With more than 5 billion users worldwide, social media platforms offer an excellent means for companies to connect with their target audiences. Because they are useful for lead generation and relationship building, social media channels are an indispensable part of any sales strategy for starting and growing a business.

But here’s the thing—selling on social media isn’t just about posting engaging and relevant content now and then. Instead, you need a concrete social selling strategy to connect with the right B2B buyers, build trust, and convert them into paying customers.

In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits and best practices of social selling.

What is social selling?

Social selling is the technique of using social media platforms to find new prospects, engage with them, and close sales. Successful social selling involves generating and qualifying leads and earning their trust before pitching your product or service. The idea is to build relationships with prospects instead of asking them to purchase right away.

Also, unlike social media marketing, social selling efforts don’t stop at publishing meaningful and traction-worthy content on different platforms. 

Of course, social media campaigns play a crucial role in building brand awareness and attracting the right prospects. However, social sales reps and social sellers take things a step forward and engage in one-on-one conversations with these prospects, aiming to build long-term relationships.

What are the benefits of social selling?

First things first—with social selling, you can meet potential buyers where they already are. Whether you want to connect with C-suite executives or entry-level employees, you’ll find them on one social network or another. All you have to do is identify your target audience’s preferred social media channels and become active there. 

On the plus side, connecting with prospects on social media is more scalable than going to in-person networking events. It’s more cost-effective, and you get your hands on high-quality leads.

Then there’s the added benefit of aligning your marketing and sales tactics to your audience’s needs. Social sales teams can use social listening tools to stay on top of conversations involving your brand, products, competitors, and the overall industry. 

That, in turn, helps you gain in-depth insights into each prospect’s needs and pain points. You can use these insights to personalize your messaging and build a deeper connection with them, helping your salespeople close more deals faster.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that with social selling, you can directly reach out to top-level decision-makers. Engaging with them is far more effective in driving sales than connecting with gatekeepers through traditional sales channels.

Other benefits of selling on social media include:

• Increased brand visibility
• Improved brand reputation and credibility
• Enhanced brand trust and loyalty
• Shortened sales cycles

Choosing the right networks for social selling

It’s necessary to choose the right social media platform, whether it’s to advertise your business or connect with people interested in your offerings. A platform that doesn’t have your audience won’t help your cause. 

When it comes to effective social selling, LinkedIn is often the preferred channel for obvious reasons. The platform is a favorite among C-suite executives and is particularly useful for driving B2B sales. Unlike other social networks, many LinkedIn members use the platform to inform business-related decisions. 

Also, LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index can be a helpful metric for evaluating the performance of your strategies. Similarly, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a valuable tool for finding more prospects.

Then there’s X. Formerly called Twitter, X is designed to encourage public discussions. The platform’s search functionalities make it easy to find and jump into relevant conversations. That, in turn, can help establish your reputation as a thought leader and gain the trust of potential customers.

Other social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are generally best for content consumption and entertainment. However, you can still use these platforms to increase brand awareness and reach more prospects.

Keep in mind that there isn’t a well-defined formula to select the right social selling channels. Instead, you must have a deep understanding of your potential customers’ preferred social networks and select the right channel(s) accordingly.

Best practices to get started with social selling

Social selling takes more effort than just posting insightful content on social media. It demands a concrete strategy to identify and connect with the right prospects and move these conversations outside social media to close sales.

If you’re getting started with social selling, the following tips will come in handy to optimize your sales process:

• Build your personal brand: Create impressive profiles on selected social media platforms. Include attention-grabbing details about your expertise and experience. Get endorsements from coworkers and clients, and share top-quality content on your profiles. If you have a team of social sales professionals, make sure they set up attention-worthy social media profiles, too.
• Leverage social listening: Many social media marketing tools also offer social listening features. You can use these to set up alerts for brand, product, and competitor mentions. They can also be used to identify trending hashtags and keywords. That, in turn, will help you chime into relevant discussions and connect with your target audience.
• Harness the power of comments: Check your posts regularly and respond to audience comments with more meaningful insights. It’s also a good idea to comment on your prospects’ posts and strike up a conversation with them. Avoid hard-selling your products/services, though.
• Furnish social proof: Besides posting informative content, consider sharing customer testimonials and success stories. Better still, you could publish a case study or record a podcast about a customer’s experience with your company. It can be an excellent way to build credibility and help prospects understand how your offerings fit their needs.
• Know when to move out of social media: Social networks are ideal for finding and connecting with target customers. But if you want to close a deal, there may be a time when you must take that conversation to another channel like email or phone. Timing is crucial here. If you’ve been communicating with a prospect for a while and they seem interested in your business, ask them whether they’d like to connect on a call for more details. Or better still, suggest an in-person meeting or a product demo to move them closer to a purchase decision.

It’s time to up your social selling game

With social media platforms attracting a vast user base, a social-selling strategy is becoming a must-have for modern businesses. However, selling on social media requires a more nuanced approach than sending a sales pitch in DMs. 

Build brand authority and thought leadership by publishing valuable content that resonates with your audience’s needs. Once you have a prospect’s attention, engage in meaningful conversations and help them see the value in your offerings.

A CRM solution like Act! can help you stay on top of the leads generated through social selling. Start your free trial to see the platform in action.

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Embracing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions is quickly becoming the norm for organizations that want to enhance operational efficiency. While enterprises have been at the forefront of AI adoption, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are catching up fast.

According to a recent survey, 75 percent of small businesses already use AI solutions. Also, over 90 percent of SMB owners agree that AI tools drive cost and time savings and maximize profitability.

Besides automating routine tasks, AI systems can help small businesses improve customer experience and decision-making processes. Plus, they help forecast cash flow, sales, and market demand. They can even identify fraudulent transactions, human errors, and unusual activities. Significant cost savings is yet another advantage of AI implementation.

And the results show. A survey revealed that businesses that used AI saw a 12-point rise in their likelihood of profit growth over non-adopters.

Nevertheless, 90 percent of small business owners reported facing obstacles in integrating AI into their operations. It’s more complex than simply using ChatGPT and Midjourney to create marketing materials in seconds.

In this article, we’ll outline the key AI adoption challenges for small businesses and effective ways to overcome them.

Adopting AI technologies: Challenges for SMBs

From accounting and inventory management to marketing and customer support, AI tools help improve various business functions through the power of machine learning. But despite realizing the benefits of AI adoption, small businesses often lack the resources and technical expertise to implement AI projects. They don’t have adequate budgets to build proprietary AI systems or recruit AI experts to oversee adoption and use.

Case in point—47 percent of SMB owners cited not knowing how to use AI tools as a significant deterrent to adoption. Other challenges they pointed out included non-compatibility with existing systems (31 percent) and security and privacy concerns (26 percent).

Then, there’s the issue of inaccurate results and bias. AI algorithms are limited by the data sets used to train AI models. They are prone to “hallucinations” and can generate incorrect or misleading information.

