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ACT! Software

If you are a new, small business owner, you are probably ready for the day when you have more time to really focus on your business while working countless hours every day.

You are happy with the direction the business is going so far, but you know you can always make improvements. You know you have some of the tools and resources you need, but you will always feel like you can have a greater level of success.

One of the tools you should strongly consider using is Act! software. This software will give you the ability to make the most of your time because you will not have to do everything on your own.

Make A List

Every second counts, and you need the right resources to help you use the time in the best way possible. If you know there are things that need to be accomplished by a certain period of time, you should make a list of those things. Once you accomplish those things on your list, you can mark them off so you will know what has already been completed.

Get Organized

Act! software allows you to be more organized because everything will be placed where it needs to be. Your customer information, financial information, marketing processes, will all be organized when you use this software.

As a small business owner, you want to do things the right way because there are many small businesses that do not last as long as they hoped they would. If you want to improve your business and give it a chance to succeed, contact us today for more information on Act! software.

CRM software has revolutionized the way sales teams and marketing teams communicate with each other as well as clients. The software makes the sales process more objective and data-based, so future investment is based off of statistics and rather than intuition. And according to a recent Gartner report, the software is growing in popularity.

The report, titled “Market Trends: CRM Digital Initiatives Focus on Sales, Marketing, Support, and E-Commerce” explores into the latest trend of CRM software. According to the report, CRM software revenues will grow to $80 billion by 2025.

This forecast indicates that CRM software has been successful in improving sales and client relations for companies. The software was designed to make the entire process more efficient, and according to the recent forecast, it's apparently effective.

In addition, the report notes that most companies are now transitioning to mobile CRM software. Mobile software makes companies more flexible in the way they deal and communicate with clients. A recent ZDNet article quotes Vice President Ed Thompson, who explains the importance that large corporations are placing on mobility:

“The key area at the moment is mobile. Large organisations especially have their hands full with trying to understand how to make the most out if mobile technology.”

While CRM software can't entirely drive sales on its own for a company, it can certainly have a considerably positive impact on a company's sales. CRM software provides sales teams and marketing teams with the data and information they need to make informed decisions pertaining to the company's future sales. Such software is becoming more popular because companies are realizing the importance of tracking and analyzing client trends in terms of what they buy and when they but it.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

CRM Software

CRM software is most effective when used in conjunction with email marketing. It helps businesses stay away from their bad habits and send effective timely emails. Here's everything you need to know:

Don't send emails arbitrarily

Email marketing just isn't effective without a strategy. And even if you have one, it won't work unless you stick with it. Unfortunately, most businesses have proven incapable of doing so. There are consequences which sometimes outweigh the benefits of email marketing.

Use CRM software to send timely emails

With CRM software, businesses can send emails when they're most effective, i.e., right before a returning customer places an order. This helps you get more out of your email marketing campaign, and thus increase its ROI.

This Marketing Land article explains why basing your emails off of CRM software rather than an arbitrary schedule is preferred:

"It’s not uncommon for marketers to set all-encompassing limits on the number of emails customers receive per week. This is a mistake. Assuming every subscriber doesn’t want to receive more than two or three messages per week neglects your highly engaged subscribers who may be waiting impatiently to receive the next offer. Avoid making blanket statements about your subscriber base and focus on drilling down on the subscriber level."

How could you possibly know how often a particular customer wants to receive emails without analyzing data? CRM software answers this question for you.

Evaluate your campaign

Although CRM software is a good complement to an email marketing campaign, it's not a solution for all your problems. Running a proper campaign requires testing, and lots of it.

This applies to your CRM software as well. You might find that it's better to change exactly when you send a customer an email. Still, this process of trial-and-error is much simpler and more effective than the alternative.

To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

 Sales Software

If you're struggling to convert leads, then you should consider implementing sales software. With CRM software, you can track and organize your leads so sales representatives are better prepared to deal with them.

Every lead comes from somewhere

Not all leads are the same, in terms of their relevance and background. Some leads won't come from your target audience, some will find your company on social media, and some will have real interest in your products. It's important to organize your leads early on. This way, you can segment them by their interests, original platform, and demographics.

CRM software helps you track and classify leads

CRM software makes it easy to understand your leads. The software automatically organizes them by the way they were generated. This Huffington Post article explains how this can benefit your business:

"Leads come in many forms. With the right CRM in place, these leads consist of: organic online leads, newsletter signups, new customers, social leads, B2B leads and more. Knowing when your leads have entered the pool, how often you have engaged and nurtured them, and what steps you can take to vet them is crucial to your success as an online business."

Without the software, it's difficult to keep track of the hundreds of leads you generate. When this happens, lead nurturing becomes impossible.

Knowing the background of the lead is important for conversion

When you know how a particular lead was generated, it makes lead nurturing easier. Your sales representatives have something to go off of rather than just treating each lead the same.

Your social media leads probably correspond to a different audience than your paid advertisement leads. This will affect the way your sales representatives try to convert them. It's important to organize your leads so you can have different lead nurturing strategies for different demographics. CRM software takes care of the organization aspect for you. To talk more about sales software, or anything else, contact us today.

Marketing Software

Marketing software is often exactly what businesses need to add a quantitative edge to their campaign. If you're struggling to generate leads or track the results of your marketing campaign, then using CRM software is probably just what you're looking for.

Email automation

Email marketing is still the most effective online marketing practice, with just one caveat -- you have to approach it correctly. If you just send arbitrary emails out whenever you remember you have a newsletter, you'll never make any meaningful progress.

With CRM software, you can automate your email marketing campaign. You can set triggers so you send general emails out to subscribers in a timely manner.

Track metrics

Not tracking the results of your campaign will always end up in failure. You'll never learn from your mistakes, see what's effective, or understand if you're making any progress.

Business 2 Community explains how integrating CRM can resolve these problems:

"Having a CRM integrated with your marketing allows you to see which of your contacts are opening emails, what websites they are visiting, webinars attended and so forth. You can’t improve your marketing without these metrics. As marketers, we must understand the sales cycle and how our work fits into it."

You'll have greater access to data than ever before. This is worth its weight in gold regarding your marketing campaign, since you'll be able to retain customers and attract prospects better.

Align marketing and sales

And finally, using CRM software is an easy way to align your marketing and sales teams. By instructing both departments to use and refer to the software, you'll improve their communication and awareness of their counterpart. This alone is extremely effective for your marketing campaign, since sales representatives will have a better understanding of your company's brand when talking to prospective customers.

If your marketing campaign is in a slump, consider integrating CRM software. To talk more about marketing software, or anything else, contact us today.

CRM Software

CRM software is all about data. The longer you use it, the more data you'll compile for your marketing and sales teams. In that light, we'd like to share three important statistics regarding CRM software.

ROI (Return on Investment)

At the end of the day, all businesses really care about is the ROI. In the short-run, you might improve internal and external communication, convert leads, and increase engagement, but in the long-run, you want to increase your profit.

According to Nucleus Research, CRM will help you on your journey. Their study states that for every dollar you spend on CRM software, it will return $8.71.

"Companies continue to make new investments in CRM to take advantage of new analytics, social collaboration, mobile, and other capabilities – and with good reason. In analyzing Nucleus ROI case studies on CRM, we found the average returns from CRM have increased since 2011, from $5.60 to $8.71 for every dollar spent."

That's an incredible ROI for an investment, especially since this is sustainable long-term.

Email marketing

The most common application of CRM software is email marketing. You can use marketing automation to send targeted emails to subscribers who are ready to place another order.

According to research by Marketing Charts, 6 out of 10 businesses use CRM software for email marketing. If the majority of your competitors are enhancing their marketing campaign, then you'll have to follow suit to keep up.

Sales representatives

Sales representatives benefit the most from CRM software. They can refer to the data to prepare for meetings and study up on specific clients.

CRM software helps sales representatives hit their quotas. According to Innoppl Technologies, 65% of sales reps who use mobile CRM achieve their quotas, which is almost double the amount that sales reps accomplish without the software.

The statistics back CRM software as much as it backs your sales representatives and marketing advisors. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

Marketing Process

An inefficient marketing process is more trouble than its worth. Although it might generate leads, it'll take a lot of resources to run. Some campaigns don't even generate relevant leads, which leaves businesses right where they started. For a more efficient campaign, try out these tips:

Document your strategy

Documenting a marketing strategy is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the related campaign. The process of documenting helps you organize your thoughts and plans, and afterwards you have a guide to refer back to.

Many businesses today forgo this step and continue intuitively. This is a recipe for inefficiency, since you'll revisit the same territory and stall your progress.

Find the right tone

If you sound too promotional, then consumers won't take your content seriously, but if you don't mention your business, then they won't know you offer a related product. Tons of businesses struggle to find the right tone.

According to a recent Forbes article, it's important to test your results to find an appropriate tone by trial-and-error:

"Figuring out how to strike the right balanced tone can take time, and you’re unlikely to hit the mark on your first try. Testing and comparing results is thus essential; try different methods of introducing the action, as well as different copy, designs and locations. Track the appropriate engagement metrics to determine the success of your testing and iterate further on the methods that prove to convert better."

A good compromise is to write informative content and add a call-to-action in at the end.

Emphasize data and analytics

And finally, businesses today have greater access to data than ever before, and it's up to you to take advantage of that. As in the case of experimenting with tones, you can always improve your marketing campaign by throwing new things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, contact us today.

CRM Software

CRM software has many practical applications in regard to business operations, the marketing process, and the sales process. When implemented correctly, just about every employee can use it as a reliable resource.

In addition to serving a practical purpose, CRM software also answers more big-picture questions that businesses must answer. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, just by having the software, you can know the answers to these questions:

"What do you know about the prospective customers who have filled out forms on your website or who are on your email list? How often does your sales or marketing team interact with them? Is your customer information compiled in a database that is up-to-date, as well as easy to access and navigate? If a possible investor wanted to see your sales growth throughout the past few years, how easy would it be for you to provide that information?"

It's important to know how you're doing with lead conversion and if your marketing and sales teams are aligned. Moreover, it's critical to stay organized so it's easy to communicate and work with investors.

In addition to just answering those questions, CRM software helps you hear the answers you want. With it, you're more likely to find out that you're converting a high percentage of your leads and keeping your customer information nice and organized.

