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    Episode 31 - Using a Robust CRM to Take Your Business Development Efforts to the Next Level

    Episode 31 - Using a Robust CRM to Take Your Business Development Efforts to the Next Level
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    We discuss how marketing working in tandem with a robust CRM and marketing automation tool can help business development professionals do a better job of reaching their prospects and growing relationships on behalf of their bank or credit union.

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    Transcription:

    If you're looking for best practices for your bank or credit union, join us while we talk all things sales, marketing, and strategy for financial institutions. Let's make it happen with FI GROW Solutions.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Hi, there. I am Meredith Olmstead, CEO and Founder of FI GROW Solutions. We are an inbound marketing and sales agency, and we work exclusively with financial institutions, banks, and credit unions specifically. And I am here with our Chief of Clients, our Head of Client Success, Nida Ajaz. Say hi, Nida.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Hi, everyone.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Nida and I were just talking about an area of our services that have been growing over the last year or two. We think of ourselves, or a lot of times people think of us as really a marketing agency, but we also do sales enablement and sales support for financial institutions. And some of that has started to creep out or to expand into helping support business development teams at some of our clients and some of our regional banks and credit unions.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    We wanted to hit record, because we were really just talking about how working in tandem with marketing and a robust CRM and marketing automation tool can help business development professionals do a better job of reaching their prospects and growing relationships on behalf of the financial institution. I wanted to talk about that, and then Nida has some thoughts around that as well.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    What are you seeing, Nida, when we're coming into contact or you're coming into contact with business development teams? I know what I'm seeing. What are you seeing as well?

    Nida Ajaz:
    Yeah. In general, I think we're both seeing the same kind of pattern. Across different clients, it's basically a lot of manual work. A lot of tracking and collecting business cards and tracking them on Excel sheets and handwritten notes for taking notes on contacts and things like that. There's so much potential locally for these SEGs and deepening relationships with just business accounts in general, but it may be a little bit unproductive to have it where you're doing so much manual work. So I think that is one of the main things we're talking about right now, how to make it automated.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. And I think the other thing is, we have one client down in the Southeast, and they are still a SEG based credit union. They're huge though, and they're growing very quickly. And they're doing that because they have a very, very robust team of business development professionals, like eight to 10 people who are constantly out working and networking in the community to build new SEG relationships with businesses to then expand and get their employees to bank with the credit union. That's a huge team, right? And a lot of the team members on that team, they work together in partnership.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    And so what we have found is that by introducing a really solid CRM, and we've been using with them HubSpot, they're able to ... More than one person can be talking with a lead at a business, and they pick up right where the other person left off, because they have all the information in one place and it's less of a manual process and much more right at the tip of their fingertips when they're interacting. So that's really what I think we wanted to touch on today, is removing some of the manual effort and making sure that everybody has access to the information they need when they're working with a prospect.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Yeah. I know you've helped that whole team come on board. So what were some of the things that you've done with them as well? You said the HubSpot has a really good app and things like that.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. So one of the things, their team is constantly out and they're away from their desks all the time. They're constantly out at meetings, at community events, at Rotary meetings, at chamber events, those kinds of things, networking. And so HubSpot has an amazing app that they can use really easily on their phones or on an iPad. And it has a cool tool where you can actually take a business card on the HubSpot app, take a picture of the business card, and it will automatically upload the details and create a new contact record.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Oh, wow.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    And they can log meetings right from their smartphone. They can log conversations, they can log ... So that they're getting credit for all of those extra efforts, those productivity metrics that they're held accountable for on a monthly basis. So it's really nice to have that kind of a tool right at their fingertips, rather than them having to be writing down notes or going back to their desk and sending an email. I mean, they can send an email through the HubSpot app right on their phone.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Oh, that's awesome. Because once the contacts are in there, when they're out and about, when they come to their desk, I know HubSpot has really good ways to track the contact, every little activity that you've done, whether it's sending an email, sending an SMS, making a phone call, all that can be logged in there with all the notes. So anyone can actually pick up the conversation where the rep has left off if they're not available to follow up. So it definitely keeps the leads active without having to drop off if your business development rep isn't available.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    The other thing we have done with business development teams is we've created landing pages that have lots of information around the benefits of banking with that institution specifically as they relate to a business owner or their employees. So it's basically showcasing how working with that institution can bring almost free financial products and services, free educational interactions, lots of help for their employees. It's almost like adding in an extra benefit for their employees at no additional cost.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    So we're highlighting all of that kind of language and that kind of a messaging on their landing pages. And then the landing pages also include forms for them to request more information, forms for them to ... If there are an existing SEG, there's a landing page for them where they can request a meeting or a presentation for their employees around how to buy a home, or what's the best way to negotiate for refinancing, or for buying a new car, or how to get out of debt. All those kinds of things, they can request them right on their landing pages. And you can also capture leads or even put an application of some kind on those landing pages for people.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Great. So it could always start off, the landing page effort could start off very minimal, with just a form on there. But you can expand those efforts with putting out eBooks and content. But then eventually, it could even be webinars that you talked about or seminars that they actually go out and help the HR system.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. And the nice thing, too, is that they can take an iPad to an event, open up a lead, like a landing page with a lead capture, and they can actually fill those pages out right there with the prospect and capture all their information and drop them right into some kind of pre-designed automation or nurture.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Yeah. And then those nurture emails, actually, we have set up some for our clients where, depending on the product interest on the form, you could set up different emails that go out. So if someone was interested in opening an account, versus someone interested in the mortgage, would get personalized emails from that business development rep. So there is a lot of different benefits for having some sort of a robust tool to help you with the productivity of the business development.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. We've also seen, a lot of business development can be ... There's a lot of manual follow-up where you're constantly calling them back or sending an email, trying to reach out, seeing if you can get somebody on the phone to take the next step, whatever that might be, either by applying for a business account or bringing their employees into the fold and trying to build relationships with their employees to get them to bank with your institution. But we've actually seen business development where we'll actually set up monthly or quarterly emails that go out from the business development staff member to their prospects or leads that are designated, owned by them. So it's maybe a small list of people, but still, it's a great way to stay top of mind with those prospects and to provide educational resources, helpful content, without being too pushy, too salesy, but really just still staying in contact with them.

    Nida Ajaz:
    Yeah. Makes complete sense.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. So it's great. As long as you can leverage a good tool like the HubSpot CRM and then work with your business development team to really utilize some of the cool features and functionality. It can be a really nice way to [inaudible 00:09:29].

    Nida Ajaz:
    I know credit unions or banks, like local banks, try to ... They get a little bit skeptical, like, "Oh, it's going to be too much work or training a whole team with a new tool." Well, I would say, start small. Start small with just putting in their contacts in there and having those follow ups. And of course, marketing is going to work hand-in-hand with them. So it'll be easier to have them work together and achieve their end result.

    Meredith Olmstead:
    Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nida. This has been really useful. I hope you guys got some great tips from it. Please visit us at figrow.com. We have really great other resources on our podcast and our blog, as well as lots of information on our academy about training around best practice for sales and marketing for banks and credit unions. So in the meantime, let's just all get out there and make happen.

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