Tommy Clifford: Rethink Everything You 'Know' About A CRM

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[00:00:27] Jason S. Bradshaw: That's the title of the book by the newly best selling author, Tommy Clifford. Tommy, it's great to have you with us today.

[00:00:42] Jason S. Bradshaw: Oh, I appreciate your time as well. And you know, when this comes out you'll have been a bestselling author for, five or six weeks by that stage, but what's it feel to have published your book and in just a number of days for it to go to number one?

[00:01:15] Jason S. Bradshaw: Oh, that's fantastic to hear. Now I have to ask a really hard question out of the gate. Why on earth did you write a book about CRM?

[00:02:12] Jason S. Bradshaw: So let's just play devil's advocate, get everyone on the same page. When we say CRM, what do we mean?

[00:02:48] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. Well, I can certainly remember the days when Salesforce first launched, you know, they were anti software pro-small business at that stage. Although I think there's more business offerings probably not what it used to be. And of course now there's, I don't know, you'd know better than me, hundreds of different CRM out there, but the thing that I've always found, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, is a lot of businesses, certainly the bigger they get, go, we need a CRM. So they go and buy one and in some cases spend lots and lots of money.

[00:03:22] Jason S. Bradshaw: And then it's sort of like just sits there on the shelf and becomes a filing cabinet for information that doesn't get used properly.

[00:04:34] Jason S. Bradshaw: Okay. So you've got me interested. What is the power of the tool when it's done properly?

[00:06:10] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, what I'm hearing is that CRM leveraged properly and I don't want to get into corporate speak as I say that word leverage, but CRM deployed correctly, utilized correctly, can help you pre transaction. So in , educating, enticing, informing your potential customers around the benefits and other aspects of whatever you sell, whether it be a physical good or a service. But importantly, it allows you to continue the conversation post the transaction so that they can have a better experience, a better ownership experience, if you will, with whatever they've purchased and potentially, even if I heard you correctly, create a closer relationship with you, the brand.

[00:07:42] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely. So in the book, there's eight wonderful chapters. You really kick us off with some intrigue from Rolodex to Digital Dynamo, the roots of CRM. So I guess something that's plaguing me is I think many business owners even solopreneurs very quickly realized they need to organize their data in some shape or form. And they'll choose some CRM, sometimes driven by costs, sometimes driven by features. But nonetheless, they choose something, whether it's the perfect fit or not, doesn't really matter. They choose something and they start to, to fill the Rolodex up with information. What do you see is the common roadblock that businesses have from using it as a Rolodex to turning it into that Digital Dynamo, to actually leveraging the CRM for their benefit and their clients benefits.

[00:08:54] Tommy Clifford: They know the target audience. And so segmenting, you want to segment the buyers from the sellers. You want to segment the people I did in 2023, 2022, 2024. So you can customize and personalize your messaging to those specific target audiences. The more personalized you do your messaging, the less likely it's going to hit the spam folder because all the spam people up in spam space know that you didn't just send that to 10, 000 people. That was a personal message to one person instead of the same thing you're puking out.

[00:09:43] Tommy Clifford: Well, in your blueprint, first you want to start talking, bulk emailing. You want to set up a bulk sending domain. But in the blueprint, you want to make sure there's lots of avenues to a CRM. There's your Google Business reviews. There's your Facebook Business page and being able to communicate in one spot, I think is a big deal. There's humongous digital sprawl, Jason. If you think you're spending a lot of money on Netflix and Paramount and AMC and all these different cable channels now, think about all the digital tools you have. You've got a calendar tool. You've got a form tool. You've got a survey tool. You've got an email tool. Then you've got a tool to keep track of your names, and you've got web hosting, and domains, and all these different things. It can go on and on and on. And really, being able to look at your digital sprawl and say, hey, can I bring these under one umbrella? Is there one throat to choke? Can I make my life easier? Because many people say, well, I got a database and then I got my stuff over in, you know, an email software. Okay, that's great. But as soon as one person opts out, now you've got your database wrong in two different places because chances are they're not even talking. And so people don't realize the speed bumps that they're under. I like to say, are you working harder? Or are you working smarter? And I think there's a lot of people who are really working harder when it comes to wrangling their database.

[00:11:48] Tommy Clifford: Poeple need to simmer down. They need to get really, really super good. You need to explain to me why you need this tool, why the tool you currently have isn't working, and every step and everything you did to try to make it work. We have angry bird syndrome when it comes to technology. Everybody will get it. This doesn't work. Throw it down. Want to switch gears? No. Hold your horses. Do some research. Everybody really needs to have like a digital Sherpa in their life. Somebody who, whether they're on staff or somebody they can have come over and say, okay, hold on. This isn't working. This is what it's supposed to do. Can you help me make it do what it's supposed to do, and get another look at it, because sometimes we get too close to the fire. You don't see this kind of like your writing project. You need to have somebody else edit it because you can't see the spelling errors in the in the project. Pull yourself back. Take a deep breath and realize... no, just say no. You don't need that other project. You don't need that other tool. You don't need to add more complexity until you've exhausted everything place. It's hard, Jason. It really is. Even for me. Oh, I need to spend money on that. No, I don't. I need to spend money on that. No, I don't. Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Take a couple days. Look at it. A lot of people are too quick to just run for their credit card and say, hey, I do need this. And the answer is no, you really don't. You don't need that for a second. Take a step and just think about it.

