It’s typically a software to keep track of leads/accounts. Sales force is probably the most notable CRM software, you can watch a few videos on how it works.

What part of this is useless?

Are we not seeing sales with CRM?

Are you in the email is dead and SMS is too Camp?

Because objectively speaking that is wildly off-base

Isn’t this the usual setup for a B2C client? You might save some time and $ if youre going to invest on a CRM software. We’re using Gohighlevel to automate text and follow up process for our clients.

There's nothing new in what you are doing.

Everyone sends leads from lead forms to CRM to SMS notifications.

Please stop spamming this sub with your ad posts.

Birdeye doesn't spam anybody If you don't set it up that way. You can manually add contacts or you can integrate it with a CRM. All it does is send a communication to people, asking them how their experience was and if it was a good experience then ask them to post a review on Google or wherever

You need business skills, sales, accounting, crm, payroll, etc.

Most of the businesses we work with use features in our white label software so they can custom build their POS, CRM, Marketing Tool, Data Analytics, etc - Start with a business consultant in financial services who doesn’t require any money or retainer and go from there. That’s what I do for a living.

Zuza Omni Channel Point of Sale - Shopping Carts, Virtual Terminals, Payment Links, Wireless Handheld Payment Terminals, QB integrations, Card Vaults, Text 2 Pay, QR Codes, CRM, Marketing Tool, Advanced Inventory Management, HR employee management, invoicing/estimates/orders, SKUs and barcode management, and more. CC and eCheck processing included

CRM puts?

Crm-based sales funnel lmfao, can we ban the useless spammers here please? Good lord

In my experience, people fail when I fail to articulate what I need. In other words, when I have no idea “where to start” and hire someone to figure it out it never ends up yielding the results I’m looking for from them. That’s not on them, that’s on me as a leader. Instead, I’ve found I need to “do the work” to figure out what I need and then figure out who I need to help me. For example, if you’re project is to do create a TikTok channel and post everyday for a month, start making the plan. List the topics of the videos. A scheduling cadence. Etc. Then decide what you need to help get you there. If you need help distributing content you may need a good project manager. If you need help creating content you need a different skill set. If you need help automating leads to a CRM that’s yet another skill set. Once you know what you want and what skills you lack, write a job description. Or go on fiver. I have marketing contractors that I pay 5 figures a month and ppl I may $25 on fiverr because they do a fantastic job. And if I need something I’m not sure about I’ll often pay 3 ppl $25 to find the best approach, and then use the one that produced the best results. But every time I start with, “ I need to do x and have no idea how so I need ti hire someone” I fail. I’ve gotten better at catching myself, and it always helps to ground myself by figuring out the next few steps myself (not necessarily doing them). But often If I do it myself I’ll find out what I actually need to get it done is something a little different.

Long story short - I recommend two things. Start figuring it out on your own and start writing down a plan to see where it takes you.

That depends what you're looking for. A CRM, an ERP? Basic task management, ticket handling / customer support?

>t isn't aware of any CRM, task management, or ticketing software?

I am asking what others use. I know of plenty, but I am the first to admit I don't know everything.

An IT consulting company that isn't aware of any CRM, task management, or ticketing software?

I actually think excel is not such a bad idea, here's how it could work: download a google sheets CRM template (to track the sales process step by step and store all the relevant data) and sync google sheets to Excel automatically. With some fine-tuning like setting the flow direction between them and rules to filter data, you can make it work. Excel formulas come in handy for you to tweak it further. I won't say there aren't far more advanced tools in the market, just saying it can also work just fine this way, considering your specific situation. With the integrations available it would be easy to build on this as your business grows.

Is a register a requirement now? I just put the app on my old iPad, between the free website, free pos, free basic reporting, free basic crm - hard to beat..

If your business can’t afford $60/mo, increase all your prices by $0.30

But also, keep pricing simple if you’re planning on handling a lot of cash, you don’t want to be counting change dozens of times a day, you don’t want to be running to the bank 2-5x a week to buy change..

Depending on your market, just round all your pricing up to the next full dollar. I.e; if you’re selling a sandwich for $2.75 the next full dollar will be $4

With the extra revenue, you can enable more features that will benefit your company, like the gift cards and customer loyalty - that is, if it makes sense for your area and your clientele.

Lots of options

I was living and working in big tech in Toronto at the time and it was mid-late 2021. Every company was hiring like crazy.

A lot of startups needed the skills I had (demand generation, growth marketing, CRM) because these companies have high burn rates, only a handful of customers, and desperately need to acquire new customers to stay afloat or to fundraise in future rounds.