For instance, the last thing you want is for an AI-powered chatbot on your company website to provide false product details to customers. Worse still, it might make derogatory remarks and turn customers away.

Plus, these systems can reinforce patterns of bias and discrimination present in the data used to train them. For instance, in 2018, Amazon developed an experimental AI recruiting tool trained on résumés submitted to the company over the last 10 years. The software showed clear bias against women and even recommended unqualified candidates.

It’s also worth noting that many small businesses don’t have the necessary infrastructure and processes in place for data collection and management for AI initiatives. This can lead to duplication, inconsistency, and other quality issues. That, in turn, can prevent SMEs from harnessing the full benefits of AI solutions.

They also lack continuous learning programs in-house that can be used for upskilling existing employees. This can cause SMBs to lose their competitiveness against larger corporations.

Best practices for AI adoption in SMBs

Embracing AI for small businesses isn’t as straightforward as using a few AI-powered tools. You need to adopt a strategic approach to ensure a seamless transition to these systems. 

If you’re looking to adopt AI solutions for a small business, keep the following best practices in mind:

1. Audit your existing processes

Adoption of AI applications for your small businesses doesn’t mean you have to automate every function. Instead, the key to successfully implementing AI for a small business is understanding which processes stand to benefit from it. 

Evaluate your current systems and processes to determine whether there’s potential to improve their efficiency with AI technologies. 

Keep an eye out for business functions and processes where employees spend most of their time performing routine tasks. Also, identify areas that could benefit from AI-driven analytics and decision-making. Lastly, weigh the efficiency gains against the cost, effort, and time required to implement new AI systems.

2. Identify the right tools

Most SMBs lack the funds and resources to develop proprietary AI solutions. The good news is that you’ll find a broad spectrum of ready-to-use AI tools for any task. Be it to improve customer support or reduce instances of customer account fraud, you can choose from various cloud-based AI providers. You can also get into partnerships with other companies if you intend to develop one.

Other AI tools that can come in handy for small businesses include:

• Trello for project management
• Vic.ai for accounting
• ChatGPT and Jasper for content writing
• Manatal for recruitment
• Power BI for data analytics

The final selection of AI tools will depend on the processes you want to streamline. Dig deeper into their customer data privacy and data protection policies to determine whether you can trust them with sensitive business information. Also, make sure they support integration with your existing tech stack.

3. Implement data management practices

Use a secure centralized repository, such as a data warehouse, to collect data from various sources. This will serve as a single source of truth and keep your data up to date. Outline clear processes for data formatting so that it can be easily added to the platform. It’s also a good idea to implement governance policies to maintain data quality. 

Check whether the selected platform is compatible with your existing tech stack and the AI tools you intend to use. The idea is to ensure a seamless flow of information among various systems so you can extract meaningful insights from it.

4. Prioritize employee training

Even the best AI technologies will fail to improve operational efficiency if your employees don’t know how to use them. Educate your staff about any new AI tools you’re planning to introduce. Establish a formal training program to walk them through the platform’s features and help them understand how it’ll make their jobs easier. Educate them about the use of AI, data management frameworks, data-driven decision making, and more. 

5. Don’t lose the human touch

Keep in mind that AI systems aren’t an alternative to human insight and intelligence. While these tools can help cut operational costs and speed up processes, employees must oversee their operations.

It could be as simple as fact-checking an AI-written blog before publishing it on your company’s website. Similarly, you can audit the output of AI analytics tools to determine the accuracy of the insights they provide.

Retaining the human touch is crucial to minimizing issues arising from biases and hallucinations inherent to AI solutions. It also plays an important role in keeping customer satisfaction levels high.

Act! makes AI work for your small business

Adopting AI solutions for your company is an excellent way to streamline business operations and skyrocket efficiency. It gives you a competitive edge and lets you delight customers with a frictionless experience. 

The key to the successful implementation of AI for SMBs is selecting the right tools and ensuring seamless integration with existing systems. It’s just as crucial to establish data governance and management policies. 

Lastly, train your employees to use AI tools to support their jobs instead of relying on these solutions to take over their tasks. 

Act! offers an AI-powered marketing assistant to help you create content for emails, landing pages, and other marketing collateral. You can even use it for proofreading and translation.

Additionally, with Act!’s marketing automation features, you can create response-driven email campaigns for lead nurturing. It even helps you create workflows for scoring leads and sending alerts for timely follow-ups based on a prospect’s actions. Get access to your free trial now to see how it works. 

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“Interpersonal skills” is an umbrella term for how you build rapport, or communicate and interact with others. These are the skills that enable you to work with and lead team members. They also help you build strong relationships and keep your team performing at its best.

When it comes to business interpersonal skills, the following are a must:

      Communication skills

Effective communication skills are a hallmark of outstanding leaders. Whether you’re a business owner or manager, you must have the ability to convey information clearly and concisely. Also, you must choose your words carefully to avoid demeaning or offending anyone.

Keep in mind that communication skills in business management aren’t limited to speaking with confidence. Your body language matters just as much. It includes your non-verbal communication like facial expressions and posture, as well as whether you make eye contact and what you do with your hands while speaking.

     Active listening

Effective interpersonal communication skills in business aren’t just about how you transmit information. You must also listen to the other person with patience to understand the information they’re sharing with you. 

To develop active listening skills, pay attention to their facial expressions, hand gestures, nods, and tone of voice. The idea is to understand what they’re trying to convey and how they feel instead of planning your next response. 

     Conflict resolution

Conflict can arise with team members, customers, or vendors. As a leader, you must approach difficult conversations around a conflict with an open mind.

Focus on understanding the other person’s perspective and arriving at a middle ground instead of trying to win the argument. When you handle conflicts with ease, it sets an example for team members and gives them the freedom to challenge each other without losing their temper. These problem-solving skills can stop conflicts from blowing out of proportion. 

    Empathy

Empathy is about putting yourself in another person’s shoes even when you disagree with them. It helps you look beyond your beliefs and perspectives and understand why people behave the way they do. 

Whether you’re giving negative feedback to a team member or addressing a customer’s complaint, empathizing smooths out the interaction. It can be instrumental in winning their trust and building lasting interpersonal relationships.

   Self-awareness

You can’t motivate the people around you without understanding what drives you. That’s where self-awareness steps into the picture.

Self-awareness involves identifying your flaws and weaknesses and understanding why you experience certain emotions. It’s the key to regulating your feelings and improving emotional intelligence. This helps you navigate conflicts and difficult conversations without losing your cool.

How to develop and improve your interpersonal skills at work

Strong interpersonal and communication skills are the hidden force behind a positive work environment and a thriving business. If you want to build or enhance your interpersonal skills in business, here are a few effective tips.