Not knowing the answers to these questions leaves your business in the dark. In all likelihood, it also means that you wouldn't want to know where you stand anyway, since you're more likely to hear bad news. If that's your current situation, then it's crucial to focus on these areas as soon as possible. They're essential for the long-term health of your business operations.

If you implement CRM software today, then you can start using it tonight. That's how practical and applicable it is. But there's another benefit of using CRM software, which is that it helps you manage some very serious aspects of your business.

To talk more about CRM software, your marketing campaign, or anything else, contact us today.

Identifying your target audience occurs during the marketing process, but it has important implications for the sales process as well. If the leads you generate aren't relevant, that is, they don't correspond to customers in your target audience, then your sales representatives won't be very effective.

A common mistake businesses make in this respect is assuming their entire target audience shares the same needs. They try to streamline their entire sales process to match one specific type of customer.

A recent Business 2 Community article explains why this doesn't work. According to the article, it's common for customers in the same target audience to have different needs and preferences:

"Elite sales teams have a sales process that’s focused on one thing — the buyer. If your process isn’t aligned with how your buyers buy, it will never be effective. A common mistake is to assume that one process fits all. Your market likely has different segments of buyers that have different needs. Some have regimented buying processes, while others may be less refined. All have their own key decision criteria."

In addition to identifying your target audience, you should also create buyer personas. These will represent different people and have a certain set of characteristics.

This tactic is especially important for your sales representatives. If they understand the different personas in your target audience, then they'll be prepared to speak to prospective customers. Rather than just having one plan for everyone, they'll have multiple strategies based on the persona a customer matches.

Some businesses inform their sales representatives of their target audience and expect them to take care of the rest. This creates an incredibly hard challenge for the representatives. Rather than describing a vague group, consider creating concrete buyer personas that the sales representatives will recognize. This will help them close more sales.

To talk more about your sales process, or anything else, contact us today.

CRM Software

Data plays a critical role in regard to CRM software. It's the key to nurturing leads, sending personalized emails, and getting in touch with customers right when they're about to place an order.

Of course, to enjoy all these benefits, you need to know how to use the data correctly. This applies not just to your analytics and applications, but to the way you input it as well.

Business 2 Community explains why so many businesses don't know how to input CRM data correctly. According to the article, because many employees have access to the software, it only takes one person to mix up information:

"If you don’t know how to use your CRM as best as you can, it could result in staff aimlessly plugging in data. One of these common CRM mistakes involves putting in data incorrectly. Wrong or misplaced data inevitably becomes useless data (especially if you can’t find it). Don’t let that happen to you, or your employees could seriously confuse customer information, ultimately risking losses."

CRM data is specific to each individual customer. It's essentially worthless if it all gets scrambled. To avoid this, you need to teach each employee how to input the data correctly. It's a simple process, but there's no room for error. In addition to the initial round of employee training, you should also host regular sessions so they remember the exact steps.

The analytics and applications are a different story. It's up to management to decide what to do with CRM data and how to incorporate it in their marketing strategy. If you're not sure what to do, then you can always reach out for help in this area.

Data is everything when it comes to CRM software. If it's inaccurate, misplaced, or not used correctly, then you won't enjoy the benefits you should. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

Marketing Process

Behind every great marketing strategy and marketing process is a great concept. You cannot have a successful marketing process if your concept is not up to par. However, sometimes companies can take things to the extreme and make things extremely complicated. If you try to be too creative, you may actually confuse the people you are trying to bring in.

In order to avoid creating a marketing campaign that confuses your audience, you should try not to make the following mistakes:

Going Off Course

You do not want to use an idea that customers would never expect from you. You want your customers to see things they know you are capable of bringing to them. You do not want them to think your entire mission and vision has changed. We understand you want something that will grab their attention, but get their attention with ideas they would expect from you.

Confusion

Have you ever seen a commercial that you did not understand until someone told you what it meant? Sometimes companies use commercials that are a bit over the top and a little strange. Unusual commercials can be effective, but make no sense to people until they have to be explained by someone. Before trying out one of those ideas, you should test it out on your team and other co-workers.

What kind of image are you trying to portray through your marketing process and strategies? Do you have the tools and resources you need? Contact us today for more information on how you can implement effective strategies with the right resources.

CRM Software

Productivity relies on effective CRM Software and it’s capabilities. Managing corporate contacts, vital deadlines and schedules as they relate to project management are just a few of the important elements that a CRM application must provide.

When an employee is responsible for reporting particular information, they must rely on a CRM solution to support their objectives. This support is delivered through automated features, such as notifications, communication options and real-time reporting applications.

One of the most important features of a successful CRM solution is that of keeping the user informed at all times. This real-time capability allows managers and other high-level decision makers the ability to track various projects and respond to urgent issues in a timely manner. When objectives are tied to a deadline, such as a shipment, having the right CRM software to manage and track the process is the difference between meeting or missing a deadline.

Furthermore, having a compatible CRM solution is necessary in order to achieve maximum productivity. This is because many companies rely on the use of various programs to help manage things such as accounting and data collection. Quickbooks and Microsoft Excel are just a few examples of programs that a professional CRM consulting team can easily deliver through a personalized CRM solution design.

Utilizing the services of an experienced CRM consultant is not only a proactive step towards maximizing time and cost, but is also a great way to stay ahead of the competition by gaining insight into beneficial and unique solutions.

Learn more about how your company can benefit from an expertly tailored CRM solution.

CRM Software

The sales process is one of the largest sources of inefficiencies within the context of business operations. Many businesses lack organization in this area and simply depend on sales representatives to get the job done.

CRM software is a solution that adds organization to the sales process and removes costly inefficiencies. It collects and organizes relevant sales data so sales representatives are more informed and businesses can keep track of their most loyal customers.

By now, CRM software is more of an industry standard than a revolutionary sales tool. Still, some businesses struggle to optimize their software and maximize the results. According to a recent Investment News article, implementing the software is a stumbling block for several companies:

"Even though CRM might be not be considered cutting-edge technology to the truly tech savvy advisory firms, it is still among the stumbling block issues for a lot of advisers and something the technology industry should be addressing, according to John Rourke, chief executive of Starburst Labs."

Just because CRM software is now relatively widespread, doesn't mean that all businesses know what they're doing with it. Similarly, installing the software doesn't necessarily indicate a correct implementation of it.

So what does all of this mean for you and your business? In general, CRM software is a useful tool that can help companies increase their sales and transition to an analytics-based approach. For those results to materialize, however, an expert needs to implement the software and integrate it within the context of the company's operations. This is where most businesses fail, or "stumble."

Fortunately, there's a simple solution to all of this. By working closely with professional advisors, you can implement your CRM software correctly and learn how to get the most out of it. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

Sales Software

Sales software has several uses within the context of business operations. But whether you're looking for more organization or access to analytics, one of the most important benefits of sales software is its impact on customer relations.

Something that always gets lost in the chaos of the sales process is the buyer's process. A recent Business 2 Community article explains what the buyer's process is and why it plays a key role in developing customer loyalty:

"In the sales process, there’s a buyer’s process. Connecting with the buyer through their process will pay dividends when the actual sale takes place. When buyers feel an emotional connection, it builds the relationship, which builds trust. Companies who understand and apply this see their revenues double, triple, and quadruple, and at the same time, their customers become happier, compliant, and easier to sell to."

Clearly, there's more to doing business than just throwing out numbers and statistics. Customers aren't always comfortable speaking with sales representatives if they don't know their last purchase order, their shipping preferences, or even their name.

Implementing sales software in your company can optimize the buyer's process and improve your customer relations. With sales software as a resource, sales representatives can keep in touch with customers and read up on their order history. This will create a personal connection with customers and will establish a foundation for customer loyalty.

In addition to establishing a personal relationship with customers, sales representatives can also refer to the statistics and analytics provided by the sales software. With this information, they can anticipate order refills based on patterns in a customer's purchase history. By simply sending a timely email, you can bring your customer back before he even considers talking to one of your competitors.

To talk more about sales software, or anything else, contact us today.

CRM Software

In the world we live in now, it can be difficult to acquire new customers because of all the competition. If people are not satisfied with your services or products, all they will have to do is get online and find someone who does have what they need.

Companies are looking for ways to be smarter when it comes to acquiring customers and selling products or services. In order to make smarter decisions when it comes to selling, you have to know who you want to sell the products and services to. Technology and other services have given companies a boost, and many companies have been motivated to improve their relationships with their current customers.

One of the best ways to show your current customers that you value them is to use CRM software (Act!, Salesforce, Hubspot). CRM software will give your company a chance to manage their customers better than before. Not only will your company be able to manage customers, but you will also be able to monitor the behaviors of the customers.

The right CRM software will have the ability to change the entire relationship between a customer and a company. The right CRM software will also give your company a chance to substantially improve the amount of revenue it brings in.

Have you recently tried to implement CRM software and did not achieve the results you wanted? Are you confused about the steps you need to follow in order to have success with CRM software? Contact us today for additional information on how you can better understand how to successfully implement CRM software.

CRM Software

Are you always looking for ways to improve your business operations? Are you open to any new strategies that will allow your sales team to have more time to do other things? If you answered yes to both questions, you should consider using CRM (Contact Relationship Management) software.

It does not matter if your sales teams are working inside or outside the office; you are definitely going to need software or a system that will give your customer database the protection it needs. You will also need something that is easy to use so everyone's adjustment period goes smoothly.

If your teams cannot adjust to the software, it will become just another purchased software that no longer has any use to anyone in your business.

When it is time to choose the right CRM software for your business, there are some important things you will need to consider:

What Do You Want To Accomplish?

Before you can choose software for your business, you will need to have a full understanding of the problem you intend to solve. Whatever goals you set, you should list them according to how important they are to your business. When you can list your goals, you will be able to look for certain features in CRM software.

Your Team Members

You want everyone in the workplace to be comfortable using the software, right? You will want to find software that your team members can adjust to. You want to make sure they are at ease with using the new software. They will want to know if they will lose any of their important information, and you want to ensure sure them they will not. This is why your CRM choice will be so important. You can even keep everyone involved in the decision-making process.

What Else Should You Look For In CRM Software?

•Mobility

•Will the software be compatible with the systems you are using?

•Ease of implementation

Your choice of CRM software is important, and the decision you make can have a positive or negative impact on your business. Which CRM software will you choose? Contact us today for more information?

Contact Management Software

Is there still a debate in the office about whether contact management software should be used? Well, if there is a debate, there should not be one about whether it should be used. The question should really be about how contact management software can help you.

