Category: CRM Blog Posts

Scope creep. A concept that strikes fear in the heart of every project manager. Content can be a slippery slope when you’re racing against the competition to build your brand, show your expertise, and earn the trust of your customers, you may find yourself sacrificing quality to post new content more often.

Your challenge is to produce enough quality content to keep your brand in the public eye. Without a clear strategy, it can get out of hand. Here’s how you can stay on budget and still deliver the goods.

Brainstorming and buy-ins

You want your blog to be informative and have an insider feel, and the best people to produce that kind of content are your employees. Asking your employees to blog has benefits them by making them feel more valued and valuable. But, let’s be honest, not every employee is a writer.

That’s where brainstorming comes in. Schedule a meeting every two weeks to brainstorm blog content. Invite stakeholders from each department, especially those on the front lines: customer service and sales.

You’ll also want to hear from the back end – whoever is monitoring your analytics. If you’re using a CRM with comprehensive reporting features, you have a wealth of data at your disposal. You’ll be able to spot trends, find out what customers are discussing on social media, and develop a comprehensive customer persona.

Using input from all departments, develop topics based on questions customers ask and problems they encounter. Your blog calendar should include a nice mix of informational topics, interaction, and personality.

Employees who don’t have blogging skills (or the time) can contribute ideas and knowledge by way of bullet points to be sent to a writer.

Be sure to appoint an editor who can fact and quality check everything posted, make sure enough content is submitted, and ensure that sensitive company information doesn’t accidentally go public. An experienced editor will help protect your online reputation.

Stretch your most valuable assets

Buzzsumo analyzed thousands of posts and found that the most shared content is long…really long. More than 3,000 words. Professionally written content of length can be very costly, and your customers might not actually read it.

To make the most of an expensive piece of content, you can:

• Break points into shorter blog posts and discuss one concept at a time in more depth.
• Make a slide presentation with bullet points from a report.
• Create an infographic.
• Schedule dozens of tweets and social media posts with snippets of information.
• Discuss the information in a video.
• Create a how-to teaching viewers to apply the information you’ve presented.
• Schedule a livestream webinar with Q&A to discuss your findings.
• Create eye-catching graphics to tweet and post.

Curate content

The beauty of curated content is simple: you don’t have to produce it or pay for it. Curation allows you to provide a lot of content, even if you don’t have a lot of resources. You can add value with commentary and your own insight in just a few sentences.

The content you pull into your site should be relevant to your industry, interesting, and new.

Ask for guest posts

Most blogs have a “write for us” page with guidelines about what they are willing to post. As your blog grows in popularity, writers will likely contact you to offer guest posts. Accept only quality posts, and make sure any links are to authoritative, high-quality sites.

You can also invite execs from partner industries to share their expertise.

Invite your readers to participate

User-generated content (if appropriate) can be a fun and interesting way to get your customers involved:

• com asks users to submit designs, which users them vote on. The most popular designs based on pre-order sales, are printed and delivered.
• Hatteras Realty invites users to post their favorite vacation photos.
• TripAdvisor’s core value is built on user reviews.
• GoPro invites users to upload videos shot on GoPro cameras.

Long before your content budget spins out of control, you can create a strategy to contribute, curate, and invite. Done well, you can provide a wide variety of content to interest and entertain your customers, even on a limited budget.

At Insightly, we have a CRM for all kinds of businesses and all kinds of users. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life.

