The almighty CRM (customer relationship management) system is the hub of client and prospect information for most businesses. There are numerous CRM systems used by individuals and organizations including SalesForce, Infusionsoft, Hubspot, Insightly, Zoho, Pipedrive, PipelineDeals, etc. The number of CRM systems continues to trend upward especially with inbound marketing becoming more and more prevalent.

An effective CRM system will provide statistics, records, notes, and detailed information about your projects and clients/prospects. Keeping in mind according to Hubspot, 25% of your CRM contacts will fall off each year with unsubscribes, change of email addresses, or maybe when you fire a client.

Refreshing and revisiting the CRM in detail takes time but is worth the effort.  Sending information or just retaining old contacts that make the CRM more robust than it really is becomes a challenge on many fronts including:

* Costs (if your system charges fees based on contacts – which is the norm)

* Not real connections

* More contacts is not always better

* There are double entries in most systems

* Contact management, sales management, marketing automation and customer service management are available on cloud-based systems but are it too much for your business.

A labor-intensive task that will assist keeping your CRM up to date is to establish a consistent and timely CRM scrub. Consider scrubbing the CRM every 90 days.

5 Questions to Ask when Scrubbing Your CRM

1. How often are we seriously connecting with our prospects and clients our current CRM?

2. When did our lead, prospect or client last request information or download a content guide from your website?

3. When was the last time there was real interaction via a face to face meeting or live phone call – not just email correspondence. (Automated messages that are not personalized)?

4. Does our contact really fit within our buyer personas?

5. How many times has our contact been sent information or called in the last 90 days?

Scrubbing the CRM system will assist with focusing on the best prospects and clients for your sales and marketing teams and the representative sales funnel. As most experts suggest, it’s difficult to actually manage and connect with more than 100 people consistently. Consider establishing a “Scrub Plan” for your CRM.

Automation does work with the CRM, but it has significant disadvantages. Ask yourself, how many times do you delete an email that is a typical automated non-personalization message. Mastering and having a laser focus on the value of the CRM will result in trusted relationships over time.  If interested in learning more about how to turn the CRM or build a CRM we cover it in the Freedom Success Program, check it out.