Month: November 2015

Do you worry whether your customers are really reading your emails? Are you reaching your audience and getting your messages read, or just filling up your customer’s spam folder?

It’s no secret email is key in connecting with your customers. It’s fast, easy, efficient and the best way to get a message out on a large scale, but many of us wonder how to write emails that really get read.

1. Is It Relevant?

Take a few moments before you send out an email to make sure you are sending something that is relevant to your customer—does it offer some important information? Is it promoting a special offer? Is it a chance to say something you haven’t already told them?

Customers are busy and have a limited amount of interest. Wasting their valuable time on generic, poorly crafted or boring emails now will ensure that they will ignore any important emails you send later. Instead, leverage your contact window by making certain the information you send is something your customer needs to know.

Take a few moments before to research your customer, find a mutual connection, a relevant interest, and relate your email to a current event, situation or important industry information. Every line of your email should have meaning, offer something to the customer or connect with them intellectually or emotionally.

2. Pay Attention to Your Subject Line

While you have to use subject lines that are relevant, and comply with anti-SPAM rules, you can still pick an intriguing and engaging topic. On their initial glance, customers will typically be able to view only your subject and opening line, so make them count!

Use industry-friendly language and give them a reason to open the email. Avoid the word “Don’t” (as in “Don’t miss this sale….”) and instead use positive, urgent and intriguing language, or be specific and cite a what, where or when in the subject line. Another tactic is to ask a question, which naturally makes the ready want to open the email to read the answer.

3. You Had Them at “Hello”

How many of your emails start out “My name is Joe Shmoe and I work for XYZ. I hope your week is going well. I wanted to reach out to you and tell you about this great deal we are offering…” blah blah blah? BORING!

Make your intro quick, and meaningful, and make it all about the customer (not how you hope they are having a great week/day, etc.). They see the first line of the email before opening, so it will make or break the rest of the message.

Context, such as a mutual experience or acquaintance, can be very enticing. “Carol Smith, gave me your information…” or “Your presentation at the Atlanta Conference got me thinking…”

If you have a special offer get it right out there: “Free shipping this week” or “Last chance to shop the sale…” and if you can appeal to their emotional and human-interest side, it’s even better. Try to craft emails around relevant dates or important news, and make it your lead, “With 6 weeks until the primary elections…”

4. Make it Quick and Easy

Newsletters, posts and other informational emails should have bold, easy to identify headlines. Make your email scannable, keep paragraphs short, and make it easy for customers to get the gist of the message at first glance.

If you have more to say, want to offer a link, or get customers to read further, embed the link and monitor your click-through rate with analytics. This is a great way to drive further traffic to your blog or website and engage customers.

5. Differentiate and A/B Test Your Emails

Don’t assume all of your customers are interested in the same thing. Segmenting your contacts by frequency, relevance, or average purchase can help you keep tailor your messages to reach the right audience. Emails are not a one-size-fits all endeavor. Even tailoring emails between two segments—customers who have purchased before and potential customers–can make a huge difference!

Similarly, when you try something new, A/B test it to see the effect on your customers and when you find something that works, stick with it. Do your customers prefer emails with strong visuals or more text? Do they click on links embedded in the text? Do they prefer emails that start with a call to action, or are they drawn to an intriguing subject line?

Testing your emails and tailoring them to your audience is an effective way to reach a diverse population of customers. Insightly offers email templates that help you monitor statistics, and match your message to your customer. You can manage marketing campaigns through integration with MailChimp, or by using the mass email feature to send to Insightly contacts. Visit Insightly U for more details on managing email.

6. Make it Easy to Reply

Include your contact information with your email, and when possible, allow customers to reply (rather than sending from a donotreply@xyz.com address). This can make a huge difference when targeting impulsive customers. If a customer has to scroll down, pick up the phone or even click further than “reply”, chances are they won’t.

Include clear links to your website, and make sure they work. (Test everything!) If you end with a call to action, consider doing it with a question, rather than the typical: “Contact me to learn more…” Prompt a response by asking for an opinion or offering a digital asset: “May I send you a template of the product?” Or even asking for a face-to-face, if appropriate: “Can we meet next week for coffee?”

7. Proof Twice and Get a Second Opinion

Now, maybe every email doesn’t need a proofreader, but depending on the importance, it doesn’t hurt to get a second set of eyes on your email. If you’re setting up a template, sending out a mass message or working on an important contact, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees, and you’ll be amazed at what a second reader might find.