I basically just went down lists of tech companies that looked interesting (check out Growjo or Great Places to Work lists) and fired off a bunch of applications. I probably interviewed at 30 companies that summer and had 25+ second round interviews. Most of the times I got disqualified in final round interviews because of very specific gaps between what I had and what they wanted. I was also the first marketer at some of these companies so my breadth + experience in big tech helped a lot.

Hope this helps!

Thanks again for replying, been brainstorming all day today lol. I really need to take action and make the website. I’m actually thinking of targeting local businesses compared to online products. Mainly because there’s tons of apps that already integrate with Shopify and other platforms. Lots of local businesses rely heavily on reviews and it plays a small part in local ranking on google.

I’m actually thinking of going the route of daily drip of reviews. You still bulk upload the customer list but it will send like 30 requests a day. This way clients can send last months list, I will sort it out and drip feed it over the next month so it’s a continuous cycle and it’s only one touch point once a month for the client. Actually came across a case study that says that review recency plays a major part in ranking so drip feeding might be the way to go compared to bulk uploading in one go.

All the softwares I were looking at reselling were selling monthly plans but I found a software on appsumo that has a lifetime deal. It’s $49 one time purchase and you get 5000 requests every month or you can pay more for more requests but all of them are one time purchases . I can get that and assign 1000 requests per month to each client and can charge whatever I want and still profit since it’s a one time purchase.

I think depending on the crm, some of them actually allow you to export customer lists.

I’m not a creative person and really enjoy most marketing functions I worked in (demand generation, growth marketing, content, design, etc). The only one I enjoyed was marketing automation & CRM. I was always pretty good at Excel and picked up some basic SQL & Tableau along the way and it was a pretty natural pivot.

Long term I probably want to become a product manager though.

Holding PUTs in NVDA, AAPL, CRM, META, and ISRG.

Three things helped me break into my role:

• I worked in a retail sales role (transferable skills such as CRM systems, understanding the target audience)

• I made websites for free on Wix for like three people that had online business. I put this under volunteer work

• I utilized my schools resume helper and it literally landed me two interviews just by cleaning it up

I don’t use the live stream and video approach, it’s not my target market.

I have a website but it’s static, again it’s not my audience. I sell mostly vintage but about 35% is current (2000+)

Honestly I use spreadsheets to track inventory and finances. A POS for payment and a CRM to capture customer information and marketing.

I sell nearly entirely online and at shows. I have s very small space in a local co-op, only do about $375 a week out of it, and it’s mostly 2015 to present.

https://bakeleads.com for all your small business CRM and tracking customer contact needs.

I had my own consulting company and sold our products up to 30.000€. The problem you have is that you wait. If you have the customer on the phone and he is ready to be closed, don’t hang up the phone. That’s like having sex and stop shortly before the climax, only to tell your partner how awesome you are - weird example but that’s how it is.

There are 2 common ways to close deals in this business. First is the so called „1-call- method“. That means you take around 60-90 minutes per client, to qualify the lead, pitch your business and then close the deal already. Important is, that you stay on the phone while they sign the contract. You can easily send them the offer via mail or use for example Copecart to have it far easier. This is better done on video call instead of the phone, but both works perfectly fine.

Benefits of it: You can use the emotional energy of your lead, to transform him in a paying customer. These people see your solution and are pumped to start the work process with you.

So why would you be crazy enough to cut the call and send them more information? It is a fact that once the information is in their email inbox, it gets pushed down by other Emails again. It is super hard to schedule another call after a week and get the same high of excitement again. It is not about your follow up, it is about how you design your sales call.

The second version is the „2-call-method“, where you have a setter, who initially talks to your clients. His task is to qualify them, and find out if they match your expectation of a customer. If they do, he schedules a call with you, so you can close the deal. This call should be 1 or 2 days after that inital call. If the lead is qualified, you close the deal, again - on the spot. If you are somehow stuck into sending fancy presentations or customer reviews, you can give this task to the setter. After someone is qualified, he can send information material, so that your client can look through, before jumping into the call the next day.

It is also a given fact, that if you run an ad campaign, people who sign up and end up in your CRM, often cannot remember directly who they signed up for. This happens often and is totally okay. The social media life has such a high pace and often enough, these clients sign up for everything they see that could be slightly interesting.

So when to use which strategy? You can qualify your leads already in the marketing process. The sharper, better and more structured your marketing or lead generation is, the easier it is to do the 1- call method. That requires to have a really strong and good marketing funnel. If you have a rather low quality funnel, where almost everybody could sign up, just to get to know the target audience, you can hire a sales representative to do the setting for you.

