Month: August 2016

In a company’s early days, founders are primarily focused on getting the venture off the ground. Once up and running, owners should get into the habit of thinking strategically about ways to increase profit margins and cash flow by improving how the business operates.  Many small and midsized business owners look to maximize profits by minimizing the costs of goods sold (COGS).  Sure, strong revenues with low COGS can help boost margins, but there are other factors to consider.  Be warned, however:  digging into the details of your business may likely uncover things you need to change in order to improve performance.

1. Understand Your Cost Structure

A smart place to start is to understand where you spend your money.  You can work with your accountant or bookkeeper or take advantage of cloud-based accounting solutions to analyze your cost structure.  This will give you visibility into how your money is spent.  With that, you can then see where and how you can save.  There are likely alternatives to a number of your current processes that can help reduce costs, which can, in turn, increase margins.

2. Replace Expensive IT Staff With Outsourced Service Providers or Programs

Consider replacing full-time information technology (IT) staff with less expensive outsourcing firms specializing in on-demand services. These firms often provide live Internet-based desktop connection support to small businesses. If you’re comfortable with your tech skills, you may want to troubleshoot IT issues on your own and call in a professional for the tough cases.

3. Optimize Your Footprint

Real estate and equipment are two significant expenses for businesses of any size.  Many small business owners begin with a home office, which can help reduce many costs right from the start (e.g., rent, utilities, IT/phone equipment).  As a business grows, however, moving out of the home office is sometimes necessary.

Before committing to renting or buying a space, it’s wise to think through a potential interim solution.   Consider temporary space first, which often includes administrative support, internet access, meeting and conference room spaces, and even office equipment.

Never forget the cardinal rule when renting or purchasing real estate: Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate!  Make sure the location makes it easy for your clients to access your business (i.e., is there adequate parking, good visibility from the street and curbside appeal?).  If renting, might you consider subletting a portion of your space to help defray costs?  Might you barter by offering the landlord your service or product in lieu of payment?

To further help maximize your footprint and reduce pressures on your margins, also consider buying used equipment for your office.  There are many suppliers that offer gently-used furniture, equipment, and tools for businesses of all kinds.

4. Increase Pricing Through Increased Value

Cutting costs addresses just one side of the profit margin equation. Don’t forget about increasing your revenue through increased prices based on enhancing the value of your products and services.  To do this, consider these three steps:

• Evaluate your pricing — How does your profit margin compare to your COGS?  Are your goods or services priced appropriately for your target customer segment?  Depending on your target segment, you may be able to increase profit margins by increasing the price of your goods and/or services.  Reach out to your earliest clients and ask for candid feedback on your pricing.

• Research your competitors — How much do they charge? How does your pricing model compare to theirs?

• Offer premium solutions — By offering premium products or services, you can gain more share of your customers’ wallets.  Can you offer different bundles or packages that include higher value offerings?  If you offer premium features and service, you can charge a premium price.

There are many ways to increase profit margins, but they all involve boosting sales and revenue while reducing costs. Take a careful look at your own business to find opportunities to do both.  Remember, this might be hard to do because you have to fix things you did not even know were broken.

About the author: Chris Rush is the Division Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for ADP® Small Business Services.

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.

It’s been few months since we announced our integration with Insightly, which naturally means it’s time for an update!

After launching and gaining some valuable feedback from our customers, we’ve made a revision that is sure to make the user experience even better. Now, when you link a contact to an opportunity, you can pass that contact data seamlessly into a document.

How is this possible? Information is passed from Insightly to PandaDoc via a piece of code called a token. A token captures information from contact fields such as first name, last name, and email address and autofills that information into your document. Keep in mind that you’ll need to create any tokens relating to your opportunity or contact when you build a template. You can find a list of sample tokens here.

Previously you could create a document from a contact, account or opportunity using only the information that was available in each one of those objects. Since most Insightly users work out of opportunity objects, we are now making it easier than ever to send out a quote, proposal or contract with the appropriate contact and opportunity information within seconds.

Here are the necessary steps to close more deals faster:

In the photo above, we’ve linked a sample contact with an opportunity.

Voila! There you have it. Ian Insightly’s contact information will appear when you generate your document via the PandaDoc integration.

If you already have an Insightly account and a PandaDoc account, you do not need to take any action to utilize this new feature. Simply link your contact to your opportunity, make sure the appropriate tokens are in your template, and start sending out your documents.

In case you need help installing the integration check out our FAQ here. Any other support questions relating to Insightly should be directed here.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about 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 4 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, a tip on improving your sales, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!