How many emails have you sent, only to re-read and cringe at a typo? Save yourself the embarrassment and give it a second proofread. Try reading backwards line by line to catch misspellings and skipped words, or walk away for a moment and come back.

Weed out clichés, rhetoric, and twenty-five cent words. This is not necessarily the time to break out the thesaurus and show off your vocabulary skills. Instead, keep your language simple, straightforward and genuine. Use industry terms as appropriate, but avoid jargon and alphabet soup that can alienate your customers.

Keep your messages clear, simple and focused. Add compelling and valuable information. Not only will your customers read your messages, but they will keep coming back for more.

 

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!

 

	Behavioral Interviewing
	You’ve heard it before. Screen well and hire smart. Easier said than done? Perhaps not. Getting from point A to point B when it comes to finding the right employees is within your reach if you apply good techniques. There are a variety of interview styles that have emerged in recent years, one of which is the behavioral interview. The benefit of using behavioral-interviewing is that allows you to tap into a candidate’s experiences and behaviors to determine their potential for success.   To set up a behavioral interview, you must first identify what job-related skills and abilities (e.g. critical thinking, self-confidence, teamwork, willingness to learn) will be important for success in your specific business environment. You then need to present a specific type of questions and statements to your candidates. Here are a few sample statements to help jump start your efforts in creating a behavioral interview: Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem. Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone’s opinion. Please discuss an important written document you were required to complete.
	Changing Subscription Plans in Insightly
	Every Insightly account plan includes a limited number of users, custom fields, records, storage, and email templates, based on your subscription level. For example, trial accounts are set at the Professional plan level. If you want to change your subscription level you, please note that you must have administrator access. Click the profile icon and select Billing & Account > Billing Details. Click the Adjust Plan button. To change your current plan, click the link at the top of the page and click the Upgrade or Downgrade button below a plan name of your choice. Note: If you opt to downgrade and are over the limit for the lower plan, you will need to delete users, records, custom fields, or email templates to reach the lower plan limit.
	Mentoring Pays Dividends
	Did you know that at-risk youth who had a the benefit of a mentor taking them under their wing are 130% more likely to hold leadership positions? Perhaps even more remarkable is that strong work cultures that are supported by good mentoring enable companies to weather downturns much better. The experts at Psychcentral offer some great advice on how to prepare to be a great mentor to others, regardless of their age: Work on yourself—growth and change in your own life can have a very positive influence on others. Be Kind—demonstrate supportive, nonjudgmental attitudes and behaviors. Face reality—let go of ego and image. Be happy—accept life on life’s terms, even when it’s difficult. Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial of the best CRM around. Send Us Your Tips. Would 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.

 

A lot of business owners don’t like numbers. Some are downright scared of them. This is the wrong attitude, says small-business strategist and Xero certified advisor Danetha Doe. “You should embrace numbers. They’re your best friend,” she says. “They tell you a story so you can make decisions—whether you can hire a new employee, expand to another location or take that vacation to Italy.”

Numbers have taken Danetha a long way, from NFL cheerleader to CEO of Danetha Doe Consulting and one of CPA Practice Advisor’s Top 40 Under 40 accounting professionals in 2015. Danetha advises other business owners to depend on the following five financial reports. They’re essential if you want to hear the story your own business is telling you.

The balance sheet

Your balance sheet indicates your financial position. It indicates your liabilities and assets. Your liabilities could be loans or other forms of debt. You need to keep track of them. You will also need this information when you apply for funding or when you need to show documentation to support your net worth as it relates to your business.

Your business also has assets, no matter how small it is. If you’re running a business online, your assets may consist of a laptop. If you have a product-based business, your assets may include a warehouse full of inventory. Your assets can also be intangible, intellectual property like trademarks and patented processes.

“Your balance sheet tells you how much your business is worth at any given time. You should review it at least once a year, because it’s very important to have an idea of your company’s worth for tax-filing purposes,” says Danetha.

The income statement

This is one of the most frequently used reports by business owners. While you might review your balance sheet once or twice a year, you should review your income statement often. Another difference: your balance sheet is a snapshot of a point in time, say July 1, 2016, while your income statement is a picture of a period of time, such as July 1, 2016-August 31, 2016.

Your income statement shows whether or not your business earned a profit during that period of time. It’s also known as a profit-and-loss statement. It’s calculated according to income earned minus expenses incurred.

