mobile crm app – user's Blog!

October 2, 2017

10 Creative Ways to Use Insightly CRM Voice Notes

Have you ever tried using the Insightly audio notes feature?

If not, you’re definitely missing out. Insightly allows you to record up to 60 minutes of audio per file. Voice notes can be linked to contacts, organizations, leads, opportunities, and projects. Best of all, free and paid users alike can access this feature.

So, what are some ways to use audio notes? Here are ten ideas to consider.

1. Recapping Sales Appointments

The best sales reps are usually very busy people. With client meetings from sunrise to sunset, there’s rarely a down moment. It’s therefore difficult (if not impossible) for your sales team to type summary reports for each completed appointment.

A more feasible approach could involve the use of audio notes. After finishing a sales call, the rep can easily locate the lead or opportunity record (via the Insightly mobile CRM app). Within seconds, he could be recording a brief explanation of how things went. Once saved, someone from your back office could then listen to the recording and update the record (such as changing the pipeline status).

A task that would otherwise take days to get completed (or never get done at all), could be done within minutes. Most importantly, your organization has the information it needs – and, your sales reps can get back to what they do best: selling.

2. Training Your Sales Reps

Good sales help is hard to find. And, more frustratingly, the really good ones are even harder to keep. (The competition is always happy to pay more!)

Before your top sales talent jumps ship, it might be wise to capture their best practices into audio format. In doing so, you’ll create a more scalable onboarding and training workflow for new sales hires.

What types of audio files could be beneficial? In a perfect world, new team members would probably appreciate a selection of recorded:

Cold calls
Follow-ups with stale opportunities
Upselling examples
Conversations with unhappy customers
Follow-ups with satisfied customers
Testimonial solicitations

Before you turn your star performers loose to create such recordings, be sure to review best practices for recording phone conversations. (You may need to ask clients for permission before recording such conversations, or you could use role play to achieve the same outcome.)

To what type of Insightly record should your sales team attach such audio notes? One option involves creating a never-ending project called “sales training.” As new team members are onboarded, add them to the project and assign new tasks, inviting them to review the recordings.

3. Outlining Blog Posts

Your content marketing always seems to take a back seat to more pressing matters. The moment you sit down to write a blog post, there’s always some new emergency that requires your attention. Despite your best intentions, there’s just rarely an hour in your week to focus on writing.

Audio notes can help you move one step closer toward your next published article. Simply pull out your smartphone, find your “content marketing” project in Insightly, and start dictating. Don’t get too worried about grammar or being concise. Just focus on collecting your ideas. (After all, you’re the subject matter expert.) You can have one of your staff members transcribe and edit the piece later on.

As you use Insightly to capture more of your blog ideas, you may find it helpful to follow a specific dictation pattern. For example, you might start by clearly stating the objective of the post. Once stated, you could then pause the recording until your first supporting point comes to mind. (Sometimes staring at a ticking timer is enough to give you writer’s block!) Repeat this process until you’ve fully developed your thoughts.

4. Interviewing Clients for Case Studies

Recent industry surveys have shown that customers trust online reviews as much (if not more) than word-of-mouth referrals. This is an astounding statistic, and it’s one that your business should be capitalizing on. The development of case studies for your website is one effective method for doing so.

Case studies don’t just fall from the sky. In fact, well-done case studies require substantial effort to produce. Interviewing clients, drafting content, and gaining final approval are just a few of the steps involved.

Luckily, Insightly voice notes can serve an invaluable role in this process. Rather than facilitating the client interview and manually keying in notes, Insightly can do the heavy lifting for you. Just jump into the client’s record and start recording. Your client will likely be impressed by how tech-savvy you are, and you can stay focused on asking the right questions.

Once you return to your desk, you’ll see the audio file in your activity feed. What a great feeling to know that you’ll never misquote another client!

5. Capturing New Product or Service Ideas

Great ideas can come during the strangest moments. For whatever reason, the grocery store checkout line seems to be a particularly fertile source of your ideas. Unfortunately, you rarely have a writing utensil on hand, and your phone’s notepad is a notorious black hole.

Instead, you might try creating a “new ideas” project in Insightly. When genius strikes, you’re then just a tap away from fleshing out an explanatory voice note. You can also customize the naming of your audio notes, making it easier to locate ideas in the future.

For added accountability, you could then assign yourself a date-sensitive task (with an email reminder). You’ll not only have an in-depth explanation of the new idea (in your own words), but you’ll more importantly have a deadline by which you must take action.

After reviewing your original idea and determining it has merit, you might choose to create a new project specifically for implementation. Choose between milestones or pipelines, based on the nature of the idea.

And to think….all of this started with a bag of avocados, a conveyer belt, and a store clerk named Jake.