	Creating a Custom Report to Track Tasks in Insightly
	If you are a business owner want to check on tasks completed by your team members, try creating a custom report for yourself showing recently completed tasks by others. It works great!   This week’s tip was provided by Insightly user, Nate Derby. Thank you, Nate! Your Amazon gift card is on its way.
	Shared Space
	Single entrepreneurs often work long hours interacting with nothing more than their laptops and smartphones, which can be a recipe for isolation. A new trend in coliving can provide an alternative to feeling as if you have nobody around to share ideas with other than a houseplant. California-based PodShare is one of several coliving initiatives popping up around the US. With several locations in the greater Los Angeles area, PodShare provides access to bunks, bicycles, and coworking tables. More information is at: podshare.co.
	Hop on the Road to Bliss
	If you find yourself on a business trip in Central Oregon and have a few hours to spare before heading up, check out Hop in the Spa. You can begin your experience with a pint of beer from a local microbrewery, then head over to the spa for a soothing soak in a cedar tub brimming with hops, barley, and minerals. If that doesn’t send you into a complete state of relaxation, you can top it off with a hop oil massage.Word on the beauty beat is that hops offer a variety of benefits to both skin and hair. Soaks start at US$75 and massages start at US$65. Learn more at: hopinthespa.com.
	3 Easy Ways to Build Consensus With Your Prospect’s Organization
	Know Your Customer’s Goals Knowing your customer’s goals and anticipating their needs is the most crucial element in closing big deals. But, how do you do that? Simply put, you need to work to align yourself with what the company you’re selling to is trying to achieve… and more importantly you need to show the various buying influencers how you can help them fit into this goal.  Align Yourself with the Leader You don’t have to have a sociology major to know that in most groups, a leader emerges, and the rest follow. Another option to building consensus is to identify the leader and work your ass off to align yourself just with them. Go Rogue Once I had been working a big deal between two departments, and it was stuck in negotiations forever. The problem was, it had started out as a small deal, and then grew into this huge elephant that had multiple decision makers. What I should have done is put into play strategy number three – going rogue. If I had stepped back and gained some perspective, I may have seen that the smaller, original deal was pretty much a sure shot. The best solution would have been to break off a piece of the bigger deal that we were now proposing and just sell that.   This week’s sales tip is provided by Adam Honig, CEO of Spiro Technologies. Spiro’s mission is to help salespeople make more money using artificial intelligence.

Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial of the best CRM around.

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.

We millennials get a bad rap.

Some people think we’re lazy. Others insist we are impatient. Still others assert we have been coddled and are therefore destined to fail in life.

As someone who was born in the early 1980s, I barely qualify as a “millennial.” Be that as it may, my goal with this piece (the first in an ongoing series) is to help you, my fellow millennials, overcome such stereotypes through better business decisions.

To start the conversation, let’s discuss a few things you may not know about sales.

1. Sales Careers are Worth Considering

You just graduated with an expensive degree. Congratulations! Now what?

It’s a sad reality, but student loans are crushing our generation. While a solid education is important, a mountain of debt can be daunting to overcome – even with an advanced degree. Let’s examine your options.

Option 1: Get a Fixed Salary Job – Many graduates think that salary is the only way to go. In some cases, salary can be great. (It’s better than being unemployed!) My first corporate job was salary-based, and it certainly was good for me. On the other hand, if you have a lot of student loan debt, capping your earning potential may cause your standard of living to suffer. Remember, you’ll eventually have to pay Uncle Sam back – and he doesn’t care about your budget!

Option 2: Pursue Incentive-Based Compensation – Let’s imagine you’re considering a performance-based sales job with a reputable company. Instead of making $50,000 in fixed salary, the company offers you $40,000 plus a 5% commission on your sales revenue. The company produces enterprise-grade technology systems which retail for $80,000, and the top sales rep averages one new order per month. If you performed half as well as the top rep, your total income would equal $64,000. In this scenario, you have over $20,000 in extra pre-tax income to get out of debt. Not bad, huh?

2. Texting Skills Don’t Translate to Sales

Put down the phone and read this section closely. No one cares about your texting skills – especially employers and prospective clients.

In fact, our generation’s affinity for texting routinely gets us into trouble. Spending all day cultivating text message habits may make it difficult to avoid these faux pas:

• Writing emails in “texting language”
• Rudely checking your phone at inappropriate times
• Avoiding face-to-face interactions
• Poor verbal communications

When in doubt, fight your urge to rely on the things you’ve learned from texting. Instead, practice skills that make you more marketable. Companies want well-rounded individuals, not people who can communicate in less than 100 characters.

3. Social Media Can Haunt Your Sales Career

Your social media profiles are off limits to employers and clients, right? Wrong! Despite what you may have learned in your business management course, there are companies who actively check social media profiles.

If you’re interviewing for a sales position, assume that the prospective employer will spend time reviewing all of your profiles. Put yourself in the position of the employer when evaluating your social footprint. Are there posts that embarrass you? Do you really need to keep your political opinions out there? Could your poorly written posts give the wrong impression? Consider cleaning things up before going any further.

Once you’ve landed a sales job, stay mindful of how you represent yourself online. Even when publishing content from a personal page, you still indirectly relate to your company’s brand. With a few “shares,” your employer and customers could see something that you regret. Stranger things have happened.

My general social media rule is this: only post that which I would feel comfortable discussing with colleagues. By following this rule, you can reduce the risk of being “haunted” by your social profiles.

4. People Want Solutions

You are of course intrinsically valuable as a person. However, in sales, your business value is defined by your ability to solve customers’ problems.

This can be difficult for us in the millennial generation to grasp, but it is true. Sure, being attentive and friendly are important qualities. Unfortunately, they only get you so far. To remain valuable to your clients, always be asking yourself these questions:

• What are my customers’ biggest challenges?
• How can I help solve these problems?
• How can I help customers gain even more value?
• How does the client perceive the value I offer him?
• Is the customer getting more value than what he is being charged?

Put your customers’ needs first, and you’ll most always be rewarded in-kind.

Get To Know Your Inner Salesman!

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

Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.