1. Identify must-have skills

Start by evaluating your strengths and weaknesses to identify the interpersonal skills you already have and the ones you must develop. Ask those around you to pinpoint things you could improve in your interactions. 

For instance, you might be great at understanding other people’s perspectives and approaching conflicts with an open mind. However, conveying your feelings and ideas might seem challenging. If that’s the case, it’s time to work on your communication style. 

Once you’ve identified the essential skills, set measurable and time-bound goals to keep you on the right track.

2. Learn by observing

One of the most effective ways to improve your soft skills is to observe successful interactions. Keep an eye around your workplace to notice how other team leaders and managers communicate with their team members and customers. You could also look at some successful business leaders for inspiration.

For instance, you might observe that a manager uses non-verbal cues like body language to make others feel comfortable during a conversation. Or you may find that they use specific techniques to regulate their own emotions when dealing with conflict. Start adopting these traits. 

3. Improve with practice

The more real-life practice you get, the better your people skills will be. The easiest way is to find a mentor who can engage in different conversations with you and offer constructive feedback.

Alternatively, you can join a formal training program on building interpersonal skills. Use your professional network to find recommendations for such programs or look for them on the internet.

If possible, record your interactions with others and replay them to identify areas of improvement. For instance, you might observe that you tend to interrupt the other person or overuse filler words in conversations. Spotting these gaps will help you improve your communication and interpersonal skills.

4. Ask for feedback

Regardless of the type of interpersonal skills you want to develop, you must seek feedback. When you interact with team members, ask whether they observed any issues with your body language, tone, or word choice. You can also ask if they felt attacked or demoralized. 

Besides team members, seek feedback from other people you interact with every day. These include supervisors, coworkers, and business partners.

Successful teams are built on effective communication

Strong communication and interpersonal skills can be instrumental in fostering a culture of teamwork and productivity. As you improve your people skills, you set an example for your team members. That, in turn, will motivate them to put their best foot forward.

Act! CRM simplifies workplace communication and collaboration. Start a free trial today to see how it can reshape your internal and external communications.

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Content marketing is useful for both B2C and B2B businesses. However, there are differences in the way B2B and B2C companies should implement content marketing strategies. This is because the basic needs of B2B and B2C buyers are different.

In this post, we’ll look at six B2B content marketing best practices your business can use.

Know What Makes B2B Content Marketing Different

B2B and B2C content marketing strategies have a lot in common. The mediums used to create content can be similar. As can the type of content businesses produce. Additionally, it is important that whether you are a B2C or a B2B marketer, you focus on producing quality, targeted content with a clear goal.

However, there are differences. B2B marketing usually presents the logic behind how a product will help a business. It can focus on facts and figures that clearly show how a product can help.

While content marketing isn’t always strictly promotional, B2B content marketers can still create content showing the benefits of their product without being overtly promotional. For example, in this blog post, payroll solution SalaryPack talks about the advantages of payroll software without explicitly promoting its own product.

Create a Content Strategy

The most important thing for any content marketer is to have a strategy. Here is a quick summary outlining what you should do, along with specific things B2B marketers should focus on:

1. Define your content goals – Most B2B content marketing strategies will focus on lead generation. Be sure to track how your content performs in relation to your goals so you can adjust where necessary.
2. Define your buyer persona – This will be the person who makes buying decisions at a business.
3. Decide which types of content you will produce – B2B content is more likely to include reports and case studies that show the benefits of their solution. Although, blog posts and videos can still be important.
4. Decide where you will publish your content – As with B2C content marketing, these will be places where your buyer persona is likely to see it.
5. Create an editorial calendar – Editorial calendars keep your content marketing efforts organized.

Use a Variety of Content Types

Producing content in various mediums is important as it will help get your content in front of people in a variety of places. Also, different types of content can be used to achieve different goals. Here are some ideas:

• Blog posts have great SEO potential and are a good way to get your site to show up on search engines which can help build leads.
• Videos are a useful way to explain how certain aspects of your product work. For example, a B2B software company could use screen capture software to show the product in action.
• eBooks, case studies, or reports can show in great detail how a product can help a business. Businesses can offer this type of content to buyers for free in exchange for contact details, which can help with lead generation.
• Infographics are particularly useful in B2B content marketing as they make it easy for businesses to showcase statistics about how useful their product is. They also have good sharing potential and can be used to increase social exposure or generate backlinks.

Know Your Audience and Find Your Brand Voice

B2B writing has traditionally been quite dry and formal. While this may work for some businesses, it isn’t the only way to go. Here is a look at three B2B blogs that produce content with different tones.

• Xero is an accounting software provider and they generally create informative content of the style you might find in a newspaper.
• Neil Patel is a marketing consultant. He writes his posts in the first person and directly addresses the reader throughout.
• ZenDesk is a customer service product and their blog goes into quite a lot of detail on some highly technical topics such as AI and machine learning.

When choosing how to write your content, you should take into consideration who you are aiming it at. If your ideal buyer has a high level of technical knowledge, you should ensure that what you write is of a level they are likely to find interesting. On the other hand, if you go too technical you risk losing your target’s attention.

Neil Patel hit this balance perfectly. A founder or CEO with a beginner to intermediate knowledge of digital marketing is likely to get a lot of useful information from his posts.

Utilize your Industry Expertise

When producing content, it’s important to make it as high-quality as possible. Perhaps the best way to do this is to create content that uses your unique industry expertise or the expertise of people you employ. Doing so can help you position yourself as an authority in your sector.

• General Electric has a blog where they take in-depth looks into topics including asset performance management, IoT, and data.
• IBM’s Big Data and Analytics Hub provides insight and analysis into trends in AI, databases, and analytics.
• Law firm Sullivan and Cromwell have a section on their website titled “Legal Developments Affecting the Workplace” where they keep readers up to date with changes to labor and employment law. Those interested in this topic will likely get a lot of value from this blog.

Diversify your Marketing Channels

It’s important for B2B content marketers to have a number of channels where they can publish and share content. Your company website may be your priority, but you should also think about publishing content on other platforms. For example, LinkedIn, Medium, or YouTube.

You should also think about where you promote your content. It’s always a good idea to build an email list as it gives you a direct link to potential customers. Beyond this, it can be quick and easy to post your content to social media and this can be an effective way to get your content in front of many people.

Finally, if you produce reports with interesting conclusions, you could think about creating a press release and sending it to relevant publications who may be happy to write about your findings, thereby increasing the overall audience who see the report.

Wrapping Up

Content marketing is a useful way for B2B businesses to generate leads and sales when done properly. When creating content, businesses should ensure they have clear goals and that their content is created and published in line with these targets. This will allow them to create truly effective content.

The post Six B2B content marketing best practices you need to start using today appeared first on Act!.

Do you know the biggest trait of successful entrepreneurs and business owners?

They ruthlessly guard their time and focus on their goals while multitasking and getting things done.