“You should review this report at least once per quarter, ideally once per month,” advises Danetha. “It tells you how close you are to reaching your revenue goals and helps you keep tabs on expenses that may need to be reduced.”

The cash flow statement

You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “cash flow is king.” If you’ve been in operation long enough, you might also see cash flow as the pulse of your business.

“If it’s weak, you could be on edge of disaster,” says Danetha. “All business owners have known days when cash is just not available. It’s not a good feeling. But your cash flow statement will help you better plan for those times when cash is tight.”

Your cash flow statement tells you how much cash your business has left over after a specific period, usually over a year’s time. You may be thinking, “But doesn’t the income statement calculate this?” Yes, but sometimes the two numbers are different. Whereas your income statement reflects all income earned during a period, your cash flow statement shows when the cash was actually received. If you have a business that sends invoices and allows clients to pay within 90 days, the two reports could be vastly different.

Accounts receivable and payable

Your A/R report shows who owes you and when. Your A/P shows who you owe and when.

“You should review these reports every two weeks,” advises Danetha. “Your A/R will help you manage cash flow by alerting you to clients that are late. If they are, gently remind them. They’re in business too and may have forgotten. Although if they continue to pay late then you need to have a professional discussion with them and start charging late fees. Or let them go.”

Your A/P report will help you stay on top of your bill due dates and manage your cash. Having a bill sneak up on you, or forgetting about it and paying late, is not good. But you can avoid it by reviewing your A/P regularly.

The budget

Your budget is a guesstimate—because you can’t plan for everything. But your budget keeps track of unplanned spending and you can use this information to better prepare for next year.

“Consider your dream purchases as well, like a revamped website, a redecorated office or even a trip to a conference in Tahiti,” says Danetha. “Lay out your expenses month by month and use your budget as a guide for your decisions.”

Manage your finances well and you can afford to dream, instead of stare at the ceiling and worry. But if you do need help, there is an accountant prepared to assist you at any time. You can find one at Xero Certified Advisors.

 

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.

 

Iris Yau is a down to earth kind of gal, boba milk tea lover and marketing guru at Xero. Xero is beautiful online accounting software for small businesses. Sign in any time, anywhere, from any device. You can link your Insightly account to Xero in your system settings.

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!

Image courtesy of Mister GC at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

	Speech (giving) Therapy
	Of all of the identified phobias, the fear of public speaking still tops the list with 3 out of 4 people (75%) suffering from speech anxiety. With some practice and persistence, you can create a greater sense of ease when addressing a crowd. Here are a few tips: Memorize concepts, not content. Avoid memorization. It tends to sound unnatural and over-rehearsed. Engage in conversation with audience members before your presentation. Meeting with the people you are going to be speaking to helps break the ice, gauge the degree of receptivity to humor, and it provides insights into the interests of the audience. Enhance your visuals and audio. Include a short, fun video to break up a slide deck. Shift your mindset to ease your nerves. Focusing on being helpful or in service of the audience, instead of on yourself, can help you to relax. Get interactive. As you plan your speech, think about where you can involve the audience.
	Connecting Contact Data Between Insightly and Xero
	Anytime after linking a customer in Insightly to a Xero contact you can merge Contact data in either direction. Select a contact or organization in Insightly and click the Xero subtab. The system will automatically search through your Xero contacts for a matching Xero contact name for Insightly organizations, and a full (not first or last) contact name or email address for Insightly contacts. If Insightly doesn’t find a match in Xero, type a name in the search box and click Search. If there is no matching Xero contact, you can create one in Xero without leaving the Insightly page by clickingNew Xero Contact. Creating a contact will copy Insightly data and create a link to the Xero contact. If you later want to remove the record, delete the contact from Xero and then delete it from Insightly.
	Holiday Stress Relief
	Running a business on top of the often self-imposed demands of the holiday season can be a recipe for trouble and unwanted and unnecessary stress. Whether it’s walking your dog, playing with the kids, or volunteering, spend time on things that bring you joy. Make a difference in the life of someone else. Simple tasks such as smiling at a stranger as you walk down the street, or taking a moment to stop and say hello to people during an elevator ride are gestures that can quickly boost your mood and your energy. Jot down positive events from the day and review them and/or simply share them with a friend or partner. The long term effects of practicing and reflecting on positive things can re-train you to be overall more optimistic. Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial of the best CRM around. Send Us Your Tips. Would 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.

