When asked, “What’s the best Customer Relationship Management Tool (CRM)?” I like to joke, “The best CRM is the one you will use.”
And though this is mostly a pithy reply to a legitimate inquiry, in my experience just getting started and committed to using a CRM is one of the best actions one can take to get sales humming.
And yes, nonprofits can benefit from a CRM too. (One they will use, of course.)
Your CRM helps you stay on track with outreach, check-ins, and where people currently reside in their engagement lifecycle with your organization. Using one effectively helps you build relationships and keep conversations and actions from falling through the cracks.
Some of the more full-featured CRMs even help you keep your one-to-many outreach on track with email automation, funnel capabilities, and even social media management functionality that enables you to be more proactive with your outreach and improve your team’s efficiency and effectiveness with social engagement. In fact, we wrote a whole post about getting organized with a CRM.
That’s why I’m so excited about today’s guest, Lidiane (Liddy) Mocko. She’s a CRM expert and the founder of CRM Growth Strategy and if you are interested in getting your CRM game on point, Liddy is your go-to person to make sure you are set up and running at peak efficiency.
See, Liddy is steeped in the CRM world. She’s a SalesForce expert and helps teams in both for- and nonprofit organizations get the most out of their systems. She not only helps organizations customize their platforms, but has a wealth of experience and knowledge she shares with the world to ensure that you get the most out of your CRM and engagement plan.
This episode is a game-changer for those who currently have a CRM or those looking to add this valuable tool to their kit.
I hope you enjoy it.
Links:
CRM Growth Strategy
Salesforce
GreaterGiving
ClickBid
GiveLively
Ask:
If you are using a CRM, now is time for Spring Cleaning, go ahead and check in on people you haven’t talked to in a while, pick up the phone or send some emails to get them reengaged with you and your organization.
Listen to the podcast here:
Lidiane: The clients are not always operating or potential. Clients are not always working on your timeline. Right. They have a lot of things happening on their end and sometimes they disappear and having your sales pipeline. Lobbed in an opportunity record in the CRM that helps you to see when was the last time I pinged them.
What came up in that conversation? You know, D was he okay with me reaching out to him two weeks later? Was he okay if I checked in with him three or a month later? You know and, and that’s what helps because then you see, oh yeah, actually I talked and he said it was okay to reach out back in November, which I did.
And then he said, still not ready, check back with me three months. And then you put yourself a reminder, Hey, three months from now, I need to email this person, you know? And it’s there, it’s sitting on your opportunity pipeline. It’s not falling through the cracks. You can, it’s not occupying space in your brain either.
You know, you, you can give full attention to your existing clients and get things done. Three months later, you have that popping up that reminder and then you reach out. And then boom things move
Are you looking for ways to shorten your marketing learning curve and help your organization survive and thrive? Welcome to relish this, the purpose marketing pod. A show for purpose focused leaders who want to use marketing techniques to fuel their organization’s growth. If you’re a returning listener and you haven’t subscribed already, we’d love to have you also please consider leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Now here’s your host, author and marketing specialist, Stu swine Ford.
Stu: Hey, everybody’s through here. If you’ve ever been curious about adding a CRM to your. To help manage your donors or customer integrations, or essentially all of the things that help keep your business moving forward and help you create predictability and inconsistency in your outreach.
Then today’s episode is for you. My guest is Liddy Mako, and she is. Just an amazing resource for all things CRM. So CRM is a customer relations management tool, and a lot of times nonprofits think that they don’t need those. However, if you can track and do a better job of keeping in touch with your people who’ve reached out to inquire people who have donated in the past, etc, it gives you a much, much stronger opportunity to.
Th to transform those people into repeat donors or bigger donors, or even just maintaining your volunteer base and understanding how you’re communicating with them. So I think a CRM is a, is a very valuable tool for any, any organization, including nonprofits and, and Lydia is just great about it. She runs a company called CRM growth strategy and we just had a really great conversation.
I hope you enjoy it. And here we go.
Larry, how
Lidiane: you doing today? I’m fine. Thank
Stu: you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m really excited to chat with you. Just a little note for the listeners. I am recording today in a co-working space here in Netherlands. So it might be a little bit more echo-y than normal. On my end, we had some internet challenges at my house.
