Is your business suffering slow growth under the weight of chaos? Do you have trouble keeping tabs on projects, sending invoices on time, or preventing double-booked appointments? If you’re feeling frazzled and disorganized, don’t worry. You can get back on track in no time.
Set Smart Goals; Use Tasks to Reach Them
It is next to impossible to reach a goal that isn’t clearly defined. It’s even tougher to create a direct path to get your there. Start getting your company back on track by setting SMART goals. SMART is a mnemonic acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Bound.
When you have a specific goal, with quantifiable results relevant to your business and attainable within a solid time frame, then you’ve got a winner. Even better, once you have a goal that meets these five criteria, figuring out the steps to get you there becomes much more straight-forward.
Using a CRM with project management, such as Insightly, gives you the tools you need to follow through on your SMART business goals. One of the most useful Insightly tools for that is tasks. Created within milestones and projects, tasks give you the power to break down a step into very specific detail. Each task can be assigned to a team, given a timeframe, and even be linked to an activity set. You can set email reminders for the team assigned to a task. You can even set recurrences for repeating tasks, so you don’t need to input recurrences individually.
Automated Invoicing with QuickBooks Online
Neglecting to send out invoices means you won’t get paid when you should. Insightly integrates seamlessly with both QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Zapier. QBO integration allows you a snapshot of the financial records relevant to a contact or organization.
With Zapier, you can automate invoicing by creating a “zap” with Insightly and QBO. Insightly triggers currently available in Zapier are “New contact” and “New task.” You can create zaps that trigger QBO when one of those two things happens in Insightly.
Actions in QBO include: “Create invoice by customer,” “Create sales receipt,” and “Create bill.” For example, if one of your contacts needs recurrent billing, simply create a task in Insightly, link it to a contact, and set recurrences as often as needed. Then create a zap so each time the new task is created, Zapier tells QBO to send out an invoice to that contact. Automatic invoicing!
Use Pipelines and Activity Sets for Automation
One way to visually track the progress on a business goal is pipelines. It is a simple tool that leads you step by step through to completion of projects or opportunities. You create and name each stage toward your goal, then add projects for each stage. Choose start dates and people responsible for the projects. As stages are completed, the pipeline displays your progress. Create pipelines for repetitive tasks within your organization, such as vetting new clients. Each time you input an opportunity or project for a new or potential client, you can apply the same pipeline and ensure the same steps are taken on time, every time. You can also associate an activity set with any stage in your pipeline.
Activity sets are comprised of tasks and events. They can be created in a contact, organization, opportunity, or project. The set can be applied automatically and apply at any stage in a pipeline. When you implement an activity set, you can see the status of your project or opportunity while tracking each task and event required to complete that stage of the pipeline. All tasks and events in an activity set can also be assigned responsible users. Users get email notifications upon being added.
When your processes are unnecessarily complicated, everyday business can get out of control fast. Reduce the chaos by setting effective goals and automating repetitive tasks, so your business runs more smoothly—for you and for your customers.
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