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7 Strategic Business Questions to Ask Yourself in Q1

Don’t blink…February is already here.

February can sometimes serve as a hard dose of reality. This year was finally going to be the year you realized all those ambitious resolutions. Unfortunately, with January being a month filled full of budgeting, accounting, and other year-end obligations, you probably haven’t had a spare moment to think strategically.

Don’t feel too bad – you still have the better part of the year to make progress.

With January now a distant memory, it’s time you finally sat down and refined (or built) the strategic plan for your business. In this post, I’ll share seven questions to get your strategic juices flowing.

1. What worked?

You probably have a gut feeling about what worked last year. Take, for example, that email campaign your marketing team deployed in mid-July. It was so successful, in fact, that you’re already planning several more like it this year.

Looking beyond the “big wins” of last year, what else worked? What was your seventh-best or eighth-best initiative? How did these programs impact to the company’s bottom line? Without the right data, it’s difficult to know for sure.

Smart business decisions are based on reliable information, which is precisely why you need to connect with your leadership team as soon as possible. Challenge them to identify their five to ten most impactful initiatives, complete with budgeted and actual results. If you receive pushback about data accessibility, you may have identified an issue to solve in the new year (see question #3).

2. What didn’t work?

While you’re at it, go ahead and ask the team to also identify the biggest disappointments of last year. Again, don’t just settle for anecdotal evidence. Ask for specific evidence that something was a failure.

Here’s a classic example. As a marketer, I’m routinely asked to measure the performance of various advertising campaigns. Before I do any analysis, the client will often have a preconceived notion about what didn’t work. However, this opinion may be based entirely on a single KPI, such as number of leads or revenue impact. While these metrics are important, they may not tell the whole story. For the sake of discussion, let’s imagine that I brought the following numbers to you.

Campaign Cost Visitors Leads Cost / Lead Conversion %
#1 $1,000 300 10 $100 3.33%
#2 $10,000 1,000 20 $500 2%
#3 $5,000 600 15 $333 2.5%

Based on the table above, which campaign was the biggest loser?

If we base success (or lack there of) purely on lead volume, then campaign #1’s meager budget was destined to fail from the get-go. Looking at the data holistically, we learn that this campaign actually had the best conversion rate and most affordable cost per lead. In other words, face value failures can sometimes represent your greatest opportunities for growth!

3. Is anything broken?

The skeptic in you might be tempted to ask what isn’t broke.

As imperfect as your business might seem, the simple truth is that you don’t have time to fix everything. When looking at broken things to fix, you need to cut to the chase and solve the problems that have the greatest impact.

When answering this question, it’s wise to do so through the lens of:

The customer experience: Are customers cancelling or abandoning because they don’t feel loved? Does your product or service need a refresh? Would a better CRM help your company engage more customers and leads?

Revenue-producing activities: Do your sales reps forget to follow up on opportunities? What percentage of the sales team’s day consists of administrative work – rather than making calls? Is it time for an overhaul of your lead management process?

Inefficient back office tasks: Is information getting lost between your CRM and your external project management system? Could you reduce confusion simply by aligning project and sales management into a single system?

4. Where do we waste the most time?

If you can’t pinpoint any “broken” systems to fix, you might try looking for a common symptom: wasted time.

Whether we’ll admit it or not, we all do things that are less than optimal. In fact, one of my strategic initiatives for this year is to identify ways that I waste time. Each time I do something that seems like a time waster, I jot it down for future optimization.

Here are a few goodies I’ve discovered so far:

  • Deleting marketing emails that I never bother to read (without unsubscribing first)
  • Clicking through endless folders on my computer to find documents
  • Constantly pushing out due dates on overdue tasks
  • Dealing with overlapping reminders on my smartphone
  • Spending time on things that I could have paid someone else to do

As the saying goes, you can’t solve a problem unless you first know that it exists. Although I don’t yet have solutions for these time wasters, I’m at least becoming aware of them.

Lead by example and begin studying your own work habits. You’ll likely inspire others at your organization to do the same!

5. What will soon require attention?

The business landscape is always changing. That’s never been more true than in today’s digital ecosystem.

You may not have a crystal ball, but you know your industry as well as anyone. By this time next year, what external forces (if any) will have changed enough to require your attention? What are experts in your field projecting? Are customer tastes and preferences evolving? How will all of this impact your company’s position in the market?

Taking things one step further, it may even be prudent to prepare a situational SWOT analysis, focusing specifically on the forward-facing aspects of the analysis: opportunities and threats.

To illustrate my point, let’s say that your company supplies injection molded parts to the automotive industry. For years, there have been rumors that your largest customer intends to bring this process in-house, thereby negatively impacting your order volume. Lately, you’re seeing evidence that this may becoming true. The threat is obvious – a significant impact to short-term revenue. On the other hand, the opportunities could be worth thinking about:

Opportunities:

  • New capacity
  • Expansion outside of automotive
  • Greater margin potential
  • Diversification of risk

Waiting around for things to happen is rarely wise. Smart business owners (like you!) are always a few steps ahead, especially when it comes to anticipating market forces.

6. What can (and should) be automated?

In today’s world of APIs and workflow automation, it’s amazingly easy to automate certain business processes. Alas, knowing what to automate first is where many business owners get stuck.

If you’re unsure of what to prioritize for automation, here are a few ideas:

Recurring tasks: The delegation process itself is a great place to start. Which tasks do your team members commonly forget to do? Do they (or should they) occur on a predictable pattern? If so, adding a recurrence pattern to your tasks might be a smarter way to delegate.

Pipeline administration: When an opportunity advances from one pipeline stage to the next, there’s typically some action required by your staff. If your pipeline has a “Quoting” phase, common sense tells us that a proposal should be prepared at that time. If only it were that apparent to everyone at your company! Stop hoping for results, and automate the assignment of activity sets.

Order delivery: The moment a deal closes, a race begins to deliver goods or services within the customer’s expected time frame. There’s not a moment to lose, which is why manually transferring information from your CRM to another system is particularly inefficient. A better approach involves keeping everything in one system and simply converting the sales record into a project.

7. Which systems align with our goals?

After digging into the prior six questions, you may begin to notice a common thread stemming back to your company’s technology footprint. Do some of your systems overlap in functionality and create more confusion than value? Or, conversely, are some systems being underutilized, thereby causing your team to do unnecessary work? Would an integration between certain applications create new economies of scale for your business and boost user adoption? These are all questions worth asking.

Remember, a software application offers minimal value on its own. To maximize the value of your company’s technology, it’s important to continuously ensure alignment with your strategic vision. As this vision evolves, so too should the systems deployed by your organization.

Get the Conversation Going

Asking the right questions can be an excellent way to launch an effective strategic conversation. As you work on this year’s strategic plan, consider asking more questions and pushing your team to collect the right answers.

Looking at the truth can sometimes feel uncomfortable, but it’s exactly what you need to do when building a more viable strategic plan.

matt-keener-2

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, get his book, or connect on LinkedIn.

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2 Models of freelance consulting (and how to plan for each)

Are you part of the 36 percent of the U.S. workforce currently engaged in freelance consulting?

I am, and I’ve been doing so for the greater part of a decade. Consulting offers a number of benefits: flexible work schedules, the freedom to chart your own course, and the opportunity to meet a ton of interesting people.

On the other hand, consulting does come with its fair share of tradeoffs. After all, with freedom comes responsibility. Case in point? The ability to make your mortgage payment, health insurance premiums, and retirement contributions are completely reliant on your ability to pay yourself. It’s hard to pay yourself when your business isn’t profitable.

So, how can you ensure a more sustainable business model, thereby offering the personal lifestyle you desire? To answer this question, let’s examine the two most common freelancing business models – and, how to plan for each.

Model 1: “Package” Providers

What’s due each year on (or around) April 15th? That’s right! Your federal income tax returns. Unless you prepare your own taxes (which I wouldn’t recommend), there’s a good chance you pay a CPA to do the work for you. In exchange for a flat (or relatively flat) rate, your accountant analyzes your books, organizes your 1099s, prepares the necessary paperwork, e-files everything on your behalf, and (hopefully) minimizes your tax obligation.

