Month: October 2015

 

So, you’ve got a successful business. Your products and services are resonating well with your customers, and you could run the entire thing on autopilot if you wanted to. But, should you? Chances are your competition isn’t – and you shouldn’t either. For continued success in your business, you must be willing to change and adapt – to roll with the punches. Part of that lies in harnessing the power of customer feedback.

Getting Customer Feedback

Before collecting customer feedback, clearly define what you’re looking for. If you skip this important step, you’ll be blindly asking for feedback, which may make it harder to understand your results…and your customers. Consider the parts of the user experience you want to improve, what you’ll do with the data once you collect it, and the channels that work best for your goals.

There are a number of ways to gather customer feedback, including:

Emails and contact forms: Email is a powerful tool, but to be effective, make sure you’re responding quickly to your customers. 43% of customers don’t provide feedback, simply because they don’t think the business cares, but 81% would leave feedback if they knew they’d get a quick response.

When a new lead joins your email list, include a single question on your autoresponder. Ask them to reply, and then take the time to respond. Such responses are much more likely to be candid and personal, because customers consider the email channel to be private, compared to the public nature of social media. Striking up interesting conversations with customers can result in a wealth of information.

Surveys: Use a combination of short surveys (one or two question polls) on your website and longer, traditional full-length surveys to collect information. Don’t waste time asking questions that won’t help you achieve your end goal. Ask open-ended questions, one at a time. If you use a rating system, keep it consistent. Avoid asking questions with bias/emotional charge. When applicable, use simple yes or no questions. Segment your audience with demographic information to gather relevant data. To encourage participation, offer a bonus – a freebie or a discount – for survey completion.

Usability testing: This method requires considerable upfront planning, but is useful because it can help you uncover issues your customers don’t necessarily know they’re struggling with. It’s particularly useful if you’re trying to get a feature or process just right for your customers.

Social listening: Social media is a great place to get feedback from customers, be they potential customers, new customers, or repeat customers. Engage customers on social media, listen to what they’re saying, and reply to them quickly.

Website analytics: An excellent source of information from your customers, because they don’t have to answer directly. Track what parts of your website customers are visiting, how long they’re staying, where they come from, and where they go next.

For example, if you’re using an FAQ page to help address customer service, you can look at the amount of time people spend there, and the bounce rate (how quickly they leave after arriving at the page) to determine whether or not their questions are being answered properly. Short page visits and high bounce rates mean you’re missing something – but longer page visits and lower bounce rates mean you’re likely giving them what they need to know.

Comment boxes: Adding comment boxes throughout your website gives users a chance to provide feedback that doesn’t interrupt their web experience. Your staff won’t have to monitor them right away, and you can collect the information for use during decision making.

Online reviews: Monitor review sites to find out what people are saying about you. Address negative comments right way to manage your online reputation and improve your customer service. Thank reviewers for their time and for their feedback, whether positive or negative.

Gather feedback at several points throughout the sales process. Website analytics and social listening can be used throughout the cycle to see how customers respond from first contact through post-sale follow-up.

Surveys are effective in the beginning and end of the process – find out what customers want from your product or service or how they use your product or service after buying. The more points of customer feedback you have, the more data you collect, and the clearer the picture you can develop. When possible, collect the data in real-time for a more accurate view of the business as it is right now.

Managing Customer Feedback

With the plethora of customer feedback available, you must have a centralized platform to collect and manage it all, or you won’t be able to use the information as effectively. This is where a customer relationship management platform, or CRM, comes into play. Your CRM can help you keep track of what customers are doing and determine which ones need your attention the most. You can also use CRM data to help identify trends and patterns.

Some CRMs integrate with other apps and tools to make gathering your feedback in one place easier. With a feedback feature, you can create and assign tasks to appropriate personnel. Customer service issues can automatically be routed to the customer service department, usability issues can be routed to the IT/development team, and sales questions can be routed to the sales department

Automating tasks keep all employees apprised of what’s going on with any particular customer at any given time, so the necessary team members can work together to keep the customer happy. You can track response times to gain insight into which employees are the most productive, to facilitate rewarding them for a job well done.

Using your Feedback

Use customer feedback to improve your existing products and services. Your customers are telling you what they want, so listen to them to find out how you can make improvements or additions to your offerings to ensure you’re solving a problem for them.

