Ryan Dohrn answers Robert in Portland on getting more from your CRM. Use dictation to log notes fast, set CRM tasks to touch prospects every three business days instead of Outlook reminders, and organize contacts into staged lists like prospects and actives.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. I promise you, if you send us a question, we're gonna reply. I'm either gonna send you a reply back, I'm gonna record you a video, we're gonna mention you on a video on YouTube, or put it on the podcast or something. So keep those questions coming, I love them. All right, next question comes from Robert in Portland. Hey Robert, how are you? Thanks for your question. Hey Ryan, I'm wondering if you have some tips tips for better using my CRM? To be honest with you, I feel like it's actually a waste of time. Hey Robert, using your CRM, my friend, is not a waste of time if you use it correctly. So let me give you my 3 main tips for using that CRM. All right, the first is I like to talk into my CRM. So whether I'm using my cell phone, I'm going to talk into my cell phone. Whether I'm using my computer, I'm going to talk into the computer. Now I'm not going to blow your mind, Robert, but for some of you, you just don't know this. All right, open up your CRM. The most common— whatever your CRM is, the most common thing we do is put notes and tasks in the CRM. All right, so put your cursor in that box. If you're on a Mac, you click the function button twice. So you go function, function on a Mac. What it's going to do then is open up the dictation tool and you can dictate directly into the CRM. Now, if you've never turned it on before, you have to turn it on. All right, how about you Windows users that are out there? You're going to do Windows+H. Okay, so you click Windows+H. If you've never done it before, it's going to need to install the dictation tool, but then it'll pop up, a microphone will appear, and then you can dictate directly into your CRM. By the way, you can use that same tool to voice dictate emails, all kinds of different stuff. All right, so it's Windows+H on your Windows machine, and if you're on a Mac, it's Function, function is how you do that. Or pull up your CRM on your phone and then just hit the little microphone button and dictate directly in. So Robert, everybody out there, I mean, if you can't just talk to your computer to put notes in, I really can't help you. So that's the first thing is talk-to-text inside your CRM. All right, the second thing is you've got to use the tasks to help you keep up. So in other tips, what you've heard me talk about is using the rule of 3, prospecting every 3 business days. So I'm going to add notes, I'm going to dictate the notes, okay, into my CRM. I'm going to set my task to go on to the next email in my strategy or whatever and set that to go every 3 business days. It's going to pop up on my CRM, which is my homepage. Okay, I don't have Facebook as my homepage for Pete's sake. I've got my CRM. It's my guide. I'm going to set and use that task for every 3 business days. I'm not going to use Outlook or my Outlook calendar to keep up with it. I'm going to use my CRM. I use my Outlook calendar for set meetings. And then I use every 3 business days and the task duty duties inside of my CRM to keep me on track with my prospecting. It's the second thing. All right. The third thing, Robert, is that I am going to make sure that inside of the CRM I'm working lists inside of my CRM. So rather than just people always being a prospect or always being active, I want to stage them. Now what I do is I use lists. Now, most CRMs have got pipeline management. Cool. Use it if you love it. All right. I use lists. So the 3 lists that I work are my prospects, my in-progress people, and then my actives. I don't refer to somebody as a prospect until I sell them. They're just a prospect till I get a meeting. Once I get a meeting, they become in-progress. I put them on a different list. So whether you're using contact groups or using dynamic attributes, or you lose— using list memberships, whatever your CRM is that you use, I like to work 3 lists: a prospecting list, an in-progress list, and then an actives list. So those are the 3 main things, Robert from Portland, that I use every single day. And I just— by nature, I'm not an organized person. I'm just not. I kind of like, woo! I kind of love to live every day, you know, like it's the last day. Woo! But I need to be focused and organized in sales if I'm going to be successful. So Robert from Portland, I hope that is helpful and stay dry out there in Portland. Portland's a pretty fun town. I was there and got to eat some great food and meet some pretty cool people. So keep those questions coming. Send them into ryan@ryandohrn.com. Love to answer those listener questions. Love to come and pump up and motivate your sales team. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. Never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody be doing it and they're not. You're not crazy. This is a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. All right. We'll see you next week.