Your CPA is leveraging the classic “service package” model. Unless you receive a letter from the IRS or state, you may only engage with your accountant once a year. Likewise, your CPA might only think about your needs once a year. It’s a relationship that works, but surely it could be so much more. Sadly, you’re both too busy to ever change.

What other consultants commonly leverage the service package approach? Here are a few examples I’ve seen over the years:

Web developers: “I’ll get your site up and running for $999.”

CRM experts: “We offer a few packages to help you transition off your legacy CRM.”

Bloggers: “Our rate card is based purely on word count.”

Video editors: “I charge $50 per minute of video you want me to edit.”

The package model has several distinct benefits. Perhaps most notably, this model can be scaled with relative ease through the hiring of skilled labor. Granted, that assumes the market supports both sides of the equation.

Here’s the obvious challenge with the package model: you typically need a lot of customers to make it work.

Planning Tips for Package Providers

Let’s assume you’re a web development consultant who is selling packages for $999. Some simple math would say that you need at least 100 new customers annually – just to make the business worth your time. Ideally, you’d love to far exceed that baseline. Of course, this can be done, but you need a game plan.

Remember, not every lead is going to convert into a paying customer. It’s a simple reality of business. In fact, after studying your past records, you learn that only 50% of your opportunities pan out. Given your minimum benchmark of 100 new customers in 2018, you better get busy with sales and marketing. Your sales pipeline is going to require 200 quality opportunities!

That’s where a CRM comes in handy. In addition to helping you feel more organized, a CRM makes it easier to identify gaps in your pipeline. The sooner you become aware of such gaps, the sooner you can begin ramping up promotional efforts.

Before getting too far ahead of yourself, it’s probably wise to first scope out the basic phases of your sales pipeline. You don’t need to make this overly complicated. Just list out the basic steps you go through to close a deal. It might be as simple as:

  • Prepare a quote or proposal
  • Receive written approval from the prospect
  • Mark the deal as won and get busy

A reliable CRM will make it easy to build custom sales pipeline stages. For example, I quickly created this example pipeline in Insightly, based on the bullets above.

Insightly Consulting Pipeline

Once you’ve customized your pipeline, you can then begin adding your in-progress deals. You might be surprised by how much prospecting is needed!

Insightly Kanban Pipeline

As time goes on, you may begin offering enhanced packages or new services that complement your basic $999 package. Or, you might think of new ways to drive revenue from past customers. Would former clients pay $100 for an hour of your time each month? Do they need ongoing maintenance or development support? A CRM makes this type of brainstorming more fruitful. Since all customer and project-related information has been tracked in one system, you’ll be able to generate reports with the information you need most.

Opportunity Pipeline Report

Need to see a list of past customers in a specific industry or geographic region? Want to identify lost opportunities likely to need a website refresh later this year? Your CRM saves the day once again.

Model 2: Hourly Consultants

“My current hourly rate is…”

If you’re not offering some type of canned service package, you’re probably accustomed to saying these words. And, why not? From your perspective, hourly work is a low-risk way to build your consulting business. You do work, you get paid. From the client’s perspective, it’s a nice way to ease into the relationship without much commitment.

Hourly engagements are especially common among:

  • Marketing consultants (like me!)
  • Business coaches
  • Graphic designers
  • Lawyers
  • IT consultants
  • Project managers
  • HR consultants

As compared to the first model discussed in this article, the hourly consultant’s sales approach may be vastly different. In some cases, the hourly consultant might only be interested in winning a dozen or so clients – total. Rather than continuously searching for, starting, and stopping engagements, the focus is shifted toward serving the same known clients.

Although a pure hourly model may come with less sales administration, there are a few noteworthy downsides. In my experience, hourly consultants routinely find themselves falling into these temptations:

Putting your eggs into too few of baskets: Some clients want as much of your time as you’ll give them. That’s great, but does it expose your company to too much risk? If 50% of your income comes from a single customer, what happens if they cut back or go out of business?

Forgetting about your continuing education plan: If clients are willing to pay for “as much time as they can get,” why would you “waste” non-billable hours on learning things? The temptation is to pack every waking hour with billable time; yet, this approach makes you less valuable in the long run.

Cannibalizing margin potential for “easy money”: As you refine your skills, what formerly took several hours may only take you an hour (or less). Some services you offer would be a perfect fit for the “package” model; unfortunately, your “hourly-only” mindset is hard to overcome.

Forgoing long-term viability for short-term income: If you didn’t show up for work, your business wouldn’t earn much money. This presents a major challenge for the hourly consultant, and there’s rarely an obvious path for overcoming it.

Planning Tips for Hourly Consultants

At a foundational level, hourly freelance consultants must be very strategic with their time. For starters, you at least need a weekly and daily hour plan to ensure you’re always meeting your goals. (Check out this spreadsheet I personally developed and use every single week.) Unless you set very clear goals, you’ll struggle to ever realize your earning potential.

Beyond the use of an effective hour tracking tool, the hourly freelancer must regularly seek ways to challenge the status quo. For example, I try to make myself answer these questions on a regular basis:

  • Why do clients find value in my hourly services?
  • Does my current hour allocation expose my business to too much of a cash flow risk (or should I mix things up a bit)?
  • How efficient are my non-billable hours? Could I automate certain things?
  • Which of my services should be bundled into a fixed-price package?
  • How can I increase my hourly rate while providing even greater value?
  • Should I delegate certain tasks, thereby freeing up more capacity?
  • How can I learn more things with less of an investment of my time?
  • What is my plan for vetting and managing the occasional new lead?

As you begin to challenge the status quo, you’ll likely identify several opportunities for improvement. Again, this is where a CRM becomes so useful. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume you’re a graphic designer who primarily works on an hourly basis. You’ve designed logos for several clients, and you think there’s a potential market for a logo package. After doing some research, you learn the market typically supports $250 for such a service. This type of package would not replace your hourly work; rather, it would complement and further diversify your income stream.

Before spending a ton of time launching a completely new endeavor (and potentially diverting attention away from your hourly work), you decide to test this idea among a few select clients. Luckily, you know that one of your best customers is getting ready to rebrand its corporate website. It’s the perfect chance to give it a shot.

So, you jump into your CRM and add a new opportunity pipeline called “Logo Package.” You then add a new opportunity in the pipeline, link it to your customer’s record, and set a reminder to mention this to the client.

Fixed Price Consulting Package

All of that only took five minutes, but it is time well spent. After discussing the idea with the customer, you start to realize how big this could be. Not only does he want to move forward, he’s ready to refer this service to five other business owners. He’s excited about this service, and so are you!

Which Model is Right for You?

There’s no question that the freelance consulting industry is picking up steam. For many consultants, the real question is this: fixed price, hourly, or both? Oftentimes, a blended model offers a more scalable balance. Just be sure to plan your work and always be intentional with your time!

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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, get his book, or connect on LinkedIn.

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Insightly CRM Meets Artificial Intelligence

Let’s start with the numbers and the major problem we face as sales people… or practically anyone who schedules lots of meetings. Sales people spent 20% of their time doing CRM, administrative, and report related tasks in 2015, according to the report State of Sales Productivity.

Of that 20%, we can imagine much of that time comes from scheduling customer meetings. Having had experience as a “sales hunter” closing long-term, six figure software sales, I confess that scheduling meetings with customers was a time intensive part of my sales process. Whether you’re an accountant, personal coach or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you probably feel the same way I do. Scheduling meetings is time consuming but needs to get done. Period.

I’m going to help you shave down this 20% number with artificial intelligence Insightly CRM integrations for scheduling meetings in-person or via email.

Scheduling Meetings In-Person

First, let’s learn about NLP (natural language processing)?

Here’s a gif to explain…

via GIPHY

NLP allows programs to understand human language as it’s spoken or typed like shown with the Insightly Slack Bot. You may have already used tools such as Siri and Google Assistant, which also rely on NLP too. With our integration we’re going to integrate NLP technology with Insightly’s business card scanner to quickly schedule meetings in-person.

Let’s pretend we’re meeting a new customer at the Hard Rock Cafe Networking Mixer…

 

SUSAN

Hello, John pleasure to meet you.

 

JOHN

Nice to meet you too. Hey! My friend told me you do

fundraising for nonprofits. Can you help me with a project?