And so I just am down to Ned here to to talk with Liddy about customer. Relations management and how important that is for, for organizations of any type. So I’m really happy to have you on the show today, buddy.
Lidiane: Yeah. Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to join you and share my experiences with you and with your audience.
Thank you for helping.
Stu: And it’s my pleasure. I think we were introduced by Jeff Kinsey who was also on the show. So it’s really cool to see how the relish this community is is kind of growing and how everybody’s kind of intertwined. It’s really fun to see. How did you and Jeff first meet?
Lidiane: Yeah, so I met Jeff through good business card.
Stu: And
Lidiane: yeah. And then I found out that Jeff has done some work with the executive director of another organization. That is my client. So that connection, we also came
Stu: up. Ah, that’s fantastic. Which organization
Lidiane: is that? Rocky mountain micro finance Institute.
Stu: Okay, cool. I haven’t met those guys yet, but hopefully hopefully it will be introduced to them.
That sounds like a cool, a cool place to to have people that I can talk with. So tell us, tell us what you do at CRM growth show.
Lidiane: Yeah. So CRM growth strategy is the third rebrand of my business. You know, things changed. And at some point you, you there’s this arch to adjust a brand to be more aligned with how, how we are showing up.
Right. Right. So this rebrand happened over the. Turn of the year, 2021 to 2022. I started my business back in 2014. So my background was as a software engineer. I worked in a broadcast industry for years and years. I am an immigrant. I am personally and American. I’m not realized American in 2015, and this seems like all random stuff about me, but they’re not, you know, because they all contributed to me in my urge to end up Having my business and, and embracing, I think entrepreneurship for me is embracing that true spirit of being American.
Right. So yeah, I went back to school in 2012. I got an MBA at the university of Denver. And when I finished MBA program, I started my business. Funny dot Rocky mountain micro finance Institute came up because they were my clients zero.
Stu: Oh, really? That’s awesome.
Lidiane: Yeah. I was a DEU when I met Rob Smith, which was the founder of one of the founders and his active director of Iron-man.
If I, for a very long time, he, he recently stepped away from it. But that’s how my my business started really, you know, and. And, and it’s funny, Rob means a lot to me. And I remember if I, because it, at that point in time, I was, am I going to start a business? Am I going to get a job? And that experience with doing pro bono consulting and helping them with Salesforce helped me to feel confident enough to take the next step and move forward with my business.
Stu: Oh, that’s fantastic. So you came from an engineering background and then kind of found your founder zone in in, in Salesforce specifically. It sounds like
Lidiane: not exactly. So Salesforce was my clients zero. I knew Salesforce was going to be a part of it because you know, it’s such a strong player in the cloud-based CRM space.
Yeah. But when I first started, my goal was to help small business owners with cloud-based systems in general. And then a couple of years into it, I was doing just CRM CRM. So then I rebranded to small business here. I’m coach. And and at the time I was trying to do like coaching. I did a coaching program and I I created an online course and I wanted to coach people to use CRM.
And with that, I learned that it’s not that simple. Most people don’t want that. Most people want the. You know, either that I do it for them or a little bit more hand-holding through the process. So so that’s why like I rebranded to serum growth strategy because now I’m seeing myself working more with organizations that are good at going have more users and we are expanding, you know, the, the use of the CRM system into.
Tracking more business processes within the system.
Stu: So where do you see people really needing to take the leap from, you know, tracking in spreadsheets or whatever they have been doing historically to using a CRM? Is there, is there a period of time that you, that you say, yeah, once you’ve gotten to this level, you need to, to make that, make that leap
Lidiane: question.
I think so from my perspective, of course, in my my mindset, you know, like I think from day one, it’s good to have, even if it is a free CRM to start tracking your connections, people who you meet networking and building your database because this small organizations are so community focused. Right. Realistically though, a lot of people are not ready to.
Bite that into it. So so that’d been sad. I think that three to five years is a good window because if you’ve been in business for more than three years, then you’re starting to get to a place where you, you have activity enough activity, activities going on that justify you being in business for three years.
And. Having a CRM will help you to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks, you know? Right. So that’s the, that three to five year window for me when I get a client that is in that window and they are thinking about the CRM it’s because they want to make sure things are not falling through the cracks.
That’s the ideal starting point.
