Episode 014: Audit Your CRM

To get the most out of this episode, make sure you download Audit Your CRM Guide. This guide is the perfect way to implement each of the four workflows discussed in this episode, with additional tips and guidance for each workflow. Grab your FREE copy below!

If you’ve been using a CRM for a while, it might be time to audit what you’ve set up to ensure it’s optimized for efficiency in your business! Whether it means reviewing your brand, checking automations, and using each of the features of your CRM, in today’s episode, I’m walking you through your own self-paced CRM audit.

The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discuss how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.

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Here are the highlights…

[0:29] Audit Your CRM
[01:11] Entered & Updated Branding Elements in Your CRM
[2:03] Email & Calendar Connection
[2:43] Thank You Page Redirect
[3:19] Lead Capture Form & Workflow
[4:06] Email Autoresponders
[4:20] Email Templates
[5:16] Proposal, Contract, Payment
[6:18] Schedulers
[7:06] Workflows & Automations
[8:15] Say Thank You
[8:41] Create To-Do Tasks in Workflows

Are you looking to implement some time-saving automation into your business?  Check out my Dubsado VIP Experience and let me do all the heavy lifting!

Connect with Colie on Instagram

Review the Transcript:

Hey guys, welcome back today’s episode is going to be short and sweet, but super important to make sure that you have the best. Fall season in your business that you can today. I want to talk about auditing your CRM. I know it feels like a miracle that Colie, on this episode is finally talking about systems and automations on this podcast.

I generally avoid talking about it because people hear me talk about systems and automations everywhere. So honestly, on the podcast, I try to give you guys a break, but I was giving a presentation recently and when I was done, several people said in the comments, okay, wow. I really need to go audit my CRM to make sure that I am getting the most that I can.

And so I was like, well, should I make some kind of checklist for the website? Instead, I decided to do it on the podcast. There aren’t that many things. I am going to be mostly talking about this from a Dubsado  perspective, but guys, any CRM that you’re using probably has these features. I just want you to go through and make sure that you’re using the ones that are most appropriate for your business.

Okay. Let’s get started. So, first of all, branding elements, I think that we all think about giving our clients a branded experience on our website, and often that doesn’t translate into your CRM. So depending on what CRM you use, you are able to upload your branding colors. You are able to change your URL to be a sub domain your business.

So like mine would be clients.coliejamesphotography.com or a hello.coliejames.com, I have two ?. You can also put your logo there so that it appears on your invoice or when your client logs into their portal. All of these things, the first thing that I just want you to do is go into your CRM and make sure that all of your branding elements are entered and that they are updated because it would shock you how many people end up updating their color palette, getting a new logo, and they forget to run inside their CRM and update them.

Number two guys. I want you to make sure that your email and your calendar are properly connected to your CRM. So in other words, is your CRM sending and receiving emails from your clients using the correct email? is their CRM also looking at your calendar to display the jobs that you have and your outside items inside of your CRM as necessary?

Not everyone needs to connect their calendar, but if you have a scheduler, which I’m going to talk about in a few steps, you definitely want to make sure that your calendar that you want to look at to see if you’re already booked for something is properly connected to your CRM. A bonus. If you are a Dubsado user, anytime your client fills out a lead capture, they are going to be able to be redirected to a custom thank you page, like on your website or somewhere else.

If you have this possibility. Nothing makes your client experience more on-brand than sending them to a custom thank you page after they have inquired about your services. No white page that says thank you for inquiring. I’ll contact you in 24 to 48 hours. We want to be as customized and on-brand as possible.

Speaking of that lead capture when’s the last time you filled out your own lead capture. I want you to go to your website and I want you to physically fill out your lead. Make sure that all of the questions that you’re asking are still valid for your offer. If you have this, I want you to make sure that the correct workflow is starting based on the choice of service that they choose.

