We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Reuben Swartz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Reuben, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Traditional CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are for the VP of Sales to keep track of sales reps’ activities.

But what if you’re an independent consultant? You’re effectively the VP of Sales, the VP of Marketing, the sales rep, the marketing intern, the CEO, and you’re trying to spend as much time as possible actually serving clients. Traditional CRMs tend to drive you crazy. Mimiran is an “anti-CRM”, especially for independent consultants, that lets you connect instead of network, teach instead of market, and help instead of sell, so you service-oriented people can stay in service mode, being true to themselves, while reliably attracting clients.

Reuben, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I tell people I “accidentally” built a fun, “anti-CRM” for independent consultants. It automates the proposal process, all the way to e-signature, helps you convert web visitors to leads and conversations, tracks referrals, helps you fine-tune your positioning, and makes it easy (and fun) to nurture relationships, even for us introverts.

A lot of people start consulting practices because they love the work they do for clients, but then when they have to get clients, the sales and marketing feels “icky”. So they fall back on waiting for referrals. This is stressful and not only limits your income, but also your impact.

With Mimiran, you can have fun with the sales and marketing side of the business, too, get more clients, better clients, and create a bigger “dent in the universe”, all while staying true to yourself.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

I accidentally started a company that helped Fortune 500 companies with sales and marketing. We did good work and got repeat business and referrals, which was great, because while I was very good at helping my clients, I was terrible at my own sales and marketing.

Combine that with long payment cycles for these big companies, and cashflow was a near-constant worry.

There were a few times when I was really worried about a check finally coming in and/or whether we would land a new client in time.

And of course, during the feast part of the feast-or-famine cycle, things were really good, and I was trying not to turn clients away.

The stress of this experience, not just on the financial side, but also feeling at the mercy of external circumstances for sales and marketing, drives what I do now, providing an “anti-CRM” that lets independent consultants not only get more referrals, but generate business proactively.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I’m a software developer by background and temperament, so I built the Mimiran CRM system myself. It started as tool for me to just know if someone had read my sales proposals, so I wouldn’t be leaving those lame voicemails, asking if prospects had any questions. It worked so well that I was telling some other people about it, and they asked if they could use it, too. So I turned my tool into an app.

Then people told me that the end of the sales process was now smooth and easy, and the bottleneck was now getting new leads. Was there something I could do there? I never meant to get directly involved, but when I researched the market to make a recommendation, I saw that while there were lots (and lots and lots) of lead generation tools, they were either for e-commerce companies that just needed an email address, or for big sales teams that could pound the phones all day every day. I didn’t find what my tribe of independent consultants needed– something that would turn a low volume of visitors into leads, but also support turn those leads into conversations. So I added that.

The idea was that you could plug Mimiran into your CRM (Customer Relationship Management tool) to get new leads, nurture them in the CRM, then use Mimiran to create and close the proposal. Customers kept telling me that they loved using Mimiran, but they hated their CRM– could I just make Mimiran do the CRM part?

Naturally, I told them the world didn’t need another CRM. That would be crazy. Meanwhile, I was trying lots of CRMs, thinking the right one had to be out there. Eventually, I realized that traditional CRMs drive independent consultants crazy because they are built for the VP of sales to keep track of a full time sales team, not for a busy consultant to keep and handle on sales and marketing and networking relationships in her “spare time”. I finally realized my customers were right, and I made the system a CRM, or, as I prefer to think of it, an “anti-CRM”, that helps you create and nurture relationships without ever having to “sell”.

It’s a lot of fun to get to engage with my software development brain, and my people brain. (One customer told me, “you have a great tool, and a great personality, which is surprising for software people.” Not really sure how to take that one…)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mimiran.com
• Instagram: 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mimiran
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reubenswartz
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sales4nerds
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2v7LnEx1QPRsDGKD63VLg
• Yelp: .
• Other: https://www.salesfornerds.io

Image Credits
Mimiran LLC