Stu: Gotcha. So most people start to recognize that there may be opportunities that they’re missing or things that they’re forgetting to do. And since they’re not tracking that stuff in the CRM or in an effective way, that’s where plugging in that tool can be, become a really effective part of their, of their marketing and outreach and, and just, you know, tracking here, I assume.
Lidiane: Yes, I think. Going back to how does the CRM help in terms of avoiding things from falling through the cracks? Right? A lot of organizations are, or more on this business to business space. And what happens in the business to business a space. What happens is that a business project or a contract it’s not transactional.
It’s not that someone shows up in somebody else’s website and say, oh yeah, I’m going to purchase those. $10,000 project right now. It’s no, you don’t get it off the shelf, right? There is a, there’s a lot of work or a lot of things that happen in terms of you meet someone and then you see them again, and then you see them.
Three more times before they feel like they really know and trust you to feel comfortable to refer you to somebody else. And, and then when you start talking to a potential client, Again, if you start that conversation today and and you do the steps that you need to do in order to move that client alone, but the clients are not always operating or potential.
Clients are not always working on your timeline. Right. They have a lot of things happening on their end and sometimes they disappear and having. Your sales pipeline. Lobbed in an opportunity record in the CRM that helps you to see when was the last time I pinged them. What came up in that conversation and, you know, did, was he okay with me reaching out to him two weeks later?
Was he okay if I checked in with him? Or a month later, you know? And, and that’s what helps because then you see, oh yeah, actually I talked and he said it was okay to reach out back in November, which I did. And then he said, still not ready, check back with me three months. And then you put yourself a reminder, Hey, three months from now, I need to email this person, you know?
And it’s there. It seems. On your opportunity pipeline. It’s not falling through the cracks. You can, it’s not occupying space in your brain either. You know, you can give full attention to your existing clients and get things done. Three months later, you have that popping up that reminder, and then you reach out.
And then boom, things move and, and I’m telling you this there’s a specific client that, that happened. You know, recently with me, like there, we were back and forth for most. And I am, I don’t know, you know, I’m going to keep asking and I’m glad I kept asking because now we, we started with an initial project and now we are moving forward to.
A new engagement, you know?
Stu: Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing when you when you can track that stuff and keep, keep on top of it. You know, I, I remember one instance where we had a two year sales cycle on a, on a quiet where I’d first started talking to them, you know, in two years later they finally said, yeah, let’s do this.
So had I not. Keeping up with that quiet and providing not only just touch bases, but, but, you know, valuable information all along that, that time-frame they, you know, they wouldn’t have, have become a client, so it’s it’s just super, super cool how CRM can help you stay on top of that stuff.
Lidiane: Yeah. And it helps you to understand that sales cycle, right. And I think a lot of people don’t even have an understanding of, of that because they’re not collecting the data. They can, they don’t have anything to look at over time to understand that sometimes. Sometimes there is an ideal client that shows up and they need you so much that within two weeks, boom, you’re you’re in.
But there are others who have more things going on and need to, can take three to six months or up to two years, you know? Yeah.
Stu: Yeah. It’s really funny. Excuse me. It’s just really interesting how, when you don’t track it, you just don’t know. And you know, a lot of times I’ll ask clients what their sales cycle looks like and, and, you know, maybe they don’t know, or, you know, how long, how long does it usually take?
And I just get either blank stares or, or, you know, kind of. Hemming and hawing or the other about how long it usually takes. And, and it’s, it’s interesting how, when you have that data, you can then make vastly different, more educated decisions about, about what what to do next.
Lidiane: Yes.
Stu: Do, do you see you know, there are lots of non-profits out there who may think that they don’t need a CRM.
How, how have you seen nonprofits leverage the leverage, the power of a CRM to improve their donations acquisition and, and and communications in general.
Lidiane: Oh, my God. That’s big question. Yeah, so I can, I can talk more broadly. I think. In terms of non-profits using the CRM to track their donations.
You know, Salesforce has the nonprofit starter pack. A lot of my clients use that. And ways that I’ve been able to see them leveraging the information is with the nonprofit starter pack. You can pull reports like who donated this year and And, and didn’t donate last year or who donated last year and hasn’t donated this year yet, you know, so doing those types of reports, then they can see who showed up and target those specific donors.