So, in other words, when my clients tell me they’re interested in a family session, they get a family workflow that starts, they get an email that is specific about family sessions. This is where your CRM is worth its weight in gold. If you have this capability with your CRM, please do it. Most of them will let you start a workflow that there are a few that will only send out an auto responder.

Just make sure that if you can, the auto responder is based on the service that they’re interested in, or if that’s not possible, just make sure that your clients are getting an auto responder that talks in general. All right. Speaking of talking your email communication, guys, I want you to pop into your CRM and I want you to open every single email template that you have ever created.

If you’re not sending that email anymore, delete it. Reduce the clutter. If you are still sending that email, does it sound like you. Or does it sound like a robot or does it sound like someone with absolutely no personality? Your emails do not need to be as bubbly and funny as my emails are, but they should really sound like you.

So go through each and every email, make sure that it sounds like you talk, make sure that all of the links work and make sure that you have the correct smart fields. No one wants to get an email that says, Hey Colie James. I mean, I’m sure that there’s a point in time where that’s appropriate, but for me, it’s not, I want it to just say, Hey, first name.

So make sure that that is. Next we’ve got your proposal or your offer. So guys, I want the most important thing for your proposal, and this is for every single CRM. I want you to make sure that your proposal is connected to your contract and is connected to an electronic method of payment. No more sending multiple emails to get someone booked.

Now I always get the question back, but Colie, I mean, I might need to, I might need to put different information into the current. 90% of you do not 90% of you just need to use a smart field to populate that different information onto the contract automatically, which is possible. So again, when you are auditing your proposal, please make sure that your offer is clear and concise highlighting the features that benefits the transformation and the delivery.

For your offer and make sure that the proposal is connected to a contract is connected to an electronic method of payment. Okay, schedulers. Now I know some of y’all love some acuity and Calendly, and if you don’t want to switch to your CRM, I am not going to force you. But guys, a lot of CRMs have started offering schedulers in the last 12 months.

So if you. I don’t know if your CRM has a scheduler or if you don’t know how to use that. Scheduler now is a good time to start. When you use the integrated scheduler inside of your account, you are able to start workflows based on that appointment, time, the appointment being scheduled, all that good jazz, you can also save some money.

If you are currently paying for acuity or our Calendly. Just check to see if your CRM currently has a scheduler and last, but certainly not least. And maybe the most important part of the audit is to look at your workflows guys. Workflows don’t need to be automatic, but if they are automatic, you should make sure that all of your actions are triggering properly. Number one, do you know which workflows need to be started manually or which ones will start automatically?

Do you know that all of the communications within those workflows are going when they’re supposed to now is a good time to reevaluate your time friends. If you were sending your client questionnaire two weeks before the session before, and you’ve just found that that was not enough time. Modify it now to go earlier, send it three weeks before the session.

Okay. Do all of the links work? Some of you guys have written emails and you’re linking to things on your website or you’re linking to things that other people have quarterly, you should be going through your links to make sure that they are taking people where they need to take them. My next item say, thank you.

And you can say, thank you automatically each and every time one of your clients completes a form, whether it’s your lead capture, it’s a client questionnaire. It’s a timeline for wedding photographers, whatever it is, every time your client takes an action, you should be sending them an automatic. Thank you.

And going back up to the communication, it should sound like you don’t just say thank you. Okay, last but not least. Did you know that many of you can create to dues inside of your workflows to remind you of what to do next in case it’s not in your CRM? For example, if you are a website designer and you are sending people a click of dashboard in order to gather information from them, communicate timelines, whatever it is, you might put it to do inside a workflow that reminds you to go create their click up dashboard.

After they have booked you. If you’re a photographer and you want to send them a thank you gift after this. You can add a, to do inside your workflow. That will remind you. Now I want you to check your settings on this guys. Some to dues only show up in the CRMs, other to do’s. You can email yourself a reminder, just make sure that you’re doing whichever one makes most sense to you.

All right, guys. So those are the steps for how you can do a quick audit of your CRM to make sure that it is benefiting your business most. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!