About CRM systems and how we as business leaders must master both the big picture and the minute detail. Could you imagine being on a family outing and not noticing one of your children missing? Not really. Yet, as numbers grow, this is what happens.
Burson? Yes. Harper? Yes. Miller? Yes. It’s roll call time. There is a reason schools use roll calls. Not going by memory but using a system – an alphabetical list – to check that all are present. Do you remember school outings? Coming back onto the bus was definitely a time to check if we had everyone we needed.
In contrast, going out for the day with our own family of say 3, 4 or 5, we don’t need a system. It would be most unlikely that we would not be aware if one had gone walkabouts. Yet, we have small systems or processes – your mobile number scribbled on the little one’s arm when we did festivals as our kids were small, is one example.
When it comes to business, we need systems and processes to keep track. Starting your business with a handful of staff, as a family, and a defined number of clients is easy to keep track of. But as you grow, you will miss one – forget to include one name in the email you’re sending or the team review – if you don’t systemise.
So, we do. Excel sheets, lists, HR apps and CRM systems.
This is where another risk enters: forgetting the individual. Only seeing clients, leads and staff as numbers and KPIs on a dashboard. Not noticing or being made aware of someone dropping off, of a wrong message being sent to a client and not followed up.
This blog is a small reminder: to appreciate our systems and processes making us able to focus on the big picture and to make the right decisions. And furthermore, to remember to dive back into the detail on occasion, to do spot checks, to read that template email that goes out to new clients, to know the comments from an exit interview.
Whether it’s related to our brands and the thousands or millions of followers, members of our teams, or the number of sales leads and clients in your funnel and system. It could be thousands, hundreds of thousands, or hundreds. It still matters. We shouldn’t miss one. And we shouldn’t get wrong messages out without knowing and being able to remedy the mistake.
The bigger the volume, the bigger the risk.
That’s why we need systems.
But systems don’t mean you can stop caring – even when the volume is high, and you don’t really feel the pain if you lose one or annoy one.
We must master both the big picture and the minute detail – and know when to apply what! And remember to appreciate the individual, even if they are just a number in our bigger eco-system of people.