It is up to you, which version works for you, but never should you let days or even weeks pass by between initial contact and the close of a deal. Try to close the deal, the day you as a closer had your time with the lead. Either he buys, or he is not the right person to buy your service.

A CRM solution will definitely meet your needs and allow you to optimize your sales cycle. If I were in your shoes, I'd list the features that I want to get from the software and then look for solutions that can provide them. These days, there are a lot of free or budget-friendly solutions with trial periods so you can test-drive them to see whether they fit your needs.

In fact, that's how we chose the platform for our business. By the way, you can also test it - it's called EspoCRM. It is an open-source platform that is ideal for startups and small teams. We use it to manage contacts, leads and opportunities, generate reporting and automate business workflows. The system has integration with Outlook and Google email accounts, contacts and calendars which allows us to keep business data synced. What I also like about the platform is that it is easy to use and we didn't spend a lot of time educating our team about the features and how to navigate them.

Do a swot and competitor analysis to help figure out your brand positioning. Make sure you can counter, address core messaging and claims from others.

Then figure out your audience and segment. Figure out best channels and how each segment responds to various messaging.

Then I would say think of design and creative once you know your main audiences and value proposition and messaging you need to highlight.

This will make your channel strategy across seo, sem, eCRM, direct, etc more relevant and impactful to stand out.

This is very helpful, thank you.

I do actually plan to be pretty involved in the sales and investing roles at the onset. For sales, I actually have a pretty detailed scope of who my target customers and providers will be, and ways to reach them. What I DON’T want to do is spend my time creating marketing campaigns. I’ve been down this road before, and have found I get lost in the weeds here and spend too much time on this. It wasn’t unsuccessful, but the time involved did not support the benefit. This time around, I’d rather leverage someone else to prep the marketing. Developing and growing the CRM will be mostly me for start up. I will need some help or automation very early to keep this consistent though. The plan absolutely is bring someone on for sales fairly early on, but preferably after the foundation is set.

I have some initial cash to get the ball rolling, without having to rely too much on investors (or at all). I’ve always been under the impression that it’s more successful to limit your own input. But to your point, I need to build something to a certain point before I expect outsiders to put in.

The technical role is where I’m most lost. I’m really going to need a lot of guidance on this, and it’s going to be a significant part of the business, and essential to really scaling this to anything worth pursuing. I have zero idea how to go about finding someone. I need more than a website, (basically somewhere between a website and custom software), and would like to have a lot of input in this process, but don’t have a lot of experience with this, or really anyone in my network that I’d pull in on this. I’d love to build this out with someone that has the technical expertise, but I’m not prepared to take on someone who only works solely on this.

Ideally, I want to get this started with online contractors, and build out a team down the line. I just have no idea where to start. Do I start googling development firms? Go on fivrr? Even getting a clunky prototype I can invest in over time would be cool, but again, no idea where to start. Would love a mentor or some tech guidance, but everything I find just reads “scam” to me. I really want to find out how “real” people got started, but everything I’ve read is just kind of vague or cryptic, or trying to sell some product.

Hey, I wrote this article recently which incidentally matches exactly what you’re looking for: 10 ways a CRM can help your business grow sustainably

So that’s amzn, google, meta beats. There is 0 shot I’m not going absolutely balls deep in CRM calls for their earnings

Thanks a ton! for pointing our my flaws!

1.It is a project management software. But none of the project management software offers inbuilt tools for ensuring the Quality. I believe that you know, quality matters for any business. SprintsQ tries to bridge the gap between software development and software testing and also the challenges in software testing.

2.We have not yet launched the product even to the Beta customers. So we could not showcase testimonials and case studies. Hope we will get it soon.

3.I previously worked in a Corporate, which is a market leader in CRM and Help Desk software and I have came across multiple companies from Startups - Mid Sized Companies - Corporates. A good development team should ensure quality in all phases, where the role of developers is not only limited to code , They should also do Dev Testing and then move to QA phase. Where QA can find few more possible cases which developers cannot find.

None of the software are bug free, but good quality software does not produce same bugs over time. Now consider if your customer reports a bug to Support reps, now your developers will fix the issue and push it to live, now after some period of time some code changes may cause the same issue, now again your customer will reach you for the same issue. Suppose if your support rep has automated the particular step, the issue will be avoided won't repeat.

PMs need to provide acceptance criteria which helps in user acceptance testing as well, Where user acceptance testing will allow your customers to know the quality of the developed product.

4.Looks about as nice as any. Squawks "agile" like any brain-damaged parrot. - I absolutely agree with this, Will look into this!

5.Every company with a product like this should be the embodiment of a book on your approach To Project Management. - as you said before there are 5000 project management tools, why each of the companies has customers? Why the people don't they stick to a single product called "JIRA" . It's all about customer needs!