[00:13:39] Tommy Clifford: Hidden powers. AI is more than a buzzword. AI is something that's built into many CRMs. And this is one of my favorite hidden powers is, your CRM can tell you who's raising their hand? Who's opened their emails the most? Who's clicked on links the most? Who's visited your website the most? Who's clicked those little triggers you put in place? So now you can say hey, I've got a list of 400 people but I got 20 people who are really raising their hand a lot higher than other people, and you can go here's an offer, here's a coupon. If you raise your hand higher, I'll give you this coupon. So being able to leverage that intelligence that's in there, that being able to have somebody in the cloud call that data and then, give them something different that goes back to that segmentation. You know, who different people are, you know, back to our real estate example, we've got our buyers and sellers, but you know that this buyer went to see 1313 Mockingbird lane and 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue and all these different addresses. Wait a minute. They're visiting houses that are three bedroom, two bath. Hey, should give him a call. Say, Hey, I just got a three bedroom, two bath. That's going to come on the market tomorrow. You can work smarter, not harder. And that's really what the CRM, some of those hidden talents are giving you some intelligence and giving you some cues so that you can delight your clients in a better fashion and hopefully turning that into your database into your data bank.

[00:15:41] Tommy Clifford: Thank you. So I have been in the printing and pre-press industries for the last 30 years. When Covid happened, I got my real estate license and I started getting involved in the real estate space. And I decided that I didn't like actually selling homes, but I like supporting real estate agents. And of course, a CRM was kind of a logical thing. So me and my business partner formed a company, we kind of cut our teeth on real estate agents. And then we started getting more involved in other ways of communicating with our audience. I'm the chairman of the board of directors of a credit union. I have a passion for giving back to the community. And this year, my business partner challenged me to write a book. And I say, I don't know anything about writing a book. It turned out that one of my clients wrote a book, Rethink Everything You Know About Social Media, and kind of started building a little family of it. And then he said, hey, I want to build very much like what the dummies books are, let's continue this discussion. So that's where this came out of. so I've just loved technology. I have a thirst for learning.

[00:16:52] Tommy Clifford: I've done some influencer work where I worked with Ford, Motorola, Microsoft. And this was back when Twitter was formed back in 2007, 2008, and actually little known story in 2009, my son Drew, I actually live tweeted his birth

[00:17:12] Tommy Clifford: and it got picked up. And they did a news story about me and it ran, and I started public speaking. And so that's where I kind of got into the social media, influencing space, working with some of those other companies.

[00:17:30] Tommy Clifford: Easiest way is to go into Amazon and do a little search, Rethink Everything CRM. It'll come right up. Or just search for Tommy Clifford and my author bio will come right up. I published it through Amazon KDP. We've got the soft bound and the hard bound, and I'm working on the Kindle and the audio version will be out in first quarter of 2025.

[00:17:56] Tommy Clifford: Absolutely, everybody needs a little CRM in their life. Even when I opened up with my mom, she was so cute. She goes, oh, I need to read this. I need to learn all about this. Okay, mom, you're 82 years old. You need to simmer down, but I'm thankful that you're going to read it. That's awesome.

[00:18:10] Tommy Clifford: You never know. She might, she might want to work on Salesforce with you.

[00:18:43] Tommy Clifford: A hundred percent. It's only going to be as good as you are. And a CRM is totally an action word. It's not going to do it for you. You know, the only person is going to do it. It's got, you know, four fingers and a thumb. This guy.

[00:19:09] Tommy Clifford: That's a great question. And that has to go to a lot of the homework that you do up front. You need to talk to people, find people who are in your like space and say, hey, what tools do you use? Ask some probing questions. Maybe you need a Sherpa to come on board and say, hey, can you help me? Here's our current state. Here's our future state. Here's where we want to be, but you have to educate yourself. This kind of stuff is always evolving. There's always new tools. Everything's in the cloud, there's going to be updates. There's going to be new features. Things are going to break. They just had a new revision come out. That type of stuff is part of life. But I would really work your network and find out who is doing what you're doing. Who's happy with their tool. Why are they happy? And then start digging in, start taking some good notes and then going to somebody say, you're really smart in this space. I'm a plumber, electrician or a concrete company, and I've got this information. I want to talk to people like this. Is this the right tool?

[00:20:17] Tommy Clifford: And you have to, you have to educate. You cannot just sit back and think that this is going to solve its problem. Okay, I'm just going to pour water on the secret pill and it's going to go.

[00:20:35] Jason S. Bradshaw: That makes sense. Now throughout the conversation today, you've mentioned email and text messages and social media and Google business reviews and a plethora of platforms. In your book, there's a chapter on multi channel CRM communication. How important really is it that your CRM can do multi channel?

[00:22:00] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, makes absolute sense. So as we wrap up today, thank you very much, Tommy, for your time. But before I do let you go, what's the one thing that someone listening today or watching the show on YouTube should start doing or perhaps stop doing when it comes to their CRM?

[00:23:15] Jason S. Bradshaw: Well, what a great way to end. Tommy, thanks very much for your time today. And again, congratulations on the book.