To improve their numbers and improve their revenue for a period of time. Right. And the same thing, like when they have events going on, just looking at who attended or who engaged, who donated, who sponsored as events in previous years, you know that’s the, the main. The main way that I’ve seen them just understanding where the donors are coming from, what our defense is that they have supported you and your organization in the past and how they can support moving forward.
Stu: Yeah. We, we build out personas too for clients and having that information. And being able to track that and see what historically has happened. And then look for similarities between between different users can help build out that kind of information, which can be super helpful when you’re trying to, to figure out where to where to advertise or where to go you know, to put your efforts in terms of outreach.
So I definitely see how a CRM can help with that component of, of the of the equation as well.
Lidiane: Yeah. Yeah. I, and with COVID and everything, there is one nonprofit that I support that last year they did an event and they raised. You know, they raised close to 500,000 for their event and it was a record compared to previous years.
And this is with COVID in a limited, you know, they had to limit it, limit the number of tickets for their gala.
Stu: Right. I’ve seen that happen too with With non-profits that we’re able to actually outraise during the pandemic from a live event, because they didn’t have all of the overhead of producing a live event.
So they were able to save a lot of money. In that capacity and then, you know, that just went to their bottom line. So there’s certainly some interesting things there. When tracking at an event, how do do you recommend people just plug information in after the fact, are there ways that you can get kind of real-time information during the event to plug into your CRM?
Lidiane: So there are two clients that come to mind and they both well. They both used greater giving. One of them is moving to a different platform right now that is called click bed. So nobody is tracking what’s happening event during the event. They are running the event, you know, and they’re just kind of like, oh, okay, we’re trying to do an auction here and try to move forward with what’s happening in the event.
So usually you’re going to have. Information come in more before the event, which is the, the sponsorships, the tickets and things like that. And then after the event, because I’m live at the event time. Yeah. There is a platform that is tracking it, but I don’t, I’m not aware that any of them are there checking the numbers necessarily.
Stu: Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn’t expect him to check numbers. During the event, it was more if there were systems that people could leverage so that they can streamline getting that information into the CRM. And I guess it just sounds to me like people plug that in after the fact which is, which is totally fine
Lidiane: too.
Yeah. So so let me break that down. Is that okay? Okay. So with greater giving that’s one platform. They can sell the tickets to greater given the greater giving, helps them to do their auction through it. And then the clients who are using greater giving, usually there is a Salesforce report that.
The data is already into Salesforce NPSP format. So then we can pull that report right after and plug it in import into Salesforce and quickly have the numbers in Salesforce. One of my clients is using something called click bid right now with click bed. There is a direct integration with Salesforce.
The tickets as the tickets are being purchased, we are already pushing the information into Salesforce. We can see, okay, this tickets have not been synced to Salesforce yet, or those things have not been sanct. Yeah. And and then. You know, the same thing for the auction. We’ll be able to pull a report and see show me all the, the optional items that haven’t synced to Salesforce yet.
And then we can just select them and, and do a push to Salesforce that an admin user at the nonprofit can do it. So with with greater giving. Usually that comes back to me, to the Salesforce consultant at me to help them with click bed. I am seeing them being able to handle it themselves once they understand how to push that information through.
There’s one more option, which is give lively, which give lively works well for. Events where you’re just selling tickets. Okay. And I have a couple of clients and give lively, like one, I have a couple of clients who have it for donation. Like the donation button on their website is tied to give lively and they are also doing events and selling tickets.
Stu: That’s great. So really just looking for integrations where the systems that you’re using have at least some mechanism for an export or a direct tie into the, to the CRM that you’re using would be your, your recommendation on that.
Lidiane: Yes. Yes. I really like give lively. I think their integration looks really good.
Click bed is working. I think there’s some room for improvement there and then grade aren’t giving it would be great if they would do a direct integration with Salesforce. Right.
Stu: Right. What are, what are some of the objections that you, that you see with, with organizations who are moving, you know, whether non-profit, or for-profit you know, who are considering a move to, to a CRM?
What are some of the things that people are concerned about that they think should keep them from, from making that switch?
Lidiane: Well I think a lot of it is just a lack of understanding of how the system is going to support their organization and how things will come together in the system.
Stu: So they think it’s, it’s going to take them more time to integrate this system than to just keep you. You know, whatever, whatever mechanism or lack thereof they’re using today.
