Get the most out of your CRM
Most of us don‘t leave it to chance that we‘ll wake up at the same time each day, every day - particularly Monday through Friday. That‘s because we know if we use an alarm clock, we‘ll wake up when we need to. It‘s so easy to do, why would you try it any other way? Well, it may be that your financial planning practice needs an alarm clock of its own.
It‘s one thing to take the time to carefully map out and define, step-by-step, how you want to deliver each service element and activity of your business. It‘s a completely different thing to be able to actually deliver it on a consistent basis. With the technological capabilities of client relations management (CRM) programs today, every Financial Advisor is capable of consistent, predictable and professional communication with their clients.
Once you‘ve defined your procedures in a Procedures Manual, you are ready to begin automation of your business activities - or setting the clock, so to speak. This is the next step in transitioning your business (and your life) from reactive to proactive. In the months following automation of your systems, you and your staff will feel a shift from the in-bound, reactionary environment found in many offices to a structured and proactive office atmosphere. No more waking up at 3:00 a.m. wondering when the last time you met with one of your best client was. You will have the comfort and security in knowing they are all being well looked after on an ongoing basis by you and your staff.
Implementation
Process automation allows your business model to run on autopilot; providing a high degree of consistency and improved predictability to everything from making phone calls to scheduling review meetings.
Everyone on the team must be involved in this process. Here are the steps to get started.
- Have your CRM ready to go. Make sure you have your program up and running. This means having all basic client information entered already, such as names, client classification, address, etc. It also means that all team members have access to the CRM program.
- Designate your CRM expert. In order to use the technology effectively and consistently, assign your CRM team leader. They will be responsible for educating and reinforcing the ongoing use of the CRM. They would also be responsible for CRM troubleshooting, customization, upgrades and database backup procedures if required.
- Identify the activities you can effectively automate using your CRM. Use the Automation Template and Automation Assistant Sample to get you started. Some processes will be more conducive to automation than others.
- Map the process out completely first. Although you can effectively use technology to reinforce new business practices, you need to know the following first:
- For who is the activity to be performed (i.e. a specific client);
- By whom (i.e. who on the team is accountable);
- When (i.e. frequency of activity or time of year); and
- The HOW is explained in your Procedure Manual will indicate the how.
- Once you are ready to begin automating your activities, follow these steps to automation:
- Use the organizer to set up re-occurring activities for a variety of your tasks so that daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly administrative and operational accountabilities come up automatically.
- Use the Advocate Service in Pareto Platform* (or like feature in alternate CRM) to automate all of the reoccurring elements of your Advocate Service including: Call Rotation, Review Meetings and Articles of Interest. This ensures each of your clients will receive meaningful communication spread throughout the year. The automated reminder makes consistent delivery much easier to deliver.
- A word about scheduling re-occurring activities; spread them out. Make sure you schedule your call rotations, review meetings and articles of interest with different off-sets to ensure they don‘t all happen during the same month. See Advocate Service Sample Timeline for more details.
- If your CRM does not have an Advocate Service type of feature, simply schedule these activities individually for each client. It will take longer to complete the initial set up, but once it is activated it will be seamless. You will want a process to ensure this sequence is added to each new client you bring on.
- Use the organizer to set up reminder triggers for time-of-year activities that happen at a specific time of year (i.e. sending out Birthday cards, Thanksgiving cards, annual client events, etc.). Be sure the triggers are set to occur before the actual date of delivery to allow for enough planning and preparation for timely delivery. Alternately, you can set up a time-of-year process using the Advocate Process feature described in the next section.
- Use the Advocate Process in Pareto Platform* (or like feature in alternate CRM) to set up action sequences related to a deliverable, such as the New Client Welcome Process. This feature will allow you to map out an entire action sequence by specifying: who, what, when, where and for whom. Once the action sequence is set up and named, the click of a button allows you to instantly set up a pre-defined, pre-scheduled series of events to be initiated and delivered to or for the client. ** You can use this feature to build any type of action sequence such as a Transfer-in process.
- If your CRM does not have an Advocate Process feature, simply schedule these activities individually for each client as and when required. It may take longer, but it will assist in the consistent delivery of services.
- Use your organizer to time block for all regular occurring meetings and priority business tasks. This might mean scheduling your weekly team meeting, monthly branch meeting and Monday mornings as your uninterruptible ’planning‘ time. The key here is to begin time blocking for priority business activities.
- As each activity comes up on your organizer, be sure to mark each activity as "Complete" once it has been performed. This will become a permanent record and create a complete history of all that has been done for and by someone. Make notes where appropriate in the notes box. You can move or roll tasks forward as required - or keep them on your ’outstanding action‘ list and clean it up as soon as possible. Know which tasks are time-sensitive and which are not.
- Set up "Next Action" tasks to ensure follow up activities stemming from each task are initiated accordingly.
Remember, having all of this information automated comes in very hand when staff members become ill, are away on holiday or decide to leave. Anyone on the team can access their daily organizer and ensure the priority items are handled accordingly. In effect, you become less dependent on the individuals and more dependent on a process. That is a step in the right direction.
So, use your organizer and CRM as the driving force behind what you do each day. It will be a valuable tool in keeping everyone on track and on task. More importantly, it will keep you and your team focused on the right tasks and the right clients.
* Contact Pareto Platform Client Support services at 1.800.732.2857 to learn how to use the Advocate Service and Advocate Process features and before you ’turn them on‘ for some important tips and reminders.
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