The Operational Antidote: Many creative solopreneurs treat client management as a secondary task, burying critical follow-ups in endless email threads and disorganised desktop notes. Running a premium brand photography business requires a streamlined backend that protects customer trust and ensures no revenue opportunity slips through the cracks.
- This week, we unpack how an integrated customer relationship management database acts as an automated member of your staff, handling mundane admin while positioning you as a highly professional partner.
- We explore the limitations of niche, trade-specific tracking software that can inadvertently lock your business into a creative box as it matures.
- Discover how a flexible platform allows you to customize data fields to track specific sectors, enabling powerful list segmentation that completely changes how you talk to different types of clients.
- Finally, the discussion targets advanced data analytics features, including smart tracking tools that reveal hidden client behaviors. By identifying exactly what a lead is focused on before you pitch, you can instantly target your sales calls with pinpoint precision. We also cover how next-generation AI enrichment tools can audit public records automatically, flagging operational warning signs and pre-qualifying leads before they ever touch your calendar.
00:00.00
Sam Hollis
We normally do about 25 minutes-ish, kind of 20, 25.
This week, we unpack how an integrated customer relationship management database acts as an automated member of your staff, handling mundane admin while positioning you as a highly professional partner.
We explore the limitations of niche, trade-specific tracking software that can inadvertently lock your business into a creative box as it matures.
Discover how a flexible platform allows you to customize data fields to track specific sectors, enabling powerful list segmentation that completely changes how you talk to different types of clients.
This week, we unpack how an integrated customer relationship management database acts as an automated member of your staff, handling mundane admin while positioning you as a highly professional partner.
We explore the limitations of niche, trade-specific tracking software that can inadvertently lock your business into a creative box as it matures.
Discover how a flexible platform allows you to customize data fields to track specific sectors, enabling powerful list segmentation that completely changes how you talk to different types of clients.
00:02.81
Jamie McAnsh
Wicked.
00:03.80
Sam Hollis
Yeah, about that.
00:04.59
Jamie McAnsh
It’s rock and roll.
00:09.02
Sam Hollis
Hello listeners, welcome to the commercial photography podcast and we’ve got lots of new listeners at the moment so welcome to all our new listeners. It’s lovely to have you with us and today i am joined by Jamie McCanch from Refine IQ and an internationally renowned motivational speaker, adventurer and all sorts more.
00:28.60
Sam Hollis
Hello Jamie, welcome to the show.
00:30.81
Jamie McAnsh
Hi, how are you Sam? And it’s so lovely to see you again. feels like it’s been way too long since me and you actually yeah got together for a good old chat.
00:40.02
Sam Hollis
It has. It was definitely a good while ago. I was in Wales making videos with you.
00:45.18
Jamie McAnsh
yeah Yeah, for my podcast.
00:47.48
Sam Hollis
That was it.
00:48.22
Jamie McAnsh
And here we are. ah Yeah, so yeah thank you so much for having me, mate, as a guest. it’s It’s great to talk about stuff that I’m really passionate about.
00:55.67
Sam Hollis
Excellent. So the reason um I asked Jamie to join us on the show is because he is a CRM expert. And although um some people might think that’s just kind of boring background stuff, this can make a massive difference to your business. So I think we’ll start from the real basics, Jamie.
01:12.44
Sam Hollis
What is a CRM? What does it do?
01:15.25
Jamie McAnsh
Brilliant. CRM stands for a Customer Relations Management System or Client Relations Management System. it depends how you how you want to word it. um And basically what it does it supports you as an organization to continually manage the relationship that you have with your clients or prospective clients. ah It supports you with task management. It supports you with um opportunities, leads, pipelines. And it can be as complex or as simplistic as you want. um And effectively, you know a lot of people use things like
01:55.35
Jamie McAnsh
ah databases or Excel spreadsheets, which effectively is exactly the same thing. The reason why people would specifically use a CRM system is because of its automotive capabilities, but also its compliancy with data protection.
02:15.35
Sam Hollis
Excellent. Sounds good. and And for me, I find it’s just really simple to remind things. So an Excel spreadsheet is great. But if someone says, oh, well, I’m not ready for that, come back in six months, there’s no way I’m going to remember that. Well, if I pop that in my CRM, I know in six months I’m going to get told to email them back.