6. Delegating to Your Team

You know what your team should be doing. If only they’d just do it!

The sad reality is that some instructions get murky when translated from your brain into text format. Just because you’ve assigned a task, it doesn’t mean that your staff will actually understand it.

For projects that are especially important, adding a voice note can help to reduce confusion and increase the quality of work. So, when should you take the added effort to include an audio delegation? Here are some possibilities:

You Need Proof of What You Said: Tired of playing the blame game with staff? Leave no room for error by adding a verbal narrative of what should be done. It’s hard for your team to point fingers when they have access to you in your own words.

Only You Know How to Do Something: There are some things that others in your organization can’t possibly know. (For example, your motivation for starting the business.) Sure, you could type up an email or document with this information. But, that takes time – time that you don’t have. A voice file is a much more efficient way to provide clarity.

You’re Tired of Repeating Yourself: Saying the same things over and over? Say it once in a recording, attach it to a project, and point future questions to this resource.

7. Increasing Engagement During Meetings

“Who is going to volunteer to take minutes at today’s staff meeting?” The room goes silent, until one brave soul hesitantly offers to do the work.

If you’ve ever been put into this situation, you know how difficult it is to take notes and participate in the discussion. You want to share your opinion, but you also want to avoid being the scapegoat for bad recordkeeping.

The next time you’re called on, consider harnessing the power of voice notes. Simply launch a related project or other record and start the recording process. As long as the meeting last less than an hour, you can rest easy knowing that Insightly has your back.

And, if your team is expecting a set of typed meeting minutes, you can just download the recording and transcribe it into document format. (If you’re too busy, simply assign the task to your administrative assistant.) Once transcribed, the typed minutes can be attached as a file to any contact, organization, opportunity, or project.

By providing both audio and typed meeting minutes, you’re sure to impress your colleagues!

8. Handing Things Off

In today’s virtual work ecosystem, aligning schedules and time zones can be challenging. Your team in the Philippines is usually gone for the day before your West Coast staff arrives. This situation forces your West Coast team to waste hours simply determining what has been accomplished.

Audio notes can create a seamless interaction between different teams. Instead of only relying on written updates, an audible summary of the day’s work can expedite the handoff from one worker to the next. (It might be wise to develop a standard naming structure for audio notes, including the day’s date or project number.)

And, unlike shared documents, which are easily overwritten and edited, an electronic archive of voice recordings (in the worker’s voice) creates an additional layer of accountability. If it’s later determined that a major oversight has been made, reviewing prior recordings can help your team identify where things went wrong.

9. Celebrating a Job Well Done

Your team works hard to close new deals. They work even harder to build positive, long-term client relationships. Although bonuses and merit increases are greatly appreciated, sometimes a kind word from management goes even further.

You’ve been known to go out of your way to show your appreciation. Many times, this comes in the form of a brief email. Other times, you’ve shown gratitude during company-wide meetings. Recording an Insightly audio note can be another effective way to show people you care.

Unlike an email (which usually lacks personality) or a shout-out in a meeting (which expires immediately after spoken), a voice recording can be a lasting source of motivation for your team. In addition to being front and center in Insightly, users can also download a copy to their computers. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

10. Blowing Off Steam

You have a lot on your mind. Keeping customers happy, employees on track, and your business profitable can create significant stress in your life. You need an outlet to decompress. Insightly’s audio notes can serve as one way to blow off steam.

(Obviously, you’re probably not going to want others to access your innermost thoughts. It’s therefore wise to set up a private project, visible only to you, for collecting these types of voice notes.)

So, what are some situations that might necessitate the creation of an audio note? Here are a few possibilities:

Something is Troubling You: Customers can say nasty things. Employees can fail on the job. When problems occur, getting them off your chest quickly can help you move on to more important responsibilities (without completely forgetting about them).

Something Needs Research: A colleague from another company shares a sticky situation that you hope to avoid yourself. Get it into Insightly as a note and figure out what to do about it later.

Something is Broken: Things break. Some require immediate attention, but others don’t. (For example, you can’t figure out why your printer keeps printing everything in blue ink!) Make a note for yourself to solve the problem later – instead of wasting time on it now.

Use Your Voice to Get More Done

Most people can talk a lot faster than they can type. Thanks to Insightly audio notes, you can increase your productivity simply by speaking. No more searching through your computer’s folders or smartphone’s text files for the next million-dollar idea. Everything is intuitively organized within Insightly from the get-go – in your own words.

If you’ve never tried this powerful feature before, it’s time you did so. In time, you’re sure to think of many new and creative ways to put your voice to work!

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.