But, running a business means you can’t completely escape daily administrative and repetitive tasks. Add to that the constant barrage of phone calls, social media updates, and smartphone notifications, and achieving peak productivity can feel like a distant dream.

But it isn’t impossible.

In this article, we’ll share practical and achievable time management techniques for a busy entrepreneur to help you focus on the highest priority tasks without losing control of day-to-day operations.

The importance of time management skills for SMB owners

As a small and medium-sized business (SMB) owner, you wear many hats. You’re likely the CEO, the marketing director, the customer service representative—the list goes on. 

It’s no surprise that the average startup owner works a staggering 50–70 hours a week.

Working long hours is often a part of early-stage entrepreneurship, but it’s important to recognize that you have limited physical and mental energy. And, daily firefighting might feel like work, but it only drains your energy and distracts you from your most critical strategic tasks.

It isn’t sustainable, results in burnout, and ruins your work-life balance.

That’s why you must prioritize your demands so you can spend time your time working “on” your business, providing strategic direction, creating better customer experiences, and finding impactful ways to delegate, automate, or eliminate the rest of the tasks to ensure your business runs smoothly.

Practical time management tips for busy entrepreneurs

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Before leveraging any time management strategies, you must carefully audit your daily routines and find out where you’re spending your time.

You can do that using time-tracking apps or simply listing everything you do in a spreadsheet at the end of the day. A week’s worth of data should be enough to show your trends and help you identify improvement areas.

Once you have these insights, use the following techniques to optimize your productivity.

1. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize tasks

The Eisenhower Matrix is one of the most popular tools for prioritizing tasks and managing time effectively.

Here’s how it works.

Take all your tasks and organize them into four quadrants.

Urgent and Important

These are the most critical business tasks that need your immediate attention—a critical customer issue, a limited-time sales campaign, or a project deadline. Prioritize them over everything else. 

Important but Not Urgent

These are important tasks that usually contribute to the long-term health of your business—annual planning meetings, learning new skills, and investing in better software. It’s best to schedule them for an appropriate time instead of delaying them indefinitely.

Urgent but Not Important

These are operational and low-skill administrative tasks that are critical to your day-to-day operations but can be easily delegated.

Not Urgent and Not Important

These are time-killers like social media scrolling, useless meetings, or hierarchical formalities that you should eliminate from your life.

Next time you create a to-do list at the start of your workday, run it through this matrix to ensure you prioritize the most important tasks and delegate, schedule, or eliminate the rest.

2. Beat distractions using the Pomodoro Technique

We can’t completely disconnect from social media, emails, or workplace interactions. But we can organize these distractions to ensure they don’t impact our productivity.

This is where the Pomodoro Technique is so effective.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time-management strategy that breaks work down into focused intervals separated by short breaks.

It consists of the following:

• Intervals: Each work period is called a Pomodoro and typically lasts 25 minutes.
• Breaks: Short breaks (usually 5 minutes) follow each pomodoro.
• Sets: After four Pomodoros, there’s a longer break of 20–30 minutes.

Use the breaks to relax, scroll social media, or do anything that usually distracts you from work. But remain fully focused during the work period.

There are no hard and fast rules here. You can change the duration of the intervals and breaks to fit what works best for you.

3. Free up time using automation

Automating business processes and workflows is one of the best ways to free up your time and be more productive. This is where a customer relationship management (CRM) tool like Act! can be a powerful type of time management software for your business.

You can use a CRM to automate your email marketing, lead generation, and customer management workflows. Instead of manually entering customer information into different spreadsheets and spending hours every day searching for the right data, use Act! to organize everything in a customer information dashboard.

It provides you with insightful information and ensures you spend more time making business decisions based on customer insights instead of managing spreadsheets.

4. Minimize meetings with asynchronous communication

Meetings cause more than $37 billion in productivity losses every year.

What’s worse? 55 percent of professionals feel the majority of meetings could have taken place over email.

The simple solution? Use asynchronous communication tools like email, screen recordings, voice messages, and project management tools to collaborate more effectively and save time. Only schedule meetings when there’s no better option.

5. Create a knowledge source for your team

You’re a business owner, so naturally, you know the most about your business and how you want your employees to run it for you.

Why not transform this information into a knowledge source with video recordings, articles, guides, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) your employees can use every time they need guidance? This could save you thousands of hours over time and reduce your team’s dependence on you.

6. Learn to say no (often)

Saying no to anything that doesn’t align with your goals or vision is a superpower every business owner needs.

Steve Jobs was famous for doing that at Apple. But it also works for small businesses because your team, investors, or business partners can sometimes try to pull you into tasks that aren’t worth your time. 

Learn to say no more often than yes, and you’ll be much more productive than your competitors.

Create daily habits and routines to get more done

Ultimately, your productivity as an entrepreneur comes down to creating productive daily routines that drive your day.

Having a routine means less uncertainty, distractions, and surprises. As a result, you’re able to focus on long-term goals and spend more time working “on” your business.

Of course, you’ll still need to dive into the operational stuff from time to time.

But that’s where prioritizing, delegating, and most importantly, automating your tasks will help you with effective time management. 

To get started with automating tasks and freeing up your time, give Act! a free 14-day trial.

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What’s the secret to building a successful small business? Of course, there’s no universally acceptable answer to that question. But, ask any SMB owner, and they’ll tell you how their team members are their most valuable assets.

Case in point: Employees who are energized and excited about their work are 31 percent more likely to go above and beyond. Figures like these emphasize the importance of building effective teams and managing them the right way.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what it means to build and manage a great team so you can establish a strong foundation for your organization.

What does a successful team look like?

Simply put, a successful team is one where individual team members deliver high-quality work on time. And they do it without feeling burdened or burnt out.

Regardless of the industry or scale of an organization, an effective team will exhibit the following characteristics:

• Shared values: The entire team is aligned toward predefined values, objectives, and expectations. All members work in harmony for the team’s success.
• Open communication: Team members are always on the same page, irrespective of whether they’re working on-site or in a hybrid setting.
• High sense of ownership: Every team member is willing to go above and beyond what’s expected to achieve common goals. 
• Willingness to face challenges: Team members treat every challenge as a new learning opportunity and use problem-solving tactics to overcome it.
• Delegation of tasks: The leader identifies team members with the right skill sets and assigns suitable tasks to them.
• Trust and respect: Each person in the team feels confident about sharing their ideas and opinions without the fear of being criticized, ridiculed, or manipulated. 

How to build effective teams: A few valuable tips

Building effective teams and managing them properly improves employee engagement. That, in turn, motivates team members to do their best work and even helps increase retention.

But here’s the thing—smaller businesses may lack the resources available to larger organizations. For instance, you might not have funds to take employees out on fun team-building activities or offer monetary incentives every quarter.

So how do you build and manage a team effectively with limited resources? Follow these steps to get started.