	Making a Digital Move
	Have you ever given any thought to what it means to make a “digital move?” By my definition, making a digital move is about upgrading the way you manage your business-related data. If you find yourself in need of an upgrade, take the time to prepare a strategy. As you begin a digital move, your first task should be to ask yourself, “what do I move and what do I toss?” Insightly CRM makes that part of the decision making process a bit easier because it allows you create custom fields that I find to be useful for organizing existing data. For example, before I migrate data over to Insightly, I like start be creating a custom field called “met date.” I also create a field called “met where,” which helps me put the initial meeting into context, particularly if and when I see that person again. Even with the best of planning, organizing data can feel like heavy lifting. The good news is that there are specialists who are adept at organizing data. Consider working with someone who can help you think through some of the nuances of what to toss, how to stage the move, and how to get familiar with your new digital data home. Also, talk to friends, colleagues, and others who share your industry or profession. If your needs are going to be changing in the upcoming 3-5 years, be sure the system you move your data over to will be able to grow and adapt. You wouldn’t want to be moving your home every year, and the same is true with your digital home. Give yourself some time to adjust to your new digital digs. Be patient and congratulate yourself—moving isn’t easy. This business tip was provided by Diane Darling, the author of McGraw-Hill’s definitive book on networking, The Networking Survival Guide.
	Invoice on the Fly With Insightly + Xero
	One of the most powerful features of the Insightly + Xero integration is having the option to create draft Xero invoices right from your Insightly account. To create an invoice for a particular contact or organization, begin by logging into your Insightly and Xero accounts. From your Insightly account you then: Click the Xero subtab on an opportunity or project that’s linked to a Xero contact. Click the Create Invoice Draft button. Enter the name of the contact, project, or organization to bring up the associated record, then click the Create Invoice Draft button. If the correct Xero contact does not appear in the Contact list, cancel the action, then create a new contact using the Create Xero Contact button on the previous page. After the Create New Invoice Draft in Xero pop-up window appears, simply click on the Create Invoice Draft button and the invoice, including the balance due, will be automatically generated.
	Don’t Forget to Remember
	Remembering faces and names is one of the most gratifying aspects of being a truly engaged business person. It can also be pretty challenging. You likely meet dozens of people in any given year, yet the chances of recalling every single person’s name are slim. Still, we all feel a deeper sense of being appreciated when someone we’ve met briefly not only remembers our face, but also remembers the name to match. Fortunately, there are a few tricks–using a well tested technique called mnemonics–that can keep your memory for recalling names sharp. For instance, when you meet somebody for the first time, say their name back to them when they introduce themselves. Next, repeat the name in your head over and over. To help solidify the memory, continue to use their name in conversation as much as possible.  If you’re still having trouble, make up a rhyme about their name: “Lisa with the Mona Lisa smile,” for example. Creating a personalized trigger is also very effective. You can do this by associating names with things people tell you about themselves (hobbies, world travels, etc.) that will, in turn, trigger the sound or association of that person’s name in your mind. “Kevin finds the sport of fishing heaven” or “Judy likes to drink fruit punch.” You get the gist. Playing the naming game may feel a bit silly, but it’s an easy trick that really works.   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

 

I recently had an encounter with a young mother and her child that got me thinking about rekindling childhood innocence.

The little boy was about 3-years-old and having a complete meltdown in the middle of the shopping mall.. The young mom looked embarrassed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I walked over to her and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to have a tantrum too?” She looked at me perplexed. I smiled and continued, “Imagine, we get on the floor and just scream ‘NO’ over and over again.”

The good news about being an adult is the wisdom we’ve learned along the way. Yet the downside of being a grownup is that we’ve lost that youthful innocence; that ability to live in the moment and not think too much. Little ones live in the moment. Indeed they don’t have the burden of thinking long-term. They focus on their immediate needs and aren’t shy about CLEARLY communicating them.

Often my brain is distracted and on overdrive. What about today? How can we fully enjoy and maximize the day? What can I accomplish today! Not this week, next year, but just today.

Here’s a thought – bring the innocence of your childhood years and introduce it to the knowledge of your adult persona. Side note – the word “persona” actually means mask in Latin. Sometimes a mask is a wise idea – we want to have a poker face when we’re at a friend’s house eating something we don’t like, but we want to be polite. Other times, the mask isn’t useful. We’re hiding our skills that can help others (and ourselves).

I’m not suggesting you go around yelling. However, I am inviting you to think about what you can do now (instead of what you can’t). What will make you feel that today, or the next 20 minutes, will be time well spent?

In my wallet I keep a photograph of myself when I was about 5 years old. I pull it out every so often and have a conversation with my younger self. I remind her that life is often bumpy. The journey, however, takes me to many amazing places. Would I really want to stay in the same spot forever? It’s doubtful. A curious mind is often an adventurous one.