 

SUSAN

Of course I can help you. What’s the project about?

 

JOHN

We’re looking to build an animal shelter uptown

and we need help with funding. Here’s my business card.

Maybe we should schedule a meeting, so I can give you all the details.

 

SUSAN

Great! Let’s schedule the meeting right now.

It will take less than a minute. Do you have your calendar on you?

 

JOHN

Why yes I do… give me a second to check my phone.

 

John opens his calendar app to look for an available time slot.

While John is checking his calendar, Susan opens her Insightly mobile app and starts scanning John’s business card.

 

JOHN

I am available next week on Tuesday from 10am till noon.

Let’s meet here. Does that work for you?

Susan confirms time slot on her calendar.

 

SUSAN

Yes, that works for me.

Susan switches back to Insightly and clicks the voice to text button.

 

SUSAN

Meet with John from 10am to noon next tuesday at the Hard Rock Cafe in Phoenix, Arizona.

Susan clicks Save to Insightly.

 

SUSAN

Perfect! You’ll get an calendar invite soon with all my contact details too.

 

JOHN

Wow! You weren’t kidding when you said it would take less than a minute to

schedule a meeting. You’re really on top of things Susan.

 

As you can see there is no long list of fields to complete using various apps, the conversation barely skipped a beat, and best of all… you made a positive impression with your new customer.

Interested in integrating NLP technology with Insightly’s business card scanner?

Watch my Business Card Scan + Scheduling All-in-One Setup Tutorial

I imagine the next big tech advancement for this use case is wearing smart glasses to monitor your conversation and schedule meetings automatically. This would require zero human intervention on your part and only the customer would need to tell you when they’re available. The customer wouldn’t even need to give you their business card because facial recognition and data mining technology would scan the customer’s face to find matching contact information online. While we’re a few more years away from having this technology, scheduling in-person meetings will meet your needs for the interim. 

Scheduling Meetings via Email AI 

 

Moving onto scheduling with AI (Artificial Intelligence)… First, what is AI?

According to Wikipedia, AI is applied when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “learning” and “problem solving”.

Since we’re using AI technology to schedule meetings (or interact with humans), this technology will also rely on NLP and there’s a new AI tool for scheduling meetings that does exactly this. The AI scheduling service is called “Amy” by X.ai.

Here’s a video demonstrating how Amy (and her twin brother Andrew) learns your preferences, solves problems by working out scheduling conflicts, and takes NLP to a whole new level!

As stated on their pricing page, Amy will save you on average 10 hours per month scheduling meetings. That’s a lot of time, but as a CRM Consultant I’m still not satisfied…

If we look at Amy’s and Insightly’s processes, we still have three more activities we can delegate to robots:

  1. Reduce time spent delegating tasks to Amy by using Insightly’s email templates. The email template insert fields will give Amy everything she needs to know about your contact(s), in order to schedule meetings as fast as possible.
  2. Automatically sync your event activities to your CRM using Insightly’s Google or Microsoft Exchange calendar sync.
  3. Amy’s not ready to send event reminders or integrate with conferencing platforms yet, so we’ll add automation tools like Zapier to give Amy a helping hand.

Interested in adding AI to Insightly CRM?
Watch my AI Scheduling Assistant for CRM Setup Tutorial

 

 

About the Author:

Micah Feldkamp is an Insightly Hero & CRM Consultant specializing in Insightly software implementations.

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5 SaaS Lead Generation Secrets You Should Try in 2018

The ultimate goal of the SaaS product marketing is lead generation. The overall success of your marketing campaign whether you are making changes to a website, creating a next piece of content or running Facebook ads will be judged by a number of emails these activities deliver. In the long run, the question you should always keep in mind is how your marketing efforts will affect the number of people hitting the ‘Sign up’ button.

At Chanty, we had to learn a lot about lead generation as well as try new things before we found what actually works for us. Today we are sharing the best of our lead generation advice. Some of the hacks work well for us to get the precious sign ups for Chanty, others have proven to work great for well-known SaaS companies.

1. Lead generating content 

Content marketing is nothing new. Unfortunately, there are still companies that invest into creating content, but don’t get the outcome they’ve hoped for. The good news is content marketing, if done right, could bring amazing results. Let us share our hack #1 that brings us a steady stream of customers.

Here’s a simple path you should follow:

  • Determine your top competitors in the niche
  • Make a keyword research for ‘Competitor Name’ alternatives, as well as ‘Competitor X’ vs ‘Competitor Y’
  • Choose the keyword phrase with the best balance of monthly search queries and keyword difficulty (could be checked in Ahrefs or SEMrush)
  • Write an in-depth article targeting the keyword. Among other alternatives mention your product. Highlight why it’s better than your competitors.
  • Acquire some backlinks pointing to an article
  • Enjoy the deluge of sign ups

This article on Slack alternatives in our blog is a a living proof of this strategy in work. It’s the easiest way to go if you have a prominent competitor in the niche. If you don’t – well, there’s still the traditional inbound marketing for you to try. Determine your buyer persona, learn their pains, solve them with your content, educate, engage and provide value. Create a downloadable asset such as an ebook or a comprehensive guide and offer it in exchange for visitors’ emails. Visit Hubspot Academy to learn how to do it in details.     

2. Resonating ads

I can’t help, but mention this tactic, used by Ryver, our competitor. With the obvious leader in the face of Slack, team communication and collaboration niche is pretty hard to enter. You have to explain how you are different from Slack to their millions of fans and fight for your place in the sun. Ryver made a power move and set up the aggressive ad campaign in Twitter confronting their main rival.  

 

 

Ryver says they’ve seen incredible engagement with these promoted tweets compared to other tweets where they’d speak of their advantages as a team communication app. Eventually, this approach helped them generate buzz around the product, got them noticed by thousands of potential customers and resulted in the long awaited sign ups.

 

I don’t encourage to go against your competitor with your ad campaigns. The ethical side of this approach is controversial and completely up to you. The bottom line is it works and gets you the precious emails.

3. Referral traffic from Quora

So many marketing channels, so little time. Referral traffic could become a great acquisition channel as well. After spending one week answering questions on Quora, I was surprised to discover its traffic converts at impressive 6%.

 

Here’s a priceless hack we’ve learnt – wiki answers. Rather than asking friends to upvote your content and fighting desperately to rank higher among other answers, here’s what you should do.

Whenever you find a question related to your niche e.g. it’s something like “What are the best Slack alternatives?” for us, hit the three dots menu and choose ‘Create Answer Wiki’. Once you post it, it’ll be reviewed by Quora staff and, if doesn’t violate their policy, it’ll be approved. Not everyone is aware of this hack so hurry up to make use of it asap.   

 

4. Pricing model matters

Marketing isn’t only about promotion. There are still the three other P’s, remember? It’s hard to overestimate product pricing when it comes to generating leads.

 

When marketing thinks of leads, business thinks of sales. Not all leads are made equal. There are leads that turn into paying customers. There are also leads that churn after a free trial or remain freemium forever. Freemium, free trial, premium or other models you employ to price your product will result in different levels of lead generation. I’ve written more about various pricing models here. Let me highlight a few points.

 

I’d recommend to stay away from freemium unless you are a big company backed up by investors. Freemium sounds better than it in fact is. It means customers can use the lite version of your product for free for as long as you want. With all the virality you might get by going with freemium, you should consider the cons carefully.

 

Think of the number of free users you’ll have to maintain in order to get a handful of paying customers. Although it may look attractive, you can quickly find yourseful in a freemium trap – answering support tickets of free users and developing the features that freemium customers request.

 

The bottom line is price the product wisely and learn about pros and cons of each pricing model. Generating leads is good. Generating leads that eventually become paying clients is even better.

5. Conversion rate optimization

No tactics or hacks will work If your website isn’t optimized for conversion. I’m not going to repeat what’s already written on the other blogs. Let me just share our experience on this.

 

It is a good idea to encourage those who already signed up to share the love with friends. Offer something in exchange, e.g. we’re offering the early bird access to our app if the potential customers share the word about Chanty in social networks. This helps us increase brand awareness and attract new clients to our team messenger.    

