For owner managed businesses, development and growth can be tricky to balance alongside sales and delivery but, in order to achieve success, it is a challenge that simply must be solved.
Blake Consultants worked with Ally Ilott, founder of Heritage Estate Planning, as her business reached its critical fifth birthday; a time often earmarked as a success milestone for small businesses. Having successfully implemented Capsule as a CRM, Ally is now an ongoing Business Mastery client and her business continues to grow. She admits to having ‘absolutely fallen in love with Capsule’.
Business Boost / Business Builder / Business Mastery / Sales Pipeline Management / Product Boost / CRM for success
The Challenge
When Ally first met Julia from Blake Consultants, she had a four-year-old business helping people to write their wills, set up lasting powers of attorney, and put trusts and funeral plans in place and was focused on growth as well as improving efficiency in the way she worked.
Although she had a basic system to track all her business, she needed something far more intuitive and automated to ensure she could continue to delight her clients and avoid missing any important milestones.
The Approach
Blake Consultants always takes a highly consultative approach, which was the difference that made the difference for Ally. “Working with Julia changed my opinion of CRMs. I went from just not understanding how all this stuff in my head could make sense in a system to realising that Julia just got me and my business and made everything seem really simple to implement.”
Ally describes Julia’s approach as efficient, accommodating, and flexible and says she is now so much more confident in the delivery of her service, as well as all the customer care that goes with it.
Ally’s Story
When I first met Julia, my business was ticking over nicely and although I did everything manually, I managed to keep up with it, just about” laughs Ally.
But is that really the foundation on which to grow a business? Julia understood what I needed very quickly, and I now feel that I didn’t know what I was missing. Things are so much more automated; Capsule opens automatically for me each morning and basically runs my business. There’s no risk of people slipping through the net and I hadn’t realised how much of my mind that worry was occupying.”
It was coincidental that the pandemic hit just as Ally was working with Julia and she describes this as timely. Taking her business fully online meant there was even more need to stay on top of everything and, with time being spread across lots of responsibilities during lockdown, she found Capsule became invaluable.
It allows me to batch certain tasks, Ally explains “which saves us around 20% of the time we used to spend on these non-core activities. I’m more focused in my work because I know Capsule is guiding what needs doing. I also really benefit from the integrations with other systems such as Xero – I think this alone saves me about 15% of my time.”
Since implementing her CRM, Ally has had the best quarter’s results her business has seen with revenue up 23% on her previous best performing period.
Following the implementation of Capsule, Ally continued working with Julia.
I got so much out of the time we spent together that it just made sense to carry on that relationship,” she says. “I have a regular touchpoint with Julia through her Business Mastery service, which is invaluable as my business grows. What Julia doesn’t know about systems and working smarter isn’t worth knowing.”
How could Blake Consultants help you?
If you run a small to medium sized business and would like future growth and success, here’s how Blake Consultants can help:
1. Experiencing overwhelm? We will reduce your workload and increase your revenue by making you more efficient;
2. Experiencing high success? We’ll set up your business to enable you to cope with high levels of delivery and have time to plan and grow;
3. Reached a growth milestone? Our CRM solution will enable you to recruit and maintain consistency of approach;
4. Struggling to convert opportunities? We will help you find the time to nurture your business and segment your activities and messaging;
5. Forward thinker? As a very early start-up who recognises you need a business structure to grow in to, we should be your first stop.
If you’re a coach, consultant or other service-focused business owner, ambitious for growth, contact Julia on 01635 592020 or Julia.blake@blakeconsultants.co.uk for an initial free consultation.