information management – user's Blog!

The web fuels your company with the timely information and business intelligence you need to stay competitive.

When are our estimated quarterly taxes due this year? How will the new privacy regulations affect how we interact with customers? Which software is the best fit for our exact needs and budget? In which social media groups does our target market engage?

It seems there’s no question too complex for a simple web search.

As powerful as the Internet can be for your business, it’s also a vast and ever-growing ecosystem. With billions and billions of web pages to sift through, there’s clearly more information than you could ever consume.

Luckily, Insightly can help you make better sense of it all. In this post, I’ll share a few tips for converting Insightly into a personal Internet for your business.

Problem: Your Information is Everywhere

At a very basic level, the Internet is nothing more than a collection of linked-together files. Some files are made available as plain text articles with embedded images (such as the blog post that you’re reading!) while others offer more of a multi-media experience (such as videos). Regardless of a file’s format, most publishers aim to provide web content that is helpful, informative, and easily accessible.

Looking at your business, you likely come into contact with dozens of “helpful and informative” pieces of information each day. For example, that 12-page blog article about SEO that your marketing intern sent you can easily be bookmarked for later. Unfortunately, there’s not an easy way to “bookmark” things like:

A spreadsheet containing the names and contact details for your top 100 leads (ranked in order of importance)
A PDF report from your accountant, comparing different profitability scenarios
An email from your recruiter, explaining her top three candidates for your sales department
A private Google Docs file, containing your company’s strategy roadmap (prepared by your business development consultant)
Three recent invoices from a vendor who might be ripping you off
A project plan, containing detailed milestones and tasks for various staff members
Email marketing campaign data from your most recent newsletter

So, how do you deal with things like this? If you’re like most business owners, you probably try to use some combination of inbox labels and cloud or desktop folders. Trouble is, things frequently get lost – and, perhaps even worse, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever remember to follow up.

Aggregate the Information that Matters to You

A platform like Insightly solves this problem by getting your most important information into a usable, consistent format in a single location. Instead of spreading your files across multiple locations (which aren’t connected, by the way), Insightly becomes your one-stop location for business intel – accessible from any web-enabled device. In other words, Insightly becomes your own personal Internet.

With that being said, let’s see how Insightly can solve the challenges mentioned above. (In the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on just a few of the examples that we’ve discussed.)

Spreadsheet with Your Top 100 Leads:

At its core, Insightly is a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Therefore, if you’re using it correctly, your team won’t need to waste time creating lead tracking spreadsheets. Since your leads are already in Insightly, your team should instead just use the “lead rating” field to group important prospects in order. Or, you could always create a custom field to get a pure 1-to-100 sequenced list. Either way, all of this should be done within your Insightly account – not spreadsheets.

PDF from Your Accountant:

Your CPA’s time isn’t cheap. You’ll therefore want to make the most of his or her efforts. In the past, reports like this have sat in your inbox for weeks. Why not forward that email (attachments and all) to an accounting-related Insightly project? In doing so, you’ll get it out of your inbox and into a more action-friendly format. Insightly does the filing and admin work for you, saving a copy of the email and PDF exactly where you need it. For added firepower, consider enabling an automated workflow, ensuring that you’ll actually do something with it in the future.

Private Google Docs File:

Insightly connects to dozens of cloud-based apps that you’re already using, including several document management platforms. So, rather than sharing the doc via email, Insightly lets you “attach” cloud documents to any lead, contact, organization, opportunity, lead, or project record. Just connect Insightly to your document management tool, and you’re good to go.

No more hunting through dozens of online folders or email threads. The info you need is neatly linked to the correct records in Insightly.

Project Plan with Milestone Data:

One of the best-kept secrets among Insightly users is the tool’s native project management capabilities. Insightly is actually much more than a CRM; it’s built to support every step of the customer journey – from lead cultivation through delivery. So, if your team is using an external project tracking tool, your company might be missing out on a golden opportunity to boost efficiency. Insightly collects all of your project-related documentation, project plans, worksheets, and tasks into a centralized hub. Track milestones and project pipelines with much less effort (and confusion).

