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response and then follow up with them.
Results/lessons learned: Through the
fourth quarter of 2011, Hughes added two
new clients a month, plus four new ones in
March and seven more coming in at press
time. “My biggest challenge right now is keeping up with the work;ow,” he said.
Next steps: Hughes expects to reach 50
clients by this fall, at which time he plans to
look into moving to a storefront, rather than
a home o;ce.
“;e telemarketing piece of this equation is
expensive, but e;ective, and Zoho CRM ties
in nicely,” he said. “I will likely augment what
I’m currently doing with more networking
and direct mail, and then have someone put
data in when we get to that point.”
CRM
FROM PAGE
28
Creating processes
Firm: WebsterRogers / Florence, S.C.
Size: 120 sta;
Product: Results CRM
Commencement date: January 2012
On record: Director of practice development
Tim Allen
Challenge/objective: Wanted better tracking and management of the sales processes
across eight o;ces.
Amount spent: Five users for under $2,000.
;is was a one-time fee, plus extra customer
care costs for one year, which includes upgrades.
Process: Allen was hired in June 2011
and was already speaking about CRM at a
high level in di;erent parts of the ;rm. Once
he garnered partner buy-in on the idea of
adopting a CRM system, he began researching them, demoed a few, and made a recommendation in September 2011.
“I had been tasked with managing the sales
process; apart from keeping track of activities,
we needed to manage that better. If we want-
ed to grow by $2.4 million, we need to bring in
$200,000 worth of business each month, and
without CRM we’d have no idea what’s in the
pipeline,” said Allen. “It’s an evolving activity
in our ;rm. Many of our partners have little to
no familiarity with CRM systems; some may
have no idea what a CRM system is. I said we
need to have this tool for the ;rm and was
tasked by the executive committee to go out
and research and make recommendations.”
Results CRM was recommended by an
outside IT consultant, and Allen, along with
the ;rm’s managing partner and client ser-
vices manager, liked what they saw. Once ap-
proved, Results CRM, a cloud and on-premis-
es-based system, was deployed in November
2011 as a pilot, and by January 2012 the ;rm
started using it collectively.
Getting everyone in
Firm: Bauerle & Co. / Denver
Size: 50 sta;
Product: SugarCRM
Commencement date: October 2011
On record: Marketing specialist Monica
Harris
Challenge/objective: Wanted to target existing clients by demographic and service area
for cross-selling, as well as improve client
communication and tracking referrals.
Amount spent: Free (Community Edition);
paid for unique customizations.
Process: The firm’s managing partner
knew it needed CRM, as he had been hear-
ing about di;erent systems and their bene;ts
through conferences and being a part of the
PKF network of ;rms. When Harris was hired
in 2010, obtaining and using a CRM system
was part of her charge, as she already had da-
tabase experience. Once a general plan for
use and a budget were established, the ;rm’s
IT director researched the best possible CRM
solutions and found that SugarCRM’s Com-
munity Edition might be a viable choice, as it
had a cloud-based option and there was no
;nancial outlay outside of unique custom-
izations from one of SugarCRM’s area value-
added resellers.
