this customer so this
is one of the good things about hub
sports adding service up to this CRM –
once you’ve integrated so many companies
into CRM s I’m sure there’s reoccurring
themes on hangups that customers have
that you’ve been able to work them
what are some of the biggest hurdles
that you’ve seen that reoccur in your
clients how so many will be dangerous
yo I’m do remember I work in Israel so I
get even more pushback okay they buy
nothing without 10,000 questions so even
Hux but has a special service for them
even in interacting in this market it’s
not the easiest market to get anything
sold to but usually where they get in
certain customers on project most of the
times the concerns are first of all how
am i team adopted like will they really
use it second is always in price and
third is always like so who’s going to
manage it and this is something that I
want to focus on a third point mostly
because this is something you have to
understand that you need to invest in
when you invest in any technology
platform like this you do need a
dedicated person who will manage those
platforms so you need to have
preparation for either hiring someone
in-house or working with someone like an
agency or even a part-time person who
would manage it because the crm is based
on having proper and accurate data in it
the minute you do not maintain a
database in the CRM by cleaning up for
John Cleese or you know making sure the
information is updated as it should or
if the emails are bouncing taking them
all to be lists if you don’t do those
levels of maintenance then you will have
what we call a cop web kind of CR every
way it’s just again collecting dust and
correcting bad data so it could never
really give you the information you are
seeking so you definitely always need to
make sure that you invest in that person
now some companies still give a lot of
push back about that
they often try to give it to an existing
and ROI you who has no understanding and
this again is a wrong move you have to
find someone who has some level of sales
experience and the rule is usually
called sales operations so you have to
have someone who has a quality of being
sales C but also technology advanced as
well because they may afraid
a platform then that’s a problem as well
so you need somebody who’s tech savvy
but somebody who understands since
processors and things like that what’s
the one thing you want to make sure that
the members of the scaling up nation get
from this interview but I would say
first of all I told you I’m on a mission
I feel like an evangelist going around
the world country take people because my
goal is by 2025 nobody’s using Excel as
a CRM okay so I am trying my best to
figure out how do I get more companies
using any technology but not Excel
because again you have the problems of
not being able to maintain that data so
if you are a business who has not yet
considered investing in a CRM my biggest
takeaway to you today is to go and try
house what free CRM first imported data
from you excel in some spot it’s very
easy just click of a button go to
contacts goes import of lower the Excel
interrupts but even if it has errors
helping to tell you how to format it
date source it’s going to be confusing
and just start playing with that data
and see how it gives you more
information that’s useful to you how you
can sorta dates as you want segment your
database as you want so you don’t have
to spend all of this time you know
figuring out how to maneuver an Excel
and also you can share it with other
people in your team and most importantly
another big difference with a CRM and
Excel is that as with an excel you
cannot limit access right you only have
a couple options basically either view
and it’s if you share in Google sheets
or something so you can’t give people
just to see segments of the data so when
you’re dealing with different sales for
instance for example maybe you don’t
want to see this person responsible for
North America see me contacts in UK
because the UK sales person is dealing
with that so with the CRM you can you
know have those levels of access for
different people you know making sure
that you know they see what they need to
see only and they updating what they
need to update only most importantly so
do take do try it
do check it out if you have questions or
want to be in touch with me to ask
questions be free but to take the chance
to really download the CRM free from
hotspot and check it out today and how
it can work for your business
we will definitely put all of your
contact information on our show notes
page and Arisa I want to thank you
because I know for a fact that people in
the scaling-up nation are scared of the
process of even thinking about starting
a CRM and one of the number one things
that they’re scared of is they’re
expensive but you not only took that
hurdle away you gave us a list of items
that we could start working on so we can
try for a sell so thank you so much for
that and I just wanna let you know that
we’ve helped a lot of people today but
I’m not done with you yet I have a few
lightning round questions for you if you
are game do it alright so now you have
the ability to go back in time and talk
to yourself on the very first day when
you started working with other companies
and implementing their CRM s with them
what advice would you give yourself on
your very first day when you started the
first thing is that I learned that I
would say to myself is basically leave
your ego by the door really because
sometimes you know I’m very passionate
about what I do I spend tons of time
reading what I do so I often start off I
back then I started off with the
assumption that people want the same
page as me and they knew what they
wanted people don’t know what they want
they have no clue what they want so if I
have to always go into meetings today
with a very playhead with no
expectations and be willing to start
from ground zero
so I can help them really get the best
answers and the best scenario out of
this meeting with me risa I know we have
a lot of curious people out there about
CRM and you are the person to talk to
when it comes to CRM so what are some
good books that
you would recommend that people can read
on the CRM topic well first of all I
don’t like paying for anything right so
I’m trying to give you all three tools
first so the free tools are simply good
to HubSpot they have lots of videos they
have what is called academy training so
they give you lots of videos first and
lots of they have a very very good one
of the number one marketing and sales
blogs out there that can tell you any
question you have about CRM they will
answer it best so just go to their
resources and look at what they have
free first before you choose to invest
in anything Pete if you do want to look
at paid stuff to theirs there are many
books that are written again when people
call inbound sales it’s also by wannabe
hotspot some writers I forgot but also