02:30.13
Jamie McAnsh
And you can also get a reminder in six months. So it will, it’s absolutely that. So you can put a task, need to speak to this person in six months time, and it will create a task for you with a reminder. It’ll email you then to connect with that person in six months. And you know what? Like, we’re all busy people and business running a business is a busy industry, especially if you are a solopreneur. And I think the photography industry, which is obviously what the the subject this podcast is about, is particularly busy. um You know, there’s so many people think that photography is just about taking a photograph. But it’s it’s actually, it’s not. It’s about the editing. It’s about the compiling. It’s about meeting the client’s expectations and needs.
03:14.65
Jamie McAnsh
And you can’t physically remember everything all of the time, um that no matter how good your memory is. And what a CRM system can do is it can put all of that information, including email chains, um note taking, everything, it can put it all into one place. So instead of you then trailing through reams of of emails or trailing through reams of notes, however your system is it is, you can just click on that person, find everything to do with them,
03:46.94
Jamie McAnsh
Find any associated businesses if that’s part of the process. And you now have an instant connection. And to best off, certainly with the CRM system that I have become a partner of, which is HubSpot, there’s also another product called AI Breeze. So you can literally ask AI Breeze to give you a full summary of that client. And it will just literally log in, find all the information and then reel it back to you in audio, a full sort of summary of the client that you are currently looking to work with.
04:21.78
Sam Hollis
Stunning. And then, that I mean, linked to that, the thing I find so useful as well is when the phone rings and somebody says, hi, it’s John. And you’re like, John, John, John, John. And you’re like, CRM, bang, bang, bang. And suddenly, bang, you can see the last call you had with them. You can see what you’ve been talking about. You can see that six months ago, you offered them a photo shoot and then they turned it down and they’re suddenly coming back to it. And there’s, yeah, and there’s no way you are. Certainly, I caught maybe some people going, I can’t remember that stuff. But as soon as you got the CRM, it’s like, bang, you’re there. It’s straight back.
04:51.10
Jamie McAnsh
Absolutely. And yeah the other thing that you can do, because so HubSpot creates a customer ID, and I always think that that’s really um professionally looking feature. So you can then, if you have got, you know,
05:06.97
Jamie McAnsh
five John Smiths, you can say, oh, John, nop on what is your, and you can do some level of GDPR compliancy or some level of, um you know identification or what, or you could just go, John, what’s your customer reference number?
05:21.72
Jamie McAnsh
And bang, you know, you’ve got the right person.
05:21.88
Sam Hollis
yay
05:25.07
Jamie McAnsh
It’s nice and professional. There’s no mixing up any clients. And I use the word John Smith because it’s actually probably one of the most common names out there So it is a kind of paint you know there’s a possibility that that could happen.
05:38.74
Sam Hollis
Okay, that makes sense. So, i mean, a lot of photographers are using CRMs and finding them really useful. So with CRMs in general, what are those things that most a lot of people don’t know is there, but actually are really useful and kind of can really make a difference to people?
05:54.62
Jamie McAnsh
I think task management and um and connectivity is probably the the one thing that people don’t think about when they think of a CRM. um So, for example, you know you you can you can list your tasks and then you can tick those tasks off one by one.
06:11.25
Jamie McAnsh
You can raise tickets within ah CRM as well.
06:11.81
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
06:15.09
Jamie McAnsh
So I’m going to hone in now on HubSpot because obviously that’s what I’m a partner of There are other CRM systems out there that are specific for certain trades. I genuinely believe that if something is specific for a certain trade, then what’s happened is it’s niched. So that then almost bookmarks you into that particular industry or that particular CRM, where something like HubSpot is completely, ah what’s the word?
06:44.95
Jamie McAnsh
um You customize customizable.
06:47.17
Sam Hollis
Sorry, it’s more flexible.
06:48.62
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
06:48.89
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
06:48.96
Jamie McAnsh
Customizable, flexible. i was there. These are the of ways I’m looking for. You can build things that you want. You can add the properties that you’re going to need specifically for your business. So that’s something that a lot of people don’t know.
