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Creating a Sense of Urgency Drives Sales!

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

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 4 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, a tip on improving your sales, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!

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Simplify Next Year’s Holiday Cards (with Insightly)
Although the holidays will soon be a distant memory, it’s not too early to plan for next year. If you send customer greeting cards, there’s simply no reason to write them out by hand. Remember, you have Insightly for a reason – use it!

As the next holiday season approaches (or whenever you send out mailers), follow these simple steps to prepare your mailing list with greater ease:

  1. Navigate to your contacts (or leads) in Insightly
  2. Refine your mailing list – it might be helpful to filter only those leads possessing a city and zip code. Or, if you’ve already tagged certain records, just click on the appropriate tag link. Filtering contacts within Insightly can save a few steps of spreadsheet manipulation.
  3. Select the contacts you wish to include. Then, from the “More” drop down, click “Export to CSV.”
  4. In a matter of seconds (or minutes, depending on your list size), Insightly will email you a download link like this:

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  1. Use this sheet to build your mail merge labels.
  2. Print, stick, and go!

Before you forget, set yourself an Insightly reminder for mid-November 2017. You might save yourself (or your assistant) several hours of frustration next year!

 

 
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Get More from Your Marketing Newsletter
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Most businesses send out email newsletters. The benefits are obvious: staying top of mind, providing thought leadership, and generating clicks are just a few compelling reasons.

However, unless you’re intentional with your newsletter, you run the risk of just being another annoyance to recipients. Consider these tips for enhancing your newsletter’s value:

Think like your recipients: Put yourself in the shoes of those on your email list. Would you really want to keep receiving your newsletters? Just because people rarely complain, it doesn’t mean that they enjoy your content. What style and content adjustments can you make to increase subscriber engagement?

Use rock-solid tracking: All of your marketing activities need to be tracked. Email marketing is no different. Most email marketing systems offer their own reporting capabilities. Some even permit integration to popular web analytic packages. Look for ways to track subscriber activity and review the data regularly.

Mix in a few CTAs: It’s OK to tastefully mix in a few call-to-actions (CTAs) for your products or services. Customers kind of expect it, so don’t be shy. Just be transparent and always give subscribers the option to opt-out.

Create a sense of exclusivity: Your blog is a great source for newsletter content. However, simply regurgitating what’s on your website into email format may not be enough. Dedicate some real estate to original content, which can only be found in your newsletter. You’re likely to see a boost in open rates!

 
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Design a Continuing Ed Plan for Yourself
 

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Clients appreciate your expertise.

Although much of what you know was learned through life experiences, a certain percentage of your knowledge originated from something you read online.

Stop and think about a highly impactful video that you’ve watched or article you’ve read. How did you come across it? Perhaps you saw it on social media. Or, maybe a colleague forwarded it to you. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but it’s very reactive in nature. You need to proactively seek information to stay competitive. But, how?

Perhaps it’s time you implemented a simple continuing education system for yourself. It’s really not that hard. Here are a few ideas:

  • Subscribe to relevant email newsletters and blog RSS feeds. A quick web search will likely turn up dozens in your area of expertise.
  • Join relevant social media groups and check them weekly.
  • Set up a Zapier app to aggregate stuff you care about.
  • Hire a freelancer to organize and report on best practices.

An important note here: be sure to actually make time to review the content you gather. Although you’re a busy person, setting aside a few minutes of continuing education time weekly can pay big dividends.

Set a goal of learning one new thing each week, and you might be surprised by the outcome!

 

 

Create a Sense of Urgency
 

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What are you doing to proactively create a sense of urgency with your prospects?

If your answer is “I’m not sure,” then it’s time you took a step back and reevaluated things. As our buddy Adam Honig at the Spiro blog points out, “It’s not enough to build value for the customer if you can’t also explain why they need to move forward as soon as possible.”

So, what can you do to start making your leads feel more inclined to buy? Here are a few quick ideas:

  • Develop a special offer that expires by a certain date (promo codes work well)
  • Design an infographic that shows the costs associated with not moving forward today (as compared to the upfront investment)
  • Understand your prospect’s budgeting cycle and time your follow up accordingly
  • Send an incentivized survey (packed full of thought-provoking questions), aimed at creating an emotional need for your product or service
  • Share a case study that highlights the rapid payback period experienced by another customer
  • Start adding expiration dates to your proposals (30 or 45-day periods are common)
  • Build a marketing automation rule that follows up with a prospect if the associated opportunity is not already marked as “won.”

Some customers simply need to be pushed. It’s not that they don’t want your products. Rather, they’re probably just too busy on other things.

 

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Send Us Your Tips. Would you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card! Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.

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

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Mobile Device Management for Small Businesses

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In today’s demanding global workplace, businesses have come to rely on staff use of mobile devices to get their work done. Bring your own device (BYOD) is a hot topic in business conversation. Is it secure? What if someone leaves the company?

Small businesses were at a considerable disadvantage with the inability to employ the same resources, staff numbers, technological tools and security measures that large workforces have at their disposal. Why? Because until recently, the ability to manage mobile devices simply didn’t exist on a smaller scale.