At 2 pm every afternoon my alarm goes off. It’s the same one as my morning alarm. The way I see it, if I go to bed at 10 pm I have 8 hours left to make the day feel worthwhile. The 2 pm alarm let’s me “reboot” if I got sidetracked and need to realign.

What have you accomplished already today? Need to reboot?

 

Check out our pricing page or sign up for a free Insightly trial right now.

About the Author: Diane Darling knows the value of relationships and how to build them. The author of McGraw-Hill’s definitive book on networking, The Networking Survival Guide. Diane speaks and trains thousands of people each year on ways to build relationships, leading to opportunities and growth.

Becoming a successful sales manager isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s important to keep growing and sharpening your craft, especially amid such a fast-paced industry. We have access to the wise words of several sales experts out there, so why not take the time to learn from them?

I’ve pulled together a list of the best sales books that changed the way I approach selling, and that have ultimately improved the way my team works together.

Here are a few of the best sales books every sales manager should read:

SPIN Selling

What it’s about: In SPIN Selling, the former founder of Huthwaite Corporation, Neil Rackham, provides expert wisdom from years of experience advising companies like IBM and Honeywell. Rackham answers questions like “What makes success in major sales?” and “Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones?”

Why you should read it: While it’s not the newest book out there, this classic is still filled with essentials for anyone running or managing a salesforce. You’ll learn why traditional sales methods created for small consumer sales don’t work for large sales and why traditional methods fail in major sales. This is the book you need to read if you want to dramatically increase your sales volume from major accounts.

Predictable Revenue

What it’s about: This is not another book about how to improve cold calls or get deals to close faster. Instead, Aaron Ross’ Predictable Revenue examines the outbound sales process that generated $100 million in recurring revenue to Salesforce.com — nearly doubling their enterprise growth without cold calls in just a few years.

Why you should read it: Predictable Revenue revolutionized outbound sales. Today, it is now the foundation of many great inside sales teams. Ross provides tips for developing a self-managing sales organization and making outbound enjoyable. You’ll also learn seven fatal mistakes to avoid and how to boost your response rate to nine percent with cold prospects on virtually no budget.

The Sales Acceleration Formula

What it’s about: In this book, Mark Roberge gives a scalable approach to building a winning sales team and increasing revenue. Roberge shares how he built his $100 million business by challenging conventional methods. Using the metrics-driven and process-oriented lens, through which he sees the world, he developed new formulas for success.

Why you should read it: This is one of the best sales books you can read as a sales manager. You’ll learn how to apply data and technology to accelerate sales. You’ll also learn how aspects like hiring, training, managing, and generating demand affect sales acceleration.

Secrets of Question-Based Selling

What it’s about: Written by Thomas Freese, this book takes a commonsense approach to demonstrate how asking the right questions at the right time can identify your customer’s needs accurately.

Why you should read it: This hands-on guide will teach you how to penetrate more accounts, overcome consumer skepticism, build credibility sooner, increase return calls, and motivate different types of buyers.

Of course, there are plenty of other great books out there so by no means should you limit your education to these books. These are just some of the best sales books that made a significant difference in how my team approaches sales.

Go ahead and do your own research to see what you find. You never know what great books you’ll stumble upon.

 

At Insightly, we have a CRM for all kinds of businesses and all kinds of users. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

 

Mikita Mikado is the Co-Founder & CEO of PandaDoc, a platform helping sales teams create, deliver, and track intelligent sales content to close deals faster. To learn more about simplifying your sales documents, connect with Mikita and the PandaDoc team on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life.