 

When it comes to vetting purchasing options from vendors, buyers are relying on recommendations from their peers as well as what’s being said on the internet. But they’re also influenced by another major factor: the quality of the content the brand delivers.

Content encompasses everything from reviews, articles, and social shares to how sales delivers B2B proposals. And 61% of survey respondents agreed that the winning vendor delivered the best mix of content appropriate for each stage of the buying process, according to the 2014 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey by Demand Generation Report.

Though we have the technology we need to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time, sales is still experiencing hiccups in the selling process. Many of our processes and insights still need improvement.

It seems traditional proposal creation and delivery methods aren’t cutting it. For sales to operate effectively in the new market where the type of content is a top priority, they’re going to need tools to inspire and enable customers to act, quickly.

Here are the features today’s sales proposals need to be equipped with to streamline all sales processes from content creation to closing:

1. Interactive Features

Engage customers throughout the buying process by making proposal documents interactive. (Yes, that also means it’s time to ditch the hardcopies and pens for a paperless solution that can support these features.)

Interactive features like video engage the audience’s senses, while smart pricing tables allow buyers to select various options and customize their purchase.

Video

By 2019, 80% of all online consumer traffic will be driven by video, according to research by Cisco. It’s more helpful to see a product or service in action than it is to read about it. Include an introduction or product demonstration video to help break up the text in proposals.

But the power of video reaches far beyond just breaking up text — it’s one of the most effective channels for showcasing social proof to back up your product or service. Create video testimonials to include in proposals. Video testimonials are the perfect way to let happy buyers convey the value of your product or service for you.

Pricing Tables

Accenture found that 42% of sales leaders want to improve their upselling and cross-selling initiatives, yet 82% are not directing representatives to take these opportunities.

Embedding smart pricing tables directly into the document gives customers the autonomy to shop within the sales document itself, without a salesperson having to upsell or pitch them over the phone or email. Buyers can review and select options while the table totals up their order for them in real-time. Furthermore, you can offer optional products and services in addition to your main product, and discount them as a strategy to nudge buyers to add them to their order.

Another great thing to include, if you have access to it, is an ROI calculator that can show buyers how much they will save with your product or service.

E-Sign Options

The days of pen, paper, printers, and scanners are coming to an end. E-signature software is now king.

When a buyer is ready to sign, they need to be guided through the signing sequence. Step-by-step instructions that show them where their authorization is needed within a document makes the process simple and painless but still legally binding. PandaDoc’s software also allows users to draw their signature, choose a font and color of a typed signature, or even upload an image of their signature to be used in documents, which is legally binding.

 

2. Design

More than 40% of sales leaders want to improve their ability to differentiate themselves from the competition, according to Accenture.

To differentiate their company’s brand from that of the competition, sales needs to portray unique, specific visual elements consistently across all marketing and sales collateral. That means everything the public sees coming from the brand needs to look like it’s “cut from the same cloth.”

The visual presentation of your product or service needs to delight the viewer’s senses and capture their imaginations — otherwise they simply won’t be interested in your sales document. Furthermore, sales content must connect personally with each individual buyer, giving them the sense the proposal was made specifically for them.

A 2013 study by Aberdeen called Content Marketing ROI: Quantifying The Value Of The Difference found that half of all content marketing leaders focus on improving the target of their efforts through personalization and situational content. That’s why the ability to customize proposals quickly using a document builder is so important. When applicable, sales should have the ability to add color, images, customize fonts and use company-branded symbols and logos,as well as having a library of pre-approved text to use in a proposal or contract on-hand.

3. Templates

Many automated content creation platforms, like ours, allow users to create custom content to be dragged and dropped into a sales document, or saved in the content library for quick access later.

Templates also allow users to create proposals quickly for sudden buyer inquiries. The faster reps can send information to the buyer, the faster the buyer can react and the deal can close.

In fact, 68% of documents created with PandaDoc were completed within one day, and more than 37% were completed within only one hour. That’s astonishing!

A template builder like this is one of the best tools sales and marketing can have to not only customize proposals as needed but also to work better together by allowing for quick approvals.

In fact, companies that have implemented a marketing automation platform report higher levels of collaboration between sales and marketing and, specifically, a 17% higher collaborative advantage in gaining buyer insight, according to Forrester Research published in 2014.

A company-wide library of authorized templates does more than align sales and marketing, it helps reduce risk. A template library helps prevent conflicts with legal and accounting by using pre-approved content like up-to-date pricing information as well as the approved terms and conditions.

