I have a friend who was looking for health insurance. She’s a healthy 30 year old who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, is a vegetarian, eats leafy greens, exercises, has no family history of any major diseases, and doesn’t have, nor does she want, children. As she was looking for quotes, she found that she could pick and choose her deductable, her out of pocket for doctor visits, additional dental and vision coverage, but they weren’t allowing her to choose a plan that didn’t cover maternity because of her age.

She said to me, “Maybe I’ll wait until I’m out of their child bearing age range to get insurance.”

Insurance companies LOVE people like my friend because she avoids the western medical doctors at all cost. She really would prefer to let a cold or flu run its course to taking antibiotics. But she (I believe foolishly) decided against getting health insurance for another decade or so because they were unwilling to accommodate her needs. They missed out on a customer who would end up costing them very little because of their inflexibility.

What does my friend’s search for medical insurance have to do with managing your customers with Maximum CRM? If my friend were looking for a program to manage her customer relationships and really needed help with invoicing, managing mailing lists, and marketing and communications, but had absolutely no need for subscription handling, and she was forced to pay for that and several other services that she didn’t want, she might decide against it because it wasn’t a good value for her.

If you want your website to do more than just provide a presence, if you want to actually do some marketing, then you need to be able to test, you need to be able to segment your list, you need to be able to run campaigns with affiliates, you need your affiliates to be able to go in and see what kind of traffic they’re generating and see how much they’re going to get paid.

Maximum CRM has all of that and it’s simple to do.

Furthermore we can customize it for you. Yes, you’ll pay a little bit for it up front, but it’s yours, you’re not renting it or wagering when you’ll need it in the future (like health insurance).

What you’re paying for every month is our constant ongoing upgrading of our system to keep it current, to keep it doing what it needs to do. Often features are added without additional costs to you and certain modules are made available if you need them. If you need us to do something, we can do it. There are all kinds of options that you have when you’re actually just paying for what you need, and that’s what we offer.

What’s the first thing to do in times of uncertainty? We often hear the cliché “tightening our belts”, and that’s actually sage advice and a good metaphor for all aspects of life. In our personal lives, tightening our belts can mean literally tightening our belts, i.e. losing a few pounds, in other words streamlining our physicality.

In our personal finances, we tighten our belts by clipping coupons, we eat out less, shop less, or if we do shop, we spend time and effort looking for the best deal and the lowest interest rates.

In businesses, small and large alike, we streamline by getting as much as we can for our investments, as much bang for the buck, so to speak, combining positions, reducing unnecessary errors, and eliminating repetitious actions.

We streamline in times of uncertainty.

Maximum CRM is a streamlining process. It helps companies grow by doing much of the repetitious work that normally requires multiple administrative people.

I have a client who recently reported that by using Maximum CRM they reduced mishandling of samples by 90 percent. They also told me that the time it takes to handle the administrative process (from orders being received to orders being shipped) was reduced by 50 percent. That’s half the time!

All that, and there were fewer errors overall.

Tightening your belt doesn’t mean not investing. It doesn’t mean eliminating marketing. It doesn’t mean not continuing to educate yourself and keep your knowledge of your industry current. It doesn’t mean cutting corners. It doesn’t mean suffocating growth.

In times of uncertainty there are still people who are doing well and growing their businesses. With Maximum CRM, you will find the tools to flourish and prosper.

Recently I had some work done on my car. I asked some friends to recommend a mechanic and several people came up with one name, Danny, so I called Danny and made an appointment. The garage is a former gas station that is used only for fixing cars now, with three bays -- all full with two men working on them.

The reviews I had read of Danny online were amazing. But as I stood in his office explaining the problem I was having with my car, I was overwhelmed by the chaos around me. There were old auto manuals everywhere in stacks that looked precarious, there were car parts, some still in boxes, others clearly used, there were containers of oil, coolant, and most unsettling for me, there were piles and piles of receipts and customer invoices all over the place.

Danny had a computer which he used to order parts and print out these invoices, but I couldn’t help thinking -- if this business used Maximum CRM, Danny would make a fortune.

Danny had succeeded at being fair, doing a good job, keeping his customers happy and making a very significant living, however, Danny's disorganization cost him time and money, no doubt making tax time a struggle (finding all those receipts), making marketing a challenge (managing his clients information) and generally creating chaos around the office for everyone who works there. If Danny, on the other hand, were interested in bringing his business to the next level, organizing his customers into a common sense order, securing his customers’ records, keeping track of his employee’s hours, invoicing accurately, sending out incentive coupons to customers or even rewarding his existing customers who refer their friends (in addition to variety of other things), then Danny’s tiny business would reach incredible heights with Maximum CRM.

A friend of mine came to pick me up when I left my car to be worked on. As I was standing at the counter of Danny’s with my friend (who has not stopped playing with his iPhone since he got it), the contrast became so much more apparent. All of Danny’s business (outside of the actual repairing of cars) could be performed on something as small as an iPhone or laptop with the assistance of Maximum CRM. (Of course, Maximum CRM can’t prevent oil smudges on the keyboard, but that’s something we’ll look into if our customers are interested.)

The more successful you are, the more customers you will have. Keeping your customers and their details organized becomes increasingly more difficult. You suddenly have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of customers, all of whom are buying, re-ordering, asking questions and demanding immediate feedback, it is chaos.

By now, you’ve most likely noticed that Maximum CRM is the antidote for chaos.

Stay tuned for more articles on the many uses and benefits Maximum CRM can bring to businesses of all sizes and feel free to e-mail or call with any questions you might have.