Every business will be able to find various benefits of using the software. What are some of those benefits?

Better Customer Service

When you have all of your customer information in one place, you will always be ready with everything you need to answer their questions and suggest products and services they may enjoy. Every department in your workplace will be equipped with key customer information that will help the entire ordering and shipping process.

When you use contact management software, your customers and clients will be very impressed with the production increase. Everything will be completed in an efficient way which will raise customer satisfaction.

Efficiency

Efficiency is key when it comes to dealing with customers and orders. Contact management software has all the tools and features you need to be efficient at any task.

You can set attainable goals for your company and have confidence that you can reach those goals when using contact management software. Why? Everything will be organized in all areas of your company which will make your everyday work tasks go along smoothly.

Contact management software can completely change the way you run your business, and it can completely change the way customers see you. Contact us today for more information on how contact management software can improve your business operations.

Contact Management Software

Implementing contact management software affects several facets of your business. Your sales and marketing departments, as well as your management, will be able to refer to the software and the data it provides. Here are a few specific things you can accomplish with the software:

Organize your customer data

Organizing your customer data is one of the most effective things you can do in regard to your sales process. Just by keeping things organized, you can have a better idea of your customers and when they'll be ready for another order.

Motivate your sales team

It's easier to motivate your sales team with contact management software. The software provides statistics related to your sales and customers, so you can create contests to encourage sales representatives to work harder. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, there are several different types of competitions you can set up with contact management software:

"Motivating your sales team will encourage them to work harder at achieving their goals and hitting their numbers. In addition to setting up leaderboards, you can also run hourly, daily, weekly or even monthly contests to do this. Motivating calls or generating and converting leads — even data clean-up can be turned into a competition."

Refer to metrics and statistics

And finally, the metrics and statistics provided by contact management software can help you improve your business operations. By looking at the data, you'll find certain inefficiencies in your processes that are holding your company back. You can also measure things like customer loyalty, which is important for the long-term health of your business.

Contact management software isn't just an investment in your sales team. It can provide insight into several areas of your business so you can make your processes more efficient. To talk more about contact management software, or anything else, contact us today.

Marketing Process

It does not matter if you are working on a high-profile marketing campaign or a small marketing campaign. There are some things that you will need to keep in mind if your marketing process is going to be successful.

Before you start your marketing process, you should set business goals. You will use your marketing campaign to help grow your business and achieve these goals.

When you set your business goals, you will need to follow these steps:

What Do You Know?

What is the market looking like for your business? What is your target audience? Once you know your target audience, you have to find out where your customers and potential customers are located.

What is the outlook for your competition? In order to find out all this information, you will need to do your research. You will also need to perform an analysis on the competition. Once you know what the market looks like, you will make plans that will help you, and not hurt you.

What Will Be Your Strategy?

After you have completed your research, you will need to use that information to make the best decision for your marketing campaign. Your marketing campaign can lead to success or failure. Before you move forward with the campaign, you will need to make sure your goals are clear and accurate.

Your marketing process has multiple steps and you should not disregard any of them. If you need advice on how to successfully complete your marketing campaign, contact us today.

Marketing Process

Technology has given businesses plenty of opportunities to improve their marketing processes and their marketing strategies. Unfortunately, many of the techniques that businesses use bother the customers because of the advertisements they use. No customer likes to be bombarded with advertisements. Thankfully, your marketing process can be improved by using the right customer relationship management (CRM) software.

In the earlier years, customer relationship management software did not have many features. The only things CRM (ACT!, Salesforce, HubSpot) software could do was obtain notes from a phone call with a customer and manage the contact information from customers. Companies would use this information to tailor their marketing strategies to meet the needs of their targeted customers.

Today, CRM software has far more capabilities than in previous years. CRM software can do more than track and manage important customer information. The CRM software that businesses use can display data and show certain sales patterns which will make creating marketing strategies and marketing campaigns easier than ever before.

The CRM software you choose will allow you to stay on top of all the customer trends and popular items so you will know what direction to gear your marketing strategies toward.

You will not have to make any guesses about your marketing strategies because you will already have the information on popular items and you will be able to look for customer feedback while using your CRM software.

If you have not used effective CRM software yet, you will definitely appreciate everything it has to offer. Contact us today for more information.

Sales Process Improvement

We all know how fast the sales profession moves every day. It is moving faster than ever before. You can go to sleep one night and wake up the next day to see that a competitor has introduced a new product.

It does not matter what part of the business world you are in, what once worked perfectly for you is not going to do the trick anymore. You do not have time to waste; now is the time to push forward and sell harder than ever.

You may be wondering how can you make a big sales process improvement so you can make sure your business is still standing at the end of the year. Here are some things you can do to make this happen.

•Have a clear understanding of what it is that you want to do. 

•After you have determined what you are trying to achieve, set a few goals and give yourself a timetable for completing those goals.

•Understand what exactly all of your customers are looking for. What do they need from your business?

•Always listen to your customers. Listen to them before making any major decisions.

•Incorporate marketing tools that will give you the best chance at excelling.

When you set your mission and your goals, you should certainly stick with them. Set goals that will help your customers and keep them on your side. When you remain productive and active, you may be pleasantly surprised at the big difference in customer response and customer activity. Contact us today for more information. 

Sales Process Improvement

The beginning of the sales process has traditionally been considered the most important part. But now that most sales representatives know how to get a prospective customer's attention, businesses are shifting their attention to the end of the process.

How you treat your customers after a sale is the most important factor of customer loyalty. If they get the feeling that you just wanted them for their business, then they'll have no motivation to come back again.

Showing gratitude to customers and keeping in touch with them is the best way to build customer loyalty. According to a recent Small Business Trends article, a nice gesture after a sale can help you keep the customer forever:

"No one owes you business. Be sure to thank your customers for their business. Showing gratitude with a personal call or note of thanks can go a log way. Over deliver if you can. Surprise a customer with an early delivery of their products. If you build a relationship and constantly add value to the relationship you will have customer for life."

Customer loyalty is a common thread among successful businesses. It's not a sustainable strategy to keep looking for new customers and letting them go after one transaction. You'll eventually run out of leads and your sales process will dry up.

If your customers keep coming back, on the other hand, then you won't need to constantly search for new leads. As a bonus, doing business with returning customers is considerably cheaper than recruiting new ones. All in all, fostering customer loyalty is a top priority for all businesses.

The beginning of the sales process is important, but most sales representatives know what they're doing in that regard. It's more efficient to focus on the end of the sales process and build customer loyalty. For more information about sales process improvements, or anything else, contact us today.

Marketing Process

One of the biggest challenges that your marketing department will face is building your company's brand. Even though it is a challenge, it is an important one to have. In order for you to have an identity for your brand, you have to think about the entire process from the beginning. The way you work on the inside will have a huge impact on how people see your brand from the outside.

You do not have to make certain members of your team sit in a room and talk about their ideas and strategies. One of the best things you can do is to find the best sales associates in the workplace and see what things are working for them. What strategies and messages are helping them make sales? What kind of things do they talk about with their current customers and potential customers? If you can get this information, you will soon find yourself on the path to success.

The strategies and messages you use should certainly be able to evolve with the direction your company is going, but you should also make sure every department and team will have the same ideas. Your marketing process is important and it will take some effort for you to make it work.

Every day that you show up to work, you should think about your company's brand. In order for your company to be successful, people will have to know your company and what it's about.

When you use the right tools and software, you will be able to build a brand that will be unforgettable. Contact us today to find out what tools and strategies can work for your business.

CRM Software

Are you proud of the relationships with your customers? Do you take a lot of pride in how your customers love and appreciate everything you do?

If you are a small business owner, you will have better opportunities to get to know your customers because you probably live in the same community as many of your customers.

These days, customer relationships are extremely important because as soon as something goes wrong, customers can take to social media and post negative feedback for the entire world to see. This is why CRM software is so important to small businesses and even larger businesses.

CRM software can be used to obtain key information about current customers and potential customers, and then that information can be analyzed and managed accordingly. The software will give you the tools you need to make an analysis on the data so you can make the right decisions when it comes to your customers.

When you are able to streamline your entire customer information and improve on the building process, you will be able to create stronger relationships with them because you will have all the important information you need right in front of you. 

CRM software can be used in any industry, but there are some industries who will see more results from the software than others. If your small business sells products and/or services and you want to make improvements in your sales process and customer relationships, you should definitely give CRM software a try.

Contact us today for more information.

CRM Software

If you use CRM software the right way, it can be an essential tool for helping your business with the following:

•obtaining access to customer data easily

•increasing the efficiency of the sales

•improving marketing campaigns

•improving customer satisfaction by providing better customer service

•creating and maintaining better relationships with current customers and future customers

In order for you to get the most out of your CRM software, there are some things you will need to do.

Get Your Employees Prepared

Since your sales team and other employees will be the ones using this software, you have to make sure you train them well enough.

You will need to have the budget, time, and energy to make sure they are getting the best training sessions you can provide. You may need to spend months on getting your employees adjusted to the software so they will feel comfortable when it is actually time to put it to good use.

Put The Software To Good Use You are not going to spend your time and money on a software and not actually use it, are you?

You will need people to actually use the software if you want to improve your business.

We understand that some of your employees may be a little hesitant to use something different, but once you implement the training session you can ensure them it is for the best. You can even offer rewards to the employees who agree to use the software. You can also offer more rewards to those who actually use it and constantly improve their sales with the software.

Have you been wanting to use a CRM software, but are not sure which one will work for your business? Contact us today to find out how you can find the best CRM software for your business operations.

CRM Software

There are lots of different CRM software out there and it can be hard to know what's right for your business. Here are a few things you should look for regardless of your goals:

Easy access

CRM software, like ACT! or HubSpot, should be easy to access in multiple ways. First of all, it shouldn't take lots of training for your employees to learn the software. They should be able to find their way around it easily enough. In addition, employees should be able to access the software from their mobile devices. The greater access there is, the more data they'll input, and the more effective the software will be.

Clear reports

Data is one of the best things about CRM software, provided that you can actually understand it. It's important to have software that produces clear reports.

According to this Event Industry News article, you should choose CRM software that helps you visualize your results:

"In-depth statistics and analysis can offer huge support for driving your hire business forward. However, if the reporting functionality of your chosen CRM system is difficult to understand or interpret, it’s useless. Be sure to choose a CRM that easily visualizes your results in a way that’s digestible and, most importantly, usable."