4. Integration

Integrating all software into one platform is a key driver of better team communication and efficiency. The majority (64%) of best-in-class companies integrate their marketing automation platform with their CRM, according to Aberdeen’s study titled The State Of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes That Produce.

Using a software that integrates with all of your team’s sales tools, from CRMs like Insightly to customer support software like Zendesk, is essential to streamline communication on a fast-paced sales team.

But the benefits of integration shouldn’t be limited to streamlining teamwork internally; they should also help enable convenient communication between sales and prospects. Content should be easily accessible via multiple devices so deals can keep moving while everyone is on the go.

With our smartphones always present by our side, it makes sense they’d eventually play a key part in e-commerce. In fact, the Mobile Marketing Association released findings from its new study in March, which revealed mobile to be a strong driver of campaign performance across the entire purchase process. The study found that mobile drove 25% of top-of-mind awareness among buyers.

Anything that brings your sales proposal to the top of prospects’ minds will help drive sales and close deals faster. Given the strong role of mobile in sales, using a mobile-enabled platform to communicate with buyers is a must.

5. Automation

With efficiency as a top concern for sales teams, sales needs to spend less time on the tasks that don’t directly drive sales, yet are required in the sales process. Sales reps spend 37.1% of their time on administrative and post-sale tasks like payment processing and account management, according to Accenture’s 2013 study.

A content management platform can automate extra administrative work like payment processing and document status tracking. With a feature like PandaDoc’s “tokens,” a content creation platform can pull contact information directly from the CRM, and sales can select recipients and send documents faster than ever before. They can even indicate a signing order, which identifies individuals who must sign the document first before another party can.

Automating time-consuming tasks will help free up more time for what sales should be focusing on: selling and building relationships.

6. Analytics

Forty percent of content marketing leaders feel the need to improve their ability to understand the customer’s buying process, Accenture’s 2013 study found.

If sales doesn’t understand what engages the customers or what pushes them to buy, they’ll continue to duplicate sales content that might not be creating the ROI they could be receiving. Sales can gain better insights into customers’ responses to proposals through document analytics available as a feature in an automated content management platform, like ours, for example.

Once a proposal is sent, document analytics can track all activity within the document, including who opened the document and when, what pages were read and how long they spent on those pages, and the ways the viewer interacted with the document. Did the viewer watch any videos? How long did it take them to sign after opening the document? These types of critical questions which are key to creating better and better proposals or other documents can be answered with the help of document analytics.

In fact, our clients have seen a 28%increase in close rates thanks to better decision making through the insights analytics provides, according to our data.

If sales can track a document’s status, they’ll know what point buyers are at in their process, and therefore will know how to approach the buyer when reaching out. Additionally, knowing what features seem to drive clients to buy or sign quickly can help sales build better proposals.

For instance, if analytics shows one subsection of the target audience tends to buy after watching a video of a product demonstration, but another subsection doesn’t even bother watching the videos, sales can remove videos for the second group and purposely place videos at the top of content for the first.

Navigating a fast-paced modern marketplace is tricky — sales isn’t what it used to be. Smartphone-wielding consumers are now more informed and empowered than ever when making purchasing decisions, which means sales needs to create exceptional content to break through all the noise. Keeping up could be exhausting for a sales team. But, not when they have sales enablement software that allows them to deliver what customers want quickly, and work with the team more efficiently.

 

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.

 

Mikita Mikado is a software engineer, entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of PandaDoc, makers of all-in-one software that enables easier, faster delivery of high-quality, personalized documents.

 

This is the first of a two-part series on CRM reporting. Next week, we’ll take a look at filtering and organizing your report results.

Once your company has successfully rolled out a CRM, the benefits don’t stop with more sales, higher productivity, and happier customers. Every CRM includes reporting tools to monitor and make sense of your data, leading to business metrics that will help you make smarter business decisions. You can jump right in and start building reports with the tools available to you, but spending a little time planning a report will save you lots of time when building it.

1. Determine the question you’re trying to answer.

   A CRM could include pre-packaged reports, a report builder with a multitude of options, or some combination that allows you modify existing report templates. Clarifying what you’re after with a clear and specific question will help you determine the type of report you’ll create.

