project management – Page 2

July 7, 2016

CRM for All: Consulting

Business owners are pulled in every direction on a daily basis. From managing operations, sales and marketing, to customer service and so much more. There’s no way that one – or even two – people could keep it all straight. Those who head up consulting firms are no different. When traditional rolodexes and spreadsheets fail, smart consultants turn to customer relationship management (CRM) to regain control of their operations. Our consulting customers broke down the top three reasons they turned to CRM:

To improve workflow

Business Made Simple needed an easy-to-you, inexpensive and intuitive tool that would improve workflow and task management. Co-founders Erin Mathie and Melissa Bamfo use Insightly with the Evernote integration to capture notes from customer and lead calls. The information is automatically populated to the corresponding account records, so data can be tracked and easily accessed. The duo also loves Insightly’s pipeline tools, which manage client fulfillment projects from start to finish. All of this has contributed to greater sales conversions.

To move leads through the sales funnel

Eric Greenspan, CEO of 74 Systems, uses Insightly to improve efficiency and keep tasks from falling off his radar – it’s become mission control. A majority of his leads come in from the website and webinars. Before, it was a challenge to keep prospects in order and moving through the pipeline. Now, using Insightly and Zapier, Greenspan has leads automatically pushed to the platform and turned into opportunities. He then reaches out to determine next steps. Since first implementing Insightly, the company has had more than 30 new customers sign up over the last three months.

To boost customer experience

Winston Faircloth, CEO of Winsightz, has to keep track of individual clients and projects, so he can provide the right support at the right time. Using Insightly has proved to be invaluable in helping Faircloth heighten customer service. He assigns goals, holds training sessions and provides ongoing support, all of which are tracked and monitored on an ongoing basis. It’s been especially helpful in situations when Faircloth has had to quickly access client activity. When a client asked what was in the pipeline, he was able to immediately pull it up on the spot and show all the activity.

Especially in consulting, with so many moving parts, project and contact management can quickly get out of hand. With CRM and project management, consultants can keep tabs on what needs to get done, so client projects stay on track. Even better, Insightly surveyed its consulting customers and 56 percent of respondents paid back their investment in Insightly in one to three months or less.

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

May 25, 2016

Project Management: Are You Doing it Wrong?

According to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession survey, 46 percent of organizations admit to not fully understanding the value of project management, even though they recognize project management boosts the success rate of strategic initiatives by 16 percent. Even more discouraging is that only 64 percent of projects meet their goals. Organizations want to quickly complete projects using fewer resources and with better results. But in order to do this, organizations need to have the most efficient processes in place, and more often than not project management processes fall short.

It’s impossible to predict exactly how a project will run or the obstacles that you may run into, but there’s plenty of planning that can be done to make sure that your team is equipped to roll with the punches and come out on top. These are our top recommendations for ensuring your projects run as smoothly as possible.

Pre-plan

How well you plan will dictate the success of the entire project. Failure to identify tasks and establish a strategy for completing each step will undoubtedly affect the final product, be it a new software feature, a marketing campaign, or a client project. Before doing anything, take a step back and think about each thing that needs to be done in order to make for a quality end product. Then, break that down even further to identify each task that needs to be completed to support it. This will make for a more realistic view of what needs to get done and what the timetable will be for completing each task/component/phase.

Identify risks

Even though you’ve done quite a bit of planning for deadlines, staying on a concrete schedule is unlikely. You need to be flexible and expect changes to happen. In your planning process, think of all the possible things that could go wrong and take those into consideration. Building in time buffers will help to soften the blow of changing circumstances.

Define project expectations and milestones

Identifying key milestones is another way to help you and your team stick to a schedule. This will help the team stay motivated and avoid unexpected hold ups. Being clear about expectations and deliverables up front will ensure that everyone is on the same page as far as what needs to get done and when.

Stay informed

Keep the lines of communication open. This is one of the most important elements of good project management. Regularly meeting with your team to discuss progress will help you identify potential issues down the road. Use a project management tool to stay on the pulse of what your team is up to at any point during a project. This way you and your team can instantly see what tasks have been completed, what’s up next and overall project progress.

Every project is different and every project manager works in different ways. These best practices will help you set the tone with your team, but understand that you may need to tweak the process to find that works best for your team. The bottom line and ultimate goal is to get things done the right way the first time around, regardless of how you get there.

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.

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

March 2, 2016

3 Project Management Mistakes to Avoid

Project management can be considered almost an art. From start to finish, multiple moving parts and people involved can make it difficult to keep on track. Most projects go bad because there is a breakdown in communication between team members or there’s a lack of planning on the part of the project manager. So how can you make sure your projects are completed without a hitch? We’ve come up with the top three project management mistakes and our advice on how to avoid them.

Mistake No 1: Putting the wrong manager in charge.

One project manager isn’t going to be the right manager for every project. Project managers are often chosen based on their availability for the project — not necessarily their skill set. Putting the wrong manager on a project can mean failure even before it gets off the ground.

The solution: Instead of taking the easy way out, really look at the available project managers and chose the one that has the skills to get the project done right.

Mistake No. 2: Lacking communication.

Communication can be one of the most important factors in successfully managing and executing a project. Often times, when there isn’t enough talking happening, misunderstandings arise. As a result, deadlines are missed, time is misused, projects fall apart and dollars are wasted.

The solution: Project managers should have a set date and time for the team to meet each week. During these meetings, everyone should come prepared to give a detailed update as to where things stand from the week prior and their plans for the week ahead. Doing so will keep everyone on the same page and aware of others’ priorities.

Mistake No. 3: Micromanaging.

Don’t babysit your employees. No one likes to have a manager at their desk every moment of the day asking for updates.

The solution: Rather than constantly checking up on your team, use software that can allow employees to proactively provide updates and remind them of tasks and deadlines. This will allow you to take a more hands off approach to project management while still ensuring that things will stay on track or alert you when deadlines are missed.

Mistakes are inevitable, but by being aware of the most common ones and putting processes in place to avoid them, you can make sure your project runs smoothly and on time.