Why you should be using a personal CRM

Customer Relationship Management systems are being used by leading companies across the globe to convert leads into sales. So, it comes as no surprise that the CRM market is the biggest and fastest growing software market, estimated to be worth more than $80B by 2025¹.

However, despite the fast proliferation of CRM solutions, 75% of the tools used for managing relationships are non-CRM tools! They are the ‘usual suspects’, your mail client, your calendar and even Excel².

Now, let’s imagine for a minute the average business professional, a person like you and me: busy, with hundreds of contacts on our address book and meeting a dozen new people each month. We don’t have time to manage these relationships, nor do we have time to manage a CRM system! We are missing out! 

Unlike transactional networking, a real relationship is forged by professional and personal interest between two people, regular communication and mutual support. This promotes the building of trust, encourages collaboration and exposes an innate willingness to help out. This dynamic is fundamental to business success, as it drives knowledge sharing, exposes opportunities and facilitates new introductions, further expanding our contact network.

What is a personal relationship manager and why do we need one.

A personal CRM is a tool that can easily fit your every day, needs no integrations, no setup, no training, something you can just pick up and run with. A personal CRM gives you the power you would expect from an advanced contacts and relationship management system, packaged in a simple familiar-looking contacts app! 

Covve is such a personal CRM tool. It looks like your average address book app, yet provides a broad toolkit to cover all your networking needs. Here is an example:

Say you just met a new contact,

• scan their business card with an AI-powered scanner and send back your electronic card at a click of a button;
• their details will be completed automatically and Covve will scan the web and add more info such as their picture and social profile links and will continue scanning to keep the contact fresh and up to date;
• a week goes by and Covve will notify you to reach out with the perfect excuse, important news affecting their company! 
• you will get automatic reminders to stay in touch and can track your conversations, helping you effortlessly build a strong relationship.

Covve is free to use and you can download it from the App Store & Play Store:

If you like the article, here are some other I have written which you may find interesting:
Tried-and-tested business networking tips and tricks
The 5 Tools I Use To Stay On Top Of Everything
Best tips to pair networking with food
How to stand out when meeting new people
The address book will live on but it has to change

Yiannis Gavrielides is the CEO of Covve, a sophisticated contact and relationship management platform disguised as a simple address book app! He has also co-founded companies in industries he loves, like theatre and cocktails! In his previous life he was a consultant at Deloitte Consulting and L.E.K. Consulting and a banker at Eurobank EFG; all despite having spent his student life obtaining a still underutilised degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London.  

References:
¹ Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Market Analysis, 2018 – 2025, Grand View Research.
² SelectionHub – The CRM Software Market Guide for 2019.