The MDM Era

Most small businesses don’t have the available finances necessary to supply the whole team with the latest in mobile gadgets to be used for business only. Instead, the majority of workers supply their own smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

This is why we need Mobile Device Management. Your MDM system could change the way your company deals with security, help minimize breaches, ensure employees store work information separate from their personal info on their own devices, and keep work related activities up to date and available when employees are not at their desks.

Mobile CRM is a great solution, especially for smaller businesses.

Data Security

Along with the ever increasing popularity of mobile devices comes the ever increasing likelihood of those devices being stolen or hacked. The need for security is critical.

Keeping work and personal life separate on an employee owned device can be tricky. Storing work-related data securely in the Cloud using a CRM, rather than on the device itself, is a great way to protect and manage your data. Your entire team has access to all the relevant information from wherever they are working, and your data is inaccessible without a password.

If the device is stolen, access to company intelligence is easily blocked; if the device is lost or otherwise damaged, the data remains intact.

Dealing with Churn

For businesses with high staff turnover, a cloud-based data system makes it easier than ever before to add new access and just as easy to remove access when necessary. A quick change of password or permissions, and an ex-employee is instantly locked out of your data and systems.

System Maintenance

Using an MDM system means all “housework” can be done at the same time, for all users. Upgrades, updates, patches, approvals and importantly, immediate support are available for the entire system at once, easily and with no need to deal with each device individually, saving time and effectively reducing costs.

Secure File Sharing

Connecting your Mobile Device Management System to your Cloud-based Customer Relationship Management System provides a method for file sharing that’s safer than ever before.

Files can be safely and securely shared with specific team members or with everyone; it’s up to you. This fully customizable method makes the sharing of your intelligence fast, easy and brilliantly practical, making it an impressively comprehensive and powerful tool for a small business.

Other document sharing software often relies on imperfect, difficult (or impossible) to customize solutions. Insightly provides a dynamic, built-for-the-task system which easily handles file storage, permissions-based sharing, and more.

Maintaining Control

Mobile owners feel a deep connection to their gadget of choice. Breaching the security of such a personal space is an invasion of privacy akin to scrambling through tangible possessions. Employees use their devices how and when they desire, and employers should consider carefully before intruding.

When a personal device is being used in the workplace, however, employers are understandably concerned about company security and data being compromised.

An MDM system could be the perfect compromise. It keeps your data and processes safe without intruding on your employee’s personal space, and eliminates worry that important data will be lost or stolen.

 

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

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The (Sales) Agile Manifesto

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Earlier this year, LiquidPlanner CEO Liz Pearce shared her project management predictions for 2016. She explained that Agile – a popular set of methods and practices to help teams ship more work at a faster rate – will extend beyond software development.

“Agile is not just for software developers any longer – in fact, many departments and business leaders have implemented agile methodologies in an effort to accelerate business and product development,” Pearce told GetApp last February.

Sales managers can benefit from Agile as well. You juggle calls with prospects, customer meetings, lead scoring, and more – only to repeat the same cycle next quarter. Each customer relationship brings its own tasks, stakeholders, milestones, and scope.

All of this makes you a project manager – whether you’ve thought of yourself as one or not. And managing your sales projects with an Agile approach can help you achieve more in shorter periods of time.

This might not sound obvious at first. After all, the first Agile Manifesto was founded in 2001 by a group of 17 software developers. Software development has completely different goals, workflows, and skillsets than sales…right?

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Incorporating Agile into your sales workflow makes sense when you realize that its core goal is to put customers first – something you do every day. The trick is to understand different Agile frameworks and choose the right one for your sales team’s workflow.

Here’s an overview of two Agile project management frameworks – and how to tell if either option is the right fit to manage your own sales projects.

Kanban

Have you ever viewed a Trello board? If so, you were watching Kanban project management. This framework was founded to manage hardware projects; Toyota started using it in the late 1940s to improve line production. Kanban – which means “visual signal” or “card” in Japanese – is a visual process which organizes a project’s steps into cards and columns that are defined by status. This helps project teams visualize project workflows; communicate effectively through clear visibility; and ship more work at a faster rate.

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Any sales manager worth their salt knows that communication is key. Kanban offers a great way for sales teams to organize each stage of customer conversations. This might include one column to track initial inquiries, a second to track first meetings, a third for proposals, and so on.

Kanban also helps you track leads and organize them into columns based on status (assignment, capture, distribution, etc). This high level view tells your team which stage each opportunity is at. It also helps everyone divide, conquer, and close each quarter on a high note.

Pros:

  • High visibility;
  • Flexible workflow;
  • Event-driven (rather than timeboxed);
  • Ideal for use across several teams;
  • Does not require planning or clearly defined roles.

Cons:

  • Lack of timeframes can impede sales deadlines;
  • Does not offer strong support for substantial changes (like high-level sales goals);
  • Task ownership can become confusing due to the lack of clearly defined roles;
  • Kanban’s “queuing system” means that tasks don’t progress unless a current piece of work is delivered. This can cause bottlenecks;
  • Sprints (more on them later) can’t be organized into tasks using Kanban.