1. Set clear goals and expectations

Establishing goals at the outset provides team members with a sense of purpose. It also helps them prioritize the right tasks to accomplish their milestones. Plus, they’re in a better position to align their work with overarching business goals. It’s particularly crucial when you’re working with a remote team.

Consider using a goal-setting framework like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound) to define clear goals.

While you’re at it, define your expectations by setting ground rules, such as:

• How quickly should team members respond to emails and messages?
• Is it okay for them to hold off replying to emails after work hours?
• Are there any expressions or phrases they must avoid in conversations?
• What factors will you consider when evaluating their performance?

2. Prioritize diversity

Team members from different backgrounds and lifestyles with varied skill sets bring new ideas and perspectives to the table. This fosters innovation, boosts teamwork, speeds up problem-solving, and pinpoints workplace biases that kill productivity. It can also help identify and tap into new growth opportunities.

It’s only natural that 56 percent of employed adults in the US believe that focusing on diversity is a good thing.

So, if you’re looking to build an effective cohesive team, make it a point to onboard a diverse array of team members. 

3. Don’t micromanage

Your team members don’t need you to stand over their shoulders and monitor their work. That kind of team management is distracting and gets in the way of their best work. Also, it sends the message that you don’t trust them and goes against your idea of team building.

Instead, break down team goals into smaller tasks and assign each task to a team member with relevant skills. Alternatively, it’s a good idea to identify team members with complementary skill sets and assign suitable tasks to them.

Conduct group team meetings or one-on-one sessions at regular intervals to track progress. Ask about the challenges they’re facing on the job and what will help them accomplish their goals more efficiently. This is also a good time to share feedback on their performance and offer advice on how they can improve.

4. Facilitate healthy communication and collaboration

It’s one thing to ask team members to keep each other in the loop. But how can you ensure they actually do that? The key is to create open channels of communication and collaboration with the right tools, regardless of whether your team meets in the office every day or works remotely.

For instance, you can provide them with cloud storage solutions to simplify file-sharing.

Similarly, customer relationship management (CRM) systems can come in handy for customer-facing teams. For example, sales team members can use a CRM to monitor a lead’s status and even assign follow-up reminders to their coworkers.

Besides providing the right tools, encourage team members to listen to each other and engage in healthy debates. The idea is to offer constructive feedback to coworkers instead of dismissing their ideas outright. 

5. Provide opportunities for development

Your team will typically include a handful of top performers and underperformers. However, the majority of your team members will fall into the bracket of middle performers. These are the people who need the right push to do their jobs better.

As a leader, it’s up to you to identify middle or average performers and provide them with suitable learning opportunities to elevate them to the high-performers category. It’ll make them feel seen and motivate them to give their best. Equipped with an advanced skill set, they’ll be in a better position to deliver on your expectations.

6. Build your leadership skills

Whether you’re a business owner or in a leadership role, you set the bar for other members. So, you must imbibe the qualities you want to inculcate in others.

Start by developing strong leadership skills, including active listening, clear communication, and empathy. Also, seek feedback from your team to understand what you can do better. When you demonstrate vulnerability, you earn the respect of your team, which, in turn, inspires them to do their best work.

Improve your team’s communication with Act!

A strong team thrives on open communication, respect, and trust. The key is to ensure all members have a unified view of the team’s objectives and values. It’s also crucial to provide them with open channels for connecting and sharing their ideas.

With Act!, customer-facing teams can access information about potential, existing, and new clients. Team leaders can monitor the performance of different sales reps and provide them with suitable feedback. Sign up for a free trial to see how Act! can help you build an effective team.

The post How to build and manage a team effectively: The small business owner’s handbook appeared first on Act!.

Today’s CEOs believe there’s a 24 percent likelihood that their companies will be exposed to macroeconomic volatility in the next 12 months. Business leaders also believe that there’s a 24 percent chance inflation will be a key threat to their companies during the same period.

An economic downturn has been a looming threat for businesses over the last few years. From the pandemic and supply chain issues to geopolitical conflicts, several factors have contributed to a feeling of uncertain times and a shaky economic climate.

While times of economic uncertainty affect every company, small business entrepreneurs are often hit hard. In this article, we’ll dig deeper into the impact of economic uncertainties on small businesses and discuss strategies to deal with them. Let’s get started.

The impact of economic uncertainty on SMBs

When the global economy declines, inflation and interest rates spike, which, in turn, curb purchasing power. In other words, most businesses will see a drop in sales and revenue during such periods, resulting in cash flow challenges.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that funding from investors dries up during such periods. For instance, worldwide VC funding plunged to $344 billion in 2023, reaching the lowest level since 2019. This makes it even tougher for small businesses to stay afloat.

Economic uncertainty also brings other setbacks, such as supply chain disruptions and regulatory changes. Given that most small businesses are already cash-strapped, it becomes even more challenging to cater to changing customer needs and drive sales.

Navigating economic uncertainty and overcoming sales challenges

Fluctuations in the global economy during tough times aren’t a death sentence for your company. There are ways to build your customer base and generate revenue despite an economic slowdown. 

Here are a few strategies to help you get started.

1. Monitor market trends

First things first—if you want your business to sail unscathed through economic downturns, you must embrace a proactive approach. That involves staying on top of changing market trends and consumer demands and preferences. 

Keeping up with trends will give you deeper insight into how purchase habits shift with economic fluctuations. That, in turn, will help you make the right decisions regarding product development and pricing and adapt your sales tactics.

Conduct online surveys, social media polls, and customer interviews to dig deeper into their changing expectations and needs. 

A CRM platform can also help you track changes in the behavior of existing customers and prospects. You can use detailed customer profiles available on Act! to monitor their purchase history and recent customer service interactions. It’ll help you identify trends in their preferences and sentiments.

Additionally, use tools like Google Trends to understand where consumer preferences in your industry are headed. Competitor analysis and social listening tools can also come in handy.

2. Diversify revenue streams

The next step is to tap into alternative revenue streams by diversifying your product/service offerings. It becomes easier if you already have a finger on the pulse of your customer base.

For instance, let’s say you run a company that sells nutritional supplements online. As inflation rates spike, you might observe consumer interest in your products plummeting. However, interacting with your customer base might reveal that they’re keen to learn more about affordable and healthy eating. 

You can consider partnering with expert nutritionists to offer consultations on your website. Also, you could launch a range of paid online workshops for people who want more in-depth insights. Upselling your products at these events can generate even more revenue.

The key is to stay agile and be open to modifying your business model as consumer mindsets change.

3. Strengthen existing customer relationships

If you run a small business, you already know that retention is more cost-effective than acquiring a new customer. When you’re navigating economic uncertainty, it only makes sense to double down on existing customer relationships.

