VK Business Consulting started working with Eleanor Piredda and Tamsin Parker from Parker Piredda Ltd in 2023. They had recently merged their businesses and needed a CRM to track the end-to-end customer journey. Here is their experience.

Parker Piredda PR & Marketing

Tell us a bit about your business?

We are a marketing and PR business. We provide an outsourced resource for companies in a variety of sectors and pride ourselves on aligning what we do to the company’s aims and objectives. We build a marketing strategy that is in sync with the company’s purpose.

We fully utilise the most appropriate marketing tools and activities to achieve those aims with specific marketing campaigns, social media, marketing content, and so on. Considering all the challenges some companies are experiencing, we work to overcome those with our combined services of strategic marketing, PR and media training.

Tamsin, co-founder, has a background in journalism and Eleanor, co-founder, has over 20 years’ experience as a marketing consultant so their skills fit perfectly together to provide a comprehensive service to growing businesses. In addition to providing an outsourced marketing and PR service, we also deliver a range of media training courses for small businesses and public sector organisations who may find themselves in front of the camera or behind the microphone, but don’t have the experience or the expertise to manage this. Many people get quite nervous, so we teach them how to avoid the pitfalls and provide tips and techniques to work with the media. Another part of PR, which often gets overlooked, is reputation management. So, we do a lot of training around this subject also.

Our difference is that we will never oversell our services and are very much tailored around what a company needs.

Can you describe the problems were you coming up against before we worked together?

The increasing client work was causing challenges for us in that each client had different requirements.  Those requirements lead to different projects, those projects led to lots of different tasks. And so, quite quickly, it was becoming a situation that was out of control. We couldn’t keep track of what needed doing and when it needed doing by. It was becoming a messier picture. The start of 2023 signalled a big change in our partnership as we brought two businesses together, both with different ways of working.

Right at the beginning we had a note pad on each of our desks. That was our individual to do lists. That was our CRM system. And if one of us was at a meeting, or working from home, we were relying on each other remembering to tell each other what we were doing. So, we really needed something to transform the way we worked. I am pleased to say that since you have been working with us, we haven’t picked the note pad up for months. We don’t need it anymore.

How was the problem affecting you?

Well, there was one or two occasions where we missed important deadlines, so that was a wakeup call. It was overwhelming at the time. The worry was at the forefront of our minds all the time.

Initially we were worried about how we’d use the system and how you were going to get everything from our heads and make it work. I know we’re going to get on to this, but the way you worked was perfect for us. Your discovery session at the start really helped with that because you got into the foundations of the business and how we work with clients, and what that structure looks like. I don’t think we’d quite considered how we worked with every client and what processes we were following without sitting down and building the processes ourselves. We already had them in place, but they were becoming a bit frayed at the edges because we didn’t have a CRM system to contain them and to automate them. It was like business therapy.

Our business wouldn’t be where it is if we hadn’t got it. We wouldn’t be as tight as we are as a business if it wasn’t for Capsule CRM. But we couldn’t have bought that system in and tailored it without you. It wouldn’t work without your input. And I think it’s the best thing we’ve done as a business, apart from joining forces to start with.

What solutions did you try before we worked together?

We looked at HubSpot and Monday.com In fact, we looked at a few but having spoken to you and having known people who’d worked with you and recommended you we decided to go ahead with Capsule CRM and for you to help us to implement it.  I think some of them were just too big and too arduous and too technical, we just needed something simple that could be tailored to our business. Personally, I don’t think we’d get anything better than we’ve got.

Can you quantify the benefits of having a CRM in your business?

It is the time back and the efficiency of working. We live in a world now where processes need to be streamlined, processes need to be automated. We are needing to use our heads instead of our hands so writing stuff down and keeping a paper trail doesn’t give you visibility anymore.

For example, after a meeting, instead of coming back and writing down the to do list and then thinking about ‘well, who’s going to do that, who’s going to do this?’ First thing we both do is put it on Capsule CRM with dates and we know what we’ve got to do each day. The to do list is now gone!

Having Capsule CRM has allowed us to implement the right processes with every single client we work with. The onboarding process of each client is seamless. In fact, right from a prospect to a client we can track the process. The visibility we now have is fantastic, we can put a prospective client into the sales pipeline and know what stage they are at. Not only that, when they become a client, the opportunity becomes a project so we can track the delivery of the work.  Our projects have a certain process attached to them, so we have the tracks there to remind us. For example, a project may start with drafting content, then we’ll complete that task and will automatically generate the next task in the sequence. Also, you can see the progress because, again, when you are getting overwhelmed with the amount of work you’ve got on, with something like capsule CRM, you can see the progress you’re making. Every part of how we work is efficient and this saves us money.

Now, when we get new inquiries, we put them straight onto the CRM. If it doesn’t come off straight away, we have prompters in Capsule CRM so we can be proactive and follow up. It may take three or four months to convert the opportunity, but before the CRM we probably would have forgotten about it and lost the chance to win the business.

The overriding thing for both of us is peace of mind. We’re just more organised, more efficient and it has streamlined the way we both work. We even have the capsule app on our phones so if we think of something, I’ll go on to my phone, put it in there and then it’s clean out my mind so I can get on with my evening.

It is a declutter of your mind, so you just focus on what you need to focus on.

What would you say to someone who is unsure about a CRM for their business?

It has been transformational.

The way you delivered it to us it was perfect. I absolutely mean it’s been brilliant. And I don’t think the business would be where it is now if we hadn’t had your involvement. We can’t speak more highly of you or Capsule CRM.

We would recommend just getting it done as it will be one of the best things you can do for your business. Even if you think I don’t quite need that now, it enables you to grow your business, we couldn’t do without it now. Especially if you’re a growing business and you want to expand, and there’s more of one of you in the team. We assign each other tasks and we keep projects and new sales moving along, as they should be. It is invaluable.