Don't just look for statistics and analytics. Make sure there are graphs that can help executives understand your findings.

Good support

Finally, there are going to be issues at some point with your CRM software. When these occur, it's important that you have good support to fall back on.

Good support goes beyond basic troubleshooting. An agency should also explain what went wrong and how you can avoid it in the future.

Other examples of support include helping you understand your CRM reports, providing employee training material, and scheduling regular maintenance. This will all vary from agency to agency. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today. 

CRM Software

Some businesses stand to gain more from CRM software than others. Not all business owners know which signs indicate that they should implement sales software, so we came up with a list for you:

Your sales have plateaued

Plateauing sales is never a good sign for growing businesses. It could mean several things, including that you've already maxed out your market or that you're not attracting new customers to your business.

Either way, your business won't be able to grow for long if your revenue is fixed. One way to increase your sales is to implement CRM software. It gives sales representatives more chances to communicate with past and prospective customers.

You don't when your customers are due for another order

The time when a customer realizes he needs another order is crucial for businesses. If he's a past customer of yours, then you want to bring him back before he even considers your competitors.

If you have no way of knowing when your customers are ready for their next order, then you can't prevent them from going to your competitors. With CRM software, you can track patterns in their order history to predict new purchases.

Your brand has minimal customer loyalty

Your business can only grow for so long without developing customer loyalty. It's cheaper to bring customers back as opposed to recruiting new ones, so it's imperative to foster customer loyalty from the start. With CRM software, your sales representatives can manage relationships with customers better. This plants the seed for customer loyalty.

Your sales and marketing teams are out of sync

Discord between marketing and sales teams is detrimental for businesses. By implementing CRM software, your marketing and sales teams will refer to the same data, and will therefore be more aligned than they were in the past.

To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

Contact Management Software

In order for your business or organization to constantly improve how it obtains customers and services those customers, you will need to use the right contact management software.

Businesses have to be able to react and respond quickly because the competitiveness in the business world is constantly increasing. A business needs to be able to understand all of their customers so it can make the necessary adjustments in order to grab the various opportunities that are standing in front of it.

When you want to have success with your contact management software, you have to do more than just purchase a software and install it. You will experience continued success with your contact management software if you stay on top of all the changes and interactions with your customers. When you are able to provide great customer services experiences, you will be able to achieve all the customer-related goals that you have set for your business.

The contact management software you are going to use will be the tool you need to give great customer experiences and obtain helpful insight on what your customers like and do not like.

When you implement the right contact management software, you will be able to set reasonable expectations for your business. You will not have to worry about not meeting certain goals because you will already know what steps you need to take in order to achieve the success you are looking for.

Are you ready for continued success and great customer relationships? Contact us today.

CRM Software

Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for your company is crucial to the growth and success of your business. You see, CRM software is designed to help you manage customer contacts, have a systematic way of communicating with your prospects through lead nurturing, help you close more sales and grow customer retention. These are all key elements that effect your bottom line!

More businesses are realizing the importance of CRM software and are leveraging this system to manifest their business goals and growth. In fact, studies reveal the impact CRMs have on business results. We’ve compiled a list of twelve to convince and confirm the need to having this system in place. The numbers were gleaned from Statistics and Hubspot showing the major benefits CRM systems have in sales, customer interaction, and retention.

#1 75% of sales managers state that using a CRM helps drive and increase sales revenue

#2 The top 3 features used in CRM are Calendar Management (52%), Email Marketing (50%), and Quote/Proposal Management (46%), with marketing automation integration slightly behind at 44%

#3 When a business engages a customer using a CRM, the customer is likely to spend 20%-40% more on their next purchase with that same brand

#4 Using CRM creates positive customer experiences where 70% of these customers will refer that brand to their family and friends, significantly boosting new sales

#5 CRM usage have also led to an increased customer retention rate of 27%

#6 A CRM on average returns a whopping $5.60 for every dollar spent on it, producing an ROI of more than 50%

#7 Sales team across all organizations surveyed saw a 15% increase in productivity when using CRM mobile apps

#8 24% of companies also experienced an increase in sales productivity with CRM mobile apps

#9 Finally, CRM mobile apps increased cash flow by 10%

#10 Using CRM systems have increased revenue by 41% per each individual sales representative

#11 Sales conversion rates improved over 300% with CRM software

#12 61% of sales distributors use a CRM, allowing for key access to customer information and data

Conclusion

These alarming statistics prove the importance of leveraging CRM software for your business growth. It is the best way to engage with your customers, improve customer loyalty, and increase company revenue. Much success!

Ready to use a CRM system to help boost sales and customer engagement for your brand? Contact us here for a 29 minute consultation!

Marketing Process

Patience is a virtue, especially within the context of your marketing process. A common mistake businesses make is rushing their campaign and as a result, sending an unclear message.

The best marketing campaigns and slogans weren't planned overnight. Even if an idea pops into your head, you need time to carefully plan your strategy, identify your target audience, and create realistic and attainable goals. Since some creatives have a reputation for procrastinating, you'll ultimately have to find a balance. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, marketers should learn how to take short breaks and walk away from their work:

"The next time you are planning a marketing initiative and reviewing your marketing process, allow your staff the gift of waiting. The best plans come out of careful consideration, creating, and tweaking. I don’t mean to say that delays should be built into the timeline, but after developing an idea, reading copy, or reviewing a layout, set it aside and do something else."

As long as you slow things down, finding a balance shouldn't be hard. There are enough factors and deadlines pressuring you to work, so it's unlikely that you'll fall too far behind.

The important thing is that you allocate more time to strategy planning. A few extra minutes at the end of the day when you're already tired don't count, either. Thought and consideration are what matter here, and you can't exactly measure them in minutes.

We're stressing this point because if you don't have a good strategy, it's highly unlikely that your campaign will be successful. You can tell when a marketing campaign was rushed, and that's not a message you want to send to your customers. Businesses can improve their marketing campaigns just by putting more time into strategy planning.

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, contact us today.

ACT! Software

Have you still been relying on the basic database you first started with when you opened your small business? Is this the database you use to gather information about your customers?

Since your business has been growing, have you thought about changing your database and other tools so your business will not be behind? One of the best tools that you can use is a CRM tool, such as ACT! software. This software can help your small business obtain more customers, increase your sales, and gain loyalty in your new customers.

There are various benefits to using a CRM software, and some of them are listed below.

Automation

If you have been having trouble with staying on top of your appointments or follow-ups, your CRM software will automate these tasks and more. This is a great benefit for your small business because you will not have to worry about missing anything.

When all of your information is in one database, everyone who has access to it can access all of the data that has been shared. When you use ACT! software, you will be equipped with everything you need to have effective sales meetings and follow-up meetings.

Additional Benefits Of Using ACT! Software

•Your marketing processes will become easier because you will have all the relevant and helpful information you need

•You will be able to access all key information in a matter of minutes •Your employees will be more productive

•Communication will be improved because everyone will have access to the same information and no one will be surprised during the meetings

There are many CRM tools and software that a small business like yours can use to keep up with the competition. If you are interested in additional information, contact us today. Purchased on: Thursday, April 21st, 2016

Contact Management Software

When any business begins using contact management software for their operations it usually starts with some good intentions. Many of us have good intentions, right? Unfortunately, some businesses that try to use contact management software do not see the success they want. Many times, when something does not work for a company, they simply reject the software or process they were using.

When the contact management software does not work for a company, they reject it and vow to never use anything like it again. Why do some companies want to avoid using the software? Many companies do not like that they will have to make some tweaks to the way they usually do things. Not every company wants to adjust their work routines to fit the software.

If you are a salesperson, you should be worried about the conversations you are having with potential customers and not entering information into a system, right? You will probably feel like you are being held back from selling if you have to worry about contact management software.

There are plenty of reasons why people say they prefer not to use contact management software, and some of those reasons are listed below:

•Contact management software is too difficult to figure out

•I would rather do everything by regular pen and paper because it is easier

•Inputting information into a computer will take time away from making calls and selling the products

•Entering information into a software tool is not why I was hired

Despite these reasons that some people give, many companies have found a significant amount of reasons to use contact management software. Salespeople will be able to make more sales because they will be more efficient and productive at their jobs. The selling process will be quicker because all the required information will be right there at their fingertips.

Are there reasons why you are hesitant about using contact management software? Contact us today so we can help you get on the contact management software bandwagon.

Sales Process Improvement

There's no doubt that marketing plays an integral role in the sales process. Moreover, we encourage businesses to align their sales and marketing processes for optimal results. What we don't condone, however, is when businesses rely on one department for both marketing and sales.

Marketing isn't selling, no matter how promotional your tone is. There's always going to be a difference between marketing your product and converting leads with your sales team.

A recent Chicago Tribune article talks about the division between marketing and sales. According to the article, marketers often try to get involved in the sales process, and businesses should prevent that from happening:

"Unfortunately, somewhere along the small- to medium-size business path, salespeople and executive leadership have been led to believe marketing is selling. Maybe this fallacy is the result of marketing firms who attempt to justify their high prices or possibly a lack of understanding the regarding the sales process along with the word sales."

Neither your sales nor your marketing process will be efficient if the two departments overlap. If marketers try to take on the role of sales representatives, then they won't be paying enough attention to the marketing campaign.

Rather than blending the two departments together, your goal should be to keep them separate and aligned. Your marketing and sales teams should work together to provide an optimal customer experience.

Implementing sales software is one way to keep your marketing and sales teams aligned. By collecting customer data, your marketing team can create an effective campaign for your target audience and your sales representatives will understand the customer experience you're offering.

The first thing we suggest to small business owners is to keep their sales and marketing teams separate. To talk more about implementing sales process improvements in your business, or anything else, contact us today.

ACT! Software

One of the most intelligent and effective software on the market is Act! software. This software has the right features and the right enhancements that are perfect for your marketing efforts. Your marketing efforts and strategies will easily turn into a successful sale rate.

You will be able to easily connect and grow with your customers and you will be able to obtain new customers. It will be easier to attract new customers because of the integrated marketing features, and you will be able to strengthen your relationships with current customers because you will already have the customer's information in your system.

You will be able to know what the customers like and what they do not like. You will also be able to improve your workforce's productivity and efficiency because all of the customer information and interactions can easily be accessed by the sales team. Since every team member will have access to the information, it will be easier for each team member to log into the system and view all the interactions that have taken place.