"What makes you think that the company is primarily focused on self-promotion? Can you provide more details?"

Take Away:

Need to showcase the uniqueness

Need to provide stats

MSFT king… Short the crap out of ZM and CRM… Not sure how they compete against this animal in enterprise.

msft now sitting at 32pe

i’m glad i didn’t short that shit. but my crm & meta puts got sympathetically dunked on

It’s calls you dumb dumb. If the tech sector is doing well, CRM has been undervalued for a decent chunk of time

When your just starting out you can build most of your CRM/Process guides/MIS/etc. through basic MS office or google docs.

please feel free to message me with any questions,

You have to be absolutely cucked to not be looking at CRM options for 6/2 and beyond tomorrow

If you want a killer stack start with Wordpress. A groundhogg as your crm. Woocommerce for e-commerce. Funnelkit for funnels. Affiliate wp for affiliates. Gamipress for gamification. Wp fusion to tie it all together as a membership site . You’d have a great cheap marketing stack that will run circles around mailchimp, active campaign , clickfunnels, etc. so a definite yes.

I am referring to a hypothetical customer that has a $12B net worth. My question to you is how much you would personally pay to get that person's email address and transaction history to try and sell them something, whether it is financial services or carrots?

I would argue that their CRM might be one of the most valuable in the country. Uploading those contact details to Google's advertising engine could easily form the basis of dozens of strong businesses.

Most people start off 35-50k in an entry level marketing assistant, marketing coordinator, or marketing specialist role. You work in that salary range for about 2-3 years. Afterwards you can move into some type of specialization (communications, events, graphic design, analyst, etc).

This is where your salary and career path shifts. An analyst can move up into Business Analytics Manager/CRM Manager/Data Science/Marketing Tech. A creative person can move into a generalist Marketing Manager role, a Creative Manager, Brand Manager, Communications Manager, etc. Just be aware some people will move into management within 5 years. Others may never move into management or take 10+.

The data side is paid a lot more money on average. For reference a communications manager may make 75k a year. The CRM Manager will probably make 100k+ a year. That's why I'm thinking you need to adjust your expectations because you'll likely be a marketing specialist or maybe a marketing manager 6 years from now making 70-80k a year.

Still very much a go too. It's constantly updated, so wordpress 2000 has as much in common with current versions as does windows 11 and windows 95. WordPress still runs 40% of all websites. About 65% of websites with a backend crm.

To add to this, the size and reputation of the company matter far less than the size of their marketing team.

I've worked for three separate 2000+ employee companies, two if them multi billion dollar ones.

The first company had its own 30 member inhouse marketing agency.

The second company had me, and they only wanted me to be marketing part time along with CRM and recruiting duties.

The third and current company has a marketing team of about 8. I am the entire digital marketing team. I'm okay with that because I've marketed myself as a marketing Swiss army knife, so that's what I look for.

Their loan book is like $15B under water and they are hemorrhaging money fast. Huge net income losses coming.

Is that CRM worth $1B? $2B? $3B? Because those are going to be similar to the net losses from the interest rates they're paying right now.

Not really.

JPM paid $175M for what turned out to be $3M fake student loan borrowers. If we consider for a moment that they were actually real, that amounts to $58.33/email address of some shit broke 18 year old.

How much more money is the legitimate contact record and banking history of a high net worth individual? How much would you be willing to pay for FRC’s CRM data? Right now, the market cap is $2.6B or so. If they are still solvent, that contact list is highly valuable before even starting to discount their loan book.

It’s fine to track sales in Excel.

Google Fu “Excel lead tracker.”

For a single owner company, you don’t need a lot of CRM features, just a way you will use to follow up on sales calls. As you search, look for one that appeals to you personally.

Think you should hire a cpa to answer part of that question, and hire a lawyer to answer the other part.

Need to see real paperwork, real numbers, tax records, crm analytics

The lawyer would also help make sure the partnership/articles are equitable and transparent..

You can post in your local big city sub asking for local referrals

OP, please do this if you're serous about your core business. There is no value to spending your time rolling-your-own CRM.

This is like asking what is the best type writer to buy for business. You deserve better than excel sheets as a CRM.

ATS currently aren't that sophisticated. In fact, they're mostly terrible. They're just bad CRM solutions which mostly pull in CV info in a really bad way.

The actual screening is done by human beings most of the time. And these are recruiters who are trying to screen a zillion different roles for a bunch of different managers, all of whom want their candidates right this second. So mostly the first phase is a 'tick box' thing. Does this person have these things on their CV and does it approximate the job description.

They'll look for keywords most of the time.

