At the end of the day, whether you're selling coaching, consulting, real estate and properties, or investment opportunities; you really are in the lead generation business.
Being able to reach out to those leads when you want to market your product or market your services is really the biggest key to success.
To do that, you need CRM software. More specifically, you need a CRM Stack that'll handle your email automation. You need something that has email marketing automation built in that warms up and nurtures your list while you're concentrating on growing your business.
Choosing The Right CRM Software
CRM software really should be simple enough that you don't need a team to do what you need to do.
Picking the right one is totally about what you need it to do. The marketing that you need to pull off in your business is what that software should be capable of.
The way I see it is there's really three classes of CRM software
Class 1 CRM software is very easy to use. Email is a primary the message medium, meaning it's really great at email and sucks at everything else or it can't do anything else. These email marketing software platforms usually have some good campaign builders. The problem is they don't have rules, so you don't necessarily have any way to trigger automation for the most part. There's no phone, no text, no print, and no marketplace, so you can't add functionality very easily.
AWeber, ConvertKit, Drip, ActiveCampaign would all be considered Class 1 CRM software tools.
Then you have Class 2 CRM software apps, which use rules as triggers. There's task management oftentimes. There also usually a marketplace with some integrations. Most of those integrations are third-party middleware though, and you have many message mediums... You can send text, send emails, send direct mail pieces, and even call from within the customer record.
Class 2 CRM software tools are usually much more difficult to set up and understand. You actually need the onboarding. You need a team to be able to support you in that. (In fact, we do a lot of CRM setups in our sales funnel builds!) There is also very little by way of sales pipeline, and they're difficult for phone sales. If you're selling something that is more complicated, then you're not able to get what you need out of the Class 2 CRM software. Infusionsoft and Ontraport are two examples of those kinds of apps.
Then you have you Class 3 CRM software tools, which can do everything. They have great sales pipelines, very visual sales workflow, and very extensive APIs and functionality, meaning you can tie anything in the world into it... But they're expensive, they've got a super high learning curve, and they need implementation. Salesforce and HubSpot would be two examples there.
But the biggest problem with each of these tools is that they focus on and are built around the functionality. And oftentimes, what you do in your sales funnel remains outside of them.
Email Marketing Automation That's Built Around The Customer
When you look your business, fundamentally, you're selling to one person - your customer... An end user. The entire goal of an email marketing automation platform is to move that lead, that prospect, towards being a customer. Once they're a customer, the email marketing automation should support you by increasing the value of that customer over the lifetime they're with you. It should be able to extend the journey with that person so that they can continue to buy your stuff, consume your services, pay your subscriptions, and generate referrals.
Whatever your business model is - It's moving a lead to a customer and then a customer into the future.
Stop Migrating Your CRM And Customer Data
In looking at the CRM software that's out there, the biggest challenge hits when your business grows... You need to move from one CRM tool through the next, through the next.
As we got to building Axis though, it was so cool because when you take the customer-centric philosophy of what CRM software should look like... Then you start to realize how a CRM can be extensible and grow with a business through a marketplace, so you never have to migrate, it gets exciting!
If you look at a garage/basement startup business to a 5, 10, 15, 20 million dollar company, you're at least looking at three migrations before you can effectively service your customer base! It shouldn't be that way!
Adding Functionality To Your CRM Software
What we did in Axis was build around the customer record. Sure, you can start with just a CRM, just email, and just campaigns.
You still get that great contact record that's extensive and customizable... You can do everything you need to for your customers by way of email marketing automation. And this is what your marketing automation agency should be setting up for you.... Then when you're ready to grow, when you're ready to add functionality, you just drop in new apps! All of a sudden, your CRM software is ready to take you to the next level... You have a page builder for your sales funnel. You have email copy. You have advanced analytics with AI built in it. You have bots. You have all kinds of other additional stuff that ready and waiting for you to add. You don't migrate. You just add the tools, add the software, add the technology.
Then when you do go from the Class 2 CRM software to Class 3, and you pick up a phone sales team who needs comprehensive sales pipelines and workflows... Just drop in the new apps and all of a sudden, you can move over.
That is why we built Axis the way we did. That is why we built the functionality. That is why we took so long in building our own platform so that it can grow your business so that it can be extensible, and so that it can be easy to use. You don't need some expert certified consultant in order to run it.
Email Marketing Automation That Increases Lifetime Customer Value
In putting together a CRM that works with smaller businesses and also works with larger businesses, we needed complete contact records.
There's a human being on the other side of every email and every text message you sent. There's a human being who is pulling out their wallet to give you money. Our view of a CRM is that it needs to be built around a customer. It needs to be built around that lead, that person. It needs to be scalable so that whether it's one lead or 10,000 leads or 100,000 leads, you're still focusing on that one person 100,000 times. That's really the fundamental piece.
When we started building Axis, we said, "This is what we need to do. We need to build it around the customer."
We need easy-to-use automation. We need something that is extensible through a marketplace so you could functionality to it by just clicking a button as opposed to needing to upend your entire world and then learn another platform. We needed something that was easy to use that could grow with your business. We had to be able to bolt on whatever functionality that you needed without any middleware.
With that, I'd love to do a one-on-one demo with you and your team.
We'll jump on the phone, work through what your exact business model is, get your account set up so you can get to work.