We’ve reached the season to review our year and share our joy and appreciation for all good things.

Insightly is tremendously grateful for our amazing customers and their continued support. As we wrap up 2014, we’d like to review some of our accomplishments and preview some of the exciting developments we have planned for 2015.

The Gifts of 2014

Insightly is proud of the very productive year we’ve had. Early in 2014, we introduced a new, more intuitive user interface with a design that works faster and helps you get more done every day. A new pricing structure was then introduced, making Insightly more accessible to even more small businesses around the world and taking us from 400,000 to over 750,000 users!

We also focused on integrations and our mobile apps. We developed integrations with Google+ Hangouts, Box, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive. Our most awaited integration with QuickBooks Online for Business has allowed customers on our paid plans to access their customer payments and records all from within Insightly. We worked diligently to improve our mobile apps, releasing 10 new updates for our iOS and Android apps.

With customers in over 200 countries, we localized the application in French, German, Dutch, Latin American Spanish and Portuguese, and also translated our website into Spanish, Portuguese and German.

Finally, we now offer a resources page with great self-service tutorial assets. And our paid customers can take advantage of 1-on-1 Getting Started sessions, our Ask the Expert webinar series, and priority online support.

Our Resolutions for 2015

Our product team has been very busy, and they’re already hard at work on even more features to make your work easier. We are excited about 2015, when we will launch native mass email capabilities in Insightly. You’ll be able to create your own templates, schedule emails, and review your email metrics to measure their success!

We’ll also be adding a lead record to Insightly so you can track your non-customers and interact with them differently as they move through your sales funnel. Finally, we are making great updates to our Google calendar sync as well as introducing calendar sync with Microsoft Exchange server to provide our Outlook users with another powerful option to manage their calendars.

Growing Partnerships

We know you work hard to grow your business, so we work hard to make things easier for you. We have developed partnerships with companies who are on board with that goal, too—check out our Integrations page to see the newest additions. Some of our partners offer specials for Insightly customers, and we encourage you to explore these services:

• The first 500 Insightly customers to try Brandizi marketing automation will get one month free by entering code INSIGHTLY500.
  
• Insightly customers get to try Proposable for sales proposals free for 14 days.
• You can also use the Happyfox support ticketing system integrated with Insightly for 30 days, free.
• Alignable is a social network for local business owners that enables an easy, online way to connect and discuss relevant issues. Join Alignable to connect with your local business community and increase word-of-mouth about your business.
  

Thank you!

We’ve accomplished so much this year and have so much more planned for the future. We couldn’t have done it without the customers who work so hard to make their businesses successful. Insightly is proud to provide you with the best CRM to help you meet your goals, grow your business, and make every day more productive.

Thank you for being part of Insightly’s success! We wish you all the best and a very Happy New Year!

(If you aren’t using Insightly, give yourself the gift that keeps on giving by signing up for our free account or the 14-day trial to try our premium features.)

Thank you to everyone who voted on a name for our Tuesday tips feature!

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

What’s in a name? Better search results.

When you’re searching for an Insightly project or a task related to one of your clients, you’re probably searching for the client, opening their organization or contact record, then scrolling down to the Links section to look through all related items. One trick to make searching a snap is to set up a naming scheme for your opportunities, tasks, and projects, such as using the contact or organization name, the product or service, and the closing month and date. For example, you might name an opportunity “Company Inc. | Spring Fling Tickets | April 2016.” The next time you search for Company Inc. from Insightly’s global search bar—Ta-da! All the company’s projects will appear in the search results!

Choosing a Name for Your Business or Product

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” — Juliet I don’t know about Juliet’s online shopping habits, but if Etsy were named Grshkinmiffle, their business might not be doing so well. When coming up with a name for your business or product, find words that are memorable and have a connection to what you do. Make a list of all your ideas and say them out loud. Listen to how they sound—clever? catchy? meaningful? Find the right tone to match your business.

	Remember What’s-His-Name
	Do you have trouble remembering the name of someone you’ve just met? Ways to make a name stick include: Repeating it in the conversation (“Nice to meet you, Louie.”). Use name association, such as alliteration or rhymes (“Larry from Los Angeles” or “Dan the man”—but don’t call him that!). Of course, sometimes you’ll just need to ask again.