We use several systems. It is hard to find something that suits everyone for all tasks. MS Teams is good for project management if you want something relatively easy to use. But it would be difficult to find 1 platform that covers all aspects of a business.

Maybe break it down into pillars.

Financial Project Management CRM Polices and Procedures Marketing

Etc etc.

A CRM will do it. Checkout Salesmate or bitrix24 , both have full email sync and options to add conversations into each deal.

Just... get a free CRM like hubspot

Aircall does this! Integrates with all leading CRM platforms aswell! Message me for more details

>Sugar CRM is free.

https://www.sugarcrm.com/pricing/

What about an open source alternative, such as SuiteCRM?

Or… https://www.hubspot.com/business-templates/customer-relationship-management

looks pretty good! I keep looking for a CRM and like you said they're all charging ungodly amounts per user! $99 a month for unlimited team member access sounds very enticing

Can I have your website URL? What CRM platform are you using?

It's not as low a risk as you may think. I had a medium sized property management company I was renting from once pull rent 3x in one day because they fat fingered their CRM software. I had to fight tooth and nail to get it back. Using bill pay would have made this situation impossible.

It's been rough but there has been potential. Some have done pretty well as of YTD. AAPL, CRM, and several others.

Accounting degrees are proficiently better as they have leading bodies such as CIMA, ACCA , ACA but even with that some firms, don't allow you to being exempt from all the exams . I would say any business course is fine as you can take a marketing course but do tech or accounting experience/internship on the side and still make it . If an individual who's studying marketing, doing a CIMA course they can still make it into accounting. With lot of marketing companies in the UK in top positions they require a marketing or business degree with knowledge of CRM and SEO.

Want to automatically follow-up with customers, clients or patients regularly via text message using just your phone and actual number?

Check out the new and innovative CommuniqAI app here!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.mtc.ga&referrer=utm_source%3Dreddit

How is this app different from other simple CRM and automation tools?

Well, it’s very easy to use and combines some functionality from both areas. Most CRM apps are unable to easily make informed decisions as it relates to existing texts and calls—and most device automation apps do not have a CRM focus. CommuniqAI blends these two and cleverly keeps you in touch with your customers with minimal interruption and distraction. Unlike other related apps, manually logging previous communications is unnecessary and notifications display your actual conversation history so you can quickly recall what you last touched upon. By default, the app will not take any action and largely act as a helpful reminder, and we recommend this type of use.

Please know the app can also be used to keep in touch with anyone effortlessly, including friends and family as well!

The landing page for the app is at https://communiqai.com.

Thank you!

Project Manager, CRM

If it’s b2b you can scrape them or buy them if it’s b2c you can’t is generally the rule

I’ve scaled emails using phantom buster or hunter.io and used databases like cognism and zoom info

The rules are lighter marginally if it’s b2b just gotta add in crm that info is a legitimate business prospect

Uk based if that makes a difference. US data rules are laxer so I’ve heard.

Collaboration:

We resell M365 and provide support. For what you get Microsoft 365 is generally cheaper than most options. You can use that for internal communications, messaging, and visual collaboration. It can also track time of employees when they clock in and out.

Project Management:

Depends on what exactly you need, but there is a project management aspect included. Let me know what you exactly need, and I can let you know if Microsoft 365 has it. M365 has boards to add tasks to To-do, doing, and done sections.

Accounting:

What's missing from Wave Apps that is making you consider something else so I can better assist?

Marketing and Sales: For about $11 extra you can get a CRM like tool with M365. Alternatively, dynamics 365 (also by Microsoft) is good if you can afford it (if you can afford HubSpot it sounds like you could, and it would be cheaper)

I started first with running my own ads and it was okay to good but definitely in terms of copywriting and design this last marketing company did teach us a lot + in addition they taught us how to use CRM to manage and track our leads - but a flat fee of $2500 as a management fee for running our ads is a bit steep at this point as we don’t have a huge budget to allocate towards marketing.

Hi there, If you’re looking for alternatives to website builders, I would suggest taking a look at LiteSite. It’s a software designed specifically for solo business owners to make it easier to get online, get booked and get paid. LiteSite includes features like scheduling, CRM, mini-site and marketing tools that are mobile-friendly and intuitive to use. Check it out at LiteSite.com to see if it’s right for you.

For CRM check out Fluent CRM.

Don’t get stuff until you need it.

Zoho for the free email, customer lists or crm. Google sheets or docs for proposals, quotes, and the rest.

Keep it simple.

