The Edge July/August 2025

BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS

their CRM their response time to clients has been the number one improvement as well as internal communications. “You can see that movement of when things move through different stages of the bidding process,” Richter says. “You can see when a potential client calls in and we have a lead. When that gets converted, then when that bid goes out, when we actually close the sale. There’s so much information that’s being shared without the verbal updates.” McCormick agrees that improving their CRM usage has boosted their ability to connect the dots from a lead to esti mating to client invoicing. “Connecting those dots was a chal lenge for us at the beginning because we only knew what we knew,” McCor mick says. “Since then, we’ve been work ing really hard to standardize a process. Name stakeholders that are responsible for certain phases within the entire sales process or job process supported by LMN, and that’s been a huge learning curve, but positive for us.” McCormick says he appreciates being able to track everything in one platform, making it less likely for leads to slip through the cracks.

Photos: Hidden Creek Landscaping

“Efficiency equals money; efficiency equals revenue. If you’re not using it to its full potential, then you’re probably also missing out on your customer service and your customer experience. If you’re not using your regular software to its fullest potential, you’re going to get lapped.” - Matthew Colson, owner of SouthView Pest and Turf Management

goals.” Colson says a feature he overlooked early on with Briostack was the texting feature. He says it allows them to man age all their scheduling with clients via text messages. “I let the technician in the field do that from his cell phone because it’s a personal touch from the technician of the custom er,” Colson says. “We have automated text as well. Once we book an appointment in the system, it automatically sends them a text the night before, just reminding them. They’ll get a scheduling text. They’ll get a reminder text the night before. Then they’ll get an on the way text from the technician the day of.” Colson says if he wasn’t using his CRM, he couldn’t run his business. He argues that other owners are leaving money on the table if they aren’t utilizing their CRM as efficiently as possible. “Efficiency equals money; efficiency equals revenue,” Colson says. “If you’re not using it to its full potential, then you’re probably also missing out on your customer service and your customer ex perience. If you’re not using your regular software to its fullest potential, you’re going to get lapped.” TE

“Job costing will become a lot more efficient and easy for us to do, as the hours and the information from the estimate get directly transferred over to the job,” McCormick says. “That will allow us quicker and easier tracking versus flipping between pages, notebooks and information here and there.” Johnson agrees one of the biggest aspects they overlooked in the past was visibility and using tasks to schedule follow-ups. “This visibility allows our meetings to be more productive and proactive, rather than just a reporting meeting,” Johnson says. Cromley says in the past, they weren’t tracking where their leads were coming from. “When you’re swamped, you don’t really think to ask about it, but when times are tough, then you do, which at that point is too late,” Cromley says. Hidden Creek is now utilizing more targeted marketing with this data and tracking their client communication as well. Cromley says they set reminders to follow up with clients. “We are still pretty early in the process of using the CRM, but I can tell you already it is having a positive impact, and I’m very excited for what the next six months will bring for us,” Cromley says. “It will completely help us define our 2026

 KEY TAKEAWAYS ■ Time and a lack of un

■ SOPs, top-down imple mentation and sharing the workload are the keys to true CRM optimization. ■ Taking the time to unlock the full potential of your CRM can improve your efficiency and customer communication.

derstanding can prevent your organization from accessing the full value of your CRM. Don’t be afraid to work with your soft ware provider or industry consultants for help.

32 The Edge // July/August 2025