Cathy Allington

Cathy Allington

You Grow Pty Ltd.
Cathy Allington is managing director of You Grow Pty Ltd., an international CRM company with simple but powerful CRM tools to allow small businesses to use the customer information they already have in their existing accounting or point-of-sales systems to grow their business by communicating with clients and prospects.
  • What is thing thing called, Love? or CRM??
    0 comments 2,070 reads
    Posted on 2009-11-25

    "CRM" is increasingly becoming a functionality which businesses seek. They STILL have little or no understanding as to what CRM means.
    There is, however, an increasing recognitiopn by SME's of the potential value of the "database".
    They have this "nagging feeling", that if they did something with this, it would be a good thing.

    That is the general understanding of CRM.

    So let's take a scenario where you - beacause you consult in CRM - have been lucky enough to gain a new client - you may or may not have sold or implemented the software,

    What is the first thing you are going to recommend to your new client, so that theyhave a chance of maximising their CRM initiatives?

    Read More »
  • A CRM System for SMEs: You Can Get Big Benefits Without Spending the Big Bucks
    0 comments 4,399 reads
    Posted on 2007-06-25

    Some years ago, I was a keynote speaker for a Direct Marketing Association conference. The organizers had speakers with excellent theoretical knowledge on how to write campaigns, rules for segmenting a database and understanding the key customer touch-points, but they realized they were lacking expertise on what systems people could actually use to enable this. My topic was comparing a mid-priced and low-priced CRM system and explaining when each would be relevant. An executive with a well-known Australian winery came to me for some advice.

    The winery dealt with distributors and media in 26 countries, and each played a role in promoting and selling the company's wines internationally. The company was not just renowned for its wine but also for its restaurant, events and food and winery tours. Within these two broad categories, the winery needed to communicate different news to different types of people. If the winery was marketing to the United States, then only U.S. media...

    Read More »
  • How Much "Customer Insight" Do You Need To "Lose Sight" of the Customer?
    0 comments 2,410 reads
    Posted on 2007-03-07

    You don’t need, and can’t afford, to get bogged down in customer data – it’s about putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, and using the information you already have.
    Many years ago when I started my CRM consultancy and gained one of my first clients, my starting point was to take the existing data collection forms the firm’s salespeople used and add in every single question I could think of about the customer. I took their form from 1 page, to 4 pages! It was an absolute work of art – trust me!!

    Two key things happened – thankfully.
    1. None of the salespeople used the form. (It was far too complicated and they could see no relevance to their job – which was to sell houses. They could not see how taking all that extra time would benefit them.)
    2. The company had no way of utilising the data even if they had!

    It was a great experience to learn. I lost sight of the customer through too much “insight”.

    I went back to their one page form...

    Read More »
  • What the Heck Is CRM?
    0 comments 2,486 reads
    Posted on 2007-02-13

    So you're an SME, and you need or want to look at this buzzword that is called CRM? There has been much written and discussed about the theory of CRM—or Customer Relationship Management. But what about the "practice"? What is it, and how do you actually implement it and combine the theoretical "feel good" talk with practical actions which work and achieve results?

    First, we need to understand what CRM actually is.

    CRM is simply a method of selling products and services by recognizing the value in building a relationship with clients and prospects. In an era of increasing customer skepticism and education, it is quite simply the only common sense way to sell within an increasingly sophisticated marketplace.

    The days of the hard sell are dead. You saw what happened to Gordon Gekko with his "Greed is good". Customers today are simply too smart and too educated to be "conned" or "sold". The key is to make them want to buy—from you!...

    Read More »
All posts by Cathy Allington     Connect:
  • rss
Loading

Top 10 Authors of 2011

  1. Stan Phelps, Synergy Events
  2. Dave Brock, Partners In EXCELLENCE
  3. Nick Stamoulis, Brick Marketing
  4. Cheryl Hanna, Service Untitled
  5. Matt Heinz, Heinz Marketing Inc
  6. Bob Thompson, CustomerThink Corp.
  7. Maz Iqbal, Dynamica Consulting Group
  8. Bob Apollo, Inflexion-Point
  9. Jacob Morgan, Chess Media Group
  10. Jesse Noyes, Eloqua

More About Top Authors »