I have a CRM. What other systems do I need?
If your CRM is *your system* - you've got a problem.
A CRM (Customer relationship management) is a tool you should have for your business but it is not the only one.
You won’t be able to scale your business, hire a good team, or find more time for yourself with just a CRM.
The Process
You’ve done the business paperwork, you’ve mastered marketing, and have a CRM in place. Your design clients are showing up and life seems good. A successful business has started to form.
But what happens when new clients start working their way through your funnel?
Think through the steps:
The very first contact
The sales / discovery call or the application
Signing the contract
The real brand design and/or strategy work
Payment
Offboarding
Requesting testimonials
Now think about the individual steps that take place in each of those steps.
Now with those steps in mind, what happens when a lot of new clients start working their way through your funnel? You are excellent at the branding work you do, so it’s no surprise. But do you have time to care for each one?
The Problem
If you are fully booked out, consider a few numbers:
How many clients each month is that?
How much time per week per client (on average)?
Who is running your marketing, financials, and other administrative tasks? If it’s you, how much time is that taking?
In this scenario, with prospective clients knocking at the door, you’ll usually start expanding working hours. Rightfully so, since as a new-ish business, you want to make money, do what you love, and gain the base of testimonials to continue to bring in work.
But how long can you maintain 60+ hour weeks? How long can you handle both the creative work and the admin?
The Standard Solution
At this point, most business owners will say, “If I have a consistent client base, I’ll hire out the rest.”
It seems logical.
Unfortunately, hiring, even a freelancer, requires time and effort. You’ll need to post your request(s) to job boards or groups, write a job description, decide how much you can and are willing to pay, and interview individuals before hiring.
Once you’ve found your person or people, they will need to know what to do. You will need to show them, approve their work, and delegate more work. Again, this requires time and effort.
Can you sustain the long weeks, that is now, even longer while you onboard your new team while still caring for your clients?
I promise, if burnout doesn’t happen at this point, the drain on your energy (especially your creative energy) will bring you to the point soon.
The Real Solution
You aren’t wrong. The solution is in the steps above but it’s missing a piece that will save your sanity. It’s missing functional, strategic systems.
Systems aren’t just tools, it is the way you do business.
Your CRM is a system but it cannot work in a silo. Before you allow new clients to start filling your calendar to its max, pause.
Pause and evaluate all the parts of your process. Identify the steps that are manual, the ones that require you to physically send an email or request a payment. Pause and think about the work do have to do administratively.
Evaluate your system strategy by looking at the full flow of your process. You’ll now need to fill in the gaps and the manual activities with a system that makes sense.
The Systems
While pausing (or slowing down) to put in place systems might seem like the wrong thing to do when clients are knocking, I promise, it will pay off.
Work Management
A place to manage your to-dos. This is often called a project management tool. This is a key place to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. It will work hand in hand with your CRM to ensure you are doing business consistently and your clients are well cared for. I personally use and recommend ClickUp.
To set up ClickUp where it works for you, you’ll have to document what you actually want out of it. By dumping a list of things you think you need to it into it, will only turn out to be a frustration. If done right, this is your key hub for seeing at a high level where your business is, what you need to do to reach goals, and easily delegate to future hires.
Marketing
You’ll need a place to store work related to Marketing. Even if you plan to outsource it, a common location where you can store drafts, visuals, and give approval needs to be in place. This might be in your work management system or in another online space like Airtable.
Finances
If you plan to outsource financials, you’ll need to actually have them in order. An accountant / bookkeeper for your design business can’t do their job without the information. Having a system in place includes both the process and a tool. Will you block time each week to enter transactions or once a month? Where will you store receipts? How will your clients pay you?
Analysis
The ownership side of the business also requires time. A CEO needs to be able to see the track of the business from advertising to marketing, to sales. You need both a process to gather that information and one to review it. That process may be manual or it may include tools.
Onboarding
Your clients and your hires need an onboarding (and offboarding) process. You’ll need to investigate how you want this to look and how you want it to flow. It will need to be documented. This includes video, checklists, access to locations, and signing contracts. The people you hire will also need documentation of what you want them to do for you and sometimes how they need to do it.
Your Business
You are a designer and you know the tools you need to conduct that work. Don’t overlook these assets while thinking about your business.
Wrapping Up
The time and energy required to set up systems may seem overwhelming but I can guarantee you won’t survive for long without it.
If you want to build a business that allows your creative designs to come alive, you’ll need to free up space mentally. These systems, once in place, can do that for you.
Map out your processes
Identify where you want changes and what will be used (templates, checklists, videos, or tools)
Start implementing slowly and hire an expert to help
As you clear space in your schedule with these systems, you can evaluate how many clients you can take on each month (capacity) and if you need to hire help.
Overview
A CRM must not be the only operations system in your business
Evaluate your entire business process
Pause on hiring until you’ve set up systems
Create systems to support your business:
Documented processes - videos, checklists, templates
Tools - ClickUp, Airtable, Quickbooks, etc.
Identify client capacity
Hire as needed utilizing systems you’ve put in place to support it.
For help setting up strategic systems in your design business, download my services & pricing guide.
