Table of Contents

What is CRM and why do you need it anyway?.................................................. 3

One of the best ways to grow your business: invest in technology........... 4
CRM can transform your sales process ................................................................ 5
Lead management: generate, manage leads with ease ................................ 6
Customer communication: easily track and manage
customer interactions ................................................................................................. 7
Opportunity management: know where your opportunities stand ......... 8
Sales quotes: quickly close new business ............................................................ 9
Delivering products and services: manage projects efficiently.................10
Reporting: learn from your CRM............................................................................11
Customer payments: track payments at a glance ..........................................12
Customer payments: accounting for small business.....................................13
CRM and integrations: the sales solution for SMBs .......................................14
2

What is CRM and why do you need it anyway?

Customer relationship management (CRM) software has been around for at least two decades.
It was originally born in the age of desktop software and allowed companies to track
all customer interactions in a single place. Historically, CRM applications have been
complex, expensive and just out of the reach of small businesses. However, small
businesses have the same needs as larger organizations, just on a smaller scale.
Without CRM, small businesses risk missing opportunities at every stage of the
sales process. There are five tasks universal to every small business: tracking

70

of buying experiences are

based on customers perception
of their treatment. (McKinsey)

prospects, managing customers, delivering products and services, sending invoices

and getting paid. CRM tracks and improves each of these functions.

Dont be that sales guy

A report from HubSpot found unsuccessful sales
teams are two times more likely to use Excel,
Outlook or physical documents to store lead
and customer data instead of a CRM solution
that simplifies and integrates this information
into one powerful tool.

One of the best ways to grow your business:

invest in technology
For a small business, every sale is a step
closer to growth. Previously, small businesses
were at a decided disadvantage, as larger
enterprises had access to technology that
supported sales.

The cloud changed all of that.

45

of small businesses
considered technology
a top investment
priority for 2015.
(American Express)

56

of small businesses said

improving customer
experience and retention
was a goal; 45% named
new customer acquisition.
(Wasp Barcode Technologies)

Software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based CRM solutions make

it easy for small businesses to access high-powered
sales tools that easily move prospects through the sales
process and support lasting customer relationships.

CRM generates

8.71 IN
REVENUE
FOR EVERY
$1 SPENT.
$

(Nucleus Research)

CRM can transform your sales process

Technology should help you achieve your goals, but CRM cant help do that
unless it gets used. Identifying a CRM that integrates with other businesscritical apps ensures it will be used throughout the sales process, making
for a seamless pipeline.

The typical sales process involves these 7 activities:

Lead management
Customer communication
Opportunity management
Sales quotes
Service or product delivery
Reporting
$
$$

Customer payment
5

Lead management:

generate, manage leads with ease

Small businesses get leads from Web forms,
newsletters, business cards, social media, and
more. These interactions, known as inbound
marketing, are powerful. When prospects
register for a webinar or fill out a form on a
website, they provide information that helps
sales teams understand their needs.

With a CRM, sales, marketing and business

owners can capture prospect information
in a single, centralized place.

87

of small businesses named lead

generation a goal for 2015.
(Content Marketing Institute)

The average small business

uses 12 different types
of inbound marketing.

CRM solutions integrated with Gmail, Outlook, Office 365 and other apps that foster communication
allow for instant access to customer entries within the CRM platform. When CRMs are integrated with
external business applications, your users can continue to use their favorite applications without taking
a productivity hit.

Customer communication: easily track

and manage customer interactions
Nurturing sales is a process. Its not just about the first
interaction. Follow-up emails and other correspondence
are chances to advance the sales process and gather more
information your team can use to improve that process. Your
CRM is your touch point for each interaction. With Insightly,
you can build sales email templates to quickly generate textbased mass emails for customers or prospects.

With Insightlys mass email capabilities,

you can see stats like emails sent, emails
delivered and open and click rates.

CRM integration with email apps helps increase productivity

and preserves the history of conversation with the customer.
CRMs integrated with email applications let sales teams focus
on customers and bridge communication gaps.

Insightly and Outlook 2013/ Office 365 let you

save emails into Insightly with just one click,
so all new information can be easily stored,
efficiently indexed and entirely searchable.