06:58.62
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So if… So if you get like a photography specific CRM, there probably, and there definitely are quite a few, what you were saying is probably if you start out, they seem amazing as they seem just set up for photographers. So they do exactly what you want. But as your business develops and you think maybe I want to do things a bit differently and I’m going to go down that slightly flexible route and I’m going to do things in a different way.
07:19.61
Sam Hollis
If you’ve got HubSpot, it takes a bit of setting up at the start but you can then do that and do do things how you want but if you’re with like a specific photography one you’re kind of locked into the way they think a photographer should have their systems
07:33.27
Jamie McAnsh
Absolutely. And then the other thing with HubSpot is you can segmentate your client lists. So you can you can put them in. so for example, this is a commercial shoot.
07:44.70
Jamie McAnsh
This is a wedding shoot. This is a personal branding shoot.
07:46.33
Sam Hollis
right
07:47.90
Jamie McAnsh
This is a storytelling shoot. This is a product shoot. You can segment them out. And the reason why I think that that is probably one of the best features of all of it is you can communicate with each person individually. So if for example, if you are working with a building company, you can put them in a trade i segment.
08:10.33
Jamie McAnsh
And if you’re talking to a lawyer, you can put them in a business services segment. Now, why is that important? Because you will communicate differently with a builder than you will with a lawyer.
08:21.14
Jamie McAnsh
And I think that fundamental level of language shift is what puts any business owner ahead of their competition.
08:21.39
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
08:30.18
Jamie McAnsh
If you know how to talk to a builder and a lawyer who are realms apart, right? They are completely different genres of people. They’re different types of people, right?
08:40.98
Jamie McAnsh
And they communicate in different ways. The one does not like jargon. The one likes everything laid out, nice and simple. so that they can understand what they’re talking about. And the other one, the more jargon, the better.
08:53.59
Jamie McAnsh
They love everything, DAB acronyms.
08:54.09
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
08:56.15
Jamie McAnsh
And if you try and communicate with a builder the same way as a lawyer, the builder will switch off to you. But if you try and communicate with the lawyer the same way as you communicate with a builder, the lawyer the lawyer will switch off to you. So it’s about speaking to the right audience at the right time in the right language. And CRMs allow you to do that, where, again, a spreadsheet doesn’t.
09:16.66
Jamie McAnsh
You can also put in documentation. So you can upload a document onto a product like HubSpot. And this is a real key one. So A, that can be used as data capture.
09:27.34
Jamie McAnsh
So if you’ve got a lost leader or a skill sheet or something, you know, a top 10, one of the, you know, we’ve all got these lost leader documents, free downloads.
09:34.39
Sam Hollis
Oh, the free download, the your free download type thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
09:37.34
Jamie McAnsh
you can You can embed them into your HubSpot system. And then when your prospect clicks on it, you’re then storing that person into your CRM system. But this is where it gets really better is you can then identify how long that person spent to the second on each page of that document.
09:46.82
Sam Hollis
Wow.
09:56.82
Jamie McAnsh
And where that comes in useful is if you’ve got a multi-document or a multi-brochure, and again, we’re going to try and hone this onto photography. So, you know, you’ve got commercial photography, ah personal branding, product branding. If they spend 30 seconds on the product branding and only two seconds on the other two, you know that they are potentially more interested in the product branding, which means you can then communicate with them predominantly around product branding.
10:15.42
Sam Hollis
And you know where to target. Yeah.
10:22.69
Jamie McAnsh
So it gives you, it’s all about information and knowledge is key. And if you’ve got us a single source of knowledge, then it becomes an oracle and you can You and Marcus, your your co-host on this show, is a prime example. Something like HubSpot, you can communicate with each other ah on the other side of the world.
10:46.58
Jamie McAnsh
Everything you put in is instantly updated so that there’s no copies. And this is where a lot of businesses go wrong.
10:53.14
Sam Hollis
Yeah, yeah.
10:53.85
Jamie McAnsh
When there’s more than one person involved, All of a sudden, spreadsheets get duplicated, duplications get missed, and missed information.
