Travel advisors, I’m going to tell you about a piece of technology that is guaranteed to grow your business — if used correctly. It will help you stay more organized, close deals faster and stay top of mind with your entire network. It’s a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM).
While there are plenty of free platforms available, CRMs can be the downfall of many salespeople (you!) when they are not customized correctly, or if the user doesn’t truly understand their power. Here are my top tips for making the most of your CRM.
1. Use Your CRM to Follow Up With Prospective Clients
I hear people suggest that their CRM is the system where they keep track of all the trips they have booked. I understand why, as the acronym stands for “Customer Relationship Manager.” However, I feel that it should really be called a “Prospect Relationship Manager.”
Why? Because a CRM is what you need to use before the sale. It is how you keep track of your hot leads. It is how you project your monthly sales. It is how you stay top of mind with past clients or future prospects. It is exactly what it says: It is a relationship tool.
A CRM is what you need to use before the sale … It is exactly what it says: It is a relationship tool.
Every morning, I log in and my system tells me exactly which deals, and which cold — or potential prospects — should be touched that day. In fact, I have my system so tuned in that it even tells me exactly what to say to those people, so I don’t waste any brain power coming up with responses. (After all, there’s very little to spare early in the morning!)
To automate this process, I simply write the response or the follow-up to my prospect as soon as I’m done talking to them. If I plan to reconnect with a lead tomorrow, and we just talked about their flights today, then in the notes I may write, “Were you able to decide if you wanted to fly first class?” This way, I’ll simply copy and paste the response when the alert to follow up pops up the next day, and I don’t have to remember what I needed to reach out about.
Most CRMs allow for an incredible amount of customization; don’t let this aspect overwhelm you. Once you get it set up to your liking, its power will pay you back for your time tenfold.
2. Use Your CRM To Keep Track of the Status of Your Deals
First, a proper CRM must have a few things that are non-negotiable.
- There must be a way to separate out your cold and warm prospects (people with potential, but not a defined trip in mind) from your hot leads (people who will most likely purchase from you in the next 30 days).
- There must be a way to take notes on those prospects and assign the deal a “status.” More on this below.
- Lastly, there must be a way to easily assign, move and sort your tasks by due dates.
That’s it. It’s not complicated, it is just a systematized way to guarantee that you stay on top of everything coming your way, as well as all the contacts who haven’t yet reached out.
I typically use five different statuses to identify my deals and how likely they are to close: “Hot Lead,” “Consultation Scheduled,” “Research Phase,” “Presentation Scheduled” and “Decision Maker Feedback.”
After that, the lead is either “Closed Won” or “Closed Lost.”
How often — and when you follow up — is entirely up to you, but when you log into the system each morning, the CRM will tell you exactly which deals need a follow-up, according to the due date you have set. This will keep you on track, and help deals close much faster. I also have my CRM move those “Closed Lost” deals to yet another tab, where I input reasons why they were lost.
Over time, I can analyze these losses and see if there are patterns in my work. Are several people refusing to pay my fee? Maybe I should work on my pitch. Am I losing a ton of deals to online bookings? I should work on how I articulate my value. And so on.
When we talk about separating our cold/warm prospects from the hot leads, make sure your CRM has truly different workspaces for active deals. One tab should allow me to focus on those prospects that will close this month or next and prioritize my work accordingly. When I’m ready to “hunt” for leads through some of my cold or warm prospects, that should be located in an entirely different tab. The idea is efficiency when you only have a limited amount of time.
Too many travel advisors wait for the prospect to reach back out to them, thinking the ball is in the prospect’s court. In sales, the ball is never in their court. It is always up to you to check in and see if they have questions or need more insight to make a decision.
Too many travel advisors wait for the prospect to reach back out to them, thinking the ball is in the prospect’s court. In sales, the ball is never in their court.
3. Use Your CRM to Create a Relationship Action Plan
My favorite piece of advice is to create a Relationship Action Plan (RAP). The idea is simply to stay top of mind with everyone in your network on a consistent, systematized basis. This is not about finding an immediate hot lead, but more about making sure you are building strong relationships with everyone you know.
To do this, simply decide how many people you’d like to connect with each day, and in what manner. You can text, connect on social media, have coffee/dinner/a drink, or any of the myriad of ways we choose to connect as human beings. I personally make it my mission to text at least five people every day. This means that each week, I am connecting with 25 people, and each month, over 200.
The connections can be simple. “You randomly ran across my mind, how have you been?” Or they can be a more complex follow-up about a specific topic. “I keep thinking about our conversation the other day, and I thought you might love this article!”
Regardless of what you choose, the point should be not to make a sale, but to make a connection.
These connections should also be in your CRM under the cold/warm prospect tab. This is obviously not a hot lead, but it doesn’t mean that it is any less important.
When I touch base with someone, I’ll write my next response in my CRM and then update the due date. For instance: I’d like to remind myself that in one week I should text Rachel and ask how her dog’s surgery went. Rachel will appreciate this follow-up. Rachel will think of me as a good person. Rachel will think of me when someone starts talking about travel. Rachel will recommend me. It’s as simple as that!
4. Use Your CRM to Analyze Your Selling Patterns
Block your calendar for a certain time every day to work within your CRM. For example, I’ll block 30 minutes first thing in the morning to follow up with hot leads.
This way, my leads will have all day to respond and then book. Then, I’ll block off a half hour at lunch time for my Relationship Action Plan.
After I’ve implemented all of the above steps, I’ll be better able to analyze some of my selling patterns. How many leads did I bring in each month? What is my lead-to-close rate? How long is my deal cycle?
These answers can help me analyze my business and better understand where there are areas of opportunity or improvement.
A great CRM will feed you this data when it’s set up properly, so when you’re choosing a platform, look for one that tracks the creation and close dates. You can calculate most of what you need from there.
Happy selling!