When using the Act! software, you will be able to do the following, and more:

•easily access all resources that will allow you to get the most out of the software

•access various features and applications from the marketplace

•create effective campaigns that will allow you to reach your target audience

•know what customers need to receive a follow-up call

You do not have to sit back and let the competition pass you by. You can integrate Act! software into your business and change the way your customers see your business. Contact us today if you are interested in more information.

Contact Management Software

The sales competition is very high, and this is resulting in many companies and organizations taking a deeper look into their sales operations. They want to find more information about their current customers, prospects, their needs, and their wants.

Since there is a big focus on finding information on their customers, being able to properly manage the prospects is certainly a key factor in having a successful sales process.

This is why using the right solutions and resources are so important. Contact management software is important to every operation of your sales department. It is part of a newer movement in sales. In order to effectively manage the contact information, you will need to ensure the contact management software will give you the flexibility you need.

You need the contact management software to track every piece of information that you need, and you also need it to track various activities that occur during the sales process.

When any one of your salespeople logs into the database, they should be able to pick up the telephone and quickly gather important information regarding who the customer is and what they like. You want your salespeople to feel comfortable talking to a potential buyer, and they will not be able to do that with little or no customer information.

The contact management software you choose to use should give you up-to-date access to all of your information. You will also need to have the ability to view and share customer data with everyone on your sales team. If you are interested in using contact management software, contact us today. Purchased on: Thursday, May 5th, 2016

Nowadays it's almost impossible -- and certainly not recommended -- to keep your marketing process and sales process separate. In this blog we'll explain why aligning your marketing and sales team is so important and outline what steps you can take. 

Just a few years ago, it was normal for marketing and sales team to be unaligned and rarely communicate with each other. It's always been better to keep them on the same page, but it was never a requirement up til now. 

The reason marketing and sales alignment is now so important is because of the role of data and analytics. Both teams should base their strategies off of sound data, and that data should be the same or at least have similar conclusions. 

This all plays a role in the customer experience. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, the better aligned marketing and sales teams are, the more consistent the customer experience is:

"Your Marketing and Sales groups need to update their internally-focused processes and focus on the needs of the Buyer throughout their online/offline/online purchasing journey. The company needs to have one, and only one, perspective of the buyer that all functions/groups (including Product Management, Customer Service and Finance) can embrace and deliver a consistent customer experience."

So if aligning your marketing and sales teams is so important, what steps can you take to make this a reality? It all starts with the data and analytics we mentioned earlier. 

Your focus should be on gathering and extracting data from dealings with clients. The more data you collect, the more insight you'll get into your target audience's behavior, preferences, and wants. 

Once you have this information, you can plan your marketing and sales strategies around it. As a result, you'll automatically align your two teams.  Using applications like ACT!, Zoho, or Hubspot can point you in the right direction in getting started. 

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

We've already seen how data and analytics have affected sports. It started in baseball with Billy Bean and Moneyball and trickled over to other leagues. There are now teams in the MLB, NFL, and NBA that base their entire long-term strategies on analytics. 

Nowadays, there just no excuse for not incorporating analytics. According to a recent Financial Brand article, this is true both with sports franchises and businesses:

"There are no excuses for a football coach that doesn’t look at game film or know the stats from their team. If you are a C­-level Manager at your organization, there is no excuse for ignoring or not being aware of how your CRM can be used to provide you with reports that can help your team. Making excuses for your team’s lack of use of the CRM starts and stops with the C-level executive team."

Incorporating data and analytics in your business strategy helps you improve your operations. You can find out which practices are efficient and which ones need to change. 

The only thing you need is a way to collect data. CRM software (ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, ZoHo) provides businesses with a heap of information about clients. This way, sales representatives can study up on their clients before meetings. Marketing teams can also use the data to learn more about their target audience before planning their next campaign. 

Data and analytics are ubiquitous now. We've seen what's happened to sports teams that don't take them into account, and the same will happen for businesses that do the same. We recommend implementing a solution like CRM software to get you started on your analytic path. 

To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

CRM Software

CRM software has many applications in regard to your marketing efforts. It makes staying in touch with contacts easy and reminds customers of their relationship with your business.

It's ultimately up to you what kind of messages you send to subscribers. You can create a weekly newsletter that informs them about your industry or notify them of upcoming sales.

One thing we recommend all businesses to do is send surveys out to subscribers. A recent Sports Daily article explains how this can improve your customer relations and brand image:

"If you have not heard this the surveys here are the most integral part of a CRM strategy and a great way for the business. Have you wondered what people think about your products and services and your company. Ask customers what they want and if they would require any sort of a help and how things could be improved. All this in turn would show that your care and their opinion matter a lot."

Surveys are important for a couple of reasons. For one, they can give you insight into how you can improve your business processes. If several customers are offering the same suggestion, then you can be sure that others thought the same thing. Having this knowledge can only help.

In addition, sending out surveys shows that you're interested in your customers' opinions. It's a sign that you care about them and their well-being and you're willing to hear them out and listen to their thoughts.

Sending out surveys can be a pain -- unless you have CRM software. No one wants to send out individual emails one-by-one, but with CRM software, you can automate the process. In addition, you can keep records of who responded to your survey and what they said. All in all, it simplifies the process and brings more results.

To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, contact us today.

An important aspect of CRM software, like ZoHo, ACT!, and HubSpot, is that it's not exclusively used for sales process improvements.  The ability of CRM software to track and manage cannot be understated. What the software is really doing is collecting and organizing data. Businesses can use this aggregated information in several ways. 

It's not just about sales, either. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, CRM can be used for customer segmentation and social media marketing: 

"CRM lets you create, track and manage marketing campaigns effectively. Whether its outbound calls, customer segmentation, email marketing, social media applications or creating customized campaign lists, CRM automates the steps and produces data-driven results to accurately measure your efforts."

So why is CRM software often discussed in the context of sales process improvements? The data organized by the software has a direct impact on sales. Your sales representatives suddenly have a way to quantify their client's behavior, preferences, and wants. They can analyze patterns in their behavior to predict and suggest new product orders. 

There's nothing wrong with that, but we just don't want CRM software to be thought of as one-dimensional. In reality it impacts several processes and aspects of your business operations. But if you go into it thinking that it will only increase your sales, then you won't use it to its full potential. 

If you've already implemented CRM software, then consider how it has affected areas of your business other than sales. See if there's anything you can do to make employees refer to it more to improve their own individual performance. 

To talk more about sales process improvements, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

The problem with most business' sales cycles is that they focus more on lead generation than they do conversion. Because of this, they get tons of leads through their online marketing efforts, but they rarely convert them to sales. 

According to a recent Forbes article, some businesses research their leads so poorly that they don't even know if the people fall into their target market:

"Finally, the B2B sales cycle has not seen big advances in personalization. Of course, the sales deck the buyer sees has their company name and logo on the title slide, but that’s where the personalization typically ends. This assumes that the buyer even made it that far. Since the initial research stage results in reading generic info on a website that could be targeted at any Jane Doe."

You can avoid this situation by personalizing your sales process. To do this, you need to collect information about each person so you can target them individually. 

With CRM software, you can acquire the data and analytics about your customers that you need to personalize your sales process. Moreover, you'll be able to better define your target market based on the common characteristics of your clients. 

This information will set you apart from competitors. Since most businesses are still behind when it comes to personalizing their sales process, you'll get ahead by incorporating data and analytics in your process. With the data collected by CRM software, your sales representatives will be more informed concerning clients and your marketing team will be able to create more effective campaigns. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, ZoHo, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

The most important aspect of contact management software is the data and analytics it provides. Each time your sales representatives interact with customers, the software records the outcome. 

After a few weeks or months of recording data, you can start to identify patterns in your customers' behavior. You'll notice that certain customers place similar orders on a regular basis. Your sales representatives can then anticipate these orders to make sure they're placed with your company. 

Sales representatives aren't the only ones who can learn from the data, though. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, contact management software provides company-wide reports that all employees should refer to: 

"Beyond analyzing prospect behavior at the individual level, CRM software also provides overarching metrics on types of outreach,such as how many outbound calls your sales team has made this month, or which campaigns and offers are closing the most deals. These company-wide reports give you a look into your sales process and pipeline as a whole, plus they can identify ways to retain existing customers or upsell them on other products or services."

Your sales representatives, marketers, and customer service representatives all need to be on the same page. If they all refer to the same data, then they'll anticipate the same actions from customers. 

Compare all of this to your sales process without contact management software. Rather than basing your actions on data and statistics, you're just going off of intuition. Even if your sales representatives have strong relationships with customers, it's always better to add analytics to your sales process. 

To talk more about contact management software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

1. Research your target audience

The more data your CRM software collects, the more you'll learn about your target audience. After a few months, you'll start to see patterns in the data form. From this information, you can infer certain things about your target audience. 

2. Build your social media marketing campaign around their behavior

What you do with that data and how you interpret it will determine how effective CRM software is for your business. One way businesses use the information is to improve their social media marketing efforts. 

According to a recent Business 2 Community article, after you implement CRM software, you'll find it easier to connect with customers on various social sites: 

"CRM is a new frontier in customer-centric sales and marketing which is reinventing the customer relationship and creating a real-time landscape for enterprises of all sizes to connect with existing and future customers – leveraging Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and more."

3. Increase sales

And finally, your targeted marketing efforts will eventually lead to an increase in sales. Engaging followers on social media is important, but you really want to see it impact your bottom-line. 

In addition to improving your marketing efforts, CRM software gives your sales representatives more tools. They can study up on clients by referring to the software before meetings so they'll have a better chance at finalizing a deal. 

What makes CRM software so special is the overall impact it has on your company. You can apply the data to several aspects of your business. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, ZoHo or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Improve your customer relations

Customer loyalty is the ultimate determinant of long-term success. If none of your customers ever return, then your business will eventually run out of steam.

It takes time and patience to improve your customer relations, but it's well worth the effort. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, it will help you understand what drives success: 

"It takes work to develop YOUR sales process. You need to collect and analyze data, you need to interview your customers. You need to look for the patterns that drive success. It’s not a lot of work, but you still have to understand, specifically, what drives success."

Collect and analyze data

As mentioned in the article, data plays a big role in the sales process. The only way to identify inefficiencies and capitalize on opportunities is to look at data and statistics. This gets your sales process down to a science and removes the guesswork. 