10:59.07
Sam Hollis
Yeah, and that’s a disaster, isn’t it? Yeah.
11:02.68
Jamie McAnsh
What missed information causes is lack of client or customer trust. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a photographer, a motivational speaker, or a business consultant. If you lose trust, you lose the client.
11:17.21
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So you talk about talking to those different things. So we talk a lot on the show about email marketing. um It’s a great way to go for photographers. So a lot of CRMs, they have the email marketing built in.
11:28.77
Sam Hollis
So you don’t then need MailChimp or MailerLite or whatever. Yeah.
11:32.45
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
11:33.27
Sam Hollis
yeah
11:33.62
Jamie McAnsh
And HubSpot is no different. ah I like to take a little bit of a different approach when I’m talking to people about marketing. I always like the terminology. There’s two types of marketing. There’s atom bomb marketing, and then there’s sniper marketing.
11:50.26
Jamie McAnsh
And MailerLite has its place. ah It’s called Brevo now. It’s been bought out, but it has its place. And it’s great for AtomBomb marketing, where basically you you’re you’re throwing out a load of information and hoping that someone will connect to it.
12:10.58
Jamie McAnsh
Sniper marketing is when you’ve identified a potential client and then you’re honing in on that client.
12:17.43
Sam Hollis
right yeah
12:17.74
Jamie McAnsh
HubSpot is really good for that level of marketing. So you can do the atom bomb stuff if you wanted to, but then once you get them into that funnel, you can really hone in your approach, your contact, your communication with that person in order to then get them over the line.
12:36.90
Jamie McAnsh
Photography is also all about personal ah image. So, for example, one photographer is very different to another. So it’s all about style. And what you want to be trying to do when you communicate with people is have a flexible way of communicating your style, because that is your USP. So it’s, again, very, very good at that. You can communicate within your style. You can show documentation of yeah know of how your how you work and operate with the client.
13:08.54
Jamie McAnsh
The other thing as well is so much is going online now. And it’s a really good way of capturing information and putting the client in control. So one of the things that HubSpot can do is you can create online forms.
13:23.32
Jamie McAnsh
You can send that online form.
13:24.06
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:25.35
Jamie McAnsh
Your contact page is prime example that, but you can actually have onboarding forms embed into your HubSpot CRM system. Send that to the client. When you set that up, you can actually trigger it so that it remembers the client information.
13:39.58
Jamie McAnsh
So if they come back to it, they can you know they can go through and and keep coming back and it’ll will automatically populate information within the form.
13:39.70
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:47.19
Sam Hollis
So they can kind of tweak it as they go, as time goes on.
13:49.62
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah, but it’s really good way. You can you can even get them to upload ah files. So for example, if they’ve got something, a document they want to show you, or brand guidelines, prime example, you can ask them for the brand guidelines.
14:04.86
Jamie McAnsh
That document is then stored automatically inside their HubSpot profile. So you’re not then researching and then having to save and then hoping that you’ve saved it or then trying to find it because you put it somewhere.
14:16.74
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
14:19.13
Jamie McAnsh
And so it’s a really good system for that. The other thing that HubSpot is also really good for, and again, around brand and certainly around photography specifically, when you send a photographer a client a folder,
14:36.53
Jamie McAnsh
with URL number, a URL on it, for them to view photos, which a lot of photographers do now, you can actually store that yeah URL within inside the HubSpot system.
14:41.40
Sam Hollis
a
14:45.98
Jamie McAnsh
And then when you click it, it opens it up straight away, which means at any point, if the client then asks, even in six months’ time, I’ve lost that link, you can just no problem, I’ll send it over to you now, and you can just click, click, click, gone.
14:56.21
Sam Hollis
you’ve got it there. Yeah.
14:59.38
Jamie McAnsh
And that makes life so much easier.
15:03.21
Sam Hollis
Yeah, sounds a lot of keeping, yeah, keeping tidy and keeping organized and saving time. So obviously CRMs come at a cost. now Now, correct me if I’m wrong, my vague understanding of HubSpot and cost is there’s a free version and you can do a lot with the free version.
15:17.69
Sam Hollis
And then there’s like a starter version, which is kind of affordable for small businesses. Correct me if wrong, kind of 20 quidish a month.
