I haven’t posted about the tools I use for my small business in a while, which is a shame because I use Mailchimp every month.  It is also a shame because Mailchimp is a local Atlanta company and I am all about supporting local businesses.

What is MailChimp?

So what is Mailchimp?  It is a super easy to use email publishing platform.  Most companies use it for email newsletters but you can use it to email anything from regular old letters to invitations and  coupons.

Easy to use

There 3 main activities to creating a newsletter:  creating your email list, creating the campaign and monitoring the results.

1. It is a breeze to import your contacts – directly if you use a CRM (customer relationship management system) that integrates with them, thru a CSV file if you don’t.  I use Batchbook so I just share the Mailchimp API with Batchbook and click a button and my contacts are moved over.   You can manage your contacts in Mailchimp but I highly recommend you do that in a CRM.  Hmm, sounds like a topic for another blog post.
2. Once you have a list created you can create campaigns from their templates or from scratch.  They have a ton of good-looking templates.  If you are familiar with Word or WordPress you’ll find them very simple to use (and pretty hard to break).
3. The provide great reporting about how many people opened the email, what and where they clicked, etc.  You can even access the reporting on your mobile device.  They provide you with a ton of information you can use to improve the quality of your campaigns.

More advanced features

They include a lot of advanced features beyond just sending email.

• They have integrations with Facebook, Youtube , Twitter and more so you can share your email campaign on almost every social network.
• They also integrate with events hubs like Facebook and Evenbrite so you can use those tools with Mailchimps great templates.
• They have a good reputation for avoiding spam.  What this means to you is that a high percentage of their emails get delivered.
• It is easy to integrate their forms into your website if you like.
• Finally, you can do fancy stuff like a/b split testing (two versions of an email to see which performs better)

Cost

If you have fewer than 2000 subscribers and send fewer than 12000 a month you can use Mailchimp for free.  Only catch is they put a small logo on the bottom of your email.  It is small and unobtrusive so I am ok with that. Here is what it looked like at the bottom of my last newsletter.   If you don’t want the logo or have a bigger subscriber base you can get a paid account.   Monthly plans start at $15 and are based on your number of subscribers.  You can also opt to pay as you go.

What is the best part?

I mentioned the CRM integrations earlier but the company has obviously made a conscious effort to be open – they integrate with a multitude of other applications.  They integrate with more than 20 CRM applications, more than 20 CMS (content management system) applications and more than 20 e-commerce applications.  They actually integrate with a lot more partners but I got tired of counting.  What does this mean to you?  It means that when you use Mailchimp for your email marketing you stand a great chance of having that data  (coming in and going out) integrate with something else you are already using or thinking about using.  In today’s world of cloud computing this is no small thing.  I also think it shows the right mindset – do what you do well and play nicely with others who do what they do well.  We could all learn something from that.

  by  Yury Cortés

In the past few years there has been a proliferation of specialized business applications for every kind of business. Lawyers, accountants, spa owners, music teachers, golf courses – all these businesses have a variety of niche software applications built just for them.  Have a camel farm?  I bet someone somewhere has built “camel farm technology in a box” just for you.  This is a great development – if you are starting a new business there are specialized tools just for you and most of them are cloud-based and inexpensive.  These days, if you can think of it, someone has built it.  Just for you.

What is the downside?  First, they try to be all things to your niche market.  You may end up with functionality you don’t need and when you get stuff you don’t want it can make using the rest difficult or at least confusing.  Second, because you using capabilities that everyone else in your business is using, you are just “keeping up”, not using technology to give you a competitive edge.  Third, to some extent you are buying into a certain business model, one that may not be what you had in mind.

And then there is the ugly – some things these applications do very very well but some are just awful.  Areas where I see consistent poor functionality are CRM, websites, integration and reporting.  For example, I belong to two clubs that use “club” software – applications are are expressly built to support membership clubs.  They use different vendors but they both have the same problems:

• They both keep member databases but they are rigid and clunky and don’t have features a lot of clubs would find in a simple CRM tool like tagging, keeping track of correspondence and notes or social integration.
• The both allow the clubs to create websites but they are confusing, hard to use and frankly create butt ugly websites.
• There is no integration or easy way to get your data out. For example, you can’t easily integrate your member list with something like MailChimp.
• The reporting is canned – as long as you want to ask the question they have a report for you are in good shape.  If not…well, just don’t ask that question.

  by  Lynchburg College Archives

I am always surprised when I get a paper invoice – whether it is a personal or business-related bill.  Why would a business or organization send a paper invoice?