Build an In-House Search Engine

With everything stored securely in Insightly, now the fun can really begin. Insightly indexes your information, making it searchable by you and your staff. In other words, Insightly serves as an in-house search engine for your business.

Stop and think about the potential impact this could have on your business. Instead of searching one database for an email address and your computer’s folders for a related file, Insightly allows you to search across all record and file types simply by keying in a few words.

Searching in Insightly will return (in real time) any potential matches within your:

Contacts
Leads
Opportunities
Organizations
Projects
Files
Notes
Comments
Tasks
Events

With so many potential matches, however, you might be asking yourself, “How does Insightly decide which records to show first?” The software’s search algorithm takes into consideration a number of factors and logic, returning the records that you’re most likely looking for. For example, if you’re looking for a first and last name, Insightly will rank an exact contact name higher than matches found in notes or comments.

Sometimes, you know exactly what type of information you’re looking for. Doing too broad of a search might be more of a distraction than help. For example, I’m sure that you’ve used a Google images filter to identify a particular graphic or photo. The same can be done in Insightly, thanks to the tool’s intuitive search filter. Remember that project you created to forward reports from your CPA? To search for it, just key in the letters “CPA,” and click the “Projects” tab. Voila! All of your accountant’s valuable insights are now accessible at your fingertips.

As with any other search engine optimization strategy, manually creating “links” between your content is always a smart decision. Insightly makes is easy to link records together, saving your team time and effort. Better yet, Insightly even lets you track why a link exists – such as how one person knows the other.

And, as relationships and circumstances change, you can always edit or remove a link altogether…no IT help required!

Make the Most of Your In-House Knowledge

With a centralized, robust search engine of business intelligence at your disposal, your team will be primed for new levels of efficiency. To maximize the value of this asset, however, be sure to develop an ongoing strategy for keeping things fresh. After all, the world wide web wasn’t built in a single day. Nor did it stop expanding at a certain date in time. The Internet is always growing, always changing. Likewise, your Insightly knowledge base should always be evolving. Gaining buy-in from staff is an important step for building the best version of your in-house search engine.

One final note: It’s likely that some of your team members will be resistant to change. That’s OK, as you’re in this for the long haul. Create detailed work instructions and training videos, explaining how you expect the system to be utilized. Track which team members are the most active, and which team members aren’t holding up their end of the deal. In time, your staff will find that having a “micro Internet” actually helps them complete more tasks, access more reliable information, and achieve more goals.

After all, who doesn’t like to have everything accessible with a simple web search? I sure do.

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.

Growing up in rural Indiana, I’ve seen many silos in my lifetime.

In case you’ve never been to the heartland, farmers typically use silos to store silage (feed for dairy cattle and other animals). Silos are often sealed airtight to control moisture levels and prevent pests.

Where am I going with this discussion? How do Hoosier silos relate to data silos in your business?

Physical structures aside, “data silos” are increasingly challenging for today’s technology-driven companies. Like their agricultural brethren, data silos are very common for gathering things (in this case, information). Sales information in one silo. Projects in another. Email histories scattered across dozens of inbox silos. Even knowing which silo to look in is daunting.

And, unlike dairy cows, that eat whatever they are given, your team members are hungry for real-time access to everything in your silos. Unfortunately, it’s all sealed airtight and buried among a million other data points.

In this post, we’ll discuss tips for identifying silos in your business.

Survey Your Data Landscape

Some business owners don’t realize the data challenges they’re facing – until it’s too late.

A rogue employee, a server meltdown, or even a time-sensitive client proposal can be the reality check that drives many into action. Luckily, you’re reading this article and have the luxury of developing a proactive strategy.