 

I know pop ups are annoying. That’s why I didn’t choose to put up distracting windows that appear when you are in the middle of reading an article. Instead, we’ve opted for an exit pop up. Once the user is about to leave your website, it comes out. The results have exceeded our expectations – it now generates about 10% of our sign ups.    

 

The last, but not the least – signing up at your website should be incredibly easy. It goes without saying, you should remove CAPTCHA and other challenges on the way of your potential customers. Unless you are a well known app like HubSpot, avoid multiple fill in forms at the sign up form. Email is, in fact, all you need. OK, ‘Name’ is another appropriate field to add. Just make sure it’s doesn’t become this:

Source

If you have user-unfriendly forms that still convert, my best guess is you are holding a complete monopoly over the niche.

Conclusion

Marketing a SaaS product is complicated and involves a series of various activities. The bottom line, however, is the number of sign ups this activities generate. This is the metrics that every founder and CEO will keep in mind when evaluating efforts of a marketing team.

Therefore, try to strike a balance of promotion, price, product and placement to meet the business goals. Staying on the ethical side is equally important. Try the lead generation and conversion optimization hacks we’ve shared in this article to boost the number of sign ups on your website. Feel free to share other tips that worked well for you in the comments below.      

—

Olga Mykhoparkina is a Chief Marketing Officer at Chanty- a simple AI powered business messenger and a single notification center. Having a 9-year experience in digital marketing field, Olga is responsible for Chanty’s online presence strategy, managing an amazing team of marketing experts and getting things done to change the way teams communicate and collaborate. Follow Olga on Twitter @olmykh or feel free to connect on LinkedIn.

 

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Measuring the True Cost of New Consulting Clients

“Yes, let’s move forward with your proposal.”

For consultants (like me!), few sentences are sweeter to the ear than this one. In addition to boosting next year’s revenue forecast, new clients help you hedge against uncertainty. After all, you never know when an existing client will decide to unexpectedly change course.

As great as new clients can be, there are also a few tradeoffs to consider. In this post, we’ll discuss the costs and risks associated with adding new clients.

Preliminary Sunk Costs

Before you ever bill your first hour, you’ve already dug yourself into a hole. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say that you own and operate a growing IT consulting business. Your company specializes in network and web security, and most clients are within driving distance of your office. About one month ago, a new prospect filled out a form on your website and requested a free consultation.

It turns out that this lead (a well-respected software company) represents a very large opportunity for your firm. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’ve been putting you through the wringer – with no end in sight. You’ve already visited their headquarters on multiple occasions, pulling your top IT minds off important projects to attend the meetings. After several rounds of proposals, you feel no closer to a closed deal than on day one. To make matters worse, you have a bad feeling that even if you do win the contract, it’s going to be a very one-sided arrangement (in their favor).

The last thing you want to do is pass on the opportunity (especially this far into it), but you can’t help acknowledging your sunk costs:

Lost billable hours: Time is money. Had this lead never requested info, you could have freed up additional billable hours. Instead, your team invested substantial effort in preparing proposals, brainstorming solutions, and engaging with the prospect (for free).

Switching costs: Jumping from one thing to the next increases mistakes and decreases productivity. With so much attention being paid to a single lead, your team must work even harder to keep everything balanced.

Administrative costs: Each meeting brings the inevitable set of follow-up activities. You’ve smartly organized all of your contact records, meeting minutes, tasks, and project milestones in Insightly. That helps out, but there’s still a quantifiable amount of administrative work to go around. Things don’t get done on their own.

Legal review fees: A wise man once said, “The only thing worse than no deal is a bad deal.” Being the prudent business owner that you are, there’s no way you’ll sign something without having legal counsel look it over. That’s smart, but it’s also going to cost you something.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Yes, Matt. These are indeed sunk costs, but that’s just part of doing business. You win some, and you lose some.” I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue new business. I’m simply pointing out that there is a real cost that’s associated with any pre-sale process – especially when you’re doing complex deals. Surprisingly, some business owners never consider how much their sales pipeline is actually costing!

Ongoing Obligations

Finally, you receive the email that you’ve been waiting for: the software company is ready to move forward. Considering it’s Friday afternoon, you decide to take the crew out for ice cream and celebrate the victory. Everyone is very excited about the outcome.

Then, Monday morning rolls around…

As you stroll into the office at 8:02, you can immediately tell that it’s going to be a stressful day. You glance down at your phone, and you’re surprised to see several texts from various contacts at the software company. Your inbox isn’t much better. The first email is from the client’s accounts payable department, asking you to fill out a ton of paperwork. Another email, from their legal department, is asking you to complete something called a “new vendor due diligence packet” – before the close of business, of course. And, to complicate matters, your IT manager won’t be coming in to the office today – or the rest of the week, for that matter. His wife just went into labor a few weeks early.

The next thing you know, your office clock strikes 7:00 pm. What a day! As you walk toward your car, another reality hits you: this new client is already changing your company’s work patterns.

Incremental staffing costs: Your IT manager’s absence is a stark reminder of your team’s fragility. Should you hire additional staff to support new and existing clients? Doing so could be a wise move, but it also comes with a big price tag.

Non-billable requests: Some aspects of your client relationship simply aren’t billable. Submitting the vendor due diligence packet is the perfect example. On the other hand, failing to submit the packet would probably result in an unhappy ending for your firm. There’s an opportunity cost to fulfill these types of requests.

Other administrative “stuff”: If you want to get paid on time, invoices must get generated. Overdue invoices must be pursued by your accounts receivable team. Paid invoices must be reconciled in your general ledger. And, at year end, you hope that your 1099 will match up with your books. If not, there’s more work to be done. All of this has a cost.

Ongoing Risks

We’ve discussed the hard costs associated with servicing new clients. But, what about the unknown risks? Here are just a few to watch out for:

Nonpayment: Most customers pay on time. Some customers are forgetful and occasionally require a gentle reminder. Others aggressively push the envelope on payment terms in order to optimize cash flow. Remember, you’re not a bank. An occasional past-due invoice will happen, but a pattern of delinquency is detrimental to your own cash flow and stability.

One-and-done: The client’s work agreement has you locked in for a twelve-month period. That’s great for your current P&L, but what about future years? There’s no guarantee of renewal, which is all the more reason why you need a best-in-class CRM system. You essentially have a twelve-month window to lock in renewals and identify upsell opportunities. A tool like Insightly can help you manage such opportunities, reducing the likelihood of “one-and-done” clients.

Refunds (or worse): While most clients are very easy to work with, some can be quick to point the finger when things go wrong. You’re not planning on anything going wrong, but nothing is 100% certain in business – especially when it comes to the IT world. Until you establish a better relationship with the customer, refund requests are a possible outcome that you want to avoid.

Bad relationships: Consulting engagements are more than just the exchange of services and cash. Lasting engagements are built upon an interpersonal relationship between vendor and client. Like any relationship, however, some are better than others. Both parties must proactively work on the relationship. Otherwise, it’s destined for failure.

Balancing Cost vs. Reward

Clearly, there are many costs and risks associated with taking on new clients. In fact, at this point in the article, you’re probably tired of thinking about them all. I sure am.

So, should you dwell on all the downsides? Absolutely not! On the contrary, the smart consultant simply acknowledges them and creates systems to drive profitability. A platform such as Insightly can be invaluable for doing exactly that. Here’s how.

Efficient Pipeline Tracking: The moment a new lead enters your pipeline, Insightly can bring clarity to every aspect of the sales process. How many team members (and hours of work) have been dedicated to closing the deal? Where is the most recent proposal deck? Insightly integrates with the industry’s most widely used document systems, allowing you to quickly attach and link cost estimates, tracking files, quotes, and proposals. The built-in opportunity tracker brings key dates and milestones into the forefront, such as the forecasted close date, time spent in each stage, probability and deal size, and much more.

Opportunity Sizing

Effective Service Delivery: Unlike some CRMs that only track the sales process, Insightly provides a seamless transition from sales to delivery. Converting an opportunity to a project ensures your pre-sales information remains intact throughout the customer’s journey. No more jumping between your CRM, project system, and document system. Insightly brings it all together, ensuring a more cohesive client experience.