Trello is legacy stuff, I’d drop. Clickup, Asana or Monday are much better

Always start with payments and then work from there. If you’re e-commerce, start with Shopify (DTC) for simplest or something like Webflow. Wordpress os a time suck and you need to execute well to get something stable. Worth the minimal delta in cost. Invoicing? Stripe or HubSpot (it has integrated invoices.

If your B2B in general id lean on HubSpot for CRM, CMS, invoicing and email. It’s pretty capable and easy to use

Laughs in CRM

CRM is the answer on the first part. Most can link into Gmail or Outlook. Salesforce would be overkill.

For projects, you could use a CRM for that as well but a task manager like Asana or Trello is more directly aligned with tasks

At a multiple of 950, do you think CRM is a screaming buy here?

Up 50k thanks to META & CRM. Never sold as they dropped and kept buying more.

Smaller GOOGL & AMZN positions but doing well.

New positions in BAC and PFE.

Always buying AAPL & SCHD/SCHB first of every quarter.

Hubspot is THE shit. Absolute favorite CRM in my marketing experience.

Honestly, you are either a difficult client to deal with or you don’t know the complexity of your site.

Just reading this reminds me of some of the worst contracts I’ve ever had: “Looks modern” - so you want a designer along with a programmer but you don’t have references and you are using ambiguous language.

If you want something to “look good” and you don’t want to pay too dollar, you need to do the legwork: what’s your audience, what are references for the design you want, what is a line item list of features, what is the site map, do you need SEO optimization, etc.

If you don’t know this and you are hiring a freelancer and paying cheaply, you are going to get what you pay for. I’ve seen 3K catalogue sites, I’ve seen 800 dollar “websites” built on mass manufactured websites. I’ve also seen a 30K single page.

The freelancer quotes on this page don’t make sense - you don’t even know what OP is looking for and you are providing a quote? What if he wants his website to use 3D scroll based on CAD models that have to be hand coded? What if he wants customizable filters for 30 products? What if it has an integration with a CRM or goes directly to Netsuite or something similar.

For OP: you need to line item your requirements and then source that openly.

What’s your industry? What products / services do you provide? Do you need this to be compatible with your CRM/ESP? Will you need any functioning forms? What is the purpose of the site, lead gen, to sell commerce?

I create sites, dealt with Shopify, Wordpress and webflow (webflow is my preference) but honestly your answers will help a bit in finding out how big of a job it is. Rarely is it about just the site as other aspects of your company come into play. If you haven’t thought that far ahead, I’d recommend you do before getting a site made. If you have any specific questions you can always reach out.

Consider this before making a decision. How quickly would your mother adapt to using some of the CRM programs? If she's willing to learn and can pick up and it quickly I would shoot Zoho like some have mentioned.

Also worth noting that the UI and product features can change overtime and can be doozy for someone not so tech savvy.

I have an uncle that was a pen and paper kind of guy too and started using some software to save some time but ended up resorting to excel. Been using it for years now with no issues and the simple reason why is Excel has not really changed much over the years.

You can attempt to ring them first.

Cold Calls should always precede an email imo. Call them, introduce yourself, tell them what you do and that you would like to present more info to them. Get the email, log it into your CRM and then use that email to send updates through the year until you convert.

Just sending a cold email is a little bit pointless. Decision makers inboxes are inundated. Messages they don't recognize will be put aside for more pertinent emails to respond to.

Cold Call, then warm email. Then you built rapport through engagement and people know who you are. That's how I get all my clients.

Mailer lite can do this. You would need to set them in a schedule of emails and in a specific group. All doable if you don't want to use a CRM.

3 month bill is at 5%. Growth stock valuations are insane even now. CRM, NVDA, etc aren't sustainable.

I would prefer not to use a CRM if something else is available.

I think you're onto a winner here. Bespoke CRM creation is the key. Tailor each job to each client, and don't under sell your skills. Yes you should re-use your repeatable modules as part of a bigger bespoke package for a client - what do you think the QuickBooks and others do? Wish you well with your venture, might even call on your skills myself in the future.

I tried to create a script that would automatically pass Luminaly account information to the appropriate landing page, giving the user the impression that they had downloaded it directly from my website. This was... very difficult to do and didn't scale at all.

Some of the ebooks don't need a lead form and can then be accessed directly through Luminaly.

In the future, I would love to have integration with CRM software so that companies can upload ebooks to luminaly and I can send them all the information they need via API. But I'm afraid that's not something for now.

Do you perhaps have another idea?

What you're talking about here is a CRM, customer relationship manager. It's the software most businesses use for scheduling, invoicing, client database, etc. QuickBooks is a popular example but they bill themselves more as accounting software.

Every CRM is different because CRM software companies like to care toward specific industries or niches. So they all have different features and price points.

