In search of control – the business owner’s quest

As a business owner there’s nothing quite like the feeling of being in control. It’s that calmness and focus you get when you know exactly what’s going on, when you have the levers available to make changes in your business, and when you have a view of the future to head off any problems and maximise any opportunities.

So many business owners search for this control, but for many it remains elusive. Indeed, for many business owners this lack of control is the number one frustration in their working lives.

There is a solution. Business owners who invest in a CRM platform report that it delivers control in a host of ways.

SHARPER MARKETING

Firstly, CRM gives you insight into who your customers are, what they like and what they tend to buy. This allows you to segment them and more precisely target your marketing efforts, vastly increasing the returns you achieve on your marketing activities.

According to Jupiter research, highly relevant email messages can generate nine times improvement in revenue and 32 times more improvement in net profit over non-segmented broadcast campaigns. This is not only far greater control – it’s also far higher profits.

CONTROL OVER SALES

Equally, CRM removes all the guesswork about who in your sales team is delivering the best results. It gives you the facts on who is generating the most quotes, closing the most orders, and generating the highest value orders. Not only does this allow you to give these top performers additional responsibilities, but it also gives you a model for future recruitment, and a set of behaviours to use when training the rest of the team – doing all this should hugely boost overall team performance.

As well as giving you greater control over sales and marketing performance it gives you far greater visibility of the results they are likely to produce. You can look at the current open opportunities and so work with the sales team to focus on the right ones, putting forward the right proposals. This produces a more reliable stream of sales. Armed with this information on income you’re better able to make a whole host of decisions on stock levels, resourcing, investments and so on. Uncertainty is replaced by control.

LOWER COSTS AND HAPPIER CUSTOMERS

It’s not just in new business; CRM gives you more control over existing accounts. It shows you which are your best customers – the ones that takes the least time, cause the fewest problems, and generate the greatest profit. You can focus on them and grow those accounts so they become a greater proportion of your business.

And finally, when it comes to delivery, CRM provides the control you need to be streamlined, efficient and ultimately profitable. You can spot the issues that are common to all your customers, fix those issues and then train your staff to resolve them more quickly in future.

This not only cuts support costs, it also raises customer satisfaction and contributes to the virtuous cycle you’ve kicked off in your business. How to start the cycle? Look into a CRM platform today, and get ready to feel in control again.