Editor’s Note: On this episode of The Big Brand Theory, our host, Kyle Johnson spoke with Joreon Corthout, co-founder of Salesflare, about CRMs and how to use them for success in B2B marketing.

B2B selling requires top notch organization. Keeping track of follow-ups, data, and performance can be a huge task if your CRM isn’t optimized to do so. This week’s guest, Joreon Corthout, recognized that issue and wanted change. So, he created his own CRM that tackled it all; Salesflare. Salesflare has been around for 7 years and is making continual improvements to their CRM since. In this week’s episode, Jorean shares his secrets to using a content relationship management tools, helping their customers understand CRMs, and how sales and marketing work together to form a perfect relationship.

LinkedIn on iPhone

| LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS |

“You respect people’s questions, you give good answers, and then you show okay if you want to solve this issue, we have something for it.”

How often do you listen to your customers? If you’re a successful business, you’re probably listening pretty often. If you’re a not-so-thriving business, it might be wise to implement some type of survey/review system to get feedback on processes, performances, and overall customer satisfaction. Having systems in place to collect customer’s feedback is great, but how often do you truly implement what they say?

Joreon learned quickly that a successful CRM is one that listens to exactly what customers want and finding ways to make that work. While this could feel specific for CRM since they are built to make the user’s life easier, this isn’t the case. In theory, everything you do as a business provides value to your customer (at least it should). That value comes from an open relationship with your customers. It comes from listening to their wants and needs and finding ways to implement that into what you’re producing.

| GENERATING LEADS FOR YOUR BUSINESS | 

Joreon and the Salesflare team had the most success generating leads through their SEO practices. This is something that they put a lot of energy into early on so that they could simply be found. 

Besides that, in B2B sales and marketing, they’ve found LinkedIn to be the best way to stay in contact with and market to others. Facebook is also a tool that they’ve used to promote their CRM, but definitely not for organic content and reach.

| STOP REGURGITATING CONTENT |

If you search for something on Google, chances are there are a million blogs that will pop up. Whether the blog is from a business or a personal brand, a lot of the information stays consistently the same in the sense that it is regurgitated material that offers little to no intrinsic value. Basically, whatever blog you click on will say the same thing. So what’s the value there?

Jorean says that when they were initially growing Sales Flare, blogging was everything for their SEO. How? They offered unique content that wasn’t just regurgitated from every other blog on the internet. In this way, they offered a differentiated value to their regular consumers and they were able to get many leads because of it.

Writing a blog in a cafe
Leadership is key to a successful business

| WHEN TO INVEST IN A CRM |

A CRM, or content relationship management system, is made to make people’s lives easier. It is a tool made to record, organize, and analyse data for businesses. 

 Jorean says investing into your business and getting a CRM is just like anything else in your business; look at your sales and if you’re ready to scale, then do it. Besides that, this is when Jorean advises to invest:

1. When leads get unmanageable

If a spreadsheet is still managing your leads and is doable, it is probably not time to invest into a CRM tool. I maintaining your spreadsheet it taking up half your day, invest.

 

2. When it goes above the founders

When the founding members of the company are finding themselves overworked and without time in the day, it might be time to start automating with a CRM. 

 

| THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKING TOGETHER |

Joreon was sure to emphasize the importance of the sales and marketing team  working together. The idea of the two departments being intrinsically connected and finding ways to combine the two in vital for you marketing and sales efforts.

Not only do CRMs combine the two departments, but they also streamline both. The idea that the marketing is the pipeline and the sales team is the follow-up. A CRM will help you not make the same mistakes twice.

 

“You can make sure these kind of things don’t happen in the future”

Sales and marketing departments working as a team

If your current marketing strategy just isn’t cutting it anymore, you’ve come to the right place. Our team of experts here at Blackwood Creative would be more than happy to work with you and help you meet and exceed your business goals. We’re in the business of building remarkable brands – yours could be next. Reach out to us today!

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