Convert Opportunity to Project

Upsell Management: Turn your “doers” into your best sales reps. As clients share their frustrations, challenges, and goals, your team can easily add new opportunities on the fly. They’re already using Insightly to coordinate tasks, projects, milestones – why not turn them loose to also identify upsell opportunities?

360-Degree View of Profitability: At the end of the day, you’re not a charity. You need to know if each client is contributing (or detracting) from your overall profitability. Insightly can help you get the answers you need. The library of prebuilt and customizable reports brings life to your CRM data. Pull together client project information, revenue forecasts, and booked business to make more informed business decisions.

Task Status Report Chart

Are New Clients Worth It?

If you find yourself routinely asking this question, it might be time to implement a more robust client management system. To find out if Insightly is the right tool for your consulting business, click here to learn more.

matt-keener-2

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, get his book, or connect on LinkedIn.

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4 CRM Resolutions for the New Year

The New Year brings with it a renewed sense of hope and optimism.

Will this be the year you land that record-setting contract? Does expansion into adjacent markets represent a growth opportunity for your company? Will that “pet project” you’ve been toying with for years finally become a reality?

Business owners across the globe are wrestling with questions exactly like these. Some even go as far as setting resolutions, committing themselves to specific deadlines and outcomes.

If you’re still mulling a few resolutions of your own, your CRM might not be the first thing you think of. In reality, setting a few CRM-related resolutions might be exactly what you need.

Here are four CRM resolutions worth considering.

Resolution 1: Consolidate

In today’s web-based world, it’s easy to spread your business activity too thin. For example, your inbox houses your most important customer interactions. Project-related information is all over the place, ranging from team members’ hard drives to shared document repositories. And, of course, your pending deals are tracked in your CRM.

Without a single go-to reference point, it’s difficult to properly align resources and develop realistic plans. To make even the most basic business decision, you may find yourself checking several overlapping systems. Granted, you’ll never find a single software application that serves every business need. (If you do, please let me know!) Therefore, the next best option is to consolidate as many data points into the tool that you use most: your CRM.

Here are a few thoughts for consolidating around your CRM:

Revisit Unused Features:

If your CRM offers tiered pricing plans, is it possible that you’re paying for features that aren’t being utilized? If so, could these features eliminate the need for other third-party apps? As an example, some Insightly users are surprised to learn that all plans include project management features (at no extra charge). Aligning project management and sales initiatives could yield additional economies of scale, improve delivery, and make an impact on customer satisfaction.

Consider Upgrading:

There’s no law that says you must remain on the same CRM plan forever. Unfortunately, many business owners are quick to deploy additional apps (with overlapping functionality) – rather than simply clicking the “upgrade” button. Upgrading usually comes with an upfront cost, but it could save you countless dollars in frustration later on.

Identify Out-of-the-Box Integrations:

Your CRM is never going to replace the need for your invoicing software or document collaboration platform. For those third-party tools your company just can’t live without, it may be possible to get the best of both worlds. Many CRMs, including Insightly, offer out-of-the box integrations with a variety of popular software applications. Although your team will still need to log into and maintain multiple systems, they’ll at least enjoy the benefits of a more information-rich CRM.

Build Your Own Integrations:

Thanks to webhooks and innovative API services, such as the Zapier platform, your team can build custom CRM integrations with minimal coding knowledge.

Resolution 2: Simplify

Consolidation is a logical first step, but it’s matched in importance by your next resolution: simplification.

Remember, a CRM offers minimal value to your business if it creates confusion and chaos. Although there are countless records being managed by your CRM, it’s wise to continuously and proactively seek a more simplified data structure.

How can your data structure be “simplified”? Here are a few tips for starters:

Set a Master Vision:

Do you have a vision for your CRM? What defines a lead? When should they be converted to opportunities? What information should be fed (or not fed) in from your other apps? Take an hour or two to storyboard this with your management team. Doing so will prove valuable as you consider other simplification strategies.

Merge Duplicates:

Does your CRM make it easy to identify and merge duplicate records? If not, how will your team stay on top of this important issue? Maintaining multiple records for the same person or entity is highly distracting, thereby detracting from your team’s overall productivity.

Clean House:

I would wager that at least 10% of the records in your CRM could be deleted without harming your business. Don’t believe me? Try this exercise. If you’re using your CRM to track your to-do list, sort your tasks by due date. Now, look for items that are more than a few days past due (or have no due date at all). I’m sure you’ll find at least one task out of ten that’s already been completed. Or, you may find an idea or two from long ago that is now irrelevant. Keeping outdated records only clouds your ability to hone in on what truly matters.

Revisit Your Admin Settings:

Is your tagging structure out of control? Would adding a few custom fields enhance how your team organizes its records? Study your use cases and revisit your CRM admin settings often. A simple adjustment or two could dramatically simplify your data structure – and make your end users happier.

Set Ground Rules:

In what circumstances should your team utilize a project record instead of a simple task? How frequently should your sales staff update the probability on their deals? These are all good questions that, if answered and documented, will help your organization become more successful.

Resolution 3: Sequence Smarter

Now that your CRM contains the right information (no more, no less), it’s time for the fun part: sequencing.

All things being equal, there’s only so much work that can be done. It’s therefore incumbent that you leverage your CRM to determine what should be worked on first, second, third, etc. In other words, which projects and prospects represent the greatest impact to your bottom line.

Let’s look at a few sequencing tips:

Automate Your Sales Priorities:

Not all leads and opportunities are created equal. Likewise, not all sales reps are as gifted as your top-grossing agent. Does your CRM offer automated workflow rules that could reduce friction in the lead delegation process? Could some basic lead assignment rules pay big dividends with minimal effort?

Categorize Your Projects:

As a business owner, you never run out of ideas. That’s a blessing, but it can also be a curse – especially when deciding what your team should tackle first. Staring at a huge backlog of product and service ideas can make everyone feel overwhelmed. A logical first step might involve the categorization of your projects into subgroups. Categorizing by customer segment, department, or product type could provide the clarity necessary to make more informed sequencing decisions.

Make it Visual:

Whiteboards are particularly useful for mapping out innovative processes. The same is true for sequencing your company’s strategic initiatives. A Kanban-style board, such as the one below from Insightly, can be tremendously helpful for deciding what to do next. It also offers a bird’s-eye view of what has already been done (or what is currently in progress).

Kanban Sales Lead Pipeline

Resolution 4: Build in Accountability

Most New Year’s resolutions fail for one key reason: lack of accountability.

As January and February start to fly by, the temptation is to lose sight of your goals. After all, you have existing customers to keep happy. New priorities can wait – right?

Without the right accountability structure, you may find your goals no further along in October than they are now. You need an accountability plan, and you need to build it into your CRM.

Here are ideas for doing that:

Be Specific:

“By June 1, 2018, we will have the new product available for beta testing. We will also have ten of our top customers ready to test it for us.” This type of explanation would likely serve as an effective starting point for a project description. Based on this, your team can then get to work and coordinate the related tasks, events, and milestones. (Bonus tip: Be sure to link all subsequent records back to your master project!)

Set Reminders:

Just because a task has been assigned (with a due date), it doesn’t mean it will actually get done. Remember, not every team member lives and breathes your CRM. Create another layer of accountability by ensuring tasks are set to automatically remind users via email. The “I didn’t see that task” excuse just became a nonfactor.

Let Your CRM Track the KPIs:

Does your current CRM allow you to build customizable reports? If so, can you bookmark them or save them for later? If you’re not sure, spend time to fully understand which KPIs can (or cannot) be easily tracked. In the product launch example mentioned above, a listing of all items linked to the master project might be especially beneficial. Once created, should you set the report to arrive in your inbox weekly? monthly? The answer might depend on your meeting cadence and aggressiveness of timelines.

Here’s to a Productive 2018

Your CRM is destined to play a crucial role in achieving this year’s business resolutions. By setting aside time to be more strategic with your CRM in 2018, you may be surprised at the many great things you can achieve.

matt-keener-2

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, get his book, or connect on LinkedIn.

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CRM Gift Guide for Your Sales Reps

Your sales reps add a ton of value to your business.

