True Social CRM Will Provide Focus & Results

Articles, CRM

If, like me, you are active on social media and at the same time you also recognize the value of a good CRM …. you are faced with a multitude of challenges in managing your total and complete sales and marketing activities. Social media is to blame for all of this. There is quite simply no easy way to monitor and aggregate this important social network data and add that to any good CRM. On top of that ….

  1. Your contacts are no longer talking on just the phone or via email. They have the audacity to carry on conversations while using Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn.
  2. You are forced to leave your beloved CRM and go to these social media sites just to attempt to discover what is being discussed in these conversations.
  3. To make matters even worse, you have to sift through all conversations just to find the ones related to your specific contacts.
  4. And, when it is all said and done, these conversations never make it to your individual contact records. Rather, each one becomes a post-it note stuck to your face šŸ™‚

I happen to have pretty good organizational skills and a very strong work effort but, for crying out loud, there is no way on God’s green earth that I can effectively manage a CRM and Social Media and do either effectively. How does this then affect my productivity and my results? Ā If anything, it gets worse on both counts! So, here I find myself with all of this valuable information that will allow me to develop stronger relationships with those who are important to me and I have at least one arm tied behind my back when it comes to leveraging that to gain desired results? That sucks.

I’ve had a number of conversations with folks, and have read quite a few articles, that are critical of the emerging Social CRM technologies. “Social Media will be too distracting from the important tasks at hand. How do you take Social Media and transfer it through the entire enterprise level company when each department may have distinct and unique needs?” So what!? We are talking about the power of conversation, collaboration, and relationship building and those qualities are virtually universal! Am I that incredibly stupid orĀ naiveĀ that I think I get it when smarter people than me tell me it won’t work? I don’t think so. Witness that there are a number of third-party companies who are creating add-ons for Salesforce.com, Outlook, and Gmail to make them more social. Salesforce.com has added Twitter and Chatter. Microsoft has added Social Connector to Outlook. Every existing CRM vendor is probably scrambling right now to add at least some social to their application. The operative word is add.

One company is approaching this task from the ground up and that company is Nimble. There is nothing to add on because Nimble is a totally new application designed to tightly integrate social media into it’s core functionality. I have worked with most, if not all, frequently discussed add-ons for Gmail and Outlook. I have a Salesforce.com account. I’ve also used Zoho, Act!, FreeCrm, and BatchBook. Never have I seen or used anything that will even scratch the surface of what I see already with Nimble. This includes your basic CRM functions as well. While not yet available, Nimble will dramatically change the way you do both CRM and Social!

Nimble will allow you to plant yourself firmly within the CRM application and conduct the business of business. You will now know what your contacts are saying via all mediums and respond to those interests without having to leave your CRM which now becomes a true central command center. No more sifting, sorting, and searching. Your contact’s social stream is right there in front of you. This is called focus and it will generate results. Somehow, the sales person in me finds all of this to be pretty sweet!

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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Craig M. Jamieson

Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!
Craig M. Jamieson

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