Since it costs six to seven times more to obtain a new customer than to retain an existing one, it makes sense to use feedback to keep your customers happy. When customers become frustrated with your product or service, or suspect the competition can serve them better, they may stop doing business with you. Monitoring and using feedback ensures you can adjust to keep customers happy.

When customers are happy with their experience with your company, they keep coming back, and they are more likely to refer others to you. In increasingly competitive markets, one of the only ways to differentiate yourself from your competition is to make sure your customer experience is stellar.

Make informed business decisions. If feedback shows customers are frustrated with email response times, improve them. If feedback shows customers want another channel of communication – open one. Your customers make or break your business, so do your best to give them what they want.

For customer feedback to improve your business, it must be shared across all departments. Internal discussion of employee feedback can help employees learn how to better address customer concerns, and reward valuable customers for their loyalty. Perhaps most importantly, customer feedback needs to be applied to the business in such a way that customers can see their feedback being addressed, to know they’re heard.

 

Regardless of the popularity of social media, texting and other forms of messaging e-mail still remains the number one tool for communication in the business world. According to one recent report “…e-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined (exhibit). That’s because 91 percent of all US consumers still use e-mail daily, and the rate at which e-mails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17 percent higher.” E-mail is so prevalent in our society that more than 81% of people are checking it outside of work and a major Presidential candidate continues to find herself in hot water as a result of her use (or mis-use?) of the medium.

But, no offense, you’re using it badly. At least most people I know are. And I used to also. But I think I’ve gotten better. That because for over twenty years I’ve spent a significant part of my day on-email so I’ve learned a few things that have helped me improve my daily e-mail usage. And I’d like to share them here.

Keep it short. If you can’t say it in just two or three sentences then it probably shouldn’t be in an e-mail. This is 2015, the age of BuzzFeed, Business Insider and 300 word ‘snackable’ blogs. No one has the patience to read through your long e-mail. Get on the phone.

Always ask to attach. Never send someone an attachment unless they’re expecting it. Attachments slow down email because of their size. And they create a potential security risk.
Reply. If someone that you know says hello to you on the street you say hello back, right? So why don’t you quickly reply to someone you know who e-mails you? Just a quick acknowledgement – “thanks, not at this time” or “swamped, will get back to you soon” makes all the difference in the world as opposed to the virtual smack in the face to that person you know who when you don’t even recognize their existence. This takes 30 seconds. It makes a difference.

 

No negative emotions. If you’re angry, hurt, frustrated, or experiencing any other emotion that will reflect negatively on you and your relationship keep it out of an e-mail. And for God’s sake…no profanities. I, like everyone else, have sent countless e-mails to people that I’d like to have back. Regardless of Gmail’s latest advancement, you really can’t un-send an e-mail. And God-forbid if that angry reply you wrote at 2AM is copied to others. You’ll regret it come 9AM. Save it as a draft and read it 6 hours later before sending. Here’s what will happen: you won’t send it.

Don’t make me feel like I’m on a list. Sometimes I get an e-mail from someone that’s addressed to the sender because the sender created a list in Outlook and I’m on it. Other times I get an e-mail with no personal greeting and in different fonts throughout the message – clearly a cut and paste job. It makes me feel even more meaningless than I already know I am. If you’re going to send an e-mail to a list of recipients take the time to make it personal. People like a little personal attention – or at the very least some evidence that the sender went to the effort. We are all just little dots of light in a limitless void of darkness and infinity. Does your impersonal email have to remind me of that? Geez.
Have a signature line. Many times I’d like to (gasp!) call you or even add you to my CRM database. If you’re going to e-mail me then help me out with a signature line. It shouldn’t have a lot of graphics (graphics slow down e-mails and cause them to get caught in spam filters). But it should have your company, address, and phone numbers. Every professional corporation requires their employees to do this. So should yours.

Last but definitely not least, check your grammar and spelling. There is nothing that shows ignorance more than an e-mail with bad grammar and mis-spelled words. Seeing “there” instead of “their” or “were” instead of “we’re” makes me flinch. Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s because the sender is uneducated or if he’s just careless. But either way it just looks bad. When you finish composing your (very short – see above) e-mail, take an extra minute to read through it and make sure it’s professional and looks right.
These are the little things that make a big difference in our little world. And let’s face it: e-mail communication remains a big part of our little world.

 

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips.