Send Us Your Tips

Would you like to share your tips with other 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: Tony Roma is Insightly’s Content Manager. He’s been helping businesses implement software solutions and improve their work processes for over ten years.

Scaling – you’ve probably heard the word tossed around between other entrepreneurs or investors, but what does it really mean? In the business world, scaling refers to a company that has the ability to grow rapidly at an exponential rate. It is the cornerstone of your startup as it reduces time to solution for critical tasks, minimizes the impact of higher volumes of business and makes future expansion easier. In order to scale successfully, however, you need to have a clear vision of your business’ future while also keeping in mind that you might need to evolve.

Plan for Scaling

Forty-six percent (46%) of startups fail due to incompetence and poor planning. If you don’t want be a statistic, it’s imperative that you have a solid plan in place that includes a section on your growth strategy. The most successful businesses have a vision for the future of their business but also realize that they must be willing to evolve. After all, growth signifies change and even the best laid plans can’t necessarily predict exactly what your growth will look like. Still, a solid, vetted business plan can map out the basics on how your business intends to scale. When creating this section, keep in mind opportunities to scale within and outside your business and growth possibilities outside of your initial product or service.

For an accurate growth prediction, think big. This doesn’t mean daydreaming about how you will be the next Steve Jobs, it means thinking how you can strategically grow your business from a $5 million one to a $50 million one. Of course all the thinking in the world won’t get you anywhere if you don’t do something. Taking risks and making bold moves might be scary, but you will likely see more success being a risk taker than playing it safe.

Focus on Growing Your Business

There are only so many hours in a day and if you try to do everything, you’ll end up exhausted and unhappy. Many entrepreneurs get lost in all the details of the daily tasks of their business and spend little time actually focusing on the key activities that move their business forward. This eventually causes their company to stagnate.

If you find yourself working in your business more than you work on your business, you need to take a step back and reevaluate your priorities. Identify the core activities you need to focus on and then protect your boundaries around these actions. Not using a CRM? You should be. Many CRM’s offer workflow management features to keep track of routine tasks and help you stay focused on growing your business. You might need to hire staff to handle the small details of the business, and an online CRM centralizes the management of tasks and projects. With the right CRM and project management software, you’ll be able to focus on building up your business and pointing it in the right direction.

Network

You’ve probably heard plenty of people tell you “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This is especially true for businesses. While you certainly need to be an expert in your field and know your customers, ultimately a successful business comes down to connections. Nurture your current network and plan on growing it by reaching out to potential investors, mentors and partners through emails or cold calls. Keep notes on your interactions in your CRM and create tasks to follow up with the most promising contacts. As busy as they might be, many are willing to help out those that have a good business idea.

Have Access to Capital

There are few businesses that are self-funded. Most use a mixture of loans and investors to fund their scaling. After all, people, equipment and office space cost a lot of money and small businesses generally won’t have the capital to increase their capacity without an infusion of money. Besides leveraging your network it’s also important to have a high-level financial advisor who can tell you exactly how much you will need to expand.

Succeeding as a Small Business

No amount of planning and scaling will help your business succeed unless you have something of value to offer your customers. Also, if your business simply doesn’t have the built-in audience, it’s unlikely that you will be able to see long-term growth. Not all small businesses need to be global, multi-billion dollar companies: ninety (90%) percent of small businesses are family businesses that are small by design. Deciding whether to stay small or scale up is a strategic decision that you need to consider before going further with your planning. Smaller businesses can often offer a more personal experience for their consumers over larger, scalable companies. Even if you don’t scale, you can still follow the same advice to ensure you work efficiently and leave room for potential, smaller growth.

A strong CRM like Insightly is a valuable tool for focusing on vital tasks, centralizing communications, and reducing costs to lead your business to greater success. Sign up for a free account or a 14-day trial with added functionality, today.

About the Author:  Ivan Serrano is a web journalist and infographic designer from the Golden State. He specializes in social media, global business and technology. Ivan also loves to practice his photography and watch as many Bay Area sports games as he can.

We’re starting a weekly tradition at Insightly. It’s a new blog post to bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on using Insightly, a tip on running your business, and a tip on improving your life. We hope you enjoy this new feature and find something helpful in the coming weeks and months.

We’ve come up with a couple of snappy titles for our tips and would love your help in choosing one. Please see the bottom of this blog post to help us choose between “Tri-tip Tuesday” and “Turn It Up Tuesday”!