15:24.15
Jamie McAnsh
yeah Yep, yep.
15:24.29
Sam Hollis
And then suddenly there’s a jump to like the enterprise, which is like 800 quid a month, which for, you know, most photography business and stuff is just, out of the question. Am I right there? And can you kind of talk us through the levels a little bit?
15:35.01
Jamie McAnsh
Absolutely spot on. So you’ve got your free version, which, and funny enough, actually, I ran a networking business. as As you know, we met through that.
15:42.84
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
15:43.48
Jamie McAnsh
And I stored all that information within the network. And I had the free version of HubSpot for the whole time of having that business because it’s all I needed, right?
15:49.82
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s what I’m running.
15:53.24
Jamie McAnsh
Then there’s the starter pack, which is, you’re absolutely right, between 15 and 20 pound a month, depending on, you’re on the currency at the time, right?
15:53.78
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
16:03.20
Jamie McAnsh
But you’re looking at 15 quid a month is is is ah is a fairly average sort of fee. ah And then you go right up to the pro and enterprise version, which is like 1,500 pound a month.
16:15.65
Jamie McAnsh
There’s very few businesses that are solopreneurs or service providers that go up to that level.
16:24.63
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
16:25.79
Jamie McAnsh
We’re 15 pound a month. You will be surprised what you can do for 15 pound a month. Like you can, you’ve got a thousand marketing contacts. You can also buy extra marketing contacts as well.
16:38.14
Jamie McAnsh
So you can, yeah.
16:38.71
Sam Hollis
So just to clarify, so like, for example, my CRM, it just every email that is sent to me gets bugged in there.
16:40.44
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
16:44.74
Sam Hollis
So there’s thousands and thousands of people in there.
16:45.53
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
16:47.42
Sam Hollis
But when you say marketing contacts, is that effectively like your mailing list? So it’s not everybody who you talk to, it’s those people you can send kind of marketing emails.
16:51.65
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
16:54.39
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah, because not everybody within your CRM system is a marketing contact.
16:54.86
Sam Hollis
to
16:58.78
Jamie McAnsh
ah
16:58.88
Sam Hollis
That’s it. You know, your mum emails you at work, don’t they? Your accountant does. You’re not going to send them marketing emails.
17:02.55
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah, exactly. Your accountant is a really good example of that. And again, you can segment that out. So you can then start marketing. And the thing is, when you market to people, so many people think that if you throw a ne enough at the wall, something will stick.
17:17.22
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
17:17.14
Jamie McAnsh
And actually, that doesn’t work so well now.
17:17.32
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
17:19.10
Jamie McAnsh
You you need to be, ah you know, people want to be sold to. They don’t want to be sold out. and And people want to feel the experience. People want to know that actually they’re valued as a client, not just another number, just not a tick box exercise.
17:32.66
Jamie McAnsh
And so that is, again, you can segment it out, but you’re absolutely right. So the marketing contact is people that are actually in your marketing funnel.
17:43.78
Jamie McAnsh
So, for example, your newsletter or your, you know, ah updates, something like that, that you would cause a marketing contact.
17:46.65
Sam Hollis
yeah
17:51.98
Jamie McAnsh
GDPR compliancy now has honed in so tightly that yeah you you you can’t do that I own 52,000 contacts. I’m going to send them everything because a you’ll get battered from compliancy.
18:03.19
Sam Hollis
Yeah,
18:08.34
Jamie McAnsh
B, you’ll very shortly get blacklisted. C, you’ll get to the point where your email you can’t even email your mother because your email has got that many blocks and and hard bounces on it.
18:17.69
Sam Hollis
yeah. yeah
18:20.65
Jamie McAnsh
So you don’t want to do that. That’s the truth.
18:23.29
Sam Hollis
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. sorry, I distracted you from what the original question was, which was, what what are you getting for the kind of that 15 quid a month, which was the 1,000 quid, sorry, my fault in tally.
18:29.86
Jamie McAnsh
Oh, yeah, sorry. 50%. if £15 a month gives you almost everything ah except for your social um like media kind of plugins. You don’t get that. You can have two pipelines, um so you know to which to be honest with you, two pipelines, again, for most businesses are relatively effective.