It could be as simple as staying connected with existing customers via email and social media. Highlight the challenges your business is facing and the steps your team is taking to overcome them. You could even ask them to share their ideas on navigating these challenges. It’s an excellent way to show how you value them and build stronger relationships. 

A CRM solution like Act!, with its integrated marketing automation features, can come in handy for streamlining communication with customers. You can even personalize your messaging based on their demographics and purchase preferences. When the timing is right, don’t hesitate to recommend relevant add-on products/services or request referrals and testimonials.

4. Don’t skimp on marketing

Even on their best days, small businesses have to make do with limited marketing budgets. When sales are slow and revenue is tight, you might feel the urge to cut back on marketing costs.

But, chances are, your competitors are also facing a similar cash crunch and will pull the plug on their marketing campaigns. Continuing your marketing efforts during this time will give you the competitive edge and visibility you need. And when the economy takes a turn for the better, your business will be at the top of potential customers’ minds and increase your chances of real success.

5. Cut costs with tech

Despite being proactive and prepared, an economic downturn will bring cash flow challenges for your business, forcing you to bring costs down. That’s where modern tech innovations come into the picture.

From marketing automation software and project management tools to chatbots, you can use a variety of tech-powered solutions to improve the efficiency of your marketing and sales teams. It’ll help you accomplish more tasks in less time and with fewer resources and enable your team to focus on more critical aspects, such as improving the customer experience and identifying new opportunities to drive revenue.

Adapt to changing customer needs with Act!

In a recent survey, 67 percent of SMB owners cited finances as their most pressing worry in the new year. The key to navigating economic uncertainty as a small business owner is to stay abreast of changing market dynamics and customer preferences. 

With Act!, you get a centralized database and dashboard to store, manage, and analyze customer data along with a marketing automation suite. That makes it a powerful tool for identifying and harnessing emerging trends in buying habits during economic fluctuations.

Start your 14-day free trial to see Act! in action and understand how it can support your business.

The post The SMB Owner’s Guide to Navigating Sales During Economic Uncertainty appeared first on Act!.

As an experienced commercial real estate broker or leasing agent, you know that long-term customer relationships are the key to success in your business.

Your tenants and clients have unique business challenges and the best way to become their favorite Landlord or Tenant Rep is to offer personalized services and exceptional customer service.

In other words, your tenants and clients should be confident that you’ll represent their property needs exactly how they want and allow them to focus on their businesses.

But to meet their expectations, you’ll need management tools like an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that empowers you to make data-driven decisions and personalize your customers’ experiences and journeys with your business.

In this article, we’ll show you how a powerful tool like CRM can automate your commercial real estate and property leasing business and help you become your tenants’ and clients’ most trusted service provider.

Why use a CRM for property leasing?

Commercial real estate clients and tenants rely on commercial property reps to help them find warehouses, office spaces, retail locations, and other property types that align with their long-term goals and help them scale their businesses.

Your job is to foresee their challenges and ensure the property is on par and has everything they need to grow. But that’s a challenge in itself when you have dozens of clients and tenants with different requirements and needs.

This is where a customer relationship management (CRM) platform can do the heavy lifting for you.

A CRM for property leasing reps records, stores, and organizes your customer data in a central database. It provides you with all the critical customer information, helping you make more accurate and timely decisions.

With the right CRM system, you get the complete history of your customer interactions, and preferences, allowing you to foresee their challenges and offer tailored solutions.

Most importantly, it makes your business less reliant on you and allows you to scale it by building automated systems. In short, if scaling your business is a priority, using integrated CRM software for commercial real estate should be at the top of your list.

Types of CRM data you can use to enhance client relationships

The primary role of CRM software for property leasing is to track the complete customer journey across multiple touchpoints. Gathering all the critical customer data provides you with a 360-degree view of your existing customer’s preferences, allowing you to make data-driven and informed decisions.

Here are the various types of data you can leverage with a CRM:

Commercial real estate preferences

Commercial real estate is a vast industry with numerous segments. To offer personalized experiences, you must understand your customer’s business goals and the kind of assistance they want from you. With a CRM, you can record every customer’s property preferences individually, make them a part of their profile, and use this information to improve your services.

For example, a customer might want to acquire or rent a large office space for 1,500–2,000 employees in the city center with easy access to the subway station and banks nearby. A CRM platform would add this information to their profile, allowing your team members to find relevant opportunities.

Lease and transaction details

You can record your clients and tenants’ lease documents, transaction details, lease expiration dates, and other critical information in their CRM profiles. This serves as evidence of the transaction and increases operational efficiency and profitability.

Support interactions

Every time a customer contacts you by phone, email, or any other channel, a commercial real estate CRM records that interaction, making it a permanent part of the customer’s profile.

How to collect CRM data in commercial real estate

Switching from manual work to an integrated CRM system opens up numerous data collection and automation opportunities. Let’s discuss a few ways you can collect accurate customer data with a CRM

Integrating existing systems

Many commercial real estate brokers and leasing agents have no mechanism to connect or compile customer data in a central location.  This data could come in several forms — from hard copies of customer information and offline Excel spreadsheets to emails, and advertising data.

A modern property leasing CRM like Act! seamlessly records and organizes this data into useful and actionable information for informed decision-making.

As a result, you can get a tenant or client’s real-time data in a central dashboard, saving you countless hours and increasing your business efficiency.

Website and landing pages

Property leasing companies invest in SEO and digital advertising campaigns to drive tenants and clients to their websites and landing pages. With the included API you can easily integrate these sources with your CRM to streamline data collection.

This way, you’ll know the exact source of a lead and its expectations from your business.

Email campaigns

Every commercial real estate client has unique needs. Interacting with your subscribers through email campaigns is a great way to understand their preferences and pain points. An integrated CRM tracks every email click and gives detailed insights into how your subscribers engage with your content. This helps you gather behavioral data, which is critical for personalizing customer experiences.

Feedback and reviews

The feedback from your tenants and clients helps you tailor your services to their needs. A CRM system integrates with your communication channels, like email, calls, and even social media platforms. As a result, every customer feedback email, complaint, or response is recorded, giving you priceless insights.

Putting your data to use

CRM tools help you with contact management, recording customer interactions, and turning them into actionable information. Here’s how you can use these insights to enhance your commercial real estate business.

Personalize customer experiences

Detailed CRM data, including contact information and customer satisfaction metrics, allows you to personalize customer experiences, create more relevant opportunities, and make every interaction more meaningful.

It allows you to understand tenant and client business needs, whether specific amenities, budget constraints, or location preferences, and tailor your communication and messaging accordingly.

Such comprehensive customer data also allows you to strategically segment your audience, create more relevant offers, streamline operations, and enhance lead management.

Proactively find relevant opportunities

When you know the requirements of specific customer segments, you can proactively hunt for relevant commercial real estate opportunities.

With all the data on past interactions, transaction histories, and client feedback, CRMs enable you to identify real estate trends and opportunities that may interest your clients before they even start looking.

