How to Switch CRMs Without Sacrificing Your Sanity

Colie: 00:00:25

Hey everyone.

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Welcome back for a solo episode of

Business First Creatives Podcast.

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Today, I'm going to jump right in and I

want to talk about switching your CRMs.

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I'm going to talk about when I

recommend that you do and when

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I recommend that you do not.

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So I am coming at this not only from a

personal perspective, because in my career

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as a photographer, I started with 17 hats,

moved to Tave, Moved to Dubsado and now

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I use Dubsado and HoneyBook both side by

side for different parts of my business.

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So I have a lot of knowledge of

using CRMs inside of my business.

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I also help entrepreneurs,

creatives, photographers set up

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CRMs inside of their business.

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So I am coming at this from

two different perspectives.

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And changing a CRM is not

for the faint of heart.

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It is not that you wake up and

you decide, oh, I would like to

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move from one CRM to the next.

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And all of a sudden, three

days later, you are done.

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I don't even care if you hire

someone like me, that is not the

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timeline in which you switch CRMs.

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And so I do want to say though, as

much planning as it may take to switch

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from one CRM to the next, it is not

impossible, but I do want to encourage

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everyone to have a very good reason for

switching a CRM inside of your business.

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It's, it's kind of like photographers

when you're switching systems, because

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again, I have shot Sony, Canon,

Fuji, and Nikon as a photographer.

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And each time I bought a new camera,

I bought new lenses, and then I ended

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up selling all of my old equipment.

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But those are pieces of equipment.

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It is not so simple when

you are switching CRMs.

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Okay, so we are going to talk a little

bit about what you should consider

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before you jump into a CRM switch.

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So first, I've already kind of mentioned

this, but there is going to be a

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significant time investment if you are

choosing to move from one CRM to the next.

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And I absolutely recommend that you

have an overlap between your two CRMs.

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So let's say that you decide on January

1st that you are going to start a

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subscription for a new CRM and you are

going to start building out in that CRM.

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I would say it's going to take you a

minimum of two weeks in order to get

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everything set up inside of your new

CRM if you are going to do it yourself.

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That is two weeks of a lot

of hard work in order to get.

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your new CRM setup.

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But that doesn't mean that you

can automatically turn your old

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CRM off and stop paying for it.

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You still need to figure out what to do

for your currently in progress clients.

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Because if you have any clients that are

on autopay, I highly do not recommend that

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you switch their systems so that you have

to set up an autopay inside of a new CRM.

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So it's going to take time for you to

set up the new CRM and then you are going

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to have an overlap period where you are

accepting new clients in your new CRM.

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You are probably going to move

some of your old clients from the

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old CRM to the new CRM and start

working on their project there.

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But there are going to be a select few

projects where you are probably going

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to want to leave them in your current

CRM and let the project run its course.

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Okay.

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The second thing that I want to

talk about in addition to the

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time investment is the features.

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Now we can all get shiny

objects and syndrome.

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Sometimes we see that a CRM put out

this one brand new feature that our

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CRM doesn't have and we're like, oh, so

should I switch for that one feature?

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I almost never recommend that you

switch from a CRM to another CRM just

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because they have released one feature.

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CRMs are constantly

releasing new features.

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So if you are trying to switch because

a different CRM has this feature, I

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would honestly make sure that if there

is nothing else wrong with your current

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CRM, that you are making sure that that

is not in their planning, that they

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are going to release that anytime soon,

because again, you would have spent

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significant time and money in order to

migrate your business from one CRM to

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the next, only for you to realize that

if you had just been a little patient, or

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waited a little longer that your original

CRM would get that feature as well.

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Now, this is not to say that if you have

one of those CRMs where you feel like

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you have maximized all of the features

that it has, and that by not having

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additional automations or additional

forms or scheduling or whatever that

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feature is, if you feel like that is

legitimately holding your business back.

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Then that is a reason to switch CRMs, but

just one single new feature, maybe even

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two or three, that is typically not a

reason to switch from one CRM to the next.