18:56.38
Jamie McAnsh
ah You can have multiple properties. You can have…
19:03.01
Jamie McAnsh
1,500 active segments. Now, an active segment is if you create a rule, it will add into that segment. So, for example, the property says, is this client in London, yes, then it will go into a segment of London clients, for example.
19:24.54
Jamie McAnsh
You can have 1,500 of those, but you can have unlimited static lists.
19:25.08
Sam Hollis
OK.
19:30.29
Jamie McAnsh
Now, a static list is you select a group of people and you add them to that list. The active list, they can come on and come off. So if they move from London to Warwick and you change the address, it will come off the London list or go on to the Warwick list.
19:42.93
Sam Hollis
Yeah. OK.
19:48.31
Jamie McAnsh
So you can then, that’s an activist. So actively, it actively moves. Static is you’re on the list and that’s the end of that. You can either put people on it or you can take people off it But some you can get unlimited static lists, unlimited properties, two pipelines, unlimited tasks.
20:04.95
Jamie McAnsh
ah You can have unlimited view only ah users. So for example, ah if if I was on your system as a partner and I needed to view certain files or certain tasks, I could view them but can’t edit anything.
20:21.96
Jamie McAnsh
So that’s a really useful tool.
20:22.26
Sam Hollis
okay okay
20:24.36
Jamie McAnsh
So it’s a very in-depth product. you can and you You can list unlimited amounts of documents and files and and all of that sort of stuff, connections, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s very broad and it’s very multifaceted, which is what I love about it. You can make it very complicated and you can make it very simple.
20:47.38
Jamie McAnsh
I like to go for the let’s make it very simple process. So let’s look at what is you’re trying to achieve and let’s make it as basic as possible to that. Because I think if something is simple, easy to use, it gets used.
21:01.37
Jamie McAnsh
If it’s complicated and process overly process driven, you’ll stop using it.
21:01.50
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
21:07.83
Sam Hollis
Okay. And then how to how easy he does it integrate with stuff? So obviously we’re talking about your email wants to go in and out. Maybe you want to link to your accounting system because, you know, once you’ve got a client, you want to invoice them. There’s things like LinkedIn and WhatsApp. And there’s also now kind of AI, you know, people are on Claude. They’re trying to integrate their systems together and get places like Claude to do stuff for them. And that would have be helpful if, you know, it could include the CRM. um How easy is that kind of linking other systems in and getting them to work?
21:36.31
Jamie McAnsh
Super easy. You just go over to the user dashboard. You then click on integrations and then you can just add So for example, I use and another automation platform, which it links in automatically.
21:49.83
Jamie McAnsh
i use WordPress, which my website’s built on.
21:52.08
Sam Hollis
Thank you.
21:52.87
Jamie McAnsh
So my my contact form is actually a HubSpot form that’s embedded into the site. And it’s literally, you just go onto to your WordPress, click ah HubSpot plugin, which is already built in.
22:05.45
Jamie McAnsh
And then when you go add form, it will so it’ll give you an option of what form it is you want to put onto that page.
22:11.32
Sam Hollis
ah You don’t even have to do that.
22:11.90
Jamie McAnsh
So create landing pages.
22:12.56
Sam Hollis
So I’ve done it the other way where I’ve got a pre-built form in WordPress. I put the Hubpot plug in and it just automatically picks up every time someone fills in a form. If you built it first, it’s really simple.
22:22.84
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah, it it’s just so easy to do and it is literally just plug and play. And HubSpot, because HubSpot is you know there that hubspot and Salesforce are the two biggest CRM systems globally, right?
22:35.96
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
22:36.02
Jamie McAnsh
So they are constantly in that combatant process of the top ranking space. And because of that, it’s like HubSpot is now like Facebook, LinkedIn.
22:48.22
Jamie McAnsh
You know you you can connect your Instagram account to almost anything you want. You can connect your LinkedIn account to almost anything. Well, LinkedIn is not so much, but you can connect your Facebook account to almost anything you want.
22:58.62
Jamie McAnsh
And HubSpot is no different. You can plug it in now to almost anything you want.
