How to Reclaim at LEAST 500 Hours in Your Business
Use this one tool to amplify your productivity
If you are tired of being overwhelmed and wearing all of the hats in your company, it’s time to implement more automation. Automation makes your BUSINESS work harder for you, so YOU can take back your time and freedom.
I found a way to create at least 10 hours per week of free time (500 hours per year) in my business. This is my all-time favorite ‘employee’ who consistently wins Employee of the Month. It never takes sick/vacation days, acts out with insubordination, starts office drama, or costs me dreaded payroll taxes that cut into my profits.
It’s my CRM tool.
Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) is a tool to organize your contact info and manage your relationships with current and prospective customers, clients, and other contacts. It’s an electronic address book on steroids—today’s version of the paper Rolodex.
CRM apps create order, not chaos, in your business. They structure those stacks of business cards stored all over your office (piles of potential sales waiting to happen). They keep track of details for you, so you don’t have to remember even more things in this world of information overload.
I live by my Contacts app on my phone. It contains the phone numbers and email addresses for my friends and acquaintances. It even integrates with FullContact.com, which seamlessly adds new contacts via transcribing physical business cards or syncing my Gmail email with data available on the web.
When it comes to my business contacts, my electronic address book just isn’t enough. I need to track their preferences, recent purchases, clicks and open rates, company information, and so much more. This is beyond what my Contacts app can handle. I wanted something more powerful to manage my relationships.
I invested in the Infusionsoft CRM tool solely for email marketing activities – sending emails and newsletters to the community I serve. My investment is just over $200/month.
When I was just getting started as a new business owner, Infusionsoft seemed pricey and too robust for my needs. I felt I could get the same features at a much lower price point – possibly even with a free tool. That was, until I discovered it could do so much more to automate my company. I realized that my investment was a steal and it actually does the work of several employees at a fraction of the cost!
MY CRM is a highly productive employee
Yes, Infusionsoft stores my contacts and allows tagging so I can group people into specific marketing efforts. Yes, it is a powerful email marketing tool that sends emails and newsletters to my current and future customers. Those are the base functions I expect from any CRM tool.
Here’s where it gets more awesome. These are my favorite functions that I never anticipated when I invested in Infusionsoft – the functions that save me hours every week. The functions that actually MAKE me money:
- Schedules and tracks the history of prospect and client meetings
- Administers the customer appreciation touchpoints and reminders (birthday/thank you cards/special occasions)
- Handles the shopping cart and collects the money
- Manages the partner affiliate and customer referral programs
- Runs the client onboarding process
- Produces marketing analytics
If you feel you are working too hard in your business, invest in a CRM tool that takes on some of the heavy lifting for you. When you get your business to produce more, you create free time to do what you want – every day. Once your CRM is systemized (and we can help with that), you just set it and forgot it.
Please share how your CRM tool saves your business time and money by leaving a comment. I’d love to hear about your success!
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A CRM tool is just one system to make your business work harder for you. Gain back valuable free time by making your BUSINESS produce more with several of my favorite free productivity tools. Download the guide: Best Free Productivity Tools.
