For many that headline may seem like a weird title. How could a CRM change your life?  Well that is what I’m about to tell you.

You see in mid 2010, I was sitting in my basement office of my house working on a project.  As I was working on a clients project I was distracted by an email that came in.  It was from an existing client who asked me, “Can you send me the password to log into my website because I misplaced it and secondly would I have a few minutes to show them what this ‘facebook thing’ was all about”.

Wow, OK.  Now I had to look up their website login, which at the time was in a folder as a txt file on my hard drive.  Super secure I know right.  Then I needed to find a time and a way to show them about that “facebook thing”.

Now I don’t know if it was perfect timing or what but I do believe in serendipitous moments.  It was on that day about 2 hours later my phone rang and it was a sales rep from a company I had never heard about.  He was telling me that he has this crm marketing automation software that could save me time, keep me organized and help me grow my business.  Wow…exactly all the things I was struggling with.  He asked me if I wanted to book a live Infusionsoft demo.

Me being reluctant to the claim put him off and said to call back another time.

Another time came and he called.

Again I said I wasn’t ready.

This went on for 2 months and I finally said yes to the demo.  We did it and I was more than impressed with how it worked.  The ability to automatically build and send out email campaigns was impressive.  It was also cool that I could have contact records in the cloud (accessible anywhere).  Remember this was 2009, so that wasn’t mainstream as it is now.

At the end of the call he told me the price and asked me if I wanted to sign up.  It was a promo for like $250 USD per month and at that time a $2500 kickstart USD.  Ouch I thought…I’m not ready for this.  I don’t even know if it would work.

So again I told him to call back another time as I had to talk to my accountant (If you ever hear that, it’s code from a small business owner to say I don’t have the money).

Being investigative in nature, I then turned to the internet and searched “Infusionsoft + Reviews”.  I was surprised at the amount of independent reviews written on blogs by users of the software.  These were not fabricated or endorsed by Infusionsoft, but rather people wanting to tell their audience about their wonderful experience.  It was then and there that I knew I needed to find the money to do this.

I waited for my rep to call me back and I told him I would try it.  Because there was no contract, it was only month to month I felt a bit more relieved. I made payment over the phone via credit card and was sent a link to schedule my kickstart with a guy named Clint (remember that name as it’s important).

In the email was a link to an online calendar.  This was Clint’s personal appointment calendar.  I was able to choose a time he was free and I was available…pretty cool.  So I did and when I did a few minutes later Clint sends me an email welcoming me, how he is excited to do out kickstart and what I should expect.  This email also had a few attachments in it to help me prepare.  Little did I know this was an email from Infusionsoft and Clint didn’t actually have to send that himself.  However from my perspective (the customer) I was experiencing great customer service in a timely manor.  I was impressed and immediately thought about how I could do this in my business as well as the time it would save me.

6 weeks passed a we completed our 6 training sessions, with homework in between.  By the end I had a grasp of the software and was ready to do what I do best, get my hands dirty.

I immediately recorded 10 video about Facebook.  From simple things of how to create an account, to how to post a photo.  It was basic, extremely basic.  I created a web form with Infusionsoft to put on my website and had people opt in to receive these 10 videos in 10 emails over 10 days.  On day 11 it asked them what they thought of the videos.  This email as all the others came from me.  So those that enrolled in the video “lead magnet” were able to just hit reply and tell me what they thought.

This is where the real magic happened (well no one was sawed in half but it was an eye opener).  I have over 60% of those who enrolled email me to tell me how informative it was and they wanted to set a time to talk with me about how to use Facebook in their business.  Wow a LEAD!  This was LEAD GENERATION!  I was now an INTERNET MARKETER!

Fast forward a few months and I was able to convert those leads into additional sales for existing customer and new sales for prospect.

During the first year of being a customer of Infusionsoft and a student of the life of digital automation, I decided to fly to Arizona for their InfusionCon conference.  It was a gathering of small business owners just like me who went through the same journey I did.  Here is what really brought it home. I was able to meet in person not only the people I talked to in their support chat when I had a question, but I was able to meet Clint.  Remember him, he was the guy who helped me learn.  It was like meeting a business icon in my opinion.

To this day, over 6 years later I’m still using Infusionsoft in my business, I have over 800 contacts in my database (clients, prospects and leads) and I have over 30 active automation campaigns.  From lead generation, customer relationship building to satisfaction survey follow up.  I’m even able to use their app to input a contact by simply taking a photo of their business card, applying a tag and an automated follow up will go out.  Again…more magic.

Back to my headline, the CRM that changed my life.  In the first year I was able to double my sales without adding a single person to my team.  Today I have all my clients information securely organized and accessible to me when ever I need it. I also can effectively follow up with leads, stay in touch with clients (even tell me to mail out a birthday card). All this while I’m able to focus on the current project I have.  I can confidently say that I don’t know that my business would be where it is today without Infusionsoft being part of it.

In addition in 2013, I became an Infusionsoft Certified Partner and have been selling and training clients on the kickstarts and using the software since then.

I’ve been the prospect, I became the customer, experienced being the student and now I’m the teacher.

Thank you Infusionsoft for helping me grow my business.

Sincerely,
Shaun Whynacht, Blue Cow Creative

P.S. If you’re reading this and would like to talk with me to discuss the how you could use Infusionsoft in your business, Click here to view my schedule and book a call (remember this is how I met Clint).