   Gene Marks—small business owner, technology expert, author, and columnist—recommends that you ask the following business questions and create CRM reports to answer them:

   • What is the status of our sales opportunities? – Sales Pipeline Report
   • What is that status of our open quotes? – Aged Quotes Report
   • What have our sales guys been up to this week? – Call Report
   • What percentage of quotes have we closed? – Batting Average
   • What sales did we lose and why? – Lost Sales Report

    

   This step will also help you focus on the types of records you’ll use in your report. In Insightly, sales are tracked through Lead and Opportunity records, so you’d start there for sales reports. Work status reports would focus on projects or tasks. If your report requires information from two different kinds of records—organizations and their related contacts, or projects and their related tasks—you’ll select a report that allows you to combine the two.

   (A little tech talk for the curious: Reporting that cross-references different kinds of records is done through a join query, which combines rows from two or more tables. Every database stores information in tables, which you can imagine as more complex versions of a spreadsheet.)

 

2. List the details that you need to answer the question.

   Making a list of information you need to answer your question (names, dates, numbers, etc.) will help you select fields: the basic building blocks of reports. Fields are the smaller bits of information you enter when adding an item to your CRM, like first name, last name, and phone numbers. Think about the who, what, where, and when of the question you’re asking to lay out the field you’ll need.

   Here’s an example of breaking down the details for last month’s sales figures using Insightly fields:

   How much revenue did each salesperson bring in last month?

   Detailed questions	Detailed answers	Field names
   Where do we track deals?	Sales opportunities	Opportunity Name
   Which deals do we want?	Closed deals	Opportunity State
   When did they close?	Last month	Date Closed (Actual)
   What was each deal worth?	Value of deal	Opportunity Value
   Who closed each deal?	Salesperson’s name	Responsible User
   Who is the customer?	Customer name	Contact Name

In our next installment of Reporting 101, we look at filtering and organizing your report results.

Insightly CRM’s reporting offers robust options to make anyone a master of metrics.
Set up a trial account, import your data, and give it a try.

About the author: Tony Roma is Insightly’s Technical and UX Writer. He’s been helping businesses implement software solutions for over ten years. He’s been working with reports for even longer, and he still has days when building the perfect report is a challenge.

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.

	Fireproof your business
	According to the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA), in 2014 one structure fire was reported every 64 seconds. Having a fire strategy, including monthly fire drills, in place can protect your employees and your business. Invest in a quality fire-proof safe. Keep in mind that there are two types of fire safes available on the market: Fire safes for paper document storage (insurance papers, wills, checks, receipts, etc) and fire safes designed for data storage or computer media.     Make sure the safe is marked UL Listed rather than simply UL rated and tested. The UL is a global independent safety science company that tests and rates products. A fire safe marked UL Listed means it has passed a series of rigorous tests. A product marked UL rated and tested only means it was submitted for testing. It does not mean that the product actually passed the test.
	Support
	We all need a little help from time to time. Insightly Support includes knowledge base articles, videos, and a community for all Insightly users to find help and share information. Users on our free plan have access to all of these resources; however we do not provide email support to users on the free plan. Email support is available (8 am to 4 pm, Pacific time, Monday through Friday) to Insightly customers with paid Insightly subscriptions. To submit a support ticket: Sign in to Insightly Support using the link at the top of the page. (If you don’t have an Insightly Support account, create one using the same email address you’re using to log in to Insightly.) Click Submit a request and enter the subject and description of the issue, and then select the issue type and emotional state. You may also attach files to your request.     After submitting your request, you’ll receive an automated email confirmation with your ticket number. The Insightly Customer Service team will research your issue and follow up with you via email.
	Keep Your Office Kitchen Clean
	‘Tis the season for office holiday gatherings. Whether you’re catering a lavish cocktail party or hosting a simple potluck, the last thing you want is to have you or your support staff getting sick from improperly handled food or kitchen utensils. Who knew? The ubiquitous can opener (that go-to utensil we have a tendency to use and toss right back into the drawer) is the perfect host for a variety of unwanted bacteria. A quick cleaning fix is as easy as placing the can opener in the dishwasher after every use. If you opt to wash it by hand, do so in hot soapy water, rinsing thoroughly with clean tap water. Pay close attention to the area around the cutting blades to ensure all food particles are removed. Another harbinger of bacteria are sponges. If you have a microwave you can disinfect it by first submerging it in a bowl of water and then placing it in the microwave. The water MUST be heated to a boil before it will kill of the organisms. You can also sanitize sponges by mixing together one part bleach with nine parts water, then dropping the sponge into the mixture for at least one minute. Mix up a fresh batch of the bleach solution for each “sponge bath.”   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Would 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.