Lidiane: Yeah, I think it’s not necessarily that they think it’s going to take more time. It’s just like, people don’t know what they don’t know. Right. So then you get a business owner who has been in business for you know, 20 years. Tracking things and managing their, their sales team with spreadsheets.
Right. And then, and then you, they want to see a new sales manager comes into. Into the organization, which happened with me, does it solve some of your stuff, you know, and then he is, we need a CRM and and then you talk to, you get in a meeting with the CEO and then there’s just resistance coming up, you know, because then they’re concerned, how is this going to integrate with the ERP system and this and that.
But when I got the call from the sales manager, Like the information I had about the ERP system is that is secondary. That’s not a priority because the problem, the biggest problem I have is I have no visibility over what my sales team is doing. You know, because there’s a spreadsheet, don’t tell me the emails they exchange.
It’s not as user-friendly for them to log calls or activities or voicemails. They laughed with potential clients, you know, and then. Yeah, then you are not moving forward because the CEO does not understand what it means or the benefits, you know? And yeah, that that’s one of the things is just like people not really understanding the value of it and how it can improve collaboration in general.
And it’s it requires. Education, you know, and some of them are open for it and others not so much in this situation. This was this organization aid was a group of vets, you know? So it’s a little bit more old school and they had the revenue to invest on a CRM system. But there was a lot of resistance and a lot of questioning.
On the other hand, then you have other, other profiles where they are more kind of like, they, they know they need to use a CRM. They want to use Salesforce because it is a leader in the market. And and they, they have more understanding. This is not an overnight of the flip of a switch. You know, it does take time to, to map the, the organization’s business processes to the system.
And and then it also takes time bringing the team along because even if the CEO is on board and he’s excited and wants to move things forward, then you have a whole team who is used to doing things the way they’re used to. Right. And and they are skeptical about how the system is going to help.
Stu: Right. It seems, it seems like more work for them upfront, probably where there, you know, there’s this new thing they have to learn and they have to log their stuff in this deal. And, and it just feels like work as opposed to actually something that’s going to benefit the business or even their sales, for example.
Yeah.
Lidiane: So then let me this is great. This is a great comment. Thank you. So my question for you is. When you, I am not a salesperson, right. I have, but I am on the other hand, I have to, otherwise it cannot stay in business. Right. So and when you think about a good salesperson, what comes to mind?
Stu: Okay. Ooh, that’s a good question.
When I think about a good sales person, I would say it’s tenacity and organization would be the, kind of the two key attributes that I’d be looking for. To, to bring in a person who’s has a good salesperson that, and, you know, and honesty I don’t want someone who’s going to oversell or just make up stuff in order to get a sale.
You know, so I would say those three attributes would be what I would be looking for.
Lidiane: Yeah. So in that process, do you think they have a place where they’re keeping notes about. Yeah, I would say that they need to contact.
Stu: Yeah. The organizational piece would certainly play, certainly play into that. I know.
So I feel the role of sales person at, at relish studio. I know that there are lots of times when I used to joke that the best CRM is the one that you use that you will use. So when people ask me, well, what CRM should I get? I’m like, well, just find one. That’s fine. And just use it and be so far ahead of the game that, you know, you’ll, you’ll major self.
And I, I, I recognize that there certainly are better and worse CRMs out there, but but I do know that when, when my sales are lagging, it’s usually because I’ve, I’ve not taken the time to log things as effectively as, as I should, or or, or put the systems in place that allow me to, to manage followups.
Lidiane: Yeah. And so can we make the assumption that a good salesperson is going to have their notebooks somewhere or something where they captured information about these potential clients, about what they need about Derek preferences? About swags that they might have sent them. You know, I had the friend who was a sales guy in, when I was working corporate and that’s what he did.
He would put into CRM, a note saying that this time I send mugs this time I send bads, just so he wouldn’t be sending out. Swag to the, to his accounts, you know? And so what I say is like this resistance is if you were a good person, a good employee professional, doing your job well, regardless, you know, sales or not sales.
Because CRM tracks sales. I think that’s one of the main roles that we talk about. It’s likely that this person was tracking and making notes somewhere, you know? And where do you want to do it? Do you want to do it? Just rely on your emails. You can, but your emails, they have a different purpose, which is communication.
Email is not a relational database where you can navigate and get more context around that specific relationship. You know? So that’s where like when the resistance comes up, that’s what I try to. To talk to people and remind them. And, and some people are more open to it than others, you know? So.