Shorten your customer lifecycle 

In addition to attracting customers to your business for repeat orders, you also have to shorten your customer lifecycle. It won't mean much if a customer returns to your business once every two years. But if you can get them to place an order one every three months, then your customer loyalty will become a lot more valuable. 

These three improvements will help make your sales process more efficient. After a few months, you should notice an impact on your company's bottom-line. 

To talk more about sales process improvements, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

 Why businesses need marketing software

Why a business or an organization needs marketing software depends on their own specific needs. As a result, there are many reasons businesses cite for needing marketing software. 

A recent Advertising Age article reports the results of a survey which asked businesses why they need marketing software. Here are the results: 

• 27% said they need marketing software to improve lead management
• 15% said they need marketing software because they were unhappy with their current system
• 13% said they need marketing software for better/more features
• 10% said they need marketing software to increase company growth
• 9%  said they need marketing software for better integration
• 8% said they need marketing software to automate their processes
• 4% said they need marketing software to for an upgrade/update

Depending on your situation, one or more of these cited reasons may apply to your business. 

How marketing software improves your processes

Marketing software helps businesses to organize and improve their marketing processes. The idea is to automate certain aspects of the process and gain access to data and analytics. By using marketing software, you can identify possible areas of improvement in regard to your marketing strategy. 

Is marketing software right for your business?

First, you need to understand that any business can implement marketing software. There's no requirement in terms of size, sales, or your budget. 

The most important thing is that you analyze the aforementioned needs for marketing software and see if any of them resonate with you. If you need to improve your lead generation, automate your marketing process, or increase your company growth, then you should seriously consider marketing software. 

To talk more about marketing software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Communication is key when it comes to using CRM software. Since all your departments - marketing, sales, accounting, customer service, etc. - can use it, it's important that they communicate with each other. 

The importance of cohesion is best understood with an example. A recent Biz Community article explains how your business can use CRM software to increase the value of a returning customer: 

"You have just invoiced a customer, and a predetermined query raises the flag that this customer has not been invoiced in at least 12 months. Furthermore, the value of that customer is extremely high. In simple terms, it is clear that an old customer, who is very valuable to the company, has returned. Such a flag should immediately trigger a personal "welcome back" email from a senior manager, or possibly even a phone call."

If you don't use CRM software or some type of marketing technology, then you'll have no idea the customer is returning unless you remembered his or her name. CRM software makes everything into a process so you can't miss an opportunity like this. 

Once the software sends an alert and tells you that the customer is returning, it's up to your business to make the most of it. Whether you set up a meeting with a sales representative or send a personalized email, it's important to take your relationship management to the next level. 

There are several things you can do to make your CRM software as effective as possible. We recommend improving the communication between your departments to develop cohesion around the software. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Your customer lifecycle can be a huge source of inefficiency. If you don't do anything to shorten it, then you'll be wasting an opportunity. The longer the cycle is, the less frequently customers will place orders. 

You have to take control of your customer lifecycle and engage customers. By interacting with them, you'll establish customer loyalty and encourage them to place new or recurring orders. 

An important aspect is aligning your goals with your customers'. According to a recent Globe and Mail article, this will lead to a more efficient sales process.

"A sales process where the central feature is the buyer’s objectives and the seller’s subject matter expertise can lead to a much more productive discussion, leading to shorter cycles, more wins, and greater client loyalty, because their objectives would be the continuing focus."

It's well documented that marketing to new customers is considerably more costly than marketing to returning ones. Creating customer loyalty and convincing them to choose your business every time is a huge part of your long-term success. 

When you interact with customers after they place a sale, you increase your chances of them returning to your business. The better you are at doing this, the less you'll have to invest in other marketing efforts since you'll have a strong customer base. 

Depending on how well you engage customers, shortening your customer lifecycle can become a competitive advantage. Not only will you increase your business' sales, but you'll also take some activity away from your competitors. By using contact management software (ACT!, Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho),  you'll find out the best ways to engage customers. 

Your sales process plays an important role in your business. We recommend trying to make it more efficient so customers will return to your business at a faster rate. Investing in your sales process usually has a positive ROI since it directly impacts your bottom line. 

To talk more about contact management software, or anything else, please contact us. 

It's common to see businesses struggle with their marketing process today. The rise of digital marketing and data and analytics hasn't been easy for everyone to adjust to. If you find yourself in this position, then consider trying out these three things: 

Incorporate CRM software

One of the best ways to improve your marketing process is to incorporate CRM software (ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho). If your company has already done this, then just make it a point to involve the marketing team. If not, then strongly consider implementing CRM software. In addition to improving your marketing process, your sales team will also benefit from it. 

Work together with sales

The gap between marketing and sales teams is a black hole for productivity. There's just no reason to keep these two teams separate anymore, and if you do, then you're just hindering your own success. 

According to a recent Business 2 Community article, you can blend the two teams together by implementing CRM software: 

"As Sales and Marketing departments come closer together, they are both beginning to learn new things. Sales are deepening their understanding of the brand equity of good communications, while Marketing adopt the precise metrics used by the sales team. Both teams are using CRM to manage the entire customer relationship, from first tickle to project engagement. That’s the way the future of CRM should be. "

Base your strategy on data

There are two kinds of people: those that love data and those that don't. Even if you want to keep its role small, there's no denying that data can improve your marketing process. You'll rely less on intuition and more on statistic evidence. At the very least, your marketing efforts will become more consistent. 

Don't let your marketing process hold your business back. Incorporate CRM software in your process for better efficiency and consistency. 

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Sales process improvements can help businesses increase their sales without spending any additional resources. In this blog, we'll discuss three aspects you can focus on to improve your sales process. 

Communication

Lack of communication is often to blame for lackluster sales performance. Whether your sales representatives don't communicate with each other or your sales team is closed off from the rest of your company, this is something you need to change. 

A recent Business 2 Community article explains how you can improve your lead scoring by getting sales representatives to communicate more: 

"Nobody builds a perfect lead process on their very first try but you can strengthen it and build a great one over time if you keep the lines of communication open. If you’re trying to get the most out of lead scoring and grading, make sure you’re communicating effectively with your sales team, as well as periodically evaluating and adjusting your approach based on that communication."

Technology

Sometimes, poor performance from sales representatives isn't the root cause of disappointing sales. If your sales representatives are already meeting expectations, then you should consider technological innovations as a possible sales process improvement. 

CRM software, like ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zoho, has a big impact on the sales process. It records, collects, and organizes sales data. With this information, sales representatives can learn more about their clients and anticipate orders ahead of time. 

Collaboration

Sales representatives aren't the only ones responsible for a company's sales. There's a lot that goes into the customer experience that sales reps have nothing to do with. 

CRM software also helps increase collaboration within a company. Since multiple teams can refer to the software, they'll find it easier to work with one another.  

Businesses can improve their sales processes by focusing on communication, technology, and collaboration. To talk more about sales process improvements, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Implementing marketing software is one of the best ways businesses can improve their processes in terms of efficiency. In this blog, we'll talk about three important aspects concerning marketing software. 

Why businesses need marketing software

Why a business or an organization needs marketing software depends on their own specific needs. As a result, there are many reasons businesses cite for needing marketing software. 

A recent Advertising Age article reports the results of a survey which asked businesses why they need marketing software. Here are the results: 

• 27% said they need marketing software to improve lead management
• 15% said they need marketing software because they were unhappy with their current system
• 13% said they need marketing software for better/more features
• 10% said they need marketing software to increase company growth
• 9%  said they need marketing software for better integration
• 8% said they need marketing software to automate their processes
• 4% said they need marketing software to for an upgrade/update

Depending on your situation, one or more of these cited reasons may apply to your business. 

How marketing software improves your processes

Marketing software helps businesses to organize and improve their marketing processes. The idea is to automate certain aspects of the process and gain access to data and analytics. By using marketing software, you can identify possible areas of improvement in regard to your marketing strategy. 

Is marketing software right for your business?

First, you need to understand that any business can implement marketing software. There's no requirement in terms of size, sales, or your budget. 

The most important thing is that you analyze the aforementioned needs for marketing software and see if any of them resonate with you. If you need to improve your lead generation, automate your marketing process, or increase your company growth, then you should seriously consider marketing software. 

To talk more about marketing software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Business owners are always looking for ways to improve their sales process and better target their marketing efforts. CRM software can help you achieve both of these things, as well as introduce continuity between your marketing and sales teams. Here are three things you can do with CRM software: 

Prepare for leads

Converting leads is one of the most important tasks in regard to the sales process, but sales representatives aren't always as prepared as they should be. With CRM software, they can inform themselves about specific clients before meeting with them. 

According to a recent Small Business Trends article, sales representatives can build deeper relationships by incorporating CRM software into their preparation: 

"For instance, if you have a sales call scheduled with a valuable lead, CRM software would send you an email in advance so you remember to make the call.  Whenever a customer has an upcoming birthday, you or a sales rep would be notified so you promptly send out birthday wishes. Consequently, you can make customers feel more valued and build deeper relationships."

Align your marketing and sales teams 

Moreover, marketing teams can also benefit from CRM software. In particular, they're more in touch with the sales team since both parties are referring to the same data. As a result, the two teams are better aligned and can work together, rather than compete against one another. 

Improve your future marketing efforts

Users often relate the data collected by CRM software to the sales process. But does information concerning your target market have other important applications within your business? Marketing teams can learn from CRM data to better target their next marketing campaign. 

By implementing CRM software, businesses can improve their lead conversion, align their marketing and sales teams, and better target their future marketing efforts. To talk more about CRM software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

If your business has not considered the transition to marketing software, you are now at the risk of being behind in the competitive race. You may be dealing with a boss who is a little hesitant about making the transition, or you are probably afraid at how much it may cost you to implement the software. You may also think that you already have enough resources to get the job done. 

Whatever the reason is for not using marketing software, you may need to think differently about it. Businesses that are using marketing automation or marketing software to develop prospects are seeing a significant increase in leads. It is highly important that you think about all the opportunities marketing software will present for improvements and growth.

If you are not quite convinced, here are some signs that your business may need to transition to marketing software.

You Do Not Have Enough Time For Anything

If your office has been using a disconnected set of tools and resources to try to accomplish something in your marketing department, it is highly likely that you probably feel the odds have been stacked against you. Well, honestly, they probably are.