Importing into Insightly

Did you know that we recently increased the number of records that you can import at one time? Now, users on a paid plan can import up to 10,000 records at a time, while free users can still upload up to 2,500 items per file. See our import articles for all the details about importing your contacts, organizations, projects, and opportunities to Insightly.

Small Business Finance

Speaking of numbers, is your business meeting your revenue goals? How does your cash flow look for next month? Are you monitoring your costs and expenses? Many small business owners rely on their accountants to manage these details, but it’s important that you take the time to understand your financials at both a macro and micro level. Make sure you have regular meetings with your accountant and find a good small business accounting book to help you add things up.

Safer Travels!

“The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.” — Will Rogers Whether you are going across town to see a client or traveling across the globe, keep your money safe. Don’t stash all your money in one place. Keep smaller bills in your pocket for tipping and incidentals, place some money in your carry-on bag, and have some in a wallet. A good travel wallet that can be hidden under your clothes by attaching to a belt or a neck lanyard is recommended!

Send Us Your Tips!

Send us your own tips and if we use them in our weekly column we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.

Update December 15, 2014

Thanks for Your Votes!

We narrowed down the names and graphics for our Tuesday tips feature and asked for your opinion, and we have a winner! By a narrow vote, the winner is:

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

Thank you for all your votes!

They say that hindsight is always 20/20, and football is no exception. It’s always easy to call out the ref or talk about how you would have made a better play. Like football, business offers many opportunities for us to say, “I could have done that, but I would have done it this way….”

Remember that old joke about how many project managers it takes to change a light bulb? All of them—one to change it and the rest to stand around and plan out how they could have done it better.

Take your plays beyond Monday morning quarterback syndrome, and make your game solid by using a few tools to really keep your head out of the playbook and on the field.

1. Avoid the Audible

In football the audible works because the QB audibly changes the play or disguises the call to confuse the defense. In business, you need to give your team clear concise direction, and avoid double speak or directions that can be confusing. Each task should have an outlined objective and directions that are easy to follow for all parties. It will save you from having to throw a hail mary in the final moments before a big deadline.

2. Use a Shotgun Formation

In a shotgun formation, the quarterback steps back behind the line of scrimmage in anticipation of the snap. This causes receivers to spray all around the field. In business, you can let your team know what you are planning ahead of time, and allow them to anticipate your move, and get into position. Giving instruction, and using tools to convey that instruction in an easy to follow manner can ensure everyone is ready to take the ball.

Using Insightly CRM with Project Management keeps your team and your customers on the same page of the playbook. Integrating features like Google Apps, Gmail, Evernote and DropBox, offering reminders and file uploads, and taking advantage of various contact options can really help keep track of things. Because in life, people might wear different hats – your lineman might also be your running back.

3. Lay Out your Gridiron

A football field is organized in straight lines, with clear markers indicating the yardage. In business, your field should be laid out in a methodical pattern as well. Setting up milestones, tracking points, and having a routine schedule can help keep you moving on the field and save you from going into overtime. That’s what effective project management is all about.

If things get discombobulated, don’t be afraid to call a timeout, huddle the team, and check where everyone is on the project. A good coach always knows where his team is, and what the standings are. He also knows how much time is left in the game, the best play to get to the end zone, and when to rely on your safety to stop a pass. Keep the other team (your competition) out of the red zone by making sure that your field is clear and you’re in position to score.

4. Know When to Bull Rush

There are times when deadlines call for some fancy footwork and for everyone on your team to saddle up and plow through an obstacle instead of trying an end run. When these moments arise, make sure you rally your troops by keeping up morale, and making sure everyone knows how key and appreciated they are. Keeping a team spirit in your office environment will make sure that even when you are facing the end of a season or a Super Bowl game, you can rely on everyone to be ready.

Make notes and track your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Be aware if one player is a stronger defensive linebacker and another player is a born quarterback. If someone is a stronger salesman, don’t put him in as your numbers guy, and don’t waste your organizational genius by putting her on the phones to tackle client problems.

By strategizing your players and keeping them in key positions, you can make sure that this is your best season and your team will come out on the winning end, whether it’s throwing around the pigskin or fulfilling a contract.

Sign up for Insightly’s 14-day trial or our free account to keep your team moving forward!