Stu: Yeah, well then there’s an organizational benefit as well, where, you know, if it’s, if, if all my notes are captured in some dusty, old notebook that I have, and that’s not searchable, so it’s hard for me to use.
No one on my team is going to be able to access any of that information and have an understanding of what’s going on is for example, if I, you know, leave the company or You don’t get promoted to a different a different position. You want to be able to, to have that information available and accessible to the entire team.
So that to me is it’s such a huge benefit of, of of a CRM is just, just facilitating that, that.
Lidiane: Yes. I agree. Just everything that you log in a CRM is going to have a timestamp. It’s going to have whole log when it’s going to give you more context about what’s happening with that person, or if that, with that organization or with that potential project that you have in your sales pipeline.
Stu: Yeah. So when you’re coaching organizations up on there on you, maybe it’s the first time that they’re integrating a CRM into their systems. What are, what are some of the first things that you work with them on to, to make sure that the investment that they’re making in both time and money is is fruitful for them?
Lidiane: Yeah. I think my rule of thumb on that is strike to meet them where they’re at. Yeah. And it’s basically breaking down the concept. You know, I, I come from, from the perspective that I don’t know what you know about terms or not. So you probably know enough for me to be here, but I don’t want to make any assumptions.
So let’s go to the drawing board and talk about what, what is a CRM. And then I, I use like the, in Salesforce, there is something called the schema builder where I can show. And then I, I built a. On showing them the types of frackers that are in the system. You know, there is a lead record. When do you use a lead record of, and then delete record, converts into a contact in an account record.
And sometimes you can convert into an account. Contact and opportunity record and how they are all connected to each other. You know, the contact account and opportunity are all connected to each other that helps you to navigate. And so I do, I use this chemo Buder because the data model, I explained basically the day-to-day.
And the data motto. I try to provide analogies. I say, you know, when you get a house or when you build a house or when you buy a house, usually you look at the, for plans. You know, and the four plan gives you information about the layout of the house. And at some point, those four plans were used by your plumber electrician in order to make everything work within the house.
And with a system, the database is the equivalent, you know, understanding the core data model of a CRM. Any CRM there on the business to business space is at a very minimum, have contact account and opportunity. And and then you have activities. So I started by showing those components and then helping them.
Okay. So now the next step is, start adding data to the system and add each one of those. So you can understand and feel the system a little bit.
Stu: So you’re really trying to show them the relational, the relationships between all of these states of being within, within their sales cycle. It sounds like where, where you, you show kind of visually, I’m guessing you know, how all of this, all of this information exists in relationship to, to all the other.
Lidiane: Yes. Yes. So I show, I start with the data model and then after the data model I go into, in addition to the data model, there is this processes that are built into the CRM, which is the lead process, right? Where you have the different stages of the lead, just so you can identify if someone is qualified and makes sense to be part of your.
If you have your database or not, and then contacts and the opportunity to sales process around the sales pipeline and how that can be customized in terms of stages, in terms of automations that you can use in order to have a consistent process where you have. All the steps under each stage showing up in the system consistently for your team to follow those assignments, you know?
Stu: Right, right. So, so essentially just laying out where people come into the system where they have, what phase of their involvement they currently reside in and then being able to. To help track, track that progress through, through that sales pipeline.
Lidiane: Yeah. So once I do the initial. Initial coaching around, you know, what is a CRM?
How does it fit? Then I started digging deeper in order to customize their data model because part of the implementation is to understand, okay, what are the business processes you have in your organization? And how does this. Your business processes fit the CRM data model that has contacts, accounts, and opportunities.
And sometimes like, especially nonprofits who are more focused on the fundraising side, Salesforce with NPSP fits like a globe. You know, it’s all there. It’s mostly built. You might need to do a few tweaks, but not much. And then there are other situations where in addition to tracking the fundraising, they also want to track their programs within the system.
Right. Right, right, right. Salesforce has a program management module, the nonprofits that I’ve worked with. We’re not a good fit for that program management. I think that program management is very robust and it’s good for bigger nonprofits. There’s smaller nonprofits I’m working with. We ended up doing something more custom.
Stu: Gotcha. How much should an organization budget for, for setting up and managing and, and I guess licensing their, their CRN. Okay. So you look at that as a, as a percentage of their, of their income or how, how should they start that process of trying to figure out what they need to spend?