The disconnection of putting information in and information coming out, having to learn new things just to remain proficient will take everything out of you. You will do this all day, and you will have missed opportunities to do other important things. With marketing software, you will have a tool that will provide you with all the resources and tools you need to be successful. 

You Have No Idea How You Got Those Leads

If you do not know which of your marketing platforms or efforts helped you get those leads, then you are definitely missing out on a huge opportunity to optimize and improve your traffic. If you have the right marketing software, you will never have to make guesses about leads. You will be able to quickly break down where everything came from. You will not have to feel like you are walking around in darkness. 

Knowing where your information is coming from and how you can improve from it is critical to the success and improvement of your business.

If you do not have the necessary insight to what is or is not working for your business, contact us today for help. 

A good salesperson will be able to fully explain and convince potential customers why he or she is better than the next competitor. The ability to do this is what puts them in the front of the line when it comes to competition in their field.

In order to be among the best salespeople, your salespeople or salesperson should posses the following qualities:

• Have the desire that can not be broken
• Have the commitment to get the job done
• Be responsible and have the understanding of the bigger picture
• Have the technical skills for finding prospects and following through on them

Sales is what drives the revenue of your company. If you want to improve your sales organization and grow it, you need to implement a sales process improvement process that will allow you to manage, support, and examine everything. 

When you are seriously ready to make improvements to your sales process, you should evaluate where you are right now. You should ask yourself these questions about your company. Whatever your answers are, you can use them to take a new walk on the path of success:

• Is it simple or difficult to order or buy from your company?
• Why is it simple or difficult to buy from you?
• What kind of feedback have customers given you? Why do they say those things about you?
• What kind of things do your sales people tell you? Does your company support their sales process? Does it make them productive and effective? 
• How well does your CRM software or system assist in the selling process? 

You need to consider what is important to your customers. When you have an understanding of what is important to them, you will be able to create a process that your salespeople can use to be effective and productive.

If you are serious about changing your organization with an improved sales process, do not hesitate to contact us today. You want to create better opportunities for your sellers and your customers. 

Having the best tool at your disposal is critical in this fast-paced ultra-competitive environment. It seems every business is feverishly looking for an edge on the competition. Finding, implementing and fully integrating a tool that can be a sustainable competitive advantage is difficult but well worth the effort since it can be the difference between atrophy and growth. Utilizing superior sales tracking software will help your staff close more sales and be more productive. . .a sustainable competitive advantage that can't be beat. Once you've found that superior sales software that fits your business, the next step is establishing best practices that will optimize usage and performance.

Developing best practices around efficient processes is essential. Having a tool that is intuitive, therefore, is paramount. One great way of uncovering efficient processes is to have staff members conduct friendly competitions using different methodologies for the same task. Also, you could have multiple teams collaborate and compete to see which team can come up with the most efficient and/or quality results for a given task.

Once efficient best practices have been established it is important to insist on consistency. This ensures quality control but also enhances productivity. If there is a steady stream of turnover in the sales staff this also allows for smooth transitions when there is new personnel coming on board. It also gives the training department or mentors the opportunity to teach new members best practices quickly. Finally, this strategy makes it possible for staff to cover for each other in case someone is temporarily out of the office (ill, doctor appointment, etc.) or you decide to permanently rearrange sales teams.

Last but not least is the importance of repetition. The old saying "practice makes perfect" is not accurate. What is correct is "PERFECT practice makes perfect." Having staff members repeat these sales tracking software best practices consistently during every single interaction will help them achieve proficiency. Balancing the art and science of sales can be tricky, so allowing sales staff to incorporate their own style into the mix is critical for employee satisfaction and performance. Having the right tool will make it much more likely that they will actually use the tool and best practices.

One of the main things sales staff will complain about is their sales tracking software. Equipping them with a superior tool will improve employee morale and performance. Once equipped with a superior tool, it becomes so much easier and more enjoyable to collaboratively develop best practices as a team. If you're looking for a superior tool to build best practices around, please contact us; we have what your sales staff wants.

For any questions on CRM software or anything else, contact us. Thanks.

Market segmentation is crucial to a business’ sales and marketing programs. If they’re going to be successful in marketing their product, they need to target people who would actually have a need for it. Otherwise, businesses would be spending tons of money on unprofitable ventures.

Market segmentation is generally looked at as a part of the marketing process. Sales representatives aren’t supposed to think about their target audience, rather they’re supplied with it by the marketing team. The communication between the sales and marketing teams is crucial for the effective targeting of the market segment.

With CRM software, however, the process changes a bit. With all the data stored about customers in the software, businesses can easily find their specific target market. This information needs to be communicated between the sales and marketing teams. When done correctly, this process is more efficient and effective.

A recent Toolbox article discusses marketing segmentation and the use of CRM. According to the article, businesses can improve their segmentation with CRM software:

“There's an art to effective market segmentation, but it's an art that can be learned. What's more, modern CRM tools can help you come up with effective segmentation and guide you in producing strategies aimed at maximizing returns on the segmentation approach.”

With CRM software, sales representatives are better equipped to finalize sales with the data and information about customers stored in the system. The data allows them to predict customers’ needs and wants based on their past order history.

In addition, marketers are better informed with CRM software because they have information about their target market. They can analyze statistics and incorporate the new information into their market segmentation process.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.  Enjoy your Labor Day!  

In regard to the best ways to devote time and effort as a business, increasing efficiency is one of them. Accomplishing this can be done in a multitude of ways, which means email marketing software is an option to take into consideration. While you can market your business through email manually, depending on how many customers you deal with on a daily basis, this can become overwhelming and too challenging to handle without sacrificing the quality of response you provide. Using email marketing software will help you success as a business in various ways.

Immediate Notifications Allow for a Speedy Response

It is not a viable option to spend every minute looking at your email, and this is not a recommended task to have your employees doing as nothing would ever get accomplished except for answering emails. Fortunately, you can use email marketing software to ease this difficulty as software can lead to receiving immediate notifications, which allow you to respond as quickly as possible.

Results Are Analyzed in an Efficient Manner

When it comes to making business decisions, you should really not rely on chance. In this case, email marketing software is extremely useful as it provides proper analytics. Instead of guessing which methods are bringing the greatest success, you will have concrete information with statistics. Email marketing software is also capable of tracking click behavior, which can make a rather substantial difference on your overall success when you adjust your marketing to cater to the results.

Communication as a Whole Can Be Improved

Making the best use of email for your business means your communication as a whole will improve. It is very common for businesses to connect with each other through email, and then there are customers that are imperative to the success of your business. Features such as instant notifications and proper analytics will ensure you are able to provide high quality communication to those of importance.

Contact us to learn more about marketing software for your business. Enjoy your labor day weekend!

Relationships between sales representatives and customers are crucial for businesses. While it's more of an old-fashioned strategy, some companies still rely on these relationships for future sales.

It's okay if companies have this strategy, but they have to invest in order to fortify it. Placing the entire weight of a business' sales on the shoulders of sales representatives just isn't fair. You can't expect them to memorize each little detail about clients and close every sale.

You can, however, support sales representatives to lighten their burden. Sales tools, such as ACT!, Hubspot, or Salesforce (CRM software), make it easier for sales representatives to stay organized. This way, they can look back on information about the past sales of a client and utilize it in future negotiations.

A recent Small Biz Trends article talks about the benefits of CRM software. The article explains how the software can help keep representatives organized by creating a contact list and making information easily retrievable:

“When dealing with hundreds or even thousands of customers, it’s easy to become disorganized and overwhelmed. Fortunately, the right CRM software makes it simple and intuitive to keep customer information organized and retrievable. By maintaining a contact list, it gives you quick access to a wealth of information like customer email, telephone, buying history and birthday.”

CRM software takes some of the weight off of sales representatives' shoulders. They no longer have to memorize and record each sale or order. The information is organized and presented in a way that's easy to interpret and understand.

Companies can still rely on their representatives for sales. An investment in CRM software simply hedges this bet. Sales representatives are better equipped to do their job, which should translate to more sales for the company.

If you are interested in CRM software or would like to keep your sales representatives organized, contact us.

It is highly critical for businesses to make their office processes and practices a smooth process. Since it is such an important task, some businesses use sales software as a means to streamline processes in their offices. When a business streamlines certain tasks, it leaves more time to focus on other important duties. You already know how challenging and complicated handling all of the sales tasks can be, and they can all vary. Sales software can make the process much easier for your business. Your assignments can be automated, and your employees can receive a notice or a reminder about when to contact customers. The entire process can be tracked so everyone can determine if any improvements need to be made.

Improving and maintaining relationships with customers can result in everyone's goal being accomplished, which should be making and closing a sale. When your employees are organized and all of the office data is organized, your business will have a better chance of accomplishing your sales goals.

How can sales software from Gold Coast Advisors help your business?

You will not have to spend countless time searching for sales information. With sales software, you can find information quickly, whenever you need it. When you need to find certain notes that you have made, potential sales opportunities, and future appointments, you can quickly find this information just by using the search tool. 
You can easily manage all of your customers. You can have access to a number of important communication information so you can effectively assist your customers when they need help with your products or services. You will typically have this information available to you from the purchases that have been made, or from the point-of-sale systems.
Improve your understanding of the customers. When you have customer information in front of you, you will gain an understanding of what the customers like. When you know what products and services customers recently purchased, you will have a high chance of predicting what other services or products they may want in the future.
When you are able to track your sales, your marketing efforts, and all of the activities of your employees you are giving your business a chance to improve and grow.

Contact us for any assistance or questions you may have about implementing sales software in your business.

Business owners are always seeking new ways of achieving Sales Process Improvement to increase revenue. Often, though, an owner may not have the time to diligently search the latest tools in technology.

Sadly, its the company’s customers who are hurt: they are not benefiting from the transparency and communication derived from software like a proven Customer Relations Management (CRM) platform.  

In fact, a study of companies on a fast-track for growth indicated that 63 percent of those with the highest trending growth (revenue) were using CRM software.

CRM and sales planning…

Instead of numerous sales people working independently in ill-defined territories, CRM software analyzes those silos of isolated information; then, it can produce forecasting reports to help managers assign sales teams to optimize their efforts.

CRM and Lead Conversion…

Forget about the task of assigning all of those incoming leads when they’ve gone ‘cold.’ CRM programs will track incoming leads to provide assignments to productive salespeople.

In short, CRM helps track sales quotas and create sales strategies.