With your sales department playing such an instrumental role, you might want to consider giving them an extra special gift this holiday season. No, I’m not talking about a premium subscription to the ‘jelly of the month’ club. I’m talking about turbocharging your CRM. Give your sales reps the full suite of tools they’ve been asking for.

Here are a few CRM gift ideas that are sure to be a hit at this year’s company holiday party.

Gift Idea #1: A More Visually Appealing Pipeline

Sales reps spend most of their time following up on individual leads and opportunity records. To ensure that your sales team is always working on the most important deals, you’ve probably built custom views and reports in your CRM. This is a great start, but it’s easy for reps to feel overwhelmed. A never-ending list of names and organizations is hard to get excited about. It can also make it difficult (if not impossible) to see the bigger picture, which directly impacts their motivation.

A more engaging pipeline could be exactly what your reps have always secretly hoped for. But, how can you deliver a more visually appealing pipeline? One option would be Insightly’s innovative Kanban-style sales board.

Kanban Sales Lead Pipeline

Unlike most pipeline tracking platforms, which offer nothing more than a “snapshot” of the status quo, Insightly’s Kanban view allows your team to create, edit, and convert deal cards on the fly. Instead of drilling down into each lead or opportunity, making adjustments, and then clicking “back,” records can be modified without leaving the master Kanban view. In addition, cards can be moved to the next (or prior) pipeline stage with a simple drag and drop.

A Kanban approach to sales offers several tangible benefits. At a practical level, record editing is significantly expedited. Perhaps even more importantly, it offers an at-a-glance overview of what should be worked on first. And, to be honest, it’s just more fun than a boring lead list report!

Gift Idea #2: A Conversion-Friendly Signature Line

Have you ever calculated the total number of emails sent by your sales staff each year? The numbers might be astounding.

Here’s a quick, back-of-the-napkin example. Let’s say that you have a dozen sales reps and each one sends 30 emails daily. Now, multiply this by 260 work days, and you’re rapidly approaching 100,000 emails. Check out my math:

12 sales reps

x 30 emails

x 260 work days

______________

= 93,600 emails

That’s 93,600 unique touchpoints with your best prospects. You’ve already invested significant effort perfecting your marketing newsletter templates – why not also give your reps a more consistent (and conversion-friendly) signature line for outbound sales emails?

Most CRMs offer customizable signature lines. For example, Insightly makes it easy for you to include staff photos, add custom hyperlinks, and modify the HTML code. Of course, it’s best to provide staff with a standardized template for making these edits (that’s where your gift comes in). If this sounds like something your reps would appreciate, think through these questions as a next step:

  • Who would develop the HTML code for the signature line template?
  • Do we need to bring in a professional photographer if we plan to use headshots?
  • Is now also a good time to adopt an online appointment scheduling tool?
  • Should we have a graphic designer mock this up before handing it off to be coded?
  • Would incorporating our company logo into the signature line be beneficial?
  • What special offers or programs (such as a referral program) should we link to?
  • Which UTM parameters should we utilize so we can track signature line clicks?

Gift Idea #3: A Library of Vetted Email Templates

Working in sales can sometimes feel like the wild west. Everyone is digging for the same gold, and there isn’t a moment to lose.

Continuing with this analogy, your sales team wants to spend more time panning for gold; unfortunately, too much of their time is spent on other activities (such as responding to email and composing new pitches). How can you help them free up time and find more gold nuggets?

This gift idea might be the perfect solution for your situation: a library of vetted email templates.

Now granted, your longest tenured reps already have their “go to” email templates. But, what about the new hires you’ve onboarded in 2017? Chances are, they’ve had to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch.

With a CRM like Insightly, creating a library of sales templates is simple. Just click the big red button and add your template. Once created, each new email template is automatically shared with each user on your account.

Email Template Gallery

For the sake of discussion, let’s imagine your team struggles to cross-sell existing customers. Give the gift of simplified cross-selling with an optimized series of email templates. Here’s how:

  1. Create a diagram with the optimal follow-up pattern.
  2. Identify how many emails are needed.
  3. Work with your top cross-selling team members to craft the ideal messaging.
  4. Run the content past your editorial manager or content team (grammar counts!).
  5. Create the email template(s) in your CRM (Tip: Use a logical category structure).
  6. Show your team how to make the most of your creative gift idea!

Want to know if your gift is being appreciated? If you’re using Insightly, you’ll be able to see how many times each template has been sent, delivered, opened, and clicked.

Gift Idea #4: Lead Assignment Rules (without Drama)

“Why does he get all the big leads?”

Ever heard one of your sales reps mutter something like this? It’s definitely an annoying question to deal with. You do your best to be fair, but there’s always someone there to question your judgment. Sadly, with a manual lead assignment workflow, it’s difficult to escape.

An automated lead assignment workflow can reduce turf wars and improve relationships among staff. As an added benefit, you’ll also remove one additional bottleneck from your sales pipeline. No more waiting on a manager to review and delegate leads. Let the power of AI (artificial intelligence) do the “thinking” for you.

For example, if you’re a Pro or Enterprise Insightly user, you can build lead assignment rules to immediately assign new leads. Mix and match (using “and/or” logic) a variety of criteria, such as:

  • City
  • State
  • Zip code
  • Company size
  • Lead source

You could also go with a pure “round robin” rule that rotates lead assignments evenly over time. Either way, by automating your lead assignment rules, you’ll be out of the drama.

After all, who could blame a robot for being unfair?

(On second thought, maybe this gift idea is more intended for you!)

Gift Idea #5: Post-Order Automation

Your sales team loves selling. It’s what they do best.

Here’s what they don’t like: dealing with the many post-sale details.

Currently, after a deal closes, your order fulfillment team takes over and begins tracking delivery in a spreadsheet. This works to a certain extent, but your sales reps inevitably get pulled into countless internal discussions. Much of the information that is needed resides in your CRM, but your fulfillment team finds it easier to pester the sales staff.

It’s time to draw a line in the sand and expect greater post-sale efficiency. How? For starters, your fulfillment team needs to trade in its spreadsheet for a more robust project management system. If you’re already an Insightly user, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that the system also offers a built-in project tracking tool. There’s no additional charge for using this feature, and, sales records can be seamlessly converted to “projects.”

Convert Opportunity to Project

Depending on your fulfillment model, your team can harness the power of milestones and pipelines to ensure an ideal customer experience. You could also consider mixing in workflow automation rules to further cut down on administrative back and forth.

Best of all, your staff will have access to the “full story” of each customer’s journey. Sales notes, emails, attachments, conversations, and other important information remain fully intact when the record is converted to a project. This allows your fulfillment team to get the answers they need – without bothering your reps!

Give the Gift of Efficiency this Holiday Season

Your sales reps have ambitious goals for 2018. To make this a reality, you must continuously find new opportunities for optimizing their time. Committing to a more streamlined CRM setup could be one viable path.

So, before you stock up on novelty mouse pads or coffee mugs this holiday season, consider the gift of a more efficient CRM. Your sales team will love you for it!

matt-keener-2

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, get his book, or connect on LinkedIn.

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5 CRM Best Practices for Insightly (Part 2)

This is part 2 of a 3 part blog series.

Part 2 provides you with guidance on managing duplicate records and bring best practices together with a worksheet to help implement processes in Insightly CRM.

Part 3 will explore dashboard reporting. 

Part 1 provided a technical overview of backup, security and support CRM best practices.

Dealing with duplicate data in a CRM

According to a 2015-2016 survey report from Experian Data Quality, “Duplicate data, in particular, jumped from 32 to 51 percent.” This is hardly a surprise due to the rapid growth of data, nonetheless it is a serious problem for many organizations, contributing to a poor customer experience, decreased efficiency, and misinformed decisions.

Insightly already detects duplicates when creating or importing new records, but sometimes these duplicate records sneak into your CRM usually because of human error, lack of internal resources, poorly implemented software, and even user permissions (see User Permissions).