Your example of tracking employee commission for plumbers is a feature that's offered by Service Titan whose target demographic are trade companies (plumbers, electricians, HVAC, etc.). They also offer things like pricebooks, KPI tracking, call recording, etc. They're a pretty large company and pricing is based on the features needed, but they're charging like $1000 /Month per employee that uses the software.

I run a home service business and I use a platform called Jobber. It automates a lot of my work. So once I schedule a job, I set it up to email the client and appointment reminder 24 hours ahead. They also get a text message with an ETA when the technician is on their way. I pay about $150/month.

Other CRMs in the home service market can charge as little as $25/month. Many even offer the most basic functions for free. So there's no consistent price point, it's just a matter of what features you offer.

Hey, I can develop a free website for you in exchange of a testimonial over our All-in-one Sales CRM because this still needs a lot of work!

Absolutely Webflow.
My experience has been that it is far far far better in many ways than Wordpress. What is your CRM?

Yeah, nuke it and start fresh. But WordPress isn't your only option.

I've done a couple site 'migrations'. Imo sites should be simple, as easy to navigate as a business card.

Since you don't need to setup any ecomm or membership stuff, it really shouldn't take you longer than a week to rebuild a new site and have it up for the public to start using it. And there are plenty of site builders out there that let you drag and drog elements and get it done fast.

We don't use WordPress anymore because it's too complicated for the average business owner to navigate. We use other, easier softwares based on their CRM needs.

It seems you are answering your own question. You don't have processes and don't know the numbers - so isn't it time to figure it out? Your accountant can do an audit. Figure out your overhead, review the expenses, and raise the rates to fix the margins. Your sales guy (you?) can figure out the sales numbers (use CRM software to do this in real-time). Min effort: call the accountant and ask them to run some reports. In the meantime, start using 2.5x instead of 2x in your estimating system. When you are too busy, go 3x. When you aren't busy, use that CRM system to follow up with sales leads. Good Luck!

Really thoughtful response and I'll be DM'ing you to talk more.

It's a sticky situation. Previous director was going to redesign but ended up leaving. They didn't have anyone over the next few months before I came on, but they all think the website needs help.

I came on and put it off a few months for all the reasons you stated... But it really is messing with our ability to be effective and track our efforts. I can't even get Wix to pass a Google ClickID through even with a Wix coder's help.

The mobile experience is non-existent, leading to high bounce rates. Getting just two forms to pass info to our CRM has been a nightmare. We've had to build work arounds in Analytics to get conversion info. Our SEO is improving but nothing special. Message testing has shown users don't understand what we do (which I'm currently in the process of fixing).

Inbound is mostly paid traffic and a couple blogs that are helpful how-to's, but don't lead to any interactions. I honestly think now is the better time to do it as we wouldn't lose too much with SEO.

What's your CRM? Depending on what you have there may be a good solution that fits better into your entire tech stack (If you have HubSpot CRM, there's a great CMS built in that you can use).

Otherwise, WordPress is a great option - just get good hosting and find a solid developer that won't just build you a drag-and-drop hodgepodge that's going to be slow, clunky and hard to use when done (looking at you, Elementor/WP Bakery/etc.).

Hey there, excellent writeup indeed! 👏
I love these points, and I'm glad to see our approach at Level resonates with some of the key ideas you've mentioned.

• MVP Speed - We build each feature as an MVP so we can provide value to our users as quickly as possible. We then focus future iterations on improving and expanding the feature, based on feedback and needs.
• Small Teams - Wow, thanks for the mention! We fundamentally believe that small, focused teams can accomplish more than larger teams. The agility and efficiency of small teams allow them to innovate and adapt quickly, which is essential for any successful startup. Pivoting is key, and that's something we take to heart.
• Design Matters - Hear, hear! User experience is crucial, especially for mission-critical applications. No one wants to use a tool every day that isn't intuitive and has a frustrating user experience. Simplicity, not complexity, and strive to make things easy and enjoyable to use.
• Customers as Marketing Channels - We're just starting to learn this ourselves. Marketing and sales is so hard for any SaaS, so leverage what you can to help you grow.

I'd like to add another point to the discussion:

Focus - At Level, we concentrate on doing a few things very, very well. We can't try to solve every problem or be everything to everyone. Level is an RMM platform, and that's where our focus lies. We're committed to solving this specific problem, which is definitely a massive challenge in itself. It would be a distraction to also become a CRM, PSA, billing system, ticketing system, etc.

Thanks again for sharing your insights! 🚀

She needs a CRM. Not a POS.

Some POS systems have client tracking built into them, but it’s not their specialty. Get her something that does exactly what she wants. If business is growing, it’s worth the investment.