	Banking for Women
	October is Women’s Small Business Month. As we close out the 2015 event and look towards 2016, now is a good time to do a quick refresh on smart ways that you, as female entrepreneurs, can approach your strategy for securing business funds: Explore Your Options–Some traditional banks, such as PNC Bank, have specialized lending programs for women, while non-traditional enterprises, such as Lendio and MoolaHoop, offer small business owners a more flexible approach to funding. Seek Out Women Mentors–The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has a network of more than 100 women business centers across the country aimed at helping women who own small businesses. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions and always take advantage of any supplementary services. Build Banking Relations— A banker can help you build strong credit, provide guidance on creating a business plan. and provide access to capital when you’re ready. Building a good relationship with her and educating her on the nuances of your business will help streamline that process.
	Using Tags to Manage Non-Profit Activities
	Using tags and custom fields in Insightly can help address the unique aspects (e.g. managing donor contributions/levels and volunteer rosters) of running a non-profit organization. Using an organization as an example, here is a tip on how to approach tracking program participants. Enter participants as contacts and then use tags to put them in appropriate groupings that you can then use for targeted follow up. For example, some participants start out as clients then become volunteers and/or interns. Others join the advisory council. By creating a tag for each role (e.g. Intern-2015), each event/training attended (e.g. 2015-09-15_Attend), and donor (e.g. Donor-Tier1), you can tell a lot about a contact by glancing at his/her tags. You can also create tags for specific skill sets (e.g. Skill-EventPlanner) and interests (e.g. Issue-Environment). Using tags will make it possible for you do targeted outreach to individual people, too. It might get confusing to use projects for things besides a specific event, a grant, or a single training program. Opportunities are probably best for tracking potential events and grants for which you’re applying. To create a tag, click the Manage Tags link at the top of the record.   Type the tag name and click the name from the list or press the space bar. You can remove a tag by clicking the X to the left of the text. Note: If you have multiple words in a tag, you can use the underscore or some other character to separate them; for example: one_word_two_words or red.words.blue.words. Click the Save button.   This week’s Insightly tip was provided by Jon Randall, director of operations at the non-profit organization, Our Voices Matter.
	Handy Work
	October 15th was “Global Hand Washing Day,” a reminder to all of us that as we enter the start of the cold and flu season, now’s the time to ramp up our hand washing efforts and etiquette. Here are some convincing statistics provided by the US-based Centers for Disease Control. Did you know that hand washing can reduce the risk of respiratory infections by 16% or that more than 50% of healthy persons have Staphylococcus aureus living in or on their nasal passages, throats, hair, or skin? Researchers in London estimate that if everyone routinely washed their hands, a million deaths a year could be prevented. There’s plenty of hard science to back these factoids up. Here’s the recommended technique for hand washing: Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap. Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Be sure to lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails. Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice. Rinse your hands well under clean, running water. Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them.   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

There are a plethora of software-as-a-service solutions available today. From project management to customer relationship management, businesses are using these tools to become more efficient. There’s just one problem. Many of these solutions aren’t solutions at all—instead they’re creating new challenges for businesses.

CRM is one of the most necessary and utilized SaaS solutions available today. Still, a 2013 Forrester study found that poor CRM strategies caused significant problems for 40% of respondents, and 42% cited user issues.

While CRM is a powerful tool to help close more leads and encourage repeat business, it will fail without an effective strategy in place. If your business is struggling to reap the benefits of your current system, here are a few tips to painlessly switch to a new CRM and implement a stronger strategy.

Start With a Holistic Approach

Before you can dig into the details and find the perfect new CRM for your company, you need to understand what you’re trying to accomplish.

Questions to consider:

• What experience do you want your customer to have with your brand?
• What are the current roadblocks holding you back from providing that experience?
• How can you overcome those roadblocks? What will CRM success look like?
• What are the metrics you need to track using your CRM?

With these answers, you’ll have a better understanding of what you’re looking for and how you will use your new CRM solution.

Craft Your CRM Strategy

With the foundation in place, you’re ready to start defining your CRM strategy. As you pull your strategy together, consider the following:

• How will each person use the CRM across the organization to achieve success?
• What will the customer’s journey look like throughout the buying cycle and while engaging with different areas of your company?
• What are the action items that must happen to make this experience a success?
• How will you train your staff on how to use the CRM effectively?
• As you implement the CRM, how will you collect feedback?
• Who is responsible for maintaining the CRM?
• How will you know when you’ve reached a level of success?