Before you can build a cohesive data strategy, it’s important to first identify where silos exist in your business. Although doing so may seem easy enough, data silos can be less apparent than you might expect. Silos of information can, of course, exist in obvious places, such as databases or shared network folders. However, they can also exist in less obvious places, such as the brains of your employees, on smartphone devices, or even in physical file cabinets.

A smart business owner routinely takes a step back to examine his company’s entire information footprint. Only then can he develop a realistic plan for creating a more scalable and collaborative environment.

To get started, try asking yourself some simple questions. Here are a few off the top of my head:

Question: If your top-grossing sales rep unexpectedly quit, what systems would you need to comb through in order to ensure a seamless transition to his replacement?

It’s quite possible that you’d at least need to check:

Your CRM (customer relationship management) system
Email folders & sent boxes
Various deal tracking spreadsheets
Saved voicemails
Proposals saved to your network drive
Invoices saved to his old work station

Question: What marketing systems does your company use to achieve its goals? If you needed to build a “complete picture” of your marketing processes, where would you have to look?

Marketers (like me!) love to use the latest software and tools that deliver results. However, unless you’re strategic in the use of such tools, you can have data strung out everywhere:

Email campaign analytics (opens, clicks, opt-outs)
Social media stats (top-performing posts, shares, likes, favorites, followers)
Web traffic data (unique visitors, goal conversions)
Direct mailing lists
Form submission histories
CPC budget and performance results

Question: In what ways do team members collaborate with one another? Is this collaboration being documented in a centralized location, or is it remaining in isolated buckets?

On one hand, you want to encourage a flexible and creativity-inducing culture. On the other hand, allowing too much leniency will inevitably spread information across countless medium. Do any of these sound familiar?

Instant message conversations
Shared documents in your Google Drive account
Email attachments
Handwritten meeting notes
Text message exchanges

Question: How do team members structure their work days? What tools do they use to delegate and create accountability?

There are countless productivity apps on the market. Some offer a to-do list-style interface, while others take a kanban board approach. In fact, your team is probably using several of them to organize:

Recurring and one-off tasks
Projects that contain major milestones
Sequential workflows
The delivery of your goods or services

Fewer Silos, Greater Business Value

By now, you might feel overwhelmed just thinking about the many places where data is hanging out – and, what to do about it. Fear not, as you don’t have to solve this problem overnight. As with anything else in your business, you’re a master of going from good to great. You’ll handle it like the pro that you are.

I’ll save the “how to knock down silos” discussion for a future blog post. However, as I recently pointed out in this post, repositioning your CRM as an “integrated information hub” can be an effective starting point for bridging some of the disconnected silos that plague your business. For example, a tool like Insightly, which can connect to your email inbox, document management system, marketing systems, and countless other apps, pulls your most important information under one roof. And, since Insightly offers a number of built-in project management and workflow features, you might even be able to run the proverbial backhoe through a few outdated silos.

As you begin the process of consolidating or tearing down data silos, never lose sight of the bigger picture. Remember your primary motivation for undertaking such a momentous project should always be focused on one or more of these goals:

Fewer Excuses, Less Confusion – Empower your team to do their jobs. Fewer logins and learning curves should result in less confusion and greater productivity.

Better Customer Alignment – Merging project and sales data into a single hub should make it easier to serve your most important stakeholders: those customers who are paying the bills.

More Reliable Data – With fewer silos to sift through, your team will have fewer legacy databases to keep current. This should help boost the accuracy of your business intelligence, allowing you to make more informed decisions.

Cost Savings – Who knows…you might even be paying for a silo that hasn’t been accessed in several months or years. Consolidation could represent a cost savings opportunity, both in the short term and long term.

Watch Out for Silos in Your Business

Let’s face it…you’re not a farmer. Why are you keeping your most important business information in isolated concrete pillars? Give your team the data they need most. It’s time to recognize where silos exist in your business, develop a consolidation plan, and put your business information to better use.

Tag: information management

Why Insightly is Like Having Your Own Business Intelligence Internet

Why Data Silos are Bad for Business