• they take time to produce (someone has to print them, stuff the envelopes, stamp them and take them to be mailed)
• they take money to produce (ink, paper, envelopes, stamps, staff time)
• they take time to deliver (days not minutes)
• and they are, in these times, MORE likely to get lost than an electronic invoice.

  by  gordonramsaysubmissions

A last month I wrote a post explaining about the different types of CRM.  A recent client project made me realize that I had left a few “flavors” off the menu.

This client is a marketing firm that wanted to implement a system that kept track of customer/prospect interactions and  client projects – customer relationship management (CRM) with project management (PM).  This was a new flavor.  They want to track contacts thru the sales cycle to proposal and then when a proposal was won, track the activities required to complete the proposed project.  What businesses would need this functionality?  Any business that performs multi-task activities for a customer – marketing and design firms, architecture and engineering, builders and remodelers, attorneys and CPAs.  The list is quite large and definitely includes technology consultants like myself!  So I updated the graphic from that last post:

Which tools support this kind of functionality?  Definitely the big names do – Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  There are specialty niche products like Clients and Profits which is geared towards marketing agencies.  Then there are applications with broad functionality that can appeal to wide range of small businesses.  These include WorkEtc, Solve360, ZohoCRM and Zoho Project along with a host of others.

What came out of the evaluation I did for this client?  First, we choose Solve360 for their business and we’re implementing it now.  I also now have my eye on WorkEtc. for my next CRM, for when I outgrow Batchbook (which I love).

The price points and functionality vary and the list of companies here is far from exhaustive- it is worth getting some help evaluating these tools to determine which is right for your business.  In this article I talk about some of the success factors.  Get with your technical advisor to find out more.

Implementing a CRM (customer relationship management) system can be a huge undertaking for a small business. Done poorly it can create more work and inefficiencies for an already small staff. Done well it can revolutionize a business by improving workflow and make it easier to touch customers regularly and meaningfully.

I’ve written some other articles on CRM here and here so if you need a refresher pop over to those and pop back.

There is a lot of literature about CRM success and failure and frankly it would make any small business owner go screaming into the night – most stuff has been written for large businesses that have to implement CRM across huge sales teams, whole marketing departments and a 24×7 support staff.  Most of these articles have very little to offer a small business and what is meaningful is hard to find.  Today I’ll share my top tips:

1. Make sure you understand your overall business goals.  What goals do you want a CRM application to support and what business issues are you trying to solve?
2. Choose a technology that fits your business.  Price and features, though critically important, can’t be the only criteria.  Does the tool fit how your company works?  Is it a cultural fit – a free-flowing, unstructured application might fit a design firm better than one with strict linear processes.
3. Before implementing the tool, define the processes that support the goals in the first bullet.  Don’t just dive face first into the deep end – take the time to figure out the new processes and to configure the tool for those processes.
4. Figure out how and where the new tool will integrate with your other systems.  For example, if you want the contacts in the CRM to update in your accounting system, get that working.  Or if you want your sales folks to see aging data when they look at a contact, get that working too.
5. As you are implementing the tool, be sure to promote the processes.  That is a nice way of saying “make folks use the process”.  I’m not saying to throw them into the pool (another pool metaphor – hey it is summer and it is hot) – they need help, support and training.  At the same time, don’t let them circumvent the new way of doing things.  You’ll only slow down adoption and perhaps create a culture of “we really don’t have to use this”.
6. Finally, even though I am saying you should make folks use the new processes, make sure you allow time to revisit and revise the processes.  You won’t know everything when you start and it makes sense that you might have to make some tweaks.

Small businesses, from professional services to retail establishments to service organizations, can benefit from a well implemented CRM.  Take your time going through these steps.  In many cases it makes sense to get some help; find a technical advisor who can help lead you.

Have you implemented a CRM in the past year?  What went well and what went poorly?

by  Erin!

I have written a few posts about CRM applications in the past but I’ve come to realize that folks are still confused about what CRM is.  I think that is part of the reason there are so many failed CRM implementations – too many people don’t realize how broad the term is and when they choose a tool they do it without evaluating what they need and comparing it to what is available.  Believe me, sometimes more is NOT better.  Worse, CRM is as much a business strategy as a technology – you need both to be successful.
 

