This is the blog transcript of our video “How to Set Up Your CRM”. If you’d like to see more of our videos, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
Last week we talked about what you need to know to set up your CRM. It’s great to be prepared to get things set up, but what about when you’re actually going through getting it set up?
Today we’re going to dive into the steps that you should take to get your own CRM set up and ready to use!
Hey everyone, I’m Ian Campbell, CEO of Mission Suite. Before we jump into today’s video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos.
I’ve been helping clients build out CRMs for their business for almost 20 years now – long before I even started Mission Suite. What I’ve come to realize over all that time, is that there’s a “best practices” sequence to getting your CRM account set up and ready to be used.
Now if you’re working with the right CRM platform, then you shouldn’t HAVE to worry about it at all – they’ll offer set up services to get your account ready to use for you.
At Mission Suite, for example, we can get your account fully functional if you don’t want to have to deal with it on your own.
BUT, we do work with a lot of “do it yourselfers” who would prefer to roll up their sleeves and do the job themselves. I can speak from personal experience, as a “do it yourselfer”, that if you don’t know where to start, and what process to go through, it’ll be tough to get it done, and you may just end up frustrated.
If you’re one of those folks, like me, then I’ll walk you through the steps that we take one by one to get our clients’ accounts up and running.
If you haven’t watched last week’s video on what you need to know to get your CRM account set up, be sure to check that out and then dive into this video.
Ready? Here we go!
Step one: Set up your groups or segmentations.
This is going to help you make sure that, as you move forward in getting things set up, the right people have the right access, automation is in the right place, and that any fields you may need to create can be kept in the right place if need be.
Segmenting your list is one of the more important aspects of using your CRM, so it should be the first thing that you make sure to get right in your implementation.
Step two: Give your users the access that they need.
Once your segmentation is set up, it’s time to make sure that your users have the right access. This will also help you enlist other people on your team to get the rest of the work done – and offer another set of eyes to make sure that everything is set up right before you go live.
Getting people the right access is especially important in a system like Mission Suite where access is based first and foremost on the groups to which you want your users to have access.
For example, if you have specific territories for your users, make sure that the right users are connected with the right groups. The last thing you want is your New York sales person stuck in the North Dakota group, or worse, with no access at all when you go live.
Adoption of a new system is enough of a challenge – you don’t want to give anyone any reason to mistrust it moving forward.
Step three: Customize your fields, sales activities and pipeline stages
Remember, this is YOUR CRM for YOUR business. Make sure it’s customized for your business.
Typically, I like to start with my custom fields. Hopefully you don’t have any limits on the number of custom fields that you can create so that you’re not limited in the information that you’re storing.
I’ll repeat what I said in the last video: make sure that you have all of the fields, activity types and pipeline stages that you need, BUT NO MORE.
The last thing you want to do is clutter up your system and confuse your users. At this point your users should all have login credentials – ask one or two of them to take a look and let you know if it seems like it’s overboard.
So many people have never actually been involved in the implementation of a new CRM before. Is that you?
If you’re new to implementing CRMs, drop down and give this video a like and let us know in the comments what your biggest concern is and we’ll be sure to respond!
Step Four: Set up your library of standard emails, documents, and other assets.
With the first three steps of this process, the baseline of your CRM will already be set up. Now it’s time to get your library ready.
If you have standard email templates that your team will be using, make sure that they’re built in this system. If you have PDFs that you want everyone to have access to, or sales sheets that you want your sales people to use, make sure that they’re in there.
Things like logos and other graphics that are standard to your brand can get overlooked, too, so make sure that everything you need is in there because that’ll make our last step a lot smoother.
Step Five: Set up your automations
Hopefully you have a system that has at least some automation functionality – make sure it’s set up correctly.
First, make sure that all of your triggers are defined. If someone’s sales stage goes from discovery to proposal, or to closed – won, what gets triggered? An email? A phone call? If someone clicks on a specific link in your emails, do they get a phone call? You have to know what those action/trigger combos are so that you can set them up properly in your system.
Every system uses different terminology to lay this out, so I won’t get too specific here, but make sure you dive into this.
The automations are where the rubber meets the road in a CRM. Everyone says that a CRM can help you sell more efficiently and effectively. Automation will actually do some of the work for you. Make sure you spend some solid time here.
What’s Next
We created a CRM Implementation Guide that will help you get your CRM setup, whether you’re using Mission Suite or not.
Click the link below to download our checklist to help you make your decision.
Hey I hope you got something out of this video. And if you did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up and maybe a share so that others can see it too. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos and while you’re at it, check out these videos too!
We’ll see you next time around!