Where would we be without data? In a state of perpetual chaos

Data is vital to everything we do and consume.  Without it you would be unable to buy your morning coffee with your contactless payment card, whilst you rush to your train that would be caught up in timetable confusion, leaving you to try and work from home without internet access and with a defunct mobile phone. And god forbid, if you get through the day relatively unscathed and sit down to the next Netflix boxset, the viewing algorithms would leave you watching the first season of your favourite show when you should be on season five.  First world problems hey!

So, the modern world needs data to function. As do businesses. And data comes in many forms: production data, accounts data as well as sales and customer data.  But many people view data as stale, stagnant and boring.  Not often seeing the value of being involved with data and using it to develop their business.

But if you apply a human face to your data, especially your sales and CRM data, then it becomes a whole different thing. Every piece of data in your sales/CRM systems is a person, belonging to a business, who may one day become a customer.  So, shift your perception of data from numbers and regard each record as a real person who has challenges, pressures, needs and desires, just like us all.

Beyond the human face that you have now applied to your data, is the detail of your relationship with them.  You can segment your data many different ways.  One way is to do a deep dive into the relationship status you have with them. Are they advocates, customers, prospects or suspects? How can you develop a cross-selling or up-selling programme to your existing customer, how can you encourage trial with your prospects, and what is the best way to build awareness with the suspects?

And this work doesn’t need to be resource intense. Systems and automation can do much of the heavy lifting of making contact and nurturing opportunities with value-add content. Putting contact processes in place and building your pipeline can also help smooth your sales curve so that you are not subject to the feast and famine that is the typical annual cycle of coaches, consultants and many small businesses.

So, try to think of data, processes and systems as a way to really grow your business. Interrogate your sales data and really focus on exploiting the value from your CRM data. Invest some time in establishing some processes, free up your head space and get back some hard-earned time to concentrate on delivering what you do best. I’m guessing it doesn’t involve data!

 

We have used CapsuleCRM for the last nine years to help clients improve their revenue, spend less, use their contacts productively, manage their work pipeline, and deliver their client work efficiently.

We can help businesses find their ideal customer avatar and then design and install a bespoke CapsuleCRM to suit their exact business requirements. We can also do a data health check on existing databases to ensure you have high-quality data.

If you want to start making some positive changes and grow your business, Contact me today for a no-obligation chat about improving your sales and marketing engagement processes.

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