What is CRM?

In a retail store, customers come and go. The store owner recognizes an old customer by seeing a familiar face, but never knowing any other information about that customer, not even his name. That scenario should be in the past, no longer at present.

Today, an application on managing information about customers can be found from different developers around the world. This application is called CRM or Customer Relationship Management. Here is a definition of CRM that I found in Webopedia:

"CRM entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service-related. While the phrase customer relationship management is most commonly used to describe a business-customer relationship, CRM systems are used in the same way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads."

Leads originate from several sources like seminars, trade shows, or even a simple chat in Facebook or other social networking sites. It would be good to record not only the information about a lead but also the source for statistical analysis later.

When a negotiation with a lead is made, such as sending a quotation to a lead, the lead should be converted to an account if it is a company, or a contact if it is a person. This conversion process can be automated by a CRM application. The nature of the negotiation made with the account or contact, like the quotation sent, should be recorded as a “Potential”.

As long as a “Potential” is not categorized as a “closed sale”, the expected revenue is not final and the “Potential” will be in the “Pipeline”. A good CRM application can show these types of transactions so that they can be monitored and followed-up.

The essence of a CRM I believe, is not only knowing what a customer will need based on information that was recorded about him, but also making each time spent on a customer valuable and can be a possible source of a potential revenue or customer experience.

Plan Ahead

I've wanted to post tips about business from a research I am still about to start, until I accidentally saw one of my favorite pocket books by John Maxwell. One of the topics in this book is about planning and I thought this is very relevant to business since the first thing that should be done to start or sustain a business is to plan, and planning ahead is a best practice. Here are John Maxwell's tips in planning ahead:

1. Predetermine a course of action. You'll never reach your goals until you discover the vehicle and direction needed to get you there. Just as road signs and mileage markers are indicators of progress made toward a geographical goal, so is the need for preplanned activity to help each person arrive successfully in all areas of life.

2. Lay out your goals.

3. Adjust your priorities. Once your goals are set, there will be some rearranging of your priorities. Well-defined goals very quickly expose activities that are hindering progress toward certain objectives. Too often people tend to major on minors and to minor on majors.

4. Notify your personnel. Any great endeavor will take energy. People will supply energy. It's very important to communicate and receive positive feedback from those who are needed to help you reach the goal. Those who are informed and have positive feedback will help carry the ball toward the goal.

5. Allow time for acceptance. Any new idea takes time before it can be fully endorsed. Proper presentation of ideas allows time for questions and considerations.

6. Head into action. After sufficient time is given to adopt new ideas, get going! Remember - nothing will ever be accomplished if you wait for everyone's approval or for the plan to be perfect.

7. Expect problems. No plan eliminates problems. Excellent planning will remove some obstacles, but not all of them.

8. Always point to the success of an endeavor. This is a great motivational tool when building for tomorrow. Sure, there will be mistakes and fumbles, but don't worry - someone will always be around.

9. Daily review your planning. The longer the projection, the greater the variation. Check daily to make sure you're still on target. If not, make the needed adjustments, and continue on toward success. A quick review is important to help us plan ahead.

After typing on this post what I thought are important details to share from John Maxwell's book, I don't feel like pursuing my research because it seems everything I need at the moment are already here. This is the second time this book, "Think On These Things" has helped me unexpectedly. The first time was even one of those events in my life I've considered miracles. Who knows, what this post can do or the outcome of my task later based on this, can be another miracle!

How to be a successful business owner

To be a successful business owner, a mindset void of negativities is required. A mindset consisting of the following values are required to be successful, and if one of these values is absent, a change of mindset is necessary.

1. You are a business owner. You are the boss of yourself so you must require yourself to work a number of hours each day.

2. Meet your business partners regularly and discuss issues and strategies, but set a time limit so there will still be time left for the family.

3. Focus. If you are a distributor of a big company, focus on the products of that company. Learn the benefits of the products by investing on product trainings. Learn the marketing plan if the company is a network marketing company.

4. Avoid network marketing companies that have “binary” marketing plans. There will be a point in time they will overpay but cease to operate before that happens. All your investments, including your time and effort for product trainings and other activities will be wasted.

5. Be an independent business owner even if it is a network marketing company you are a distributor of its products. Don’t depend on uplines and consider downlines as your business partners, not as your staff. If you don’t succeed, look at the mirror. Don’t blame uplines or downlines.

6. While attending seminars or trainings, make yourself an important person capable of echoing the seminar. Notify potential callers or texters that you have an important meeting and will switch off your cellphone. After that, don’t forget to switch off your cellphone. Otherwise, you’ll just pretend you’re learning something from the seminar but won’t retain anything in the process.