5 ways to deduplicate records in Insightly

  1. Smart Merge is an Insightly feature that finds duplicates with similar sounding or spelling of names, and gives you a thorough way of merging all related record objects for contact, lead, and organization records.
  2. Dedupely integrates with Insightly to find duplicates for almost all your major record types using a variety of criteria customizable to you, and optionally, offers automatic duplicate merging.
  3. Look to standalone data utilities like Excel for a complete duplicate scan. This may require programming to build a deduplication algorithm for your organization and to get your data into the tool for analysis (see Version History & Backups). Once you have identified your potential duplicates, manually merge your Project, Opportunity or Task records. SmartMerge will do a fantastic job at taking care of the rest!
  4. The Deduplication Insight Card within Insightly automatically detects a duplicate within open lead records and displays an in-product alert showing the matching duplicates.
  5. Insightly’s new AWS Lambda functionality lets you create a function to run a deduplicate check against all record types within Insightly. If it detects an email match, Insightly will flag that record as a duplicate.  

 

Here is a chart showing the available features, record types, and related record objects from each tool:

Features SmartMerge Dedupely Other
Automatic Merging ✓
Covers Edge Cases ✓ ✓ ✓
Customized Scans ✓ ✓
Record Types SmartMerge Dedupely Other
Contacts ✓ ✓ ✓
Leads ✓ ✓ ✓
Opportunities ✓ ✓
Organizations ✓ ✓ ✓
Projects ✓ ✓
Tasks ✓
Related Record Objects SmartMerge Dedupely Other
Contact Links ✓ ✓ ✓
Emails ✓ ✓
Events ✓ ✓ ✓
File Attachments ✓ ✓
Follows ✓ ✓
Lead Link ✓ ✓
Notes ✓ ✓ ✓
Opportunity Links ✓ ✓ ✓
Organization Links ✓ ✓ ✓
Project Links ✓ ✓
Project Milestones ✓
Tags ✓ ✓ ✓
Task Links ✓ ✓ ✓

 

(Click here for more up-to-date information)

As you can see we have a great set of tools to deduplicate records! However, this is not enough. We need to setup best practices and processes for decreasing the creation of duplicates and increasing the accuracy of matching more potential duplicates.

General best practices for data management include:

  1. Train users to develop good habits for avoiding duplicates when creating or importing new records. When using Insightly CRM mobile, Gmail or Outlook Sidebar, use the search feature before adding a new record as the duplicate detection feature is only available on the web version.
  2. Create data entry rules and train your users how to enter in data using the correct format. Insightly does not offer customizable required fields or validation rules, so try to use custom drop down menus instead of free text fields. When users accidentally enter the wrong format, you can update your data to the correct format using Zapier’s Formatter App, Insightly’s Workflow Automation feature, or manually using the bulk edit or bulk update import tools.
  3. Get up-to-date information. Here are three ways to get this valuable information into your database:

Contact update form

Get information straight from the customer whether in-person, over the phone, or via email. This is hands down the most accurate way to get up-to-date information.

You can automate this process by creating a Zapier integration for Mailchimp and Insightly. Mailchimp’s Update Profile Link allows subscribers to update their contact information and preferences. When subscribers update their profile, Zapier updates your contacts in Insightly with the new information. Watch my CRM Contact Profile Update Form Integration Tutorial.

Profile enrichment tools

These tools enrich your data by validating and pairing your contact records with relevant information online using sources like social media profiles, company websites, list provider databases, and even from your email client. Collecting data that is updated often, such as email signatures, is going to be the next best way to get up-to-date information

 

Use Evercontact to automatically scan email signatures from your Office 365 Outlook or Gmail email client. Then let PieSync handle the rest by synchronizing any updated contact records with Insightly. I recommend reading, The Ultimate Guide to Outlook People By Piesync.

The next best integration for data enrichment is to integrate with a tool like Clearbit. With Clearbit’s Zapier integration you can automatically enrich Lead, Contact & Organization records with relevant information compiled from hundreds of data sources. This will help keep your data accurate and updated. Watch my CRM Contact Profile Enrichment Integration Tutorial

Manual updates

Many businesses have forms and documents stacked away that have yet to be transcribed into the database… Create custom filtered list views to find incomplete records and request the record owner to manually update the missing fields. This can be processed more efficiently with the use of the bulk edit and bulk update import tools.

  • Find patterns in your data and fill in the blanks. This is especially effective for email addresses.

For example, if all of an organization’s email addresses are in this format “firstname@company.com”, we can make an educated guess and apply this format to all other contacts in that organization with missing email addresses.

  • Never delete data. You may have incomplete records, but it is likely the data is of value to your organization and may be completed in the future.
  • Enforce your data entry rules for any data source integrated with Insightly such as list providers or software integrations. When creating new records in Insightly check for duplicates first. If the record is a duplicate, you will need to update the record instead of creating a new one.

In addition, multiple software integrations may result in duplicates because the integrations do not always play nice together. Try creating one workflow automation process or software integration at a time.

Measure, revise, and repeat

  1. Create a standard operating procedure for finding duplicates and merging records. You can start by asking the right questions such as:
  • What fields in our database hold information related to the record’s identity i.e. name, email address, phone number, etc.?
  • Do we need to “normalise” all those fields before checking for duplicates?
  • Will analyzing those fields allow us to find more potential duplicate records?
  • Can we use third party tools to scan our database for potential duplicates?
  • Do we need a full duplication analysis report?
  • How do we identify the “winning” record?
  • What data will be transferred to the “winning” record?
  • What leftover data do we need to save from the “loser” record(s)?
  • How do we manage lost links and objects after merging records?
  • Is manual or automatic merging the best option for our organization?
  2. Backup your data before and after each duplicate merge. If you are using Dedupely’s Automatic Merging tool, then look at backing up your data every ten minutes with Flatly.io (see Version History & Backups).
  3. Monitor your deduplication analysis reports. Identify what record types have the largest duplicate rate and which fields are often incomplete. With the right business intelligence, you can find the source of those duplicates. Then you can create a resolution to revise your software solution, training material, and data entry rules.
  4. Clean your database often.

Action Plan

Take the time to plan an effective data management strategy and procedure for cleaning your database. By doing so, you will allow for a better customer experience, increased efficiency, and more informed decisions.

Go to the Best Practices & Discussions forum in the Insightly Community, where I posted the CRM Best Practices for Insightly Worksheet. This post has everything you need to setup your best practices in Insightly along with more helpful tips to secure your CRM investment.

After implementing these best practices for your organization, I encourage you to leave feedback in the Insightly Community. With your help, my fellow Insightly Heroes and I can continuously improve the best practices for all Insightly users.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of “5 Best Practices for Insightly CRM” where we provide more helpful tips on dashboard reporting. 

To be continued…

 

About the Author:  

Micah Feldkamp is an Insightly Hero and CRM consultant specializing in Insightly software implementations.

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6 CRM Integrations to Use More in 2018

In this post, we’ll explore six CRM integrations for Insightly worth trying in 2018.

Your CRM is doing some amazing things these days. In addition to tracking all of your leads, contacts, sales opportunities, and tasks, you’ve even deployed a few outside-the-box project pipelines. Yes, your CRM sure is a vital asset for your business.

As helpful as your CRM has become to your business, you may have only scratched the surface. After all, Insightly integrates with more than 40 different web apps, many of which you’re probably using.

Slack Collaboration App

Since launching in 2014, the Slack app has achieved unbelievable growth. In fact, more than 9 million professionals in over 100 countries use Slack each week. Why has Slack become such a staple for businesses? Riding the popularity of the social media revolution, Slack simplifies communication and, frankly, makes it more enjoyable. For many companies around the world, Slack has become the central “hub” for anything worth talking about.

Insightly’s integration with the Slack platform creates a seamless bridge between digital office chatter and your CRM. If you’re an Insightly user (at the Plus plan or above), this integration allows you to do the following in Slack:

  • Search for records and add notes
  • Update opportunity states
  • Create new records
  • Add tasks with reminders
  • Stay in the loop with opportunity and project updates

To read best practices for using Insightly’s integration with Slack, click here.

Bedrock Data Integration Platform

Let’s be honest – your company uses a lot of different Saas (software as a service) tools. For starters, you obviously rely on Insightly for sales and project management. In addition, you also subscribe to an online webinar platform, email marketing system, and support ticketing software. And, if you’re even remotely involved with eCommerce, that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg. With so much of your customer information spread across disconnected online databases, keeping your records clean can be a challenge.

