With new projects coming in every day, the consulting market is growing rapidly. The management consulting services market is expected to grow from $891 billion in 2021 to $973 billion in 2022 worldwide.
If you own a consulting firm, you know how important it is to keep track of all your clients and prospects. Have you been using Excel sheets and word documents to track your deals and prospects? These don’t really give you a clear view of your pipeline, which means that you may be missing out on dozens of opportunities. Lost opportunities mean lost revenue.
So, what is the solution? A CRM system could help you become more organized, creating better business development and sales systems.
What is CRM for Consultants?
CRM or Customer Relationship Management includes a wide range of activities, from lead management to relationship building with customers. A CRM system is a valuable tool for Consultants, helping them manage their entire sales cycle, from tracking leads to managing marketing campaigns.
With CRM software, you may automate many tasks that you do manually in your workday. Automating tasks helps you save valuable time that you would have otherwise spent on administrative tasks. The time you save can be used for sales or other business development activities.
Why should you invest in a CRM system for your consulting firm?
Consultants are required to handle multiple clients and prospects simultaneously. Depending on your services, you may be required to be in touch with them regularly. The consulting market is flourishing, and there are plenty of business opportunities in the market. In a growing industry, CRM software can help you stay organized and on top of your game.
The sales process in the consulting industry continues at almost every stage of the customer journey. You can get new business from leads generated through referrals or marketing efforts. However, you can also upsell or cross-sell to your existing clients on further services. Handling new leads as well as your existing clients all at once can be a tedious task. If you do not track your leads and clients meticulously, you risk losing opportunities, which eventually translates to lost revenue. A CRM for Consultants could be invaluable in ensuring that you make the most of all opportunities.
How do you benefit from a CRM for Consultants?
Here are some of the benefits of a CRM for Consultants:
Sales process automation
If you want your consulting firm to thrive, you will need new business. To make the most of new opportunities, you should have a well-structured workflow that defines how to deal with a new lead. You should also have a well-defined follow-up process.
CRM software can automate many tasks in your sales process, ensuring that no lead falls through the cracks. For instance, your CRM system could collate all the leads generated through various means in one place. The leads can then be automatically assigned to an account manager so that they can follow up quickly. Statistics reveal that fast responders get up to 50% of all sales. If you call a lead within the first five minutes, the chances of conversion greatly increase.
Clear view of your sales pipeline
Different businesses have different sales processes with specific steps that all sales reps are expected to follow. If you own a consulting firm, your sales process may involve the following steps:
– Lead generation
– Introductory call
– Proposal
– Presentation
– Negotiation
– Contract
– Outcome of the deal (won or lost)
When you use a CRM system, you have a clear view of where all your leads are in the sales pipeline. You can, therefore, better forecast your sales because you can see how many leads are close to signing a deal with your firm.
Automated emails
As a Consultant, you are expected to stay in touch with your clients and prospects regularly. Emails are an effective way of communication, helping you stay in touch with your customers. However, if you have to write an email from scratch for every client and prospect, it is going to be extremely time-consuming.
A CRM system offers many email templates that you can use to automate your welcome and follow-up emails. You can even personalize the emails wherever necessary.
Track your sales activities
Not all leads convert at the same time. You have to nurture some leads for quite some time before they convert. Keeping a track of all leads and clients is a big challenge for both sales reps and account managers.
Depending on where a lead is in the customer journey, your CRM system allows you to plan and track tasks and activities for different stages. You also get timely reminders on when a task is due. Thus, a CRM for Consultants lets you keep track of everything that you need to do for the week, month, quarter, and even the year. You can follow up with all your customers on time, without missing out on any one of them.
Accurate reporting
Keeping an eye on all the activities, opportunities, and outcomes can be time-consuming. If you are doing all of this manually, it can take up many hours at a time. A good CRM system comes with in-built reporting features, allowing you to create in-depth reports and dashboards to analyze how your sales function is doing.
If you have been looking to grow and expand your consulting firm, you need high-level reports to help you determine the health of your business.
What are the activities that you can streamline with a CRM system?
There are many sales activities that you can automate using a CRM system. Here are a few of them:
Sales process mapping
Different businesses have different sales processes, depending on the industry and the target audience they serve. A sales process has different stages. You can view each of these stages on a CRM system and track the progress of all your opportunities. To make the most of a CRM system, you should first have a well-defined sales process in your firm.