The Insightly Sidebar lets you access and

update CRM data (i.e., emails, leads, tasks,
projects and opportunities) directly from your
Gmail, saving time and ensuring that users
are up to date on customer relationships.

Opportunity management:
know where your
opportunities stand
With prospect information coming from several
sources, it can be difficult to manage pipelines.
Sales teams need to accurately define the value
of prospects, manage pipeline and funnel stages,
determine the probability of winning business
and accurately forecast sales close dates. Its
essential to create an automated workflow or set
of tasks to ensure all steps in the sales process
are followed with consistency. This allows you
to improve productivity and organization in
your company.

Research shows
firms using
sales processes
to guide sales
activity report

than businesses
with no defined
process.
(Sales Management Association, 2013)

Sales quotes: quickly close new business

Once a lead decides your company is the right
fit, he or she wants the final step of the sales
process to be as lean as possible. E-signatures
enable small businesses to expedite the final
step of the sales process. Instead of waiting on
physical forms, new customers can quickly sign

documents virtually to get the process started.

These days CRMs either include a quote proposal
feature or are integrated with popular e-signature
applications like DocuSign, Adobe eSign services,
Quote Roller, Proposable and Plus 23 to name
a few.

Using electronic
signatures can shorten
the sales cycle by as
much as

400

(Adobe)

Delivering products and services:

manage projects efficiently
Tracking and managing product
and service delivery to completion
defines a successful relationship.
CRMs dont just help you close deals.
They help you keep customers
happy and monitor the progress of
customer projects. Integrating CRM
and project management means
you can create pipelines, tasks
and workflows and set reminders
to keep your team on track.

Follow projects to stay up to date with their progress

Monitor all project activity
See every detail of a project, including
its owner, name and status
Track every step of a project with dedicated pipelines
Easily update pipeline status to
keep other users informed
Link to websites, contacts and organizations
associated with a project

10

Reporting: learn from your CRM

Part of running a business is tracking information to understand whats working and
what isnt. The data stored in a CRM gives valuable insight into the sales process for
both sales teams and business owners. According to small business expert Gene Marks,
there are an infinite number of ways to review sales data, but at the end of the day,
these key reports provide a clear macro or micro view of the health of your business:

The Sales Pipeline Report:

What is the status of our
sales opportunities?

Aged Quotes:
What is the status
of open quotes?

The Detailed Call Report:

What has our sales team
been up to this week?

The Batting Average:

What percentage of quotes
have we closed?

The Lost Sales Report:

What sales did we
lose and why?

The Open Issues Report:

What service issues
are open?

11

Customer payments: track payments at a glance

Big companies have entire account teams to track
payments and cash flow.

Small businesses dont have this luxury.

QuickBooks Online is an easy-to-use tool that keeps

employees aware of payment status and total income
generated from each customer.

Integrating a CRM solution with online accounting

applications such as QuickBooks Online and Xero
helps businesses keep accurate financial records
and process customer payments quickly.

14

of entrepreneurs said their

biggest challenge was late or
missing customer payments.
(Kaufman Group)

12

Customer payments continued:

accounting for small business
Xero provides beautiful online accounting software for small businesses,
making it easier to draft invoices when a customer makes a purchase.

Xero integration with Insightly is incredibly valuable for helping

support and sales staff understand the true $ activity with a
client. The Lifetime and 12 month value snapshots really bring
clarity to the activity levels of different clients. Great job.
Sam Garden, Director, D.I.B Audio Visual See more reviews here.

13

CRM and integrations:

the sales solution for SMBs
Your CRM isnt just about closing sales. Its designed
to manage customer relationships from the first
interaction to the 20th billing cycle and beyond.
Through key integrations with leading SaaS business
applications, Insightly helps small businesses and
sales teams improve efficiency and manage every
step of the sales process to keep your team moving
in the right direction.

Insightly for
your small
business sales
Insightly was designed specifically to give small
businesses a powerful tool to help maintain or
grow their businesses. Insightly supports small
business sales and marketing efforts as well as
partner, vendor and customer relationships.
Our solution is as simple as it is robust. Then
we integrate with key productivity business
applications to augment specific aspects of
your business process. This way your business
has the best of all worlds, yet has a single
point of entry for key business information.
Every day, over 1 million users in more than 200
countries use Insightly to run their businesses.

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