So what is CRM then?

According to Wikipedia CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a broad term referring to “a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.”.  Wow, that is a lot of stuff.

In an attempt to further simplify I’ve come up with an overly simple graphic (so you knowledgeable folks don’t need to tell me what I left out – sock puppet simple, remember?) to help illustrate.

If you think of the three major functions of CRM in a Venn diagram as above you can see that sales, marketing and customer service share a major function which is simply called Contact Management here but is really the information about your customers.  Therein lies the problem.  Some companies want the sales functions and contact management, some want the marketing functions and contact management.  Some companies just want contact management.  Regardless of what you want, if you don’t choose the right application you are likely to get one with all of the functionality.  Anytime you get more than you want to use you are asking for trouble.

So how do you get the right tool?

It pays to think about your strategy first, even a simplified one.  What are you trying to accomplish for your business?  Then, with a bullet list of requirements, look at the functionality of the available tools.  Don’t restrict yourself to the big names or the one your buddy uses – look at all of them.  Make sure you are getting what you really need, not a whole lot else.  Picking something that has just what you need will make installation, training and adoption immeasurably easier.

But what if I need more functionality later?

If you are absolutely, positively certain you will want, say, sales force automation in the next 6-12 months then add it to your requirements.  Otherwise, add a requirement that speaks to the ease of moving data in and out to your list.  Who knows what applications will be available a year from now – make sure you can easily get your data out and worry about what the next right tool is when you are ready.

Get help if you need it

Remember, unless you are an IT professional or CRM expert, choosing a tool and implementing it correctly can be a daunting proposition.  If you had a tax or legal issue you’d get help from your accountant or attorney, right?  Don’t hesitate to get help from your technical advisor if you need it.

Bottom line

There are a lot of CRM applications and most of them are pretty good.  It is a pretty mature technology and there are many happy customers using each and every one.  Unfortunately they almost all have unhappy customers too and many times it is because the wrong tool was chosen.  Take your time, do it right and get help if you need it.

by  RossW

I have written other posts about cloud computing and I am sure you see articles and blog posts about it all the time.  Today I want to narrow in on how cloud computing can improve how you run your office without buying hardware.

Reducing Software Costs

Most of us use the ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite – it is great but it can be expensive.  Some companies have found they can get close to the same functionality but for free with other office suites such as Zoho, Google Docs, and OpenOffice.

File Sharing and Collaboration

Not too long ago if you wanted to share files with your co-workers or employees you had 2 choices.  You could install a network your office or you could employee “sneaker net” – trading files on (used to be) floppy drives or (today) flash drives.  Now there are a lot of choices for online file sharing and collaboration – from simple tools like Box, Dropbox, Google Docs, Zoho or Egnyte, to setting up an intranet via a hosted version of Microsoft SharePoint.  Depending on your needs and which tool you choose, you can not only share files, you have instant access to capabilities like controlling access, tagging, keeping multiple versions of a document or searching across documents.  Even if you have highly sensitive documents, there is a cloud vendor that can  help you.

Providing Remote Access Regardless of Device (almost)

A cool thing about the file sharing and collaboration tools listed above is that most of them support file access and viewing via any browser and have special purpose iPhone or iPad apps.  It is great to be able to refer to documents and share them while you are out of the office.  The only problem is that you can’t EDIT the documents.  Unless, of course, you purchase a special purpose app, of which there are several.

Beyond the file sharing and collaboration tools, another more recent addition to the cloud parade are cloud-based desktops – in this case instead of having your software installed on a specific machine where you can only use when you are ON that machine, you can can have a virtual desktop that you can access from any device with a browser.  Since it acts just like your desktop (because it is) you can run any application that is on your desktop.  How cool is that.  Vendors in this space include Desktone, OnTheNetOffice and tuCloud.

Making Software Upgrades Simple

Virtual desktops bring another simplifying factor to your office – what if you could do away with installing software on each individual machine and keeping up with releases and patches on a one off basis?  Virtual desktop functionality allows you to create a “master” desktop with all the software your company needs and to replicate it across your users.  Time to upgrade or apply a patch?  Do it once and everyone gets it!  You can even create one-off masters if there is specialized software only a few folks need.  Of course, you still have to pay for the software licenses for each user.  I know, always a bummer to find out there isn’t a magic pill to rid you of software costs!