	Turning Complaints Into Compliments
	We’ve all been there. You’re in throes of excitement about getting acquainted with a new product or service only to have something break or malfunction. Whether it’s a glitch in the software or a tear in a new shirt, when something goes wrong we want somebody to “fix it” as soon as possible. As a business owner, it’s inevitable that a customer will run into some sort of issue with your product or service and need to make contact. Rather than viewing customer complaints as a mark against the quality of your business, why not flip it around and use it as an exercise for improvement and an opportunity to earn trust and loyalty from your customers. Acknowledgement and validation You must find out what’s important to the customer, which ties directly back to that person’s value system. You may not agree with the complaint, but the customer wants to feel right (justified) for their grievance. For instance, if a customer complains about slow service, validate them by saying something like, “You absolutely deserve prompt service …” Apologize once up front As customers we’re not always right and we know it. But it doesn’t stop us from feeling as if being right or wrong is beside the point. Whether you are on the giving or receiving end of a complaint, once a customer always a customer. An upfront apology goes a very long way, so when you offer one make it clear that you are sorry for any inconvenience. This demonstrates empathy and understanding. Explain your company’s desire to improve Once you understand a customer’s values (e.g. speedy delivery) then you can use that as a framework for a playback of the value statement. “We understand that prompt delivery is very important to our customers, and we’re working on improving in that area.” What’s most important is to be honest. If a fix for the issue isn’t on the immediate horizon, at the very least let the customer know that their input is valued and will be noted.
	Leads to Opportunities
	If you are concerned about losing information when converting Leads to Contacts and Opportunities, try importing all your Contacts as “Leads”. Create a custom drop down field labeled Type: Lead, Prospect, Partner, Customer, etc. When you import your Contacts that are leads, include an extra column in your CSV file with the header labeled as Type, and input the keyword Lead for that entire column. When you create an Opportunity for the Contact or you make a sale, you will want to manually change that custom field in the Contact Record to Prospect or Customer. (Tip compliments of Insightly power user, Micah FeldKamp, of cloudreferrals.com)
	On the Road Again
	If your business takes you out on the road for customer visits, there’s little time to waste on logistics. Whether you’re traveling across town or to another continent, the proliferation of travel-related smartphone apps make it finger-tap simple to do everything from booking flights and hotel rooms to finding the best gym in town. Here are a few favorites that are worth exploring: Uber Uber offers travelers a reasonably priced option to get around town in 60 cities around the world. For the uninitiated, Uber pairs riders with private drivers. While the sign up process requires you to include your credit card information, once you’re in the system you can use the app to request a ride, prepay for the service, and get picked up in matter of minutes. No cash required. The Uber app is free and can be accessed from your iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Mac, or Windows devices. WheatherPro Bad weather conditions can definitely put a damper on business travel. WeatherPro provides weather information from every possible angle, including wind direction and speed, air pressure, UV index, humidity, and more. WeatherPro can be accessed on your iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Mac, or Windows devices. Price starts at $1.99.   TripIt Booking a trip is only part of the equation. Keeping all of the details organized is another. TripIt is an app that organizes all your travel plans into one master itinerary that you can access anytime, anywhere, on any device. The app can be accessed from any platform – the web, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. It’s free to use, but for ad-free options, the mobile app can be downloaded from Google Play and iTunes for $0.99. GasBuddy If road trips are your preferred mode of travel, saving money on gasoline is great. GasBuddy is a mobile app that allows you to find the cheapest gas prices in the immediate area. Through the benefit of crowdsourced pricing data, you can be sort your search by price or location (via GPS or zip code). The GasBuddy mobile app is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry device users. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

My company has implemented hundreds of CRM systems at clients all across the country and this is what I’ve learned: a CRM system is only as good as the company using it. Today’s CRM systems are mature, work well and can be a very productive tool. Just like higher education. The better your education, the more opportunities you have. So where do you fall?

Are you a High School CRM company? We all know by now that, in many cases, graduating from high school just isn’t enough nowadays to truly succeed in the real world. And the same goes with CRM. Is your CRM use at the high school level only? A high school degree provides the most rudimentary of skills. A High School CRM system is a similar. Even after great amounts effort, some companies never rise above the high school level. They’re using their CRM system as a mail list at best. There is contact data only and even that data is made up of mostly just names and addresses. Sure, users can look up phone numbers and send out holiday cards. But not a lot more. High school CRM systems are not successful CRM systems. They are the equivalent of a glorified rolodex at best. If this is your system, try using a spreadsheet instead.