There are a variety of levels at play here. From the start of your customer’s journey to the post-purchase follow up and re-purchase nurturing, your company has a variety of touchpoints with your buyers.

Outlining each of these touchpoints defines how each department will engage with your buyer for the maximum success. It ensures no one drops the ball during any stage so your customer has a seamless experience throughout their entire time working with your business.

Next Steps

Ultimately, your CRM strategy is built around your customers and how you will respond to their needs.

• Define your customer’s needs.
• Map out your buyer’s journey.
• Strategize how you’ll use your CRM to compliment that journey.
• Define your processes.
• Outline the requirements you need from your CRM.
• Train your employees on how to use the new CRM to drive their success.

The more you define the big picture, the clearer your strategy becomes. Then, it’s a matter of putting the right service in the right hands of your employees to empower them to make a bigger impact on your buyers. After all, they’re at the heart of everything you do.

 

 

At Insightly, we have a CRM for all kinds of businesses and all kinds of users. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

In this era of personal service, customers have come to expect you to anticipate their needs and know their history when they call. CRM is the tool that allows you to form personal relationships with people you’ve never seen face-to-face. The data and information you collect gives you insights you could never access before.

In the past, the first impression a potential customer had from your business was either initiated by a salesperson or delivered via one-way advertising. Things have changed. Today, their first impression might be delivered via marketing channels, search results, or social media contacts. You have the unique opportunity to do more than make the sale. You can start a relationship that lasts a long time and leads to a lot of sales opportunities.

1. Capture and Use Information in Real Time

Your CRM offers you a glimpse into your customer’s lives as they happen. When a customer calls, a quick peek at their social media profile can tell you if they recently suffered a loss, are planning a trip, expecting a baby, or celebrating a new job…information that can help you anticipate what they need and help you find a solution to meet their needs.

Before you call your customer, you can check to see when he’s most active and upbeat on social media. Look for a pattern—it’ll show you when he’s most alert and least busy, a great time to reach out. Calling at the time most convenient for your customer is courteous and they’re sure to appreciate it.

2. Take It to the Streets

You’re no longer restricted to contact via phone, mail, or even email. Your options are wide open. You can engage your customers where they hang out. Use your CRM data to figure out where the largest number of your customers hang out, and join the conversation there. Stay away from private communications unless you’re invited, but do respond to comments and share what they post when appropriate.

Most importantly, take notes. That’s where a lot of CRM users miss out on some of the benefits. By making personal observations on your customer records, you can add intuitive data to your store of knowledge. The true value comes when you aggregate your data—perhaps you’ll find out you have lots of customers who need a good or service you do not yet provide.

3. Answer the Negative

One of the most important bits of information a company can gather is what’s bugging their customers. CRM coupled with social media is prime listening ground for complaints. Pay attention to find out what you’re doing wrong, why you didn’t make the sale, how a customer service interaction went wrong, and why your product isn’t quite up to par. You can also find out how you stack up to your competition by listening for keywords as well as brand mentions.

It may sound like a lot of work, but integrations can augment social listening. For example, you can set up a Zap in Zapier to alert a social media rep whenever your brand is mentioned on Twitter or Facebook and write the comment to the CRM record.

Negative information shows you exactly where your weaknesses are and what’s holding you back. You’ll be able to spot trends and use the information to develop new products and services. Take the guesswork out of a new launch and release upgrades your customers actually ask for.

4. Better Understand Buyer Behavior

This is where the data magic really happens. Data offers buying insights marketers could only dream of until now. Paying close attention to your customers and their buying patterns gives you hands-on knowledge of what works, what converts, and what customers ignore.

You’ll be able to spot brand fatigue—that moment when they are so sick of endless emails they send them straight to the trash without so much as a glance. When they stop paying attention, it’s time to change tactics. Target better, reduce the frequency of your emails, and consider what they did open. Figure out what went wrong and make a plan to get it back on track. Integrate your CRM with your email campaigns to keep track of it all…and to better understand what went wrong.

Existing customers are the most valuable component of your marketing. They’re more likely to buy and to spend more money than first-timers. If you pay attention and treat them right throughout your relationship, they’ll reward you by purchasing from you every time, and by telling their friends on social media. They are your street team, your army of volunteer brand evangelists, and your number one source of revenue.