July 10, 2017

Import Contacts and Optimize Your Schedule With Ease In Latest Version Of Insightly Mobile App

Today’s business landscape calls for you to be connected at all times and have instant access to vital information, even when you’re away from the office. We remain committed to providing our users with an excellent mobile experience. With the latest version of the Insightly mobile app (3.20), you can now import contacts directly from your mobile phone’s address book, view your device’s calendar within your Insightly calendar and view your coworkers’ Insightly events on your own calendar.

We made sure to make all three of these exciting new features available for both our iOS and Android apps.

With version 3.20 you can:

Import contacts from your mobile phone directly into your Insightly app. Have some contacts in your phone’s address book that you’d like to add to your Insightly? We’ve made it pretty stinkin’ easy to import these contacts. All you need to do is ensure the contact has a first and last name entered and you’ll be able to drop the contacts right into the app. We’ll even tag them for you upon import.

See your device’s events on your Insightly calendar. Tired of toggling back and forth between calendars on your mobile device? You can now view both your Insightly calendar and any of the calendars on your device simultaneously within the app. Simply open your Insightly calendar and tap the three dots to configure which calendars to display, and just like that you’ll be able to view all your appointments in one place.

View your coworkers’ Insightly events on your Insightly Calendar. Just like on the web, you now have the option to view a coworkers’ Insightly events on your calendar. All you need to do is tap the three dots on the calendar screen and select from other users. Quickly pull up their calendar and let the collaboration begin.

In our coming releases, we are streamlining the Insightly mobile apps to prepare for future updates. To add upcoming features, we will no longer be able to support older versions.

If you are using an older version of the Insightly app, be sure to update it! Always remember that you can avoid having to install manual updates by setting up automatic updates on both Android and iOS.

May 17, 2017

5 Time-Wasting Business Habits & How to Avoid Them

Time goes by much too quickly.

As the leader of a growing business, you know this to be all too true. Days and weeks continue to zip by in a flash, and your strategic priorities seem no closer to implementation.

Although you can’t slow down time, you can identify time-wasting habits that may have formed in your business. Overcoming these habits can free up new time and resources, making goal achievement more feasible.

In this post, we’ll discuss five common time-wasters – and how to overcome them.

1. Constantly Jumping Between Email, Chat, & Social Media

In a perfect world, you’d never be bothered during work hours. Instead of constantly putting out fires, a targeted focus on your ever-growing to-do list could yield significant value.

Unfortunately, your work life is far from perfect (so is everyone else’s by the way). Customers are always emailing you directly. Your team is not shy about pinging you with questions. New sales inquiries and support problems frequently require your input. And, your social media followers always appreciate your pithy thought leadership. All of this is, of course, encouraging news for your business. Clients increasingly trust the brand you’ve built. But, servicing so many requests can quickly grow tiresome and even serve as a distraction for your company’s future growth. Spending every waking hour jumping between your inbox and discussion forums diverts your attention away from your goals.

How can you gain greater control over your schedule without missing opportunities? Here are a few ideas:

Set aside “distraction-free” time each day: Set your IM status to “do not disturb” and close your inbox. Put your smartphone in a different room. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and spend 30 minutes on something you deem to be important. Try this for a couple days and measure the impact. I think you’re going to like it – and, you might even be surprised by how little you’re actually missed!

Study the sensitivity of your response time: Does each request deserve an immediate answer (by you)? How many of your emails are truly “urgent” in nature? Study these types of questions, and you’ll be more likely to identify how much “distraction-free” time you can get away with.

Look for additional things to delegate: Just because you’ve historically done something, it doesn’t mean you should keep doing so. Does it make sense to hire additional staff or freelancers to ease the burden? Perhaps you already have staff who could fill this role? It’s worth considering.

2. Capturing & Organizing Minutes from Meetings

Speaking of things worth delegating, how much time do you spend on glorified administrative work? For example, what percentage of your week is consumed by the seemingly simple task of organizing your own meeting notes?

If you said “not much,” think again.

Let’s say that you typically have between eight and twelve meetings each week (we’ll call it ten on average). You usually create a meeting agenda, share it with your team in advance, and then use the document to capture meeting minutes. After the discussion is over, you spend about fifteen minutes trying to make sense of your notes. You look for any action items and manually enter each one into your project management system. By my math, you’re spending over two hours each week (or 150 minutes to be exact) on post-meeting administrative activities! This is not to mention the time you’re spending during the meeting by trying to multi-task as both scribe and participant.

Here’s a better approach:

Step 1: Before the meeting, identify a related project or customer record via the Insightly mobile app.
Step 2: On the “related” tab for the record, tap the “+” symbol and select “Note with recording.”
Step 3: Let Insightly record the discussion and link the recording to the related entity.
Step 4: Have your administrative assistant listen to the audio transcript and add new tasks on your behalf.
Step 5: Enjoy the additional time in your busy work week!

