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CRM Strategy for Consulting Firms

Get the most from your consulting firm CRM


What is a CRM strategy for consulting firms?

Your consulting firm is making headway and adding clients…great. It’s time for a CRM that will allow you to operate your firm efficiently and continue to grow. It’s vital for consulting firms to track leads, clients, and partners to ensure you are providing value and maintaining your relationships. Staying on top of your team and clients every day is what helps you grow revenue.

Whether you provide consulting services in legal, financial, business growth, or any other area, you’ll want to add new clients and grow your business. With your CRM in place, it’s time to create a strategy to maximize your CRM investment. 

Consulting firms can also take advantage of a CRM partner program where they can refer businesses to a CRM provider and operate a CRM and marketing automation platform for clients. Insightly’s partner program can be a revenue generator for your firm.

How does a CRM strategy for consulting help your business?

With a CRM strategy in place, you’ll be able to define business objectives and determine target audiences. You’ll select communication channels, set up KPIs (key performance indicators), and be able to continuously monitor your progress. An additional area of focus can be mapping customer journeys via CRM touchpoints and then evaluating those journeys to seek ways to improve them. Finding even a few small ways to improve your journeys can have a big impact on your closed-won percentages and, therefore, hit directly on the bottom line. 

CRM strategy for consulting firms

A CRM strategy is vital for consulting firms to navigate the competitive and client-centric consulting industry successfully. A well-crafted strategy for your CRM for consulting firms can help streamline their operations, enhance client engagement, and drive business growth. Here’s an in-depth look at how a CRM strategy for consulting firms can take your firm to the next level:

Client Relationship Management: Consulting firms heavily rely on their client relationships. CRM enables these firms to manage and nurture these relationships effectively. Consultants can provide more personalized and responsive services by centralizing client data, including project history, communication logs, and client preferences. This ensures that clients receive the attention and expertise they require throughout the consulting engagement.

Lead Management: Consulting firms must generate leads to survive and grow. They do this through various channels, such as referrals, networking events, and digital marketing. A CRM system allows firms to efficiently capture and track these leads. Consulting firms can prioritize leads and allocate resources effectively through lead scoring and automated lead routing, resulting in improved conversion rates and revenue.

Proposal and Engagement Management: The consulting proposal process can be complex, involving multiple stakeholders and iterations. CRM tools can streamline this process by automating proposal generation, tracking proposal status, and managing client engagement timelines. This saves time and ensures that clients receive timely and accurate proposals, improving the overall client experience.

Communication and Collaboration: Effective communication and collaboration are key to successful consulting engagements. CRM systems provide a platform for consultants to collaborate on projects, share client-related information, and track progress. This fosters transparency, reduces miscommunication, and ensures that consultants work cohesively to deliver high-quality services. Using custom fields or custom objects can personalize the CRM to your business. Simply taking notes and placing them in the CRM is a simple way to ensure all parties in your organization have access to the same client information. 

Project Management: Consulting firms can use CRM software to manage projects efficiently. They can track project milestones, budgets, and resource allocation. This helps ensure that consulting projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the client’s satisfaction, enhancing client retention and referrals. In Insightly CRM, for example, a closed won deal can be turned into a project within the system and then managed with the same familiar interface. All details of the deal come over with the project, so it’s easy for the services team to see the progression of the buyer’s journey and better understand the clients’ motivations and needs. 

Reporting and Analytics: CRM systems offer robust reporting and analytics capabilities. Consulting firms can monitor key performance metrics such as client satisfaction, project profitability, and consultant utilization rates. By analyzing this data, firms can make data-driven decisions to improve their operations, enhance client services, and refine their marketing strategies.

Marketing and Business Development: CRM tools can support consulting firms in their marketing and business development efforts. Consultants can segment their client database to target specific industries or regions for marketing campaigns. CRM also helps track the success of marketing initiatives, allowing firms to allocate resources to the most effective strategies. By further integrating with a marketing automation platform, firms can run nurture campaigns, build landing pages, and dynamically segment lists for even more personalized marketing campaigns.

Knowledge Management: Consulting firms thrive on knowledge and expertise. CRM systems can store and organize intellectual capital, best practices, and industry-specific knowledge. This enables consultants to access relevant information quickly, share insights, and continuously improve their consulting services.

CRM software for consulting firms is helpful when seeking to strengthen client relationships, streamline operations, and drive business growth. By implementing a well-structured CRM strategy, these firms can efficiently organize and prioritize leads, optimize client data, improve proposal and project processes, and deliver exceptional consulting services. In the competitive consulting industry, a robust CRM strategy can be a critical differentiator that helps consulting firms thrive and build lasting client partnerships.

Insightly CRM for consulting firms 

Your relationships are the lifeblood of your business, and your consulting firm solves unique challenges for your client base. You can use the above guidelines to help you develop a CRM strategy that will help you achieve your goals, whether that be business growth, client expansion, additional locations, more consultants and services, or the like. Insightly is a modern, affordable CRM that consulting firms love. It’s easy to customize your consulting firm’s CRM strategy and integrate your CRM with the rest of your tech stack. Try a personalized demo today. Not ready to talk to a human? No worries! Watch a demo on demand, or just jump right in with a free trial.