23:01.46
Sam Hollis
yay
23:02.94
Jamie McAnsh
And I’ve used it with my, use Xero as my CRM system, which again, Xero, QuickBooks, they’re the two high flying competitors. You know, Xero plugs into almost anything and Hussbot does the same.
23:14.96
Jamie McAnsh
So you can connect the two together. You can run, you know, run your invoice in and it will take out information, send, create the invoice. So now all of a sudden you can invoice people on your phone, on the road, you know, done, done, done.
23:28.24
Jamie McAnsh
You do the job, bang, send the invoice. It’s so much quicker.
23:31.96
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Sounds amazing. Um, and then it’s the kind of inbuilt, you said there was AI within there, so you can connect externally, but it does also have kind of help within there where you can kind of, you know, ask it, Oh, how do we do that? Or can you set that up for me? That sort of thing.
23:46.75
Jamie McAnsh
AI Breeze is just one of the, it’s the next best thing since the person who discovered sliced bread. It’s absolutely phenomenal. So you can also client enrich. So say, for example, Sam, you were in my CRM system, which by the way, you are.
23:59.36
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
24:00.65
Jamie McAnsh
Okay. But if I wanted to then enrich your contact, I can ask AI Breeze to research you. So I could say, research Sam Hollis.
24:10.93
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
24:13.14
Jamie McAnsh
This is the information I’m looking for. Find me this information, find And will actually search the web on all public records.
24:18.71
Sam Hollis
Wow.
24:20.19
Jamie McAnsh
It would bring in your last year’s profit margins if you’re in company’s house. It will extract that information. It will put in there. So now all of a sudden, you can then hone in.
24:30.85
Jamie McAnsh
So for a photography company, you want to know that this person is legitimate. You can research them and enrich their profile as well. So it’s almost like a client research project, but it’s called customer enrichment.
24:39.82
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
24:44.66
Sam Hollis
Yeah, um and that research is so important, just a complete sideline. i Somebody approached me a while ago, wanted some website work. And I said, yeah, something made me a little bit suspicious. So then I i did it personally, but it’s worth knowing, you know, I look on a company’s house and it’s like,
25:02.20
Sam Hollis
They had a few listings that didn’t quite add up, put it into AI to do that research. And it came back going, yeah, this guy’s a band director. But actually, it came, yeah, this guy’s a band director. He’s had four different bankrupt companies.
25:14.46
Sam Hollis
He never pays anybody afterwards. Yeah, that AI research dug all that out straight away.
25:18.62
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah, absolutely. and And that’s what you want. you know you you You want the red flags there to protect yourself and a lot of CRM systems now, but certainly HubSpot, Breeze.
25:24.74
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
25:29.44
Jamie McAnsh
HubSpot, AI Breeze, I’ve become ah a Breeze partner as well. So I had to go through accreditation to become accreditation of HubSpot.
25:36.31
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
25:37.34
Jamie McAnsh
And AI Breeze embedment is one of the accreditations I had to take. And i blue it blew, absolutely blew my head off. Some of the courses for HubSpot accreditation are 12 hours long.
25:50.51
Jamie McAnsh
i mean they’re not you know yeah They’re not take a quick you know tick test.
25:55.22
Sam Hollis
yeah
25:55.27
Jamie McAnsh
They are in depth. and They don’t just allow anybody to become a partner. You have to really work at it. because The system is incredibly um advanced stuff.
26:06.61
Jamie McAnsh
And and again one of the biggest questions that I get is, yeah, but I’m a new solopreneur, so I don’t really need a CRM system, do I? And I’ve even had a photographer yeah, but I’m just a photographer. I don’t really need a CRM system.
26:17.09
Jamie McAnsh
right Well, first off, you’re not just a photographer.
26:19.38
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
26:19.37
Jamie McAnsh
You are a person that supplies a professional service. And if you supply a professional service, you need to have a professional background. And a CRM system if done right with automation, is as valuable as employing a member of staff.
26:36.02
Jamie McAnsh
Because that person is doing all of the mundane tasks that need to be done, but doesn’t need to be done by a human being, which A, saves you money. B, then makes you money.