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And the last item that I want to

highlight is pricing because that

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is a hot button topic right now.

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If you are with a CRM and they have

raised your prices and you are like,

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you know, that's too much for me,

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I want to look for a cheaper alternative.

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I am going to refer you back to the

first thing that I want you to consider.

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Yes, you will be paying more

money for your current CRM long

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term, but is it actually going

to be worth the savings when you

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compare it to the time investment?

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So if your new CRM is going to cost

you 20 extra dollars a month and other

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than the price increase, you love

your CRM, it works for your business,

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you feel comfortable using it.

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I would really recommend that you not

just immediately jump ship because of

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the increase of costs without considering

if you can simply raise your prices

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in order to pay the additional fee.

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Now, of course, it depends on what

kind of price increase we're talking

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about, but all things being equal.

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There is an actual cost associated

with that time investment.

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It is time for you to move

all of your assets over.

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It is time for you to learn another CRM.

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It is time that you are going to be using

two CRMs virtually side by side until

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you can finally let the other CRM go.

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So it is not as simple as saying,

if I switch CRMs, I will save

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this many dollars per month.

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You do have to look at the bigger picture.

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Okay.

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Now, if you have considered all

of those and you are still like

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Colie, I have made up my mind.

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I want to switch CRMs.

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These are going to be my three

tips so that you can get organized

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before you make the switch.

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Now the first one might

seem a little weird.

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I want you to pull out a spreadsheet.

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I really wouldn't do this on a piece

of paper, but if you want to write

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it down with a piece of paper you

can, but I would get a spreadsheet

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or an Airtable hub or a click it.

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task list, whatever it is that

you feel comfortable using.

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And I want you to create a very detailed

list of all of your current CRM assets.

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And when I say assets, I mean every

single email template, every single

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form template, every single workflow,

and every single package that you are

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currently offering inside of your CRM.

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Okay.

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I want you to make this detailed

list inventory, if you will, of your

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assets, because I want you to know

what each of these assets is and

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where it's located in your business.

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Because when you actually begin setting up

your new CRM, It is going to be helpful if

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you can come to this one master document,

click on a link, it opens the email

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template, and you are basically copying

and pasting it from one CRM to the next.

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You are going to have to modify the smart

fields, but in general, this is going

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to be the most efficient way to get your

assets copied from one CRM to the next.

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And this is regardless if you are

the one that's migrating or if you

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are hiring somebody to do it for you.

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Now, if you are going to hire someone,

make sure that they are not going to

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do that for you as part of the process.

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Because I personally do that now

because it makes it easier for me

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and my team to make sure that we have

moved over the items that you need.

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The second thing that I want you

to do when you have decided to move

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from one CRM to the next is you

need to make a backup of your data.

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And by data, I mean your current client

list, all of their contact information,

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all of the invoices and sales and projects

that you have worked with them on,

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as well as copies of their contracts.

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Now, how far back should you go?

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As far back as you have time

for, I'm going to be honest.

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I tell most people minimum

of two to three years.

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You should be getting that information.

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Especially if you have

clients that come back often.

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Now, Beyond that, you need to

decide whether or not you think it's

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still helpful for you to download

copies of all of the contracts.

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I will say one of the, one of the

most difficult parts of changing CRMs

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is that there is no master download.

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There is no way for you to

click a button and basically

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download everything out of a CRM.

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None of them are built this way.

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So we are talking about going into

individual projects, downloading contracts

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as PDFs, downloading invoices as PDFs.

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And hopefully your current CRM will

allow you to export all of your

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financial data, including payments

that your clients have made when

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their projects were in a CSV file.

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I hope that your current

CRM allows you to do that.

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The third thing that I want you to do is

I want you to start your trial account.

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No one should be making a decision to

go from one CRM to the next CRM without

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actually trying out the CRM for yourself.

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It doesn't matter if I'm telling

you what my recommendation is.

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Going into a CRM is like holding a camera.

