This article was included in the October 11th, 2016 issue of the LACRM Newsletter.
Being knowledgeable about the product or service you are selling is the obvious first step to winning your sales. No one wants to buy from someone who is unreliable or doesn’t understand what they are offering. When given the choice, everyone would rather consult with an expert they trust in the industry, so why not establish yourself as that expert? This is the business model Estelle and Stephen Cockcroft, owners of Catamaran Guru have found incredible success with, and here is how they did it:
“Our customers come to us because we live the lifestyle, understand what catamarans are about, and have built and sailed our own boats. They know this because we interact with them regularly to build confidence and trust in us. We want them to be assured that we have the knowledge to buy the perfect boat for them.
Once we started becoming the trusted advisors of our customers, we became more well-known in the industry and more people started coming to us. We’ve gone from selling 10 boats a year to more than 30 in 2015 just through organic growth.”
-Estelle & Stephen Cockcroft, Owners of Catamaran Guru
How can a CRM help?
Establishing trust and showing expertise go hand in hand with building relationships, and you can’t be the trusted expert without a personal touch. CRMs are here to help you do just that as they allow you to build and track every unique relationship you have with your leads. When Estelle and Stephen first started using LACRM, they would enter in names and use the CRM just as a database of contact information. However, they found that the more they utilized the features of the CRM, the more their interactions with their leads became about building authentic relationships. These relationships became an integral part of their business and helped establish them as the go-to people for catamarans!
Tip to try: Enter detailed notes after every interaction and set tasks for yourself to follow up. Upload important files to their contact records, and organize your contacts into groups based on any kind of shared attribute. While it’s tempting to rely on automation (as most CRMs do) since it’s less work for you, keeping a personal touch requires you to know every aspect of your customers’ stories. Don’t fall into the trap of depending on automation to manage your customer relationships (look at cable companies, for example!), but instead, focus personally on who your customers are. This will change how you interact with them and give yourself more opportunities to show them why sticking with you is the best decision they will make!
If you want to learn more about how the CRM can help you establish yourself as a trusted expert, just contact us and we’ll get right back to you!
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