Lidiane: Yeah. I, I think that’s a tough one for me to answer because like the non-profit clients I ended up working with, they came to me because of her referral or something else and they weren’t.
Willing to spend the money, you know, or they saw a presentation or they saw something and they were willing to spend it. And for a brand new nonprofit, I don’t have those numbers Stu w I would think that it’s about their priorities, you know, in reality is what is their goal. If their goal is to increase efficiencies within the organization and save time.
The CRM system can help that, but it’s not free with Salesforce. They can get up to 10 licenses for free, but they implementation costs money, you know, and you can, you can do implementations between five to a nine, 15,000. It depends. It depends on the scope. It depends on, on who you are working with and And it, it depends like I’ve seen non-profits who did not have much of a budget, but the CRM was a priority, you know, because they, they had a system before and they, that system was no longer supported by their you know, like those was one of my clients is rise up of Colorado.
They had a article database that was part of the math project in O organizations that were tied to the meth project, had access to that. But then they they canceled their subscription to that and that, and told all their meth project affiliates to go and use Salesforce. So then he had all his Dataiku spreadsheets and did not know how to, you know, turn on the keys of the car, basically in a way.
He wasn’t sure how to get that into Salesforce. And he was working with an it provider. Who is a dear friend of mine. Great. Great guy who supports a lot of nonprofits as well. David and and David looked at, and then he looked under the hood a little bit and he said, I think he does this a great system, but I think you need to get someone.
I can help you. And in the beginning, like it was costly, you know, like we had, we built quite a few things that first year, but then after that, like year over year, I think we are, I don’t know of around, less than 50 hours in a year. Okay.
Stu: That’s good to know. And You know, certainly there’s there’s trainings on the front end in terms of getting your team up and running and and, and understanding how the, how the systems work.
And then there’s going to be on, there will be ongoing costs associated with running a CRM, not only the licensing costs. Just having your team in there. But you know, again, coming back to that mindset shift that this is, this is something that’s supposed to not only save you and your entire organization time, but help facilitate and speed up those transactions.
So whether that’s a donation or a sale You know, the idea here is that it’s, that you’re, you’re investing in a system that’s going to improve your opportunities in your ability to, to to get those things right.
Lidiane: Yeah. Yeah. So can I share a little bit more about this particular organization buys a book with them?
It was really interesting. One of their biggest pain points with them, we do much more on the programming side in terms of customizing the system to track their programs. Okay. And what they do is they try to provide content for middle school. In high school kids to keep them away from using drugs.
Right. Right. So they it’s that I don’t know if positive psychology is the term here, but they try, they’re trying to contract the negative voices by providing a positive voice in a positive space. And their operation is nimble in a strategic. And what, what do I mean by that? Like, About than, than people in our team and they produce content.
And then what they, before they were using Salesforce. And before we started using Salesforce to track it, People would log in and see their content and that information would go into spreadsheets. And it was really difficult to see who is coming back, who is watching their content more than once. And how many students are we really reaching, you know, with the spreadsheets, without having that relational database, where you can roll up some of those numbers to give you more concrete.
They. They’re just not getting it. And then w w however, we had this older spreadsheet, so we imported the data from those older spreadsheets. And within the first year we saw an uptick of 146% in terms of their increase in their reach in terms of reaching more students and more youth with their content.
Wow.
Stu: Because increasing.
Lidiane: Yes, because once all the data was in, in Salesforce, then we could send a blast email to 800. It’s between 800 and 1800. I know it’s a big difference, but bear with me, but we can send like we could send them an an email saying, Hey, there’s new content from that you can share with your students.
And, and that’s what they do. So let me share just a little bit more rise above Colorado has They produce content and they, their content is produced by teams. Actually, they have something called teen action council. So it’s a select number of students who apply to the teen action council every year.
And this is a smaller number of students help to produce the content and So it’s content fourteens produced by teens, just so their voice. It can really reach them otherwise, you know, it’s easy for, for seekers 46 year old lady to be saying, so we don’t use drugs. That is just not enough, but anyways, so talking their own language and and then.