If you do not have a well-structured sales process, you should consider consulting your sales team and account managers to design one. The stages of your sales process would depend on the services you offer and the complexities of your offerings. Once you have created your sales process, you can set up the pipeline in your CRM system.
Email outreach
Your CRM software could come in extremely handy when automating your email outreach process. You do not have to write emails from scratch but can use the templates offered by your CRM system.
When picking a CRM system, choose one that can integrate with the email client that you are currently using. So, what are some of the emails that you can automate?
Introductory emails
Sending out an introductory email when a new lead comes in gives them a positive customer experience. With your CRM system, you can automate introductory emails, thanking your customers for getting in touch and including a CTA to book a discovery call with your firm.
Informational emails
Potential clients may need additional information before they decide to associate with your consulting firm. You can use email templates to send them the necessary information to help them decide to hire your services.
Follow-up emails
Staying in touch with your clients and prospects is a big part of your job as a Consultant. You can use the follow-up email templates in your CRM system to engage with your customers on a regular basis.
Frequently asked questions
Do you get a lot of repeated questions from your customers? If you do, you can collect all the frequently asked questions and answer and answer them in a document. You can create an email template for these FAQs and send them to your customers.
Nurture your existing clients
New opportunities are important for business growth. However, it is also important to nurture your existing clients because they also present tremendous potential for upselling and cross-selling. As you work with your clients, you will be able to identify new problems that you may be able to provide solutions for. Consider recording each such opportunity in your CRM system.
You can also increase your revenue by cross-selling to your existing customers. Did you know your existing customers are 50% more likely to try out new services offered by your firm? You are also 14 times more likely to sell to an existing customer than a new one. If you are not focusing on cross-selling, you are missing many profitable opportunities.
Cold calling
Cold calling does not have a very good reputation, but it can still work wonders for many consulting firms. It can work in your favor if you have narrowed down your target audience.
Your CRM system can help you streamline the cold calling process and make it more efficient, delivering better results. Many CRM software can also integrate with your phone solutions. For instance, you can use VoIP to call your leads with just the click of a button. There are many non-hardware phone systems available that can also integrate with modern CRM systems.
By integrating your phone solution with your CRM, you may also be able to record your call for training purposes.
Lead qualification
Nearly two-thirds of all leads are not sales-ready. Unqualified leads could be a big waste of time in sales. That is why it is crucial that you qualify your leads before investing time and effort. Qualifying leads manually is extremely time-consuming, but your CRM system can make the job a lot easier.
With CRM software, you can factor in a lot of variables, such as industry, company size, websites, LinkedIn profiles, and more. Using all such data your CRM can help you determine if a lead is worth guiding on to the next step of your sales process. With the right data, you can identify the leads that are a good fit for your consulting firm.
How to choose the right CRM for your consulting firm?
It must be quite clear to you by now that a CRM system can make your consulting business a lot more efficient. But, how do you pick the right CRM for your consulting firm?
Meets your requirements
First of all, the best CRM for your firm is one that meets your requirements. Modern CRM systems come with many features. However, you may not require all the features. Therefore, don’t pick a CRM just because it has many features. Pick a CRM that can help you streamline your existing processes.
As a Consultant, you should be looking for a CRM system that helps with lead qualification, streamlining outreach activities, and accurate reporting. You may also look for features, such as email templates, advanced reporting, pipeline management, and so on.
Fits in your budget
What is your budget for a CRM system? If you have a tight budget, you may need to compromise on some advanced features.
Another way to look at it is the ROI that your CRM system can generate. Will a new CRM system make your team more productive? If it will, maybe it is worth the investment. Consulting is a competitive industry. You may want to invest in an advanced CRM system if you want a competitive edge. A CRM that increases sales, frees up the time spent on administrative tasks, and streamlines processes could be exactly what you need to stay ahead in the game.
Pick the right solution
Determining your requirements and budget can help you pick the right solution for your consulting firm. If you own a small consulting firm, you may find that a SaaS solution like Kylas meets all your needs and that you do not need a bespoke enterprise solution.
Choosing a CRM system will also depend on your business goals and what you want to achieve for your firm in the future.
Conclusion
A CRM system is not just another piece of technology that your consulting firm needs. The right CRM for Consultants can significantly increase sales and boost your business development efforts.