I hope this helps you think about concrete ways cloud technology can help you simplify your office, expand your capabilities and maybe even save you some money.  If you have used tools like these and have a story to share I’d love to hear them!

by  Lynchburg College Archives

In today’s installment of my series on small business growing plains I am going to talk about the order-to-cash cycle.  When a business is new it is easy to get so excited about the first sale that as soon as an order is received or a contract signed the business owner immediately sends out the associated invoice or statement.  Those simple documents are full of symbolism for the nascent concern – you are for real!  You have real customers and can bring in real money!  Woo hoo!

The Order-to-Cash Conundrum

As you get bigger and busier it is easy to put off creating those all-important documents that a)represent potential income to your company and b) signal your customer to pay you.  Maybe you don’t have time to create them more than once a week, or worse, once a month.  All of a sudden getting paid is taking longer and longer.  Even if you get administrative or bookkeeping help you’ll likely settle on a set schedule for billing, perhaps once a week, that doesn’t jive with when you actually sold the order or the contract.

When you get even bigger and busier it can get worse – let’s say now you have sales people to sell orders or contract work.  Or that you have field service technicians that have to do the work that in turn leads to an order.  These guys have paperwork to get filled out and they may not be in the office every day so it is easy for that paperwork to be delayed and then, when it is finally turned it, it may be incorrect and require a cycle of rework.  Now your invoices and statements are even MORE delayed.  Add that to the fact that your customers aren’t always in a hurry to pay you right away and you suddenly have a cash flow problem.

How can you avoid or rectify this ever-lengthening order-to-cash black hole?

Order or Contract Entry

There are a number of ways to improve the order or contract entry process :

• Keep your sales customer information in sync with your accounting customer information.  This can make it quicker and easier to set up a new account for billing and make sure you apply the order or contract to the correct billing customer.  You can keep them in sync thru manual processes or by integrating your customer relationship management system with your accounting system.  Some applications integrate easily, others may require some help from a technical resource.
• Provide mechanisms to allow your sales or field service folks to enter contracts or sales orders online.  This can be as simple as having them upload a spreadsheet to a specified place to as fancy as an application that they can access remotely, maybe even from a mobile device.  The quicker you can get the contract or order entered into your billing application the faster you can get invoices out.  Where possible cut out paper altogether; if it isn’t possible to go paperless try to change your process to match paper to online records on the back end.
• Incent your sales and field service folks to enter their information online quickly and correctly.  Quite simply, if you can’t bill your customer maybe they shouldn’t get paid.  Hmm, just a thought.

Invoice Creation

• Simplify invoice or statement creation.  Avoid “special” invoices for customers and make sure any invoice or statement can be easily produced from your accounting software.  If your accounting software doesn’t do this you might want to look for a system that does or look for a billing system that integrate with what you have.
• If you can put invoice creation on “auto-pilot” where it runs on a regular schedule all on its own, do so.  If you can’t, adjust the back office processes to create invoices on a regular, frequent basis.  How regular and frequent?  It depends on your cash flow needs but daily, if it isn’t a complicated process, might not be too often.

It is easy for the order, contract and billing processes to get in the way of getting the customer a timely invoice.  Beyond prolonging the time until you get paid, what kind of message does a tardy invoice send your customer?  That you are unorganized?  That their business isn’t important?

If you think there are ways to improve your order-to-cash cycle, contact your technical advisor.  He or she can help you review your current processes and talk about where improvements, both manual and automated, might be in order.

If you thought this post was helpful you may want to check out the rest in this series so far.

• Can you keep up with your customer’s service needs?
• Are you addicted to spreadsheets?
• How long does it take to set up a new customer?

by  Arbron

Don’t act innocent, you know what I mean.  Spreadsheet software is oh so easy to use and so inexpensive (or even free).  You can use it to keep your company books, to keep your budget and forecast, to keep lists of customers, to create invoices, to create sales orders, reporting and analytics, inventory…the list goes on and on.

It is time for a spreadsheet intervention!

