Life Happens

This past weekend, I was attempting to clean out my basement. Loaded on shelves were tons of Bankers' Boxes filled with personal and business records dating back to the 1990s. Loaded in there were memories and important things like the Title to my wife's 2003 car and the original documents from when we built our house.

We needed to shred past docs that contained Social Security or current bank account numbers. Keep in mind that we wanted to recycle as much as we could (at least we are trying).

Keeping records is a process. It takes time to update or file them and then usually they just sit there doing nothing… until you need them.

Studies show that people waste time looking for basic things (2.5 days a year.) Then tack on the need to find information, and it just gets worse. Some studies have shown that we can waste up to 20+ hours per week.

Organize

Record keeping is a fact of life. By law, we have to maintain at least 7 years (or more) of business records. Your systems have to match your needs for retrieval, but often they seem more like a chore than a way to save time in the future. Factor into that, how I kept records and the need for retrieval has changed over the last 20-30 years.

We have become more digital, and that means organizing records in folders on a hard drive or the cloud instead of Bankers' Boxes (or a mixture of both.)

People Vs. Data

We are all getting more and more connections that are trying to sell us leads, or services to connect with our perfect clients. Let's face it, they are selling you data, not relationships. That data needs to be filed, retrieved, and processed.

Let's say you take the bait and purchase 1000 leads. They have to be filed into a system that you have created in your business. Then you have to take action (contact each of them). This could be through phone calls, emails, or social interactions. Then you have to track those interactions to tag who has responded, who shows interest, and which are flat-out junk. If you have multiple salespeople working on the data, you have to track who contacted whom and what was the action or result.

Finally, you have to realize that at the heart of that data is a person. Each of them has a story, life, with likes and hates, and needs and wants. You have an opportunity to simply check a box and file it, or take detailed notes and store it for easy retrieval. In other words… is everyone CRM worthy?

Salespeople – CRM

How do you feel about your CRM? Is it a Bankers' Box in the basement, or is it a loved and actively used tool?

CRMs are often thought of as managing data, but in the middle of Customer & Management is RELATIONSHIP! You have humans in your sales team who are building and maintaining relationships with other humans (prospects, customers, and past customers).

We all tend to manage facts like company, organization, division, role, emails, phone, verticle, and ratings such as funnels, engagement, and activity. These activities include emails, calls, dates, meetings, purchases, orders, and more.

We often train our people what buttons to push, where to save and retrieve data, and how to manage and complete reports. But are you investing in teaching your team how to manage relationships?

As I said, on the other side of that data is a human. They have a face, they have a family, they may even have pets. They have hobbies, skills, and tastes in food, art, music, and more. I am not suggesting that you play 20 questions with each person in your CRM, but if they drop a nugget like, “I just went and saw the Eagles in concert”, does that remain in a brain (a really bad database and retrieval system), or is that noted in the CRM?

Helping Them

Again, it's your business, your system, your data. If you don't systematize the capturing of personal details, you are relying on someone's memory, and that database leaves if that person quits or is fired. It's up to you what you capture, use, and maintain, but it's your responsibility to develop your Relationship Retrieval System.

Let me offer you some simple tips:

1. Take a Picture – Help your sales team head to LinkedIn, and connect with each person they have a conversation with. The incentive can be to head to their profile, download their profile picture, and add it to your CRM.
2. Make Small Talk – We often make small talk or ice breaker conversations at the beginning of an interaction. It's often thrown away, but there is useful information in there. “How was your weekend?” could reveal nuggets like “I went to my kids' swim meet” or “I went to a funeral.” Add that into the notes section of the interaction.
3. Follow Up – Building relationships takes time. But if you send a link to their favorite band coming to town, or a local news story about their kids high school swim team (if done with purpose, and tastefully) it can go a long way to building Like and Trust. Often a simple gesture is worth more (no perceived strings) than $250 tickets to their favorite band (but that can be useful at the right time as well.)

Making It Count

Your customer will go through the journey of Know, Like, and Trust!

1. KNOW – This is where you create awareness. If there is a reason to continue the relationship, then you must take time to build the ‘LIKE'.
2. LIKE – This is where they are searching for educational or relevant information about your products and services, but the Like happens when you start to be relational and treat them like the human that they are.
3. TRUST – Trust is where transactions happen. It could be today, tomorrow, or two years from now, but you have a better chance of getting to trust if you spend more time giving your team the time to know and like your prospects and vice versa.

Relationships take time, commitment, and data. If you capture little things along the way like someone's birthday (wish them a happy birthday), favorite things (food, sports, music, hobbies), or simply what they reveal during small talk, you have data that can be retrieved and used to nurture a prospect into profit.

It all begins with how you set up, train, and nurture your people and data capture systems to maximize relationships.

Final Thoughts

During the weekend, while cleaning out the basement, I found a folder with pictures from 30 years ago with my brother and sisters' families. When I was taking a break, I got a call from my brother-in-law that my sister had passed away from cancer. I was tasked with calling my brother to share the shocking and devastating news. Those pictures helped me find a glimmer of joy in those happy memories.

I had hundreds of people reach out to me offering prayers and support. Many of them were friends but many had ties to my business. At that moment they all saw me as a person and not a product and service, and that also brought me a glimmer of joy. I am so blessed with so many wonderful relationships that will help me continue on my journey to live my life and help others along the way live theirs (with a glimmer of joy.)

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you build and nurture personal relationships in your business. Are you capturing the small things? Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about how your team is capturing and updating the details to build relationship success.

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.