Optimizing your meetings is only the beginning. With a tool like Insightly, you’re bound to identify other administrative tasks that can either be eliminated, streamlined, or delegated.

3. Waiting for the Next Assignment

Although your to-do list is always overflowing, the same isn’t always true for other members of your team. Granted, some staff members take the initiative and find ways to add value without being asked. Others, however, prefer to take a “wait and see” approach, hoping that you’ll find something for them to do.

Idle staff can be doubly wasteful to your organization. With the proper instruction, they could be helping you work through your overwhelming backlog. This would not only ensure their time is well spent, but it could help you move your vision forward – faster. Instead, idleness is reducing output and inhibiting the realization of your strategic agenda.

To reduce the risk of downtime, it’s important to take a proactive approach to project management. For example, you might:

Tag your projects: People can’t help you if they don’t know what’s on your mind. Consider tagging certain projects that may benefit from team involvement. Doing so will make it easier for staff to view and sort that which is important to you. They can even volunteer for specific tasks, allowing you to expedite the implementation of certain strategic initiatives.

Encourage group discussion: Sometimes a project just needs a healthy discussion to get liftoff. Set up a recurring monthly (or biweekly) calendar invitation, during which your team can collectively review and discuss your tagged projects.

Automate recurring tasks: Just because a specific task is marked as “completed,” it doesn’t mean that it’s done forever. What types of activities does your organization do on a repeating basis? Examples might include: monthly bookkeeping, preparing social media plans, and pulling sales reports. Configure repeating tasks to keep your team on track and avoid downtime.

4. Moving Data From Your CRM to Other Systems

You need timely and accurate data to make informed decisions. And, although you spend much of your day in your CRM, there are other software apps you use to run your business. Exporting, importing, and de-duplicating data lists isn’t exactly the best use of time.

How can you streamline the data management aspect of your business?

For starters, it’s important that you fully understand the native potential of your CRM. For example, some Insightly users overlook the fact that the system offers accelerated sales management and project management under one roof. By simply utilizing the built-in project aspects of Insightly, users can bypass the headaches of porting data between systems. When an opportunity is marked “won,” a new project can be created in less than ten seconds. This is especially useful for business models that require a high-touch fulfillment model.

Naturally, it’s unreasonable to think that your CRM can fulfill every aspect of your technological needs. Even after maximizing the use of a tool like Insightly, your organization will probably still rely on:

Eternal inboxes
Document sharing apps
Accounting & bookkeeping software
Email marketing systems
Scheduling calendars
Customer ticketing software

Before you export another customer data CSV file, it’s worth a look at the native integrations to your CRM. Insightly, for example, offers dozens of easy-to-enable integrations. And, if that’s not enough, you could leverage the power of the Zapier platform and potentially connect your CRM to more than 750 third-party tools.

With each newly enabled integration, your staff is bound to save hours of frustrating, non-value-added administrative work. You’re also in a better position for avoiding data headaches and oversights.

5. Relying Too Heavily on Your Desktop (or Laptop)

Unless you’re a millennial who grew up with a smartphone in hand since childhood, you probably prefer to do certain tasks via your desktop or laptop computer. There’s a certain sense of comfort that comes from your oversized monitor and ergonomic keyboard.

Despite the appeal of a traditional office setting, you and your team might actually be wasting time.

To illustrate this point, let’s imagine you have a busy day scheduled for tomorrow. You’ll be attending an executive networking event at 7:30 am, which is immediately followed by a couple of important on-site client meetings. After that, you’re meeting a potential new hire for lunch. Your afternoon calendar is fairly open, which seems like the perfect opportunity to regroup from the busy morning. Unfortunately, when you arrive back at your desk, a new emergency has arisen. Updating your CRM records will have to wait until tomorrow morning (hopefully there won’t be a new emergency then!).

In this scenario, which depends upon being at your desk and doing work, you’ve let a full day slip by before any follow-up action can occur.

A better approach might have looked like this:

After each event, pull out your smartphone and pop open the Insightly mobile app.

Find the related record and add a voice note (see above) to summarize your notes.

If immediate action is required, assign a task to one of your team members (or yourself!).

Close the app and move on to your next meeting.

By following this process (which takes five minutes or less), you’ll save yourself time later in the day. In addition, your staff can help coordinate the many follow-up activities before you ever get back to your desk. It’s the best of both worlds.

What Other Time-Wasters Do You Struggle With?

Struggling to overcome other time-wasting habits in your business? The first step to improving your situation is to realize a problem exists. Only then can you begin matching technology and other best practices to solve your newfound inefficiencies.