Following are the top 10 reasons you should stop and reconsider the use of spreadsheets in your business:

1. Sometimes the creator of the spreadsheet doesn’t know what they are doing and the calculations are incorrect.
2. If you make changes to values on a spreadsheet and save it you no longer know what the original value was.  Unless you saved a version off first, creating yet another spreadsheet.
3. If you have lots of versions, on hard drives, in email, on various computers you have no single version of the truth – whose spreadsheet is right?
4. Often the creator of the spreadsheet leaves it on the hard drive of the computer.  And often that hard drive isn’t backed up.
5. While we are on the subject of security risks, what do you think happens to all those spreadsheets you mail around?  Any idea where they go?
6. As you put more and more stuff into your spreadsheet the more unwieldy it becomes.
7. As you put more and more stuff into your spreadsheet and make multiple copies because of versioning you are now eating up disk space.  Every day.
8. They waste time.  If you pay someone to do a repetitive task in a spreadsheet, add up how much time they spend on it each week.  Then find out how much it would cost to automate that task.  The numbers are usually enlightening.
9. The second you save the spreadsheet the data is old.  Inventory is not up to date, customer contact information isn’t accurate, accounts are stale.
10. It isn’t scalable.  You can’t continue to use spreadsheets as an integral part of your business for very long without running into roadblocks from bad or inaccurate data or the sheer manhours required to keep up with them.  Your company will grow, I’m sure of it, and if you rely heavily on spreadsheets you will get mired in the muck at some point.
11. You can’t easily integrate the data from one spreadsheet to another.  So you copy and paste date, duplicating it and opening it up to errors or staleness.

See I couldn’t stop at 10.  I could go on even further but I think I’ve made my point.

Today’s business owners are fortunate – there are software solutions for most business needs and small businesses can get great functionality for free or low-cost.  CRM systems to keep up with customers, accounting systems for your numbers, inventory application and the rest are plentiful, have great functionality and have been tested to ensure the data and information they produce is correct.

I am not a spreadsheet hater – I think there are good uses for spreadsheets.  One time financial or what-if analysis.  As a front-end to a database for more detailed analysis and reporting.  For lists.  But not as an integral part of running a business of any size.  Its just not good business.

Last week I wrote about the iPad and some applications it has for businesses.  This week I’d like to both broaden and narrow that discussion and talk about using mobile devices to enable your field service employees.

It wasn’t that long ago that any time an employee had to call on customers remotely they showed up with their clipboard and pen.  To enable these employees to do anything in an automated fashion was expensive because it required specialized hardware and software that was generally custom built for the purpose.  This cost created quite a barrier to entry for small and medium sized businesses.  Not so today.

With any smart phone or device (iPad, tablets, net books, etc.)  that has internet access you can provide your field employees with a wide variety of tools for use at the customer site.  You can cobble together a collection of free applications and some business processes to allow these employees to remotely access and complete work orders, create sales orders and provide estimates.  The results of these can be uploaded either directly to your office (if you have the appropriate connectivity) or to a place you designate (like Google Docs, DropBox, or Box.net).  Following is an example of what you can do for the price of an everyday device and a data plan.

Joe repairs appliances.  Each day he can go online and download a list of the service calls he has for the day.  Each will include a description of the problem and an address that he can use to get a map to where he is going.  When he gets to a home with, let’s say, a bum dishwasher, he can go to where his company stores their service manuals for each make and model online.  He can use these to determine the problem.  If he happens to have the parts on his truck he can fix the dishwasher and then create an order from the form he gets online.  He can list his time and the cost associated with the parts (which he again found online).  He can email the invoice to his customer and upload to the office at the same time.  In an alternate scenario, if he doesn’t have the parts he can send a requisition into the office.  When the parts are ready his follow up call can be scheduled and he can go back to the customer for the repairs.  At the end of the day he can upload a list of what he did.

I realize this is an oversimplified example and it doesn’t meet every situation.  For example, what if he doesn’t have internet connectivity at this customer?  This is a real situation that has to be managed.  My point is that technology is advanced enough that this example is very real as long as the obvious situations are thought thru and the appropriate procedures are put in place.  For example, Joe could download the manuals he will need and put likely parts on his truck before he leaves.

There are a million variations on this and what I want you to think about it is “What part of our process can we enable with smartphones and other compact devices?”.  The answer may not be everything but it may be enough to shorten your sales call-to-cash cycle, increase the number of calls an employee can make in a day or reduce the number of times he has to go out to handle a given service call.  Any or all of these can  have a positive affect on the bottom line.

As you begin to the see the benefits you may then want to start looking at specialized paid applications, specialized devices or even custom software.  The bottom line is though there is a lot you can do before you get to that point.

What mobile applications can you apply in YOUR business?