And then there, they could elevate their relationships with people in the community, like teachers in middle schools and high schools, but not only teachers people at boys and girls clubs and other organizations who are in front of teenage kids teenagers in general. And and that’s how. They, you know, they that’s why I say they are very strategic because they are not a, a lot of nonprofits are cultivating those relationships directly with their constituents, you know, or touching their constituents more directly than rise above the us.
So.
Stu: Gotcha. And so they’re, they’re leveraging the tools that you help them set up to. Make sure that they’re tracking against those touch-points and staying in front of people at the right times.
Lidiane: Yes. So when people go into our websites and log in their information, that information falls into Salesforce.
I do a. Custom some custom code done into it to find linkage to the correct records in the system. And then we have dashboards that shows which content is getting more views, more traction, you know and a whole, what is the profile of the people accessing it? Like teachers versus the students and things like that.
And tracking the number of students who are. Who are benefiting, who are being exposed to their content, right?
Stu: No, it’s amazing. I mean, it’s just all speaks to the power of, of of technology and when, when you have a tool and you’re taking that tool out of the, out of the toolkit, so to speak and using it on a regular basis, how much better you can be at what you’re doing.
Lidiane: Yes.
Stu: So I can’t believe it’s been an hour since we started talking about this as the vaping, I’m fascinated by, you know, content relations management or I’m sorry, customer relations management tools like Salesforce among others. And. And it’s always so cool to hear how we can all just do a little bit better job of managing our information so that we can, we can do a better job of helping the world or, or selling more widgets or whatever it is that we’re trying to accomplish.
How can people find out more about you if they’re interested in learning more about, about CRMs or how you can help them integrate into a.
Lidiane: Yes, they can connect with me on LinkedIn and check out our website, CRM growth strategy, and our website. There is the option to schedule a discovery session where I, we get to know each other, you know, to understand more about what they’re looking for and see if it’s a good fit for us to work together.
Stu: Awesome. Well, I really enjoy having these kinds of conversations and learning more about how people can you know, can up their game just through, through integration with, with tools like CRMs. But I also really want people to take action after listening to our conversations. If there was anything that you would want people to do after listening to the show today, what would you have them do?
Lidiane: What would I have them do?
Stu: Yeah. What action would you want?
Lidiane: If there are any using a CRM spring is here. And one of my clients reminded me of spring cleaning, and I think this is a great time of the year to do a CRM sprinkler.
Stu: Okay. What does that entail?
Lidiane: It entails to take you look at your data in your system, you know, reviewing your context, looking at when was the last time you contacted your closest clients, the clients who are actively working with, you know, just picking up the phone, giving them a call and check in with them.
How is it going? You know, what is what is going on with you? What is it that I can do to support you during this time back to. One of the main reasons why people should have a CRM is there’s a lot of research there. Isn’t a Harvard business review article about how much a it’s 60 to 70% more likely that you can get an an engagement or more revenue from an existing client than versus like 10 to less than 10% of likelihood of you engaging with a brand new client.
Yeah. Yeah, and my numbers might not be a hundred percent accurate, but you get the gist of it. So, so that’s that’s what it is, is just like cultivating those relationships with your existing clients, reviewing your engagements with them and thinking through a little bit, you know, okay. This client with done XYZ last year.
And so many things changed in the last couple of years, you know, so. In the context, in the context of all these changes with COVID and all that, you know, what is it, what is it that we can do here to provide them value and reaching out, having a conversation, and sometimes just like even asking for feedback, you know, Hey, give me some feedback about our engagement here.
Is there anything we could have done better? Is there anything that. You have to share in your experience because that gives you insight into how you are impacting. Sometimes I don’t know either, you know, sometimes I realized that clients are getting value out of something that in my mind is just so well established that does not make a difference.
But then I hear them saying. Oh, those little videos are so good. It feels like you’re right next to me when I’m watching them.
Stu: And I am. Yes. It’s amazing. It’s amazing what you can, when you can dig out when you’re actually tracking tracking information. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today.
It was really awesome talking with you. I hope you have a good rest of your day.
Lidiane: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks Lindy. Bye bye.
Stu: And there you have it. Another great episode of relish this. Thanks again for listening, you can find past episodes of the show@relishthis.org. And remember if you liked what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a review where every listen to podcasts.
For more information on purpose marketing, grab your free copy of my book. Mission uncomfortable. How nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. Get your copy now@missionuncomfortablebook.com. Thanks again for listening. Come back next week. Won’t ya.