The Bedrock Data integration platform allows you to connect your various systems – without programming or developers. Once connected, you’ll be able to manage integrations from Bedrock Data’s intuitive dashboard. The system also takes deduplication off your to-do list by continuously checking for new updates.

Click here for a quick demo of the Bedrock Data solution.

JotForm Online Form Builder

Looking to automatically capture web leads in your CRM? Insightly’s web-to-lead form can be an excellent starting point. If that doesn’t meet your needs, you might want to consider a third-party platform, such as the JotForm platform. With more than 2.5 million users and 200 million form submissions to their credit, JotForm is a very reliable solution for today’s digital marketer.

Enabling Insightly’s integration to JotForm can be especially beneficial for companies with many landing pages. Clone, customize, and integrate forms to Insightly in a flash. The integration makes it easy to match form fields to those already in your CRM. JotForm even allows you to hide certain fields on your form (such as page or campaign-specific details), helping you achieve greater ROI from your marketing efforts.

Learn more about connecting Insightly to JotForm.

Quotient Quote Generator

Getting customers to “sign on the dotted line” isn’t always easy. That’s especially true when they can’t understand how to read your quote.

The Quotient app solves this problem, delivering an engaging quote directly to your prospect’s inbox. Once a quote is sent, Quotient lets you know when:

  • The lead has opened your quote
  • Follow up should occur next
  • Your quote has been accepted

Insightly’s integration with Quotient connects the dots between your proposals and contact records. As new quotes and acceptance emails occur, the integration ensures everything stays up to date in Insightly. Better quoting, better recordkeeping, happier customers.

Click here to read more about Insightly’s integration to the Quotient app.

Google Drive Online Storage Service

Companies of all sizes (big and small alike) leverage the Google Drive online storage service. Why? Well, for starters, Google Drive makes it so much easier to share and collaborate. Unlike traditional spreadsheets or documents, which must be emailed back and forth, Google Drive files are fully shareable with anyone. Better yet, everything is stored securely in the cloud, reducing the likelihood of information loss.

If you’ve used Insightly for very long, you may have noticed that the Google Drive icon is built into the “Files” section of your records. Enabling the integration only takes a few seconds (just click the icon to allow access). Once enabled, you’ll be one click away from your most important Google Drive files. Stop messing with multiple browser tabs – enable Insightly’s integration for Google Drive today.

Everhour Time Tracking Software

Wondering how much time your sales reps spend on administrative work (instead of selling)? Now you can find out by enabling Insightly’s integration for the Everhour app.

Everhour embeds natively into your Insightly account. As your sales associates follow up on leads and opportunities, the Everhour app tracks how much time was spent on what. Need to see which deal is consuming the bulk of your team’s time? Want to learn how many hours are spent on deals prior to close? With Everhour and Insightly, you’ll have the answers you’ve only dreamt of.

Continue reading about Insightly’s integration with Everhour.

Create a More Integrated CRM

Ready to make 2018 the year of integrations for your business? Get started today and try out the 40+ integrations available for Insightly CRM. Productivity, document management, email marketing, time tracking, and marketing automation are just a few of the more popular integration categories. You might be surprised by all of the possibilities!

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5 CRM Best Practices for Insightly (Part 1)

This is part 1 of a 2 part blog series.

Part 1 provides a technical overview of backup, security and support CRM best practices.

Part 2 will provide you with guidance on managing duplicate records and bring best practices together with a worksheet to help implement processes in Insightly CRM.

Data integrity is key to a good CRM user experience.

Insightly continues to go the extra mile to build product features designed around data security, protection and permissions.

Significant Insightly CRM updates (2016-2017):

 

Version History & Backups

Insightly has passed a major data provider audit and is now SOC2 Type 2 compliant. Plus, Insightly offers a Recycling Bin feature to restore deleted records from the past 30 days.  In a recent release, Insightly now also tracks the opportunity change history and displays a full audit log of what was changed and by who within the opportunity record. See information like who updated the forecasted Close date and when the change was made.

In Insightly, there are three main ways to backup your data.

  1. API v2.2 allows you to get almost all of your data with the exception of some system & user settings. While API v2.2 requires programming work, there is an automated backup service that connects to the API called Flatly.io. Flatly.io recently updated their software to get all available Insightly data and settings backed up to a storage service of your choice every 10 minutes. Lastly, you should take into account how many API calls you are making per day. The daily API throttling limits vary depending on your plan.
  2. Data Exports give you most of your data in the form of XML files. Some objects, related links between objects, and fields are not available or may be incomplete.
  3. Reports will help complement the Data Export, but unfortunately both tools combined, still do not offer a complete export of all the related links and fields for each object. File, Event, Task, Project, and Opportunity History Reports will offer the most significant amount of information not found in the data export.

Here is a chart showing a general view on the availability of objects and settings objects from each source:

Objects API v2.2 Flatly.io Data Export Reports
Comments ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Contacts ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Emails ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Events ✓ ✓ ✓
File Attachments ✓ ✓
Follows ✓ ✓
Leads ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Milestones ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Notes ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Opportunities ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Organizations ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Projects ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Tags ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Tasks ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Users ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Settings API v2.2 Flatly.io Data Export Reports
Activity Sets ✓ ✓
Countries ✓ ✓
Currencies ✓ ✓
Custom Field Groups ✓ ✓
Custom Fields ✓ ✓
Email Accounts
Email Signatures
File Categories ✓ ✓
Instance ✓ ✓
Lead Assignment Rules
Lead Conversion Custom Field Mappings
Lead Sources ✓ ✓
Lead Statuses ✓ ✓
Notifications
Opportunity Categories ✓ ✓
Opportunity Conversion Custom Field Mappings
Opportunity State Reasons ✓ ✓
Permissions ✓ ✓
Pipeline Stages ✓ ✓
Pipelines ✓ ✓
Project Categories ✓ ✓
Relationships ✓ ✓
Task Categories ✓ ✓
Teams ✓ ✓
Team Members ✓ ✓
Web to Contact Forms
Web to Lead Forms
Workflow Processes

(Click here for more up-to-date information)

Get the data you need and backup your data often. In the event of a cyber attack, user error, or audit, all versions of your data will be physically in your hands.

Interested in automated data backup with Flatly.io?

Use coupon code CLREFERRALSCOM when signing up for 10% off first month’s subscription.

Advanced Security

As of September 6th, 2017, Insightly only had Single Sign-On (SSO) access with Google G Suite. Today, users can have SSO access to Insightly via their Microsoft Azure AD panel, Office 365 portal, and/or identity provider (IdP).

Google G Suite & Microsoft Azure AD both complement Insightly with these 10 advanced security features:

  1. SAML-based SSO Compatibility*
  2. OAuth SSO Compatibility
  3. Two-factor Authentication (2FA)
  4. Self-service Password Reset
  5. Restrictions Reusing Expired Passwords
  6. Required Password Length
  7. Monitor Password Strength
  8. Risky User Sign-in & Activity Alerts
  9. User Sign-in Audit Reports
  10. Session Timeout

*Insightly offers SAML-based SSO compatibility only on the Enterprise plan and is compatible with all IdPs that support SAML.

Whether or not you integrate Insightly with Google G Suite, Microsoft Azure AD, or an IdP like OneLogin, reset your password(s) at least once every 90 days. This will automatically increase your security level.

User Permissions

Insightly has two ways of managing user permissions: Simple & Advanced. Both features do a great deal to protect customer data.

Insightly’s Advanced Permission feature does not currently apply on files uploaded directly to Insightly.  However, if you wish to put in place that extra level of control, use one of Insightly’s native-integration services like Dropbox or Google Drive.  By storing Google Drive, OneDrive or DropBox rather than directly in Insightly.

While advanced permissions helps protect your data, permissions may deactivate the duplicate detection feature when creating or updating records. This only happens when the user creating or updating the record does not have visibility permissions to the possible matched record(s). The only way to clean up the duplicates is to merge the records.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of “5 Best Practices for Insightly CRM” where we provide more helpful tips and insights on deduplication best practices!

To be continued…

 

About the Author:  

Micah Feldkamp is an Insightly Hero and CRM consultant specializing in Insightly software implementations. Click here to see Micah’s interview with Data2CRM.