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It doesn't matter how good the camera

is, if it feels weird in your hand

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and you don't understand the layout,

you don't like the menus, you don't

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like where the buttons are, you are

going to feel a certain kind of way

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about going into that CRM and working

on your business every single day.

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Your CRM has to be a piece of software

that you enjoy going into work.

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If you log in every day and

you hate being in there.

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It is going to make it hard to

become a part of your business.

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All right, once you have all three of

those things done, it is now time to start

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migrating and setting up your new CRM.

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So the first thing that you're

going to want to do is connect

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all of your integrations.

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We're talking about your email accounts,

your calendar accounts, your payment

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accounts, and any other tool like

QuickBooks that your business may rely on

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that your new CRM has an integration for.

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I highly recommend that you get all

of these set up and that you make sure

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that they are working and verified

before you move on to getting any other

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assets into your brand new CRM account.

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The second part is the most time

heavy, and that is replicating

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and migrating all of your assets.

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Now, emails!

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are the one thing that it is going

to be simple to copy and paste.

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Nothing else is going to be

simple to copy and paste.

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You have to replicate the forms.

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You have to replicate the contracts.

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You have to get your lead

capture, modify all the questions,

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create your questionnaires.

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And when all of that is done, then you can

start building workflows that you may or

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may not have had inside of your old CRM.

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Now, workflows and workflow

steps and workflow triggers

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are not universal between CRMs.

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So, you may find that there are some

workflow steps, actions and triggers,

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that you had in your current CRM

that do not exist in your new CRM.

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You may find the opposite is true.

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You may find that you had your

workflow set up in a certain way in

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your current CRM, but that there is

going to be a better and improved way

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to set them up inside your new CRM.

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Now, whether or not that is true,

it's probably going to come in part

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four and part four is where you learn.

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your new CRM and how to

optimize your new systems.

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So there's a couple of ways

that you can learn a new CRM.

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Almost all of the CRM companies, Dubsado,

HoneyBook, Sprout Studio, 17 Hats,

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Tave, they all have a learning database.

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They all have a knowledge base

somewhere where you can read articles,

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you can watch how to videos there

or on YouTube, that will help you

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learn how to use your new CRM.

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The second part is you can consider hiring

a strategist like me to help you do the

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migration, but either way you should be

able to learn how your new CRM works and

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optimize it for your particular business.

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The second thing that you're going to

want to do is because you are investing

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all of this time and money, I do really

encourage you to take a hard look at your

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client experience now to see if there

are any opportunities to improve it.

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in the new system.

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So if it has been more than six

months since you have evaluated

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your email templates while you are

copying them into the new CRM, you

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might want to give them a facelift.

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You might want to update the language,

make sure that you don't need to

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write any new emails, include links

to new blog posts and new pages on

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your website that you've created

since you originally wrote that email.

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The second thing is I want you

to take this opportunity to

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refresh your portfolio pictures.

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If you are a photographer, if you created

your proposal or your booking workflow

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or your smart file a year and a half ago,

you probably have better pictures now.

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So use better pictures when you

create your new forms so that you

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are giving your client experience a

facelift at the same time that you

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are migrating into your new CRM.

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I want to make sure that everything

in your new CRM reflects your brand

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voice and your current portfolio style.

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Last, I want you to test everything.

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You should test it as a fake client.

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You should have some of your

buddies test it as fake clients.

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You should see every

single email that goes out.

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You should be looking at it in mobile

and on a desktop to make sure that

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everything is good going forward.

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So, once again, I just want to

remind you, I want no one to

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take the decision of moving from

one CRM to another one lightly.

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Make sure that you are looking at

everything for your business and these

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CRMs to ensure that if you do decide

to move, that it is a good decision for

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you and your business going forward.

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Now, if you would like any additional

tips and tricks, I have a few blog

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posts linked in the show notes that

will help you get my favorite CRMs

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set up in less than three hours.

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Alright, that's it for this episode.

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See you next time.