CRM helps the customer 'win'…

Knowing what your customer needs, and when he’s most likely to need it, is the key to exacting more revenue from the best sourcer: your existing customers.

CRM will make customer profiles easy to access remotely on an array of smart devices; this, while managing customer contracts.

Analysis of data…

Leads are not only tracked more efficiently, but the information is readily available to assist sales teams in ‘cross-selling’ by understanding customer needs.

Pricing and order completion…

Instead of sales teams putting customers on hold, or calling them back because they don’t have current pricing data, CRM provides a seamless channel to the latest company information.

What’s more, the orders can be completed via CRM, which speeds up the process and makes for a happy customers.

We work with lots of CRM software, including ACT!, Hubspot, Salesforce and Zoho, making it our goal to know the ins and outs of the programs and the industry surrounding it.

Contact us to learn more about CRM software, and how it can be customized to grow with your business---without starting all over again with new software!

When it comes to their function and use, CRM systems are very flexible. Their features could benefit businesses in several different ways. Innovative business managers will find ways to use their CRM software to its full potential.

CRM software, like ACT!, Hubspot, Salesforce, and Zoho, is also compatible with other software. It won't interfere with other applications and in some cases, it may even be able to integrate with them. This helps businesses stay organized with their software and applications.

In particular, CRM software works especially well with marketing automation software. The combination of the two be can the perfect link between customer service, sales, and marketing teams for small businesses.

A recent Tech Target article explains how CRM systems can be integrated with marketing automated software. According to the article, businesses can even motivate marketers to use the system:

“To drive home the use of CRM for a marketing department, create enthusiasm about its use by creating custom objects when necessary. A ticketing system that allows sales and others to make marketing collateral requests via the CRM system has had great success in not only improving marketing integration, but also user adoption. This enables marketing to track the requests it receives, how long it takes to answer these requests, and who handles them within a department.”

Marketers should be encouraged to use CRM software, but they're not always motivated to do so. If this is the case, businesses need to think of ideas on how to get them to willingly use the software.

To do this, businesses need to offer incentives and give marketers a reason to check the CRM software. As suggested in the article, businesses can implement a ticketing system to make marketing collateral requests. Marketers are then encouraged to respond to the requests on the software and interact with other employees in different departments. This strategy can help businesses organize their company through CRM software.

If you would like more information about CRM software or anything else, contact us.  Thanks.

One of the most flexible and popular CRM software choices in the industry is ACT! software. This software has millions of users worldwide, across a variety of fields and industries. The CRM system comes with the tools and features your sales team needs in order to maintain and manage all the sales. Another wonderful thing about ACT! software is that it will not put a dent in your wallet. 

ACT! software's layout is simple and easy to figure out. Your employees will not have a difficult time staying on top of their sales, nor will they have a difficult time printing out their previous sales history. 

One of the best perks of this software is that it allows all of your employees to manage and organize the contact information in an efficient manner. All the information your employees need can be accessed from one page; this will save your employees from having to hunt down the information they need. 

ACT! software with some additional features will make sure your business will have a great return on its investment. You can integrate support tools and management into your software; this will especially be beneficial when you have a technical support team who does not work with your ACT! system. 

You will have customer service, support, and a troubleshooting-ticket system that can be created using additional programs from the outside. This will be a good choice because all of that information can be synced into the system. 

The versatility of ACT! software gives business and organizations the ability to use it for all their operations, regardless of the industry. The learning curve is not difficult, but if you want to become a master user, you will need to receive the right training that is offered for the software. 

If your business or organization wants more information about ACT! software or training, contact us today with your questions. 

Creating and keeping customer relationships should be one of the top factors in any type of business. If a business has negative relationships with customers, it will be very difficult to be successful, no matter what type of industry your business is in. This is why it so beneficial and important to have contact management software or a customer relationship management system that allows you to run your business operations effectively. 

Your Contacts

Contact management software like ACT!, Salesforce or Zoho, will allow you to add convenient information for every contact that you have. This will allow you to touch all of the bases when it comes to presentations, meetings, conferences, phone calls, and other things. This type of information will be placed with the contact's information. When you are able to pull up a contact and see all of this information, it is certainly effective and highly efficient.

Prepared For Conversations

If a customer or client unexpectedly calls you, you can quickly type in the person's name and see all of the information that you need. You will also be able to see any other calls or conversations that took place previously. When you can see why they have been calling, you can handle the conversation with ease because you will be prepared.

Every department in your office will be prepared for conversations with customers and clients. Once one of your departments receives a call and takes the order of a customer, the other departments in the office will also be able to see that same information. Your customers will be impressed and satisfied with the level of production and efficiency of your business. When you can improve the way you handle your customers and their needs, you will be able to keep those customers and receive recommendations for additional customers.

Even if you have the best technology skills, it may not always be easy to figure out how to use every feature of a new software or platform. You will not be left in the dark whenever you have questions. You will have a support team that will relieve you of any headaches that may come ahead.

Contact us if you are looking for ways to improve your business so you can leave your competitors far behind.

Let’s face it, customer retention is a hot objective for any business model. In fact, it is far easier (and cheaper) to retain an existing customer than it is it gain a new one. Repeat customers are essentially the “bread and butter” to creating residual income and a reputable source for word of mouth advertising. In what ways can you improve your customer retention to maintain these loyal buyers that have a huge impact on your overall bottom line?

The good news is that your CRM software (like ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zoho) has the features to help you create an exceptional customer service experience through being proactive in handling customer concerns, keeping your customers happy, and influencing them in a way that they write rave reviews about you on their social networks.

The following are 3 tactics you can implement in your customer service model to boost customer retention.

#1 Be Engaging

Now that your web-based CRM system is integrated with your social networks and email software system, you can engage with customers much faster in addressing complaints, concerns, or even feedback. Take advantage of this feature to be more interactive and involved with your followers. It just shows that behind the company name you are indeed a real person who genuinely cares about the customer.

Here are a few tips to becoming more responsive with your customers:

Reply promptly to complaints with a plan of action of what you will do to correct the issue (or direct them to someone who can)
Try to answer each question/comment…even if it’s a simple “thank you”
Ask questions to get feedback on a certain topic to create involvement
Send birthday wishes …these gestures can make a lasting impression on how your customers view their relationship with you

#2 Delivering Outstanding Customer Service

There’s a lot that can be said in providing incredible customer service. However, the best kind of service is creating a unique, personalized experience that is catered to that individual customer. You know, the kind of treatment that makes someone feel special because you’ve gone out the way to discover their exact needs and pain solutions.

You can deliver amazing service by:

Ensuring your sales force has mobile access to CRM when meeting face-to-face with customers so the details are readily available for retrievable
Having a system in place that all sales members input accurate customer information as it is given to them for fresh, up to date records
Using CRM to email customers when there is an open case regarding an issue or complaint…this keeps customers in the loop on the status and progression
Segmenting high-value customers using groups or list features within your CRM so it is visible to your entire sales team

#3 Reward Team for Excellent Performance

Customer service and retention essentially begins with your sales team. Your CRM system can keep track of individual team members, tracking information such as production, revenue, complaints handled, engagement, etc. Use these numbers to reward your team on a regular basis to keep them motivated and excited about the vision of your business.

Creativity goes a long way with developing staff incentives! In addition to, a great suggestion here is to have ongoing training in the area of customer retention. All sales members (and anyone who has interaction with customers) should be familiar with these strategies to be utilized fully for business objectives.

These simple yet valuable tactics will certainly help improve your customer retention, thus sustaining a loyal customer base and steady residual income. Please contact us for additional tips and tactics on more CRM strategies to retain your customers in your business.

The proper hosting plan for your business will produce several things that are cost prohibitive for your business. 

Back Up - Proper hosting requires on site back ups through a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID). The RAID backup programming prevents data loss due to a hard drive crash. Additionally, your hosting plan will back-up servers off site so that you will not lose more than 24 hours of data in the event of a catastrophe. Redundant back-ups cost money, someone else's system used on a subscription (SAAS) basis reduces your capital expenses.

Security - Using an ACT! Hosting plan reduces the amount of 3rd Party Hardware your customer's information will pass through. This reduces your security footprint, and reduces the chance of breach of privacy. Your costs increase as you have to ensure security on your hardware, website hosting plans, and more.

Physical security - An ACT! hosting plan has to meet physical security requirements. These requirements are easier to provide on scale, and create value for your business that would require an inordinate amount of capital.
Customer support - Building an in-house solution requires you to pay technical support to do on-site repairs. Most hosting services provide free or cheap customer support for your users' end and do all their in-house technical support on the back-end hassle free (on your part).

History - Any endeavor takes time to learn. An ACT! certified partner has shown 6 months of successful hosting via customer recommendations. Your business gains value by using a hosting service for your ACT! CRM software because you gain that experience.

Adequate hardware - With all the experience, backup, security and system requirements required to be an ACT! hosting provider, your business gets substantial gains in the time it takes for trial and error on your own systems. This increases value while decreasing costs to you, since you do not have to upgrade any of your own hardware.
Gold Cost Advisors offers certified ACT! hosting. Please contact us for more information on how a hosting plan can work for your business.

To talk more about your ACT!, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

So what are the things you should focus on in your marketing plan? It's all about finding your target audience and articulating a specific need that they have. Your goal is to convince consumers that your product or service fits that specific need.

A recent Business 2 Community article walks you through the steps of planning a marketing strategy:

"Plan your marketing using a strategy-first approach to clearly identify your target market, define your positioning and create an identity. Discovering your target market or ideal customer is a foundational element of getting any business on track. Your marketing requires a positioning strategy for success. You’ve got to carve out a mental position in the mind of your target market or ideal customers."

These are just the basics, and they were established decades ago. The new factor businesses need to focus on is technology. Marketers now have more tools than ever at their disposal. What counts is how you use them and incorporate them into your marketing process.

CRM software like ACT!, HubSpot, SalesLogix, and Zoho, are popular solutions for marketers. Sales representatives use it on a daily basis, but marketers can learn from the information and data it collects. With CRM software, you can find out:
•Patterns in clients' behaviors.
•Which demographics buy which products
•How often clients return for repeat orders
•Who your loyal clients are

With this information, you can optimize your marketing process. If you find out that your target demographic is a little younger than you expected, then you can start to incorporate more social media in your marketing efforts. Whatever you find out from CRM software, you can use it to improve your marketing process.

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.