I’m writing a book soon so I will be
writing a book that would be launched in
June next year about how to use CRM for
all types of businesses and what’s it
about for so when that comes out I will
definitely share it with you here as
well but these are the resources you
should look if you google stuff there’s
lots of information there there aren’t
very many books that talk about it
mainly because these things change so
quickly so people don’t want to invest
the time of writing a book and then two
months down the road
it changes totally so you should follow
blogs so anything might have scored
anything by even salesforce because they
do have a very good serums they have
good content as well you can look out
and read whatever they share great
resources Risa I’m not sure if you knew
this or not but Hollywood listens to
scaling up h2o all the time to find out
what their next movies are going to be
so when they hear this interview and
they start writing the script
who plays Risa I’m thinking who they
want to play me
now I love Oprah Winfrey so I’m thinking
is she I often think that she has a very
similar life I hope I have a similar
life of how she struggles in building
her stuff because we both operate in two
different will sometimes but I think the
actresses I would really want my Emmy
is Gabrielle Union well there you go
maybe she’ll be available for the part
oh wow this interview has gone by so
quickly I just have one question for you
left so this is the final lightning
round question you now have the ability
to speak with anybody throughout history
who would it be with and why oh sure
Oprah Winfrey I understand how she
really built herself and you know really
built an empire but built herself
personally as a black woman in a world
that didn’t really accept her for who
she was you know because sometimes I do
go through struggles like that and I
figure out you know how does she manage
all of this so I do call it my Oprah
Winfrey when I actually have to go into
difficult situations your inner Oprah
thanks it back to me my you know breath
think about well she actually does a lot
of work with Tyler Perry whose studios
are based here in Atlanta so when you
two are working on your movies perhaps
we can we can meet for lunch
Arisa thank you so much for coming on
scaling up h2o and educating the nation
about CRM yeah thank you so much for
having me I really enjoyed this
interview and I hope that it was
beneficial to your audiences Riza thanks
again for coming on the show I know
there are a lot of people out there that
are really excited to try the free
HubSpot that you mentioned and you
really can’t take away any bigger hurdle
than monetary and you did that so now we
can get started and just see what a CRM
does if we don’t have one already now
Reese is going to be hosting a special
question and answer session for the
rising tide mastermind members in a few
weeks so they’re going to be able to ask
their personal questions to her and I
think she’s even gonna do some screen
sharing where she’s going to show us
some tips and tricks on how to make sure
we’re utilizing this CRM to the
best of their abilities now if you’re
interested in joining the rising tide
mastermind you can go to scaling up h2o
comm forward slash mastermind to find
out more and again I love it that Risa
took off the table
monetary hurdles where we can use
HubSpot for free and folks it really is
absolutely free
now they do charge for some of their
more advanced features but it’s such a
good way to get started we’ve created an
affiliate partnership with HubSpot so if
you go to scaling up h2o com forward
slash HubSpot you can still get their
free service but the podcast gets credit
for it and if you do activate some of
their features
HubSpot will send us a small commission
on that purchase not costing you
anything extra at all we’ve started
using hub spot here and it really is
super easy we also have an affiliate
agreement with Zoho that’s a very
popular one as well so if you go to
scaling up h2o comm forward slash Zoho
0h0 you can get their free version as
well or upgrade to something with more
bells and whistles we have the same
relationship as I just mentioned with
HubSpot with a Zoho couple of years ago
we spent a good amount of money on a CRM
package and then we paid a programmer to
come and customize it for us it was very
over complicated and we couldn’t get
anybody to commit to it because it was
so complicated that was money that was
not well spent we started using HubSpot
and people started using it because it
was simple so if you don’t have anything
in place
HubSpot and Zoho are great ones that you
can start to get comfortable with a CRM
system
and then if you always want to upgrade
to something else those programs
themselves HubSpot and Zoho have things
you can upgrade to right within their
platforms but if you want to transfer
that data to another program normally
there are ways to do that as well I
can’t tell you how much more efficient
we are because we’ve automated those
tasks and we don’t have to do certain
tasks in each and every time an example
of that is we get an email for a request
for something with a customer we’ve set
up a system so once we put something in
process it does four or five things like
notifying the service department maybe
assigning something in inventory we
don’t have to do those things the
service is doing them and it’s giving us
more time to do the things that we have
to do the other cool thing is you get
metrics off of what you do using your
own data you can see how things are
going and when you decide to change
something you can look again at that
data and see what the metrics are
telling you see arms are great tools but
they can be intimidating so it’s my hope
that after today’s show you see that
there’s absolutely no reason for you not
to start using your data so you can be
more efficient and you can be more
profitable nation next week my friend
Mark Lewis is coming on scaling up h2o
yes one more time actually this is a
continuation of the time where he busted
into my office and just decided to start
recording if you haven’t heard that
episode that was episode 112 and Mark
arranged for somebody that I work with
to come into the office set up my
equipment and he just interviewed me
when we were finished with him
interviewing me I then interviewed mark
because mark talked to the association
of
technologies earlier that year about
what to do with neglected accounts now
neglected accounts could be an account
that your company gave you that nobody
has done a lot with it could be
neglected because the customer is not
doing what you’re asking them to do
there are all sorts of different
definitions around neglected accounts
and Mark is going to help us figure out
what we can do to raise the bar just a
little bit on those accounts so I look
forward to talking with the scaling-up
nation next week and bringing you Mark
Lewis so have a great week folks