 

At Insightly, we have a CRM for all kinds of businesses and all kinds of users. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips.

	Should You Insure Your Business Against Cybercrime?
	According to a 2014 report published by the Center For International Studies, the Internet economy generates between $2 trillion and $3 trillion, annually, and that figure is growing rapidly. The same report estimates that cybercrime extracts between 15% and 20% of the value created by the Internet – a very sobering statistic. So what should you do to keep your data secure? Cybercrime experts say you should start on the home front by first instituting strong cultural controls that will mitigate this type of fraud making it past an initial email or phone call. The next step is to consider purchasing a cybercrime insurance policy. Is it worth the investment? Yes and no, say the experts. Depending on your industry, premiums can range from as little as $649 for $500,000 of coverage for a doctor’s office (for example) to $84,000 for $5 million in coverage for a $4 billion pharmacy benefits management company. Industry leaders further emphasize that there really is not “one size fits all” policy, so it’s important to work with a knowledgeable agent who can assist you in custom-tailoring a policy that makes sense for you.
	At Insightly we take data security seriously. Whether you’re a new Insightly user or a veteran, practicing good internal controls starts on your business home front. The System Settings feature in Insightly gives you control over providing the appropriate permission levels to your user base. Broken down into three levels, the following types of account access allow for various functions: Administrator (paid and unpaid accounts) – Can change system settings and permissions, add/delete users, and access billing functions, such as changing credit card information or viewing invoices. Account Owner (paid accounts only) – Can perform all administrator functions and will receive invoices via email. Non-administrator – Cannot make system settings changes and can only view and edit records that they have permission to see. Note: If you are the account owner/Insightly administrator, you can give other users administrator privileges on your account. This setting is located on the System Settings > Users page. Click the Profile icon > System Settings > Users to access the user settings. Click the Administrator checkbox to enable or disable the admin option for each user.
	An Eye on Teamwork
	Mention team building exercises (e.g. a Karoake sing-along or building a human pyramid) and your staff may want to run straight to the nearest exit. If done with finesse, however, academic research shows that team-based events really can help increase employee engagement, alleviate stress, and make your employees feel more valued.   When selecting a team building event, team building coaches encourage employers to focus on activities that help put employees at ease and create a sense of time well spent. Here are a few top choices: Volunteering–The best activities are those that the entire team feels proud to participate in. Field trips–Casual trips such visiting a park or museum or going to a baseball game. Professional development activities—Quality workshops give teams the opportunity to stay up to date with education and develop professional relationships in new settings. Shared meals–This allows for casual conversation in a comfortable environment, letting team members get to know each other outside of work.   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

 

 

CRM has a reputation for being a “soft” business endeavor that can’t easily be measured. How do you numerically quantify something that has “relationship” in its name?

That’s outmoded thinking. CRM can be measured and, if you’re serious about your business, it has to be measured.

So where do you start with measuring CRM? Here are some of the most essential facets of any CRM program that you should start quantifying and tracking today.

Outbound Sales Calls Made

The lifeblood of every company is sales, and the key ingredient of any sales organization is the sales call. Depending on the specifics of the enterprise, some companies may operate by undertaking only a handful of sales calls each day. Other companies may undertake hundreds or thousands of them. Either way, it’s important to know how many calls your sales staff is making, and – more importantly – how that number is changing over time. Track sales calls on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and watch for trends. Daily calls going down over time may be a sign of trouble – or it may be an indicator that salespeople are spending more time and care to close each prospect.

Inbound/Passive Sales Inquiries Received

Not all inquiries come from the efforts of your sales staff. Sometimes the best leads come from passive inquiries that come in via visitors engaging with your website, social media, or other brand-building efforts. Track these inquiries – not just the overall number received, but the origin of each inquiry, as well. If they’re going down over time, you may need to redouble your social media efforts, freshen up your website, or consider some SEO tactics.

Sales Closing Rate

One of the most critical metrics to understand is how often prospects are being turned into actual customers. This is a simple calculation that measures how successful your sales force is at closing deals. Naturally, you want this number to be as high as possible – and to increase over time. If you want to get more detailed, you can look at this metric on a salesperson by salesperson basis, and by the channel through which they became a lead.

Marketing Campaign ROI

Your marketing campaigns, be they paid advertisements or more grassroots outreach programs, will likely have a primary goal of generating sales. Every campaign should be measured: how many leads did it generate, how many leads were converted to customers, and how much money did those customers generate for the company in relation to the cost of the campaign.