You're looking for a CRM. Zoho, mentioned by another user, is one option that's popular

You have multiple options here. You can create a signup form with your ESP or CRM and have it directly on your iPad or a QR code for people to scan to enter the information.

I’ve even been to expos where exhibitors simply had an excel sheet open on a laptop (not the best option but it works in case there are Wi-Fi issues and you can manually bulk export into any automations).

The key is to identify what your lead magnet will be (value add, free offer, etc) and if it’s strong enough to draw high quality leads vs people who just want to win something.

know your product.

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What you describing is just advertising, so your selling advertising. the point is that the dress vendor, wont know that someone went to a henna vendor. this kid of a website allows vendors access to higher quality leads, because you can gauge " engagement" as the number of services a customer is looking. so the customer looking at high dollar value dresses, cakes, henna, and caterers - is more valuable than someone who looks at a low value dress and leaves the cite.

this site functions as "out of network" advertising - people who wouldn't normally know you exist (wont hear about you word of mouth) are front and center.

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further, you can build a back end CRM interface that allows vendors to keep track of all the leads.

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so, vendor is featured on the site for free.

customer goes to site and inquires about price, or other options directly to the vendor. paid lead.

and

a customer goes to the site, and doesn't visit THAT vendors products, but the vendor can still reach out and contact the (account registered) customer if they want. access to updated customer list is paid subscription.

talk to your vendors about their pipeline and figure out how much it costs to get one person in the store. if they spend $300 on advertising per purchase then price at $150 (or wtvr)

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the selling point is being able to willfully change the mix of your customer base. now these people are word of mouth advertisers. you can get the same amount of business from one year on this site as 20 years of dinner parties and golf invites.

This is probably one of the more creative and better ideas here but then you’re really relying on the event to be a success (and people turning up!).

My 2cents for this idea would be to run some type of sign up/registration to communicate the build up of the event via email marketing.

Or it depends if you wanna keep local, national or global. You could run a “lead gen” campaign (but not facebooks lead gen - that sucks, but use a conversion campaign for registrations/subscribers) with an incentive to sign up being Save X% on your first order and run an email marketing campaign. You then have an email list to use for future releases, sales, events etc. This might take a bit of set up syncing sign ups with a CRM/email marketing system.

650 really isn’t a lot. If you run that for 10 days that’s 65 a day. If you run a lead gen campaign, you might get like what, 10-20 emails a day?

Good luck!

Made money off crm from 190 to 200. A nice 30k

Do CRM PE

Not enough info, you'll have to pay someone to dig into your processes to figure it out or just spend more time and trial and error it.

You didn't mention a budget but most companies can't/won't want to pay for a system that does what you're asking. Those systems are complex and need maint. Even smaller systems that you integrate will need a level of maint.

You could go dynamics bc or NetSuite.

Or you can do what most small businesses do for a fraction of the cost, Quickbooks, zapier, hubspot. You can change the integrator (zapier) and the crm (hubspot). Regardless of what people feel about Quickbooks, it's one of the most versatile systems when it comes to talent and integrations.

I'm buying a car detailing / window tinting business. It seems to have all good bones, ample space, equipment, etc... I think the previous owner is just not good with employees and is tired of running it. When I went to go visit it, there were only two employees, and the place was dead. (not many customers walking in the door).
I plan to improve it by:
- Implementing a CRM so that we can gather data on our customers and use it to serve them better / give personalized service.
- taking a video of every car and doing satisfying videos to post to social media. Then using PPC on the content to maximize organic reach.
- Create recurring revenue and traffic by creating some sort of subscription where customers buy a base level of service and then when they come in are pitched other products and services.
- Investing in our employees, paying high wages; offering benefits (heath insurance, 401k, leadership education etc...) in this way we can create employees motivated in providing amazing service for our customers.
- Constantly acquiring feedback from employees and customers to build a better experience and make processes more efficient.
What could I possibly be walking into? Is this a pipe dream? Meaning would the industry have room in the profits to do these things? Are there any landmines I am not aware of? What are some things that you would look for if you were me?

All those features are available on Click up if you use it as a CRM. You have to do some work to create your board view but there is already a premade template for this. It will take some work from you to get it customized to what you need but all that you mentioned is doable.

Here we go:

Here are the common ones:

Canva- design

Chatgpt - copy

CRM/Project Management - Clickup

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The hidden secret one but I really need it to get through all my stuff efficiently and in an organized fashion:

TryShift- this one is an app that has all the stuff I go through everyday. It weird because its essentially no different than having a browser open but all my important daily stuff is in here and I feel way more productive with it. I also don't miss any emails- a big perk but a must for me.