 

 

Or (hopefully) a University CRM? College degrees are good. And so are University CRM systems. These are the companies that getting a good deal of productivity from their CRM system and represent the bulk of our client base. Like today’s college education, it’s respectable, valuable and opens doors/creates opportunities. A University CRM system is more than just a database of contacts. It’s a good database of contacts, where the information is accurate, complete and controlled so that it can be relied on. Not only that but there are more than just the basic address fields – there are fields for census and profile data. And the system is being used beyond just storing contact data. Activities are scheduled and completed. Emails are stored. Opportunities and forecasts are entered and updated and there are even a few good reports that managers are using to supervise their team and measure success. A University CRM is a respectable, productive and valuable system. Sure, you’re only using about 30% of what the system does – but then again how much of what you learned in college are you using in the real world anyway?

But maybe, just maybe, you’re a PhD CRM. The PhD CRMs are truly the smartest systems of the bunch – just like in real life. These are people that take their CRM to a whole new level. Because there is a level of CRM that goes well beyond the basic contact, activity and opportunity management that the University CRM user is doing. This involves workflows, alerts and integration. A PhD CRM system utilizes workflows to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks and opportunities are following an agreed on process. A workflow means that once one thing is done, another thing is triggered. And if it’s not triggered…someone gets alerted about it, usually by email or text. Companies with bona fide sales processes rely on their CRM workflows to manage and maximize their pipeline. The PhD CRM is also big on integrating, particularly with other systems and online. Accounting, inventory and website data is brought or displayed in the system to avoid duplicate data entry or additional work. Web forms are created so that employees and customers can enter data from any device and that data can automatically update the company’s CRM system (and trigger a workflow or alert!). The University CRM system really is just advanced contact management. But a PhD? That’s a true CRM system. And that’s where you want to be.

Three types of CRM systems. Which one do you have?

 

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

About the Author: Gene Marks is a small business owner, technology expert, author and columnist. He writes regularly for leading US media outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. He has authored five books on business management and appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC. Gene runs a ten-person CRM and technology consulting firm outside of Philadelphia. Learn more at genemarks.com

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

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life.

	Content Marketing on a Budget
	The benefit of content marketing is that it sets the stage for you to showcase your brand by creating and distributing relevant, high quality content (such as e-books and comparison-guides) that are targeted at your specific customer audience. Hiring a marketing agency to get help get your content noticed can be expensive, however, so for small businesses content marketing can seem a bit out of reach. If you break it down into a few essential components, there are steps you can take to launch your own content marketing program. According to the CMO Council, adding social sharing buttons to email messages can increase click-through rates by more than 150%. Pair social sharing buttons with meaningful content posted on your social media channels (as well as your website), and you’re on your way to content marketing on a budget. Blogging is a smart way to attract strangers to your business, and you can use your own website to host and post it. If you don’t already have a web presence, get started on creating one right away. For little or no money, cloud-based web development platforms like Wix give you access to templates and forms that can get you up and running with a good looking website in a matter of hours. Create an area on your website for a blog and begin posting at least once per week. If you handle the writing yourself, the blog post wont’ cost you more than the hour or two of your time. An alternative is to ask your employees to become regular contributors. Another tactic is to prominently display your social profile icons in your website’s header or sidebar with links that lead directly to your profiles. You can further increase value by integrating live social media feeds like the ones found on Facebook and Twitter. Add a simple web form to the mix and you’ll be converting web visitors into leads in no time.
	It’s All In a Name
	Did you know that customizing your email signature with details such as your name, company title, address and phone number will reduce the chances of your outbound emails ending up in the recipient’s spam folder? If you are an Insightly email user on a paid subscription plan, with a few clicks you can personalize your email signature with your own branded signature that contains up to 500 characters. To edit your custom email signature: Navigate to the profile icon menu (upper right corner of your screen) Go to the User Settings > Email Signature page Enter the text for your new signature Click the Save Email Signature button
	Snacking for Success
	USA Today cited the findings of a research survey sponsored by US-based grocery delivery service, Peapod. Of the 1,000 people surveyed, most (especially millennials) reported a higher degree of happiness in their workplace because they have access to a variety of quality snacks. And that doesn’t mean junk food. The survey showed that among the top 10 favorite snacks were apples, bananas, and strawberries. Additional findings suggest that yogurt and string cheese also rank as top favorites. Here’s some food for thought: Medical research shows that healthy snacking increases energy—and quite likely employee productivity   Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card!Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. has been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.