Consider Kanban if Your Sales Team:

  • Does not work against rigid deadlines;
  • Wants to create different workflows for inbound and outbound sales cycles;
  • Needs to visualize and share sales workflows with marketing engineering, and other cross-functional teams;
  • Needs to account for ongoing changes;
  • Iterates work according to events (like customer conversations).

Before You Start with Kanban:

Define each project’s high-level goals and each person’s task ownership. This will give everyone on your sales and cross-functional teams the autonomy to make changes on the go without getting confused about who owns what.

Scrum

Does the Agile Manifesto resonate with you, but Kanban’s loose style makes you shudder? Scrum might be a great alternative. This framework’s backbone is user stories, which are meant to describe software features from an end user’s perspective.

Scrum allows teams to define their sprints’ details as a group. This often occurs during daily stand-up meetings, where each team member shares task status per project they’re working on. Each sprint is followed by a retrospective, where the team reflects on that sprint’s achievements and makes improvements as needed.

One of Scrum’s additional core benefits is how it allows customers to collaborate with product owners. This framework applies to a customer/sales rep relationship as well. As the sales rep, Scrum gives you the autonomy to own your team’s big picture goals and prioritize next steps per relationship to achieve those goals.

And since Scrum involves a set of strict guidelines and procedures, it’s ideal for folks who enjoy pattern recognition. Sales teams have used Scrum in the past to start predicting patterns early on in the sales cycle. When used effectively, Scrum can make it easier to estimate – and surpass – final sales numbers.

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Pros:

  • Provides a pre-determined structure that yields proven results;
  • Offers a divide-and-conquer approach that is ideal for high performance teams;
  • Facilitates constant dialogue, reflection, and iteration as needed;
  • Fosters open communication with customers;
  • Reduces risk by encouraging work sprints with short timeframes.

Cons:

  • Demands strict adherence to a specific structure (you can learn more here);
  • Requires experienced team members;
  • Doesn’t react well to major changes (like losing a team member mid-project);
  • Tough to implement across larger and/or cross-functional teams;
  • Can value processes over people – which is far from ideal in sales.

Consider Scrum if Your Sales Team:

  • Has nine people or less;
  • Is highly experienced;
  • Prefers to plan ahead and have clearly defined roles;
  • Wants a framework to help iterate quickly based on customer feedback;
  • Works on fast-moving projects.

Before You Start with Scrum:

Establish roles per person on your team. Scrum outlines adherence to three roles:

  • Product Owner (the team lead who owns all project accountability);
  • Scrum Master (the product owner’s adviser who owns the sprint goals);
  • Team (a group of people with the autonomy to meet each sprint’s goals).

Kanban and Scrum are similar in some ways and distinct in others. But both frameworks can be highly productive if used correctly. The key is to be honest with yourself about your sales team’s current workflow. Neither framework is right for every team. But if you can incorporate either of them, the potential rewards for your team are limitless.

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

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lauren-maffeo-headshot-jpgLauren Maffeo covers trends in the project management, finance, and accounting software industries for GetApp – a Gartner Digital Markets company. She focuses her research on strategies and tools to help small and midsize businesses create unique value.

 

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Are You Forgetting to Thank Your Customers?

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Customers are the soul of any business, but you don’t automatically get to build lasting relationships with them. A solid relationship between a buyer and seller is likely rooted in mutual trust, respect and appreciation. Like any other relationship, these qualities form over time – and with proof – so don’t forget to thank your customers.

As a vendor, going the extra mile for customers in terms of providing service, personalizing experiences and offering loyalty rewards can help cultivate relationships that pay off in the long run. However, the most effective ingredient for a positive customer relationship is often the simplest action you can possibly take: saying thank you in a genuine, human way.

This year, skip the mass-produced thank-you card. Or at least, couple the card with a creative action that shows your customers your honest gratitude. Below are a few ideas to help you get started:

  • Reach out with a gratitude email. Don’t wait for the holiday season to check in with customers, contacts or even colleagues. Sending a quick, personal email in your own voice – such as “I’d love a quick update on what you’re up to these days” – gives your recipients a chance to connect and share on a one-on-one level. Checking in with others and showing your active interest is an act of gratitude in itself.
  • Engage with customers (and their feedback) on social media. Few customers would be surprised if their tweet praising your company received engagement from your brand’s account. However, a “like” or “favorite” directed at a customer’s vacation or pet photo is another story. By respecting your customers’ passions and interests, you’re showing that their value exceeds their spending activity with your brand.
  • Personalize your thank-you cards. As mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with a holiday card. It’s also the first step of many visual engagement ideas and tactics. Free design programs, such as Canva, can help you create beautiful graphics that are tailored for their purpose and recipient. Using personalized background photos and phrases such as “Happy birthday!” or “Congrats on your promotion!” help go the extra mile.
  • Acknowledge service workers. Showing your gratitude doesn’t need to stop with your customers. Going the extra mile by sharing cards or small gifts with people you interact with in the service industry, such as gas station attendants and cashiers, is a chance to recognize their work while brightening both of your days in the process.

Learn how a CRM can help your team effectively engage with customers.

 

 

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

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