Our business has grown quickly over the past 18 months. One challenge has been finding the right system for email, schedules, to-dos and new business leads to handle our growth and keep things organized.
Here’s what we’ve done so far to get organized, and what I’m looking at to make the system better:
I setup my Jott account so I can create a to-do item, add a topic to my next staff meeting agenda, add an event to my calendar, and more. All by making a free phone call.
A typical call to Jott goes something like this:
JOTT: Who do you want to Jott?
ME: Agenda
JOTT: Agenda… is this correct?
ME: Yes.
JOTT: (beep)
ME: Discuss the designers role on the new project from ABC Company
JOTT: Got it.
ME: (hang up)
When I return to the office — the voice message will have been transcribed to text – emailed to me, filtered to my “Meeting Agenda” list in Gmail, and removed from my inbox. I don’t have to touch it, because it’s not in my inbox any longer. But at the meeting on Monday, I’ll bring up the list and there it is. It blows my mind that this service is free.
Phase two of the system begins Monday
I made all these changes, and it’s helped me be a lot more productive. But as my productivity has increased, so has the number of new business leads coming into our business. I need a better system to track those prospective customers — wherever they’re at in the sales funnel.
I spent some time this weekend researching dozens of free open-source and paid options for CRM software to manage by sales prospects. I even loaded a couple of free options up and tried them out — but most options felt clunky — like a system that would complicate my work flow. If it’s complicated, I won’t use it. (Nor should I).
The best choice appears to be a paid program — SalesForce.com. The deal-breaker for me is the way they integrate with the suite of Google products that have helped my productivity so much. In fact, last Spring they rolled out a specially branded product: “Salesforce for Google Apps.” I’ve setup a trial membership, and I’m giving it a 30-day test that begins Monday.
I’m optimistic that this will help keep everything integrated and will position our team for further growth. But I won’t know how well Salesforce will work until I put it to work for us.
I’d love to hear what other small business owners are using — what works and what doesn’t. What works for us may not be ideal for another business. It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. But if things aren’t integrated and simple, it will never work. If you have ideas or questions, let’s discuss them below, your comments are welcome.
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