Customer Retention Rate

It’s commonly said that it costs up to 30 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain an old one. There’s value in ongoing, sustained customer relationships, and it’s important to measure whether you’re doing a good job of keeping existing customers in the fold. This rate is calculated as such: subtract the number of new customers you acquired during a period from the total number of customers you had at the end of the period. Divide this number by the total number of customers you had at the start of the period. That’s your existing customer retention rate. Ensuring this number remains high is especially essential for businesses that operate on a subscription basis, like fitness centers or many online services.

Length of Sales Cycle

Measure the time from when a prospect is first identified to the time when a sale is closed. That’s your sales cycle. Some companies may be able to close sales in the same day, but in many businesses closing a sale can take weeks or months. This can be tracked through your CRM system and, as with other metrics on this list, measured over time. The goal at most businesses is to shorten the sales cycle, as this allows your sales force to spend more time cultivating new leads.

Lifetime Customer Value

One of the often unsung metrics of CRM is the value of a customer. What will your business earn from someone over his tenure as a customer of your company? Based on that customer’s purchasing patterns and the typical amount of time over which a customer remains engaged with your company you can estimate this value. Doing this calculation can often be a sobering math exercise, showing just how much some customers contribute to your bottom line – and how much you rely on some of your biggest clients. Customer value also lets you prioritize your marketing – both in determining where to offer discounts and deals to existing customers, and in identifying the types of highly profitable customers where you may want to focus future lead generation efforts.

Other Metrics

This is just a small subset of the kind of metrics you can generate through your CRM data. As you become more comfortable with quantifying this data, you can start slicing the above metrics more finely (such as looking at the sales cycle by salesperson, location, or whether the lead was active or passive) and adding additional metrics (such as metrics surrounding customer service calls and competitive analysis). The data is at your fingertips. It’s up to you to put it to work!

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

 

About the Author: Christopher Null is an award-winning business and technology journalist. His work frequently appears on Wired, PC World, and TechBeacon. Follow him on Twitter @christophernull.

 

Running a small business isn’t easy. And when you’re limited to just one or two people managing the entire thing, cloud-based tools are the perfect solution to increase productivity and improve efficiency. Tools are available to cover the major areas of business operations, and they can scale to grow as your business does. Run your business with tools similar to what enterprises use, at a price that won’t break the bank.

Contact Relationship Management (CRM)

Using a CRM tool like Insightly makes managing client relationships and projects much simpler. Keep track of where all of your customers are in the sales and marketing funnel, send all leads to a central location, assign tasks, identify sales opportunities, and more. Plans start at free and go up with usage and features.

Accounting

QuickBooks Online^® lets you manage all your accounting without the hassle of software licensing on your desktop, with plans starting at $10.36 per month. Access it from anywhere there’s an Internet connection, so you never have to worry about forgetting to reconcile your receipts again. Plus, as an added bonus, it integrates with a number of tools, including PayPal™ and FreshBooks.

Due offers online invoicing and time tracking for individuals and teams. It integrates with popular project management software, BaseCamp, and pricing plans start at free.

Office Suite/Document Management

Google Apps for Work™ gives your business access to an outrageous number of tools including: Gmail, Docs, Drive, Sheets, Hangouts, and more…all for $10 per month or less. Get all the features of Gmail with a branded domain email, plus word processing, spreadsheets, video conferencing, file storage, and more.

Dropbox^® is an ideal solution for businesses that need file sharing/collaboration and file backup protection. With free and paid plans up to $15 per user, per month, you can choose the storage space that best fits your needs and upgrade any time. With free automation tools like IFTTT (If This, Then That) and Zapier (free for 5 zaps, premium prices depend on number of additional tasks), you can even set email attachments to automatically save to Dropbox, saving you time and protecting your files.

Productivity and Workflow

Hubstaff is a ridiculously cheap project management time tracking tool that’s particularly useful when working with freelancers who telecommute. Once the software is installed on the user’s computer and the project is started, screenshots are taken are random intervals, without disturbing the user. This ensures the freelancer you’ve hired is actually working on your project, and keeps track of time spent. Hourly rates can be set, and manual time can be added. Multiple team members can be managed on a single project, and multiple projects can run at the same time. Various plans determine the number of staff and number of projects that can be active, so you can scale up as necessary. Premium pricing plans max out at $10 per month.