26:47.86
Jamie McAnsh
And C, makes you look like a fashion the professional outfit that you are portraying to be. And we are all portraying to be a professional concern because that is what clients want to work with.
27:00.22
Jamie McAnsh
So yes,
27:00.70
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
27:01.50
Jamie McAnsh
A CRM is important. um ah People say to me, when should I have a CRM? And I actually say, day one.
27:07.90
Sam Hollis
yeah
27:08.18
Jamie McAnsh
When you start your business, make sure you’ve got a CRM in place, because then you start off as you need to go on, because there’s nothing worse than having to clean data when actually your CRM system can do that for you automatically through the segmentation process.
27:23.72
Jamie McAnsh
so
27:24.12
Sam Hollis
That’s it.
27:24.60
Jamie McAnsh
right at day one is my personal advice. And you can do it for free. HubSpot is free. So there’s no cost to you.
27:29.56
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
27:30.76
Jamie McAnsh
Just go down a deep dive when you’ve plenty of time and figure it all out. Or you can partner up with someone like me and I can help you.
27:38.19
Sam Hollis
That’s it. I mean, and the other way to start the way I started it was really simple because I thought, my God, it’s going to faff. I’ve got to import all this data. And actually, I did one simple thing. I connected it to my email. And so every email that comes in goes in HubSpot.
27:48.37
Jamie McAnsh
Yeah.
27:50.14
Sam Hollis
And so… ah you know couple months later most of my contacts are there I did nothing I didn’t import a single person and okay the past conversations weren’t in there but actually before long everyone everyone you talk to is in there most conversations is built so even if you didn’t start on day one that’s the simplest way to start isn’t it just plug your email in and it starts to collect stuff in
28:11.40
Jamie McAnsh
Absolutely. And it starts to build up your own portfolio of of people. And and bear of mind, these are people like, I mean, Sam, we’ve known each other now for, it’s got to be close to a decade, right?
28:24.66
Jamie McAnsh
It’s got to be. And, you know, In my CRM system, there will be a profile. There will be a longevity. And it’s even we know each other, but actually there’ll be conversations that we had four or five years ago, which would now actually stand out.
28:41.49
Jamie McAnsh
And I’ll go, oh, hang on. I spoke to Sam about that once.
28:43.58
Sam Hollis
yeah
28:43.77
Jamie McAnsh
Let me go back. And I can see it there. I’m not trolling through reams of information because it’s all sat right there under Sam Hollis. And you know I know what i’m who i’m what I’m looking for and I know who I’m looking at.
28:57.08
Jamie McAnsh
from. So that’s really important. Even if you were looking just simply for referring someone as a referral partner, you know, that it’s all valuable.
29:08.88
Sam Hollis
Perfect. Amazing. There is lots more we could talk about, including all Jamie’s amazing adventures, but we are running out of time.
29:12.54
Jamie McAnsh
Oh,
29:16.07
Sam Hollis
Jamie, if people want to get in touch, find you. What’s the best place to dig you out? Get in touch.
29:19.95
Jamie McAnsh
To be honest with you, like my name is Jamie McCanch, M-C-A-N-S-H. Honestly, just Google me. I’m 50 pages of Google. It’s not done by accident. I’ve worked very, very hard to make sure that that I’ve got a public profile. So please feel free or email me, jamie at jamiemccanch.com.
29:41.14
Jamie McAnsh
Follow me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn. I generally reply fairly quickly on LinkedIn. Uh, so yeah, you know, I’m, I’m not a hard person to find.
29:52.15
Jamie McAnsh
Uh, I I’ve made it that way except for when I’m at the top of a mountain.
29:53.14
Sam Hollis
Except when you’re the top of a mountain.
29:56.72
Jamie McAnsh
Yes. And that is a whole different podcast, Sam. Um, but yeah, definitely.
29:59.70
Sam Hollis
That’s it. It is.
30:02.07
Jamie McAnsh
ah
30:03.00
Sam Hollis
Cool. Right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Share all of this amazing information with our listeners. um And listeners, I’ll see you next week. Cheers, Jamie.
30:12.76
Jamie McAnsh
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