So, instead of waiting for the clients to come to you, you can pitch them properties and partnership opportunities you know they’re looking for.

Automate follow-ups and customer interactions

You can improve your relationships with your commercial real estate clients by becoming their go-to source for all things related to property leasing.

Using an integrated CRM system, you can create personalized email workflows for tenants and clients, sharing valuable information and educational content.

You can also streamline your customer interactions by setting up follow-up sequences on pre-defined dates.

Nurture relationships with email marketing

The best real estate leasing companies invest in long-term customer relationships and focus on client retention for continued business growth. And there’s no better way to do that than email marketing.

By adding customers and prospects to your email list, you can send dedicated email flows to every customer segment. For example, you can share market trends, relevant property recommendations, pricing changes, and personalized content that simplifies decision-making, establishes brand authority, and feeds the sales pipeline.

So, when they need help buying, selling, or renting commercial property, you’ll be the first name that comes to mind.

Scale your commercial real estate business with CRM data

Data is your secret weapon for scaling and growing a commercial real estate business. The more you know about your audience, the better you can serve them.

If you haven’t used a real estate CRM yet, test drive Act! for Commercial Real Estate for free and find out how a CRM solution can elevate your property leasing services or commercial real estate business and help you grow faster.

The post How CRM Data Can Enhance Tenant and Client Relationships appeared first on Act!.

Did you know that 71 percent of customers expect businesses to personalize all their interactions with them? Generic content just doesn’t cut it with the modern-day buyer, seller or tenant, especially when they’ve got plenty of options to choose from. Not surprisingly, companies that personalize well experience higher results than those that don’t. 

How then, can your commercial real estate business personalize your marketing campaigns? It all starts with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Here are CRM personalization tips and marketing strategies you can use to get started.

Why personalized marketing matters

The simple answer—customers expect it. 

Consider that over 361 billion emails will be sent daily this year, a significant chunk of which will be marketing emails. You can’t expect to stand out in your target audience’s inboxes with cookie-cutter marketing messages.

The same also applies to social media and your website, among other channels. Personalizing your marketing messaging makes your brand and real estate properties more relatable for your audience. And this can make all the difference when it comes to conversion rates.

Data-driven marketing personalization also makes your prospects feel special. They’ll feel like the message was specially crafted for them—something important when you’re dealing with large transactions as in commercial real estate or similar fields.

How can insights from CRM data drive personalized marketing campaigns?

CRMs can play a pivotal role in shaping your marketing approach and driving personalization. The right CRM system will collect valuable customer information and provide detailed analytics about your marketing efforts and customer behaviors. 

For instance, Act! for Commercial Real Estate helps you track real estate sales, marketing, and business metrics in real time on its built-in, customizable dashboard.

These insights can give you a glimpse into where your marketing campaigns are going. You’ll also know how you’re doing at each stage of your funnel. You can then tweak your approach to drive better results. 

How to leverage CRM insights to personalize your marketing campaigns

You’ll have access to all types of CRM analytics if you choose the right solution for your business. Here’s how you can use your CRM as an effective tool to personalize your marketing.

1. Improved segmentation of your audience

The data provided by your CRM can help you understand the impact of your campaigns on your audience. Data on property inquiries, property profiles, and purchase history can give you an insight into what your prospects’ needs are. 

This can help you come up with a more focused definition of your client personas. And based on those, you can improve your segmentation. These hyper-targeted segments can help you personalize your messaging even further so you can recommend the right commercial properties to your prospects and clients.

2. Automate your marketing 

Automation will help you eliminate repetitive tasks and optimize your marketing team’s productivity. From emails to publishing social media posts, there’s a lot you can do through automation. 

But here’s the real deal—it also helps with personalization. Once you’ve got enough data on your prospects and clients through your CRM software, you can launch automated campaigns that help you personalize at scale. 

For instance, you can send automated welcome sequences to each segment by creating workflows. Similarly, you can send new property launch notifications and follow-ups to prospects with targeted messaging. 

All you need is a CRM like Act!, which enables email marketing automation (and more!). From response-driven nurture campaigns and automated lead scoring to sharing campaigns automatically on social media and building landing pages, you can do it all with other tiers of Act! Marketing Automation.

3. Eliminate roadblocks in your funnel

With a CRM, you can get a detailed insight into your sales funnel. You can see how many prospects make it from one stage to another and the ones who drop out. 

These insights can play a crucial role in helping you identify potential roadblocks stopping prospects from moving further down your funnel. 

For instance, if you notice most of your prospects dropping out just before the execution stage, you might have a problem with the team closing deals. You can then tweak your approach to boost the sales or leasing of your commercial properties.

You might drill down into this even further by filtering your CRM data analytics for individual audience segments. Then, use A/B testing to identify factors causing your prospects from those segments to drop out of the funnel. 

With Act!, it’s possible to filter your dashboards for factors like activity types, users, products, and more. You can also add custom fields specific to real estate for reporting, making it one of the best CRMs for commercial real estate businesses. 

4. Send targeted property suggestions

With valuable insights gathered from your commercial real estate CRM, you’ll have better-defined individual customer segments. At the same time, you’ll have a laser-sharp definition of your ideal customer profile, and you’ll know customer preferences, dislikes, and pain points inside and out. 

This will enable you to launch highly focused marketing campaigns that they can find relevant. With automation, you can do it at scale, sending targeted commercial property recommendations to each prospect based on their requirements and behavior.

For instance, you can send restaurant property suggestions to those prospects who have a background in operating food joints. The higher the relevance, the better their chances of converting. 

5. Improve omnichannel marketing

The modern-day commercial real estate client has countless options at their fingertips. They can choose to interact with your real estate firm across multiple channels before making a representation decision. This is especially true when it comes to large-scale transactions like real estate, which have longer sales cycles.

When there are so many touchpoints through which your audience will travel, it’s important to ensure that you give them a streamlined and consistent experience. That way, regardless of the channel, they’ll feel connected to your brand. 

This is where CRM insights come to the rescue. By analyzing customer data from multiple channels, you’ll have a clear view of the customer journey. You can easily identify opportunities to improve their experience and enable them to move seamlessly across channels.

For instance, you could send out personalized email campaigns based on communication clients have with your real estate teams or customer relationship managers.

Up your personalization game with Act! for Commercial Real Estate

CRMs do more than just serve as a centralized database of your customer interactions. By using the insights derived from CRM analytics, you can improve your marketing personalization to boost property transactions and enhance customer experience. 

With a platform like Act!, you’ll also get access to marketing automation capabilities that can help your commercial real estate firm deliver personalized experiences at scale. Take a free test drive of Act! for Commercial Real Estate today to see how Act! can drive your commercial real estate business growth.

The post Personalizing CRE Marketing Campaigns with CRM Insights appeared first on Act!.