Trello is a free card-based project management/workflow tool. The card-based system allows it to be adapted to any workflow setup, from customer service and support to freelance assignments. Create boards, share boards with various staff members, and collaborate together using cards on the boards.

Email and Email Marketing

Boomerang for Gmail is an extension that allows you to schedule emails. This is great if you have to work strange hours, and want to be sure your email is seen – but don’t want to forget to send the email at a certain time. You can also set reminders for yourself to follow up on important emails, and keep a cleaner inbox. It’s free for a limited account and goes up from $4.99 per month as you add features.

MailChimp is a free email marketing platform. Create and manage one or more email marketing lists, keep track of who’s opened your emails, etc. Emails can be personalized and automated, and sent at any time. The free-forever plan allows you to send 12,000 emails to up to 2,000 subscribers.

Sales

Quote Roller is a proposal tool starting at $19 per month that helps automate sales documents. Automate quotes, project proposals, and contracts. Spend time getting all the documents created now with the flexibility send them in a matter of minutes later. Follow what happens after you send the documents to clients, and even address their concerns with real-time comments.

For an extra efficiency boost, integrate these tools with your CRM. With a central location for these core areas of business operations, your processes will run smoother, making you more productive in less time. Who says you have to be a corporate giant to look and run like one?

At Insightly, we have a CRM for all kinds of businesses and all kinds of users. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips.

	Winning the Paper Chase
	Paper is so prevalent in our daily lives that it’s easy to forget how much of it goes to waste. Before you click the print button, ask yourself if you really need to have a hard copy of that meeting agenda. Why not make it part of a slide presentation, instead? Better yet, share it over email. If you want to get a cleaner picture of just how much paper you’re consuming, GreenPrint and EcoPrint2 are two software programs that identify areas of waste in printing and recommend ways to improve consumption. You can also conserve paper and create a more eco-friendly footprint in your office environment by purchasing chlorine-free paper or paper that’s made with more sustainable substances like bamboo, hemp, or organic cotton. Another paper-saving technique is to keep your mailing lists up to date to avoid sending out unnecessary letters or other marketing materials. You can further curb paper usage by double checking the default settings on your photocopier and printer. Make sure each device is set up so that it reverts back to printing single copies after each use. The alternative is to set up your printer so that it prints double-sided copies by default.
	Setting Up Teams in Insightly to Prepare for Future Hires
	If employees are wearing multiple hats in your business–but you hope to expand your team and simplify the roles–you should plan ahead for that now by creating “mock” teams. You can create teams in Insightly with as little as one team member (user). Instead of adding specific user names, include the name of the job title that you will eventually want to hire out. While you are still filling all of those positions, you can assign yourself to those teams in order to set up and monitor repeating tasks. When you’re ready to hire out that position, change the team member from yourself to your new hire. This will simplify needing to reassign each repeating task and activity set task when you hire your new employee. With admin access, setting up teams and/or individual users in Insightly can be accomplished in a few steps: Select System Settings from the drop down menu Click the Add Team button To add a new user (job title) to the list, select the drop down menu and choose User Details Include the name of the job title in the user details Name Field, then click Save User Details (Tip compliments of Insightly power user, Erin Mathie, of Business Made Simple.)
	Follow the Sunrise
	A good night’s sleep is a precious commodity when you’re running a small business. In fact, sleep studies reveal that feeling chronically sleep deprived due to lack of sleep or trouble falling asleep (insomnia) are directly tied to the artificial light (e.g. television, computer screens, tablet readers) we subject ourselves to daily. It turns out, those attractively glowing screens are confusing our internal (circadian) clocks. Mother Nature to the rescue! Scientific research confirms that nature has created the ideal alarm clock in the form of natural sunlight. And, the best way to avoid bouts of insomnia and improve overall sleep quality is to seek out exposure to natural sunlight. Easier said than done, however, as waking up to the sun shining on our faces is wishful thinking for those with predawn work schedules. Couple that with shorter days of winter, and uninterrupted sleep may seem like a pipe dream. Thanks to modern science, you can bring sunlight into your bedroom anytime with specialized alarm clocks called wake up lights. Designed to mimic natural sunlight, wake up lights are designed to pull us out of sleep by slowly increasing us to the exposure of light rather than jarring us out of sleep with a loud noise.   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now.Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.