When you started your business, you only had a handful of customers. It made sense to store and manage their details in an Excel spreadsheet.

But as your company grew, so did your customer base. Today, you or your sales reps have to scroll through hundreds (if not thousands) of rows in a spreadsheet to find the necessary client details.

If your SMB has been grappling with these challenges, you’re not alone. A recent Act! CRM Survey Report revealed that 39 percent of SMB owners use spreadsheets to manage customer information.

But, with digital transformation becoming the norm for businesses across all industries, notes and spreadsheets are no longer the right fit for managing customer relationships and meeting your business needs. Here’s why you need to replace them with a scalable CRM solution—and what to consider when you stop using Excel as a CRM.

Reasons to stop using notes and Excel to manage customer data 

First things first—Excel spreadsheets are great at storing datasets from various sources like Quickbooks and LinkedIn, running quick calculations, and creating charts and graphs. Similarly, note-taking apps can help you quickly jot down key takeaways from a client interaction. 

But when it comes to effective customer relationship management (CRM), these capabilities aren’t enough. Here are a few common drawbacks of using Excel as a CRM system:

Version control issues

Picture this: You share the spreadsheet with customer data with your sales team. Each team member downloads the file on their computer and updates relevant details after talking to a client. It won’t be long before you have to deal with duplicate or inaccurate data, leading to inconsistent communications. 

Lack of accessibility

Spreadsheets aren’t particularly mobile-friendly. That makes it difficult for sales reps to access and update customer data while they’re on the move, and it can affect the outcomes of in-person client meetings.

Security concerns

Beyond protecting your customer data spreadsheet with a password, Microsoft Excel doesn’t offer robust security features. You can’t do much to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. Worse still, if an employee downloads the file on their computer and leaves your company, they can continue using your customer data.

Limited analytics capabilities

Notes and spreadsheets can pack a ton of useful data on customer behavior, purchase history, service requests, and more. However, they lack sophisticated analytics features to turn the available data into actionable insights.

Scalability challenges

As your customer base grows, managing customer data in spreadsheets will become nothing short of a nightmare. Imagine scrolling through endless rows to find out when a potential customer was contacted last. Or sending a follow-up SMS to the wrong phone number because a sales rep forgot to update the details. That kind of inefficiency can result in leads slipping out of the funnel. 

Why CRM software is better than spreadsheets

Did you know that over a quarter of SMBs that started using CRM software saw a significant boost in revenue and company growth? But improved revenue isn’t the only reason why you should use CRM software instead of Excel. There are many reasons why you should use a CRM instead of Excel.

Improved customer data management

A CRM platform like Act! CRM offers a centralized dashboard to collect, store, and manage customer information. It creates a single source of truth, and employees across different departments can leverage file sharing and refer to it before interacting with clients. If they edit any information, the changes get reflected in real-time. This provides everyone with a unified and updated view of each client, elevating the user experience. It also speeds up decision-making and simplifies business processes. 

Act! even provides advanced search filters to help employees find the necessary information quickly. This facilitates seamless customer interactions and ultimately improves the purchase experience.

Additionally, CRM solutions with cloud services make it possible for multiple team members to access and work with client data simultaneously, regardless of their location. This makes them particularly suitable for hybrid or remote teams as compared to on-premises ones.

Deeper insight into customer lifecycle

With a CRM solution, your knowledge of customers isn’t limited to a few fields like name, phone number, and the date of last purchase. Instead, a platform like Act! lets you map out a prospect’s entire journey and helps you understand where they are in the sales funnel. 

With these insights, you can tailor your marketing and sales efforts for each lead instead of following a cookie-cutter approach. You can also monitor how different leads move through the sales funnel and identify friction points that drive prospects away.

Enhanced efficiency with automated workflows

Modern CRM systems come with a broad spectrum of automation capabilities. For instance, Act! lets you set up automated reminders and alerts. You can even assign specific tasks to sales reps and let the software notify them automatically. These features come in handy for ensuring timely follow-ups and maximizing conversions.

Additionally, Act! lets you configure automated workflows that are triggered based on specific client actions. For instance, you can set up a welcome email that sends automatically when a new lead enters your funnel. Similarly, when a customer completes their first purchase, you can send an email survey.

Such automated workflows eliminate the need for manual follow-ups and help streamline operations. Customer support and sales teams can instead focus on more crucial tasks, such as driving retention and conversion rates.

Advanced analytics and reporting

A cutting-edge CRM solution doesn’t just store customer information. It helps you analyze the available data and track crucial metrics, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and customer satisfaction score (CSAT).

With these metrics at their fingertips, marketing and sales teams can make more informed decisions. Plus, you can turn these insights into meaningful reports that come in handy for generating revenue projections.

On-the-go access

Many CRM platforms, including Act!, offer mobile apps that make it easy for employees to access customer data and insights wherever they are. 

Act!’s Mobile App (Android and iOS) provides sales reps with driving and destination insights. They can also update a customer’s information in the app, ensuring other team members are on the same page. It’s also possible to customize notifications to improve sales rep productivity and build high-performance teams. 

Additional benefits

CRM platforms offer several other benefits, often including integrated marketing automation and personalization along with a library of email templates as well as numerous integrations with third-party tools. Act! even uses robust security measures, such as encryption and multi-factor authentication, for customer data protection.

Switching from spreadsheets to CRM: Key considerations

While CRM software offers several benefits, it’s crucial to find the right fit for your small business. Not all CRM platforms are created equal, and the wrong solution can add more bottlenecks than it resolves.

Here are a few tips to identify the right CRM platform for process optimization and unhampered growth for your business.

Outline your needs and budget

CRM platforms offer a wide array of features, from automated workflows and shortcuts to data to pipeline management and reporting. However, your business may not need every feature that’s offered. Assess your unique requirements and create a list of must-haves. Then, define a realistic budget based on your needs and look for CRMs with pricing in that range.

Check for compatibility

Regardless of the CRM platform you select, make sure it’s compatible with your existing tech stack. Look for integration with commonly used tools, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Shopify, calendar apps, and more. Also, check if it can work on your operating system like Windows or macOS.

Consider the learning curve

Finding a feature-packed CRM solution is only half the work. You also have to ensure your employees use it to the fullest. That makes it crucial to evaluate their current technical skills and determine whether they can use new CRM software. You might also have to implement a training program to ensure a seamless switch from spreadsheets to CRM.

Up your CRM game with Act!

Storing customer data in spreadsheets will only get your small business so far. If you want to build lasting customer relationships and skyrocket company growth, using a powerful solution like Act! is non-negotiable. With advanced features like automated workflows and reporting, you can nurture leads more effectively and grow your sales.

Start your 14-day free trial to experience Act! and understand how it can drive your marketing and sales efforts.

The post Moving Beyond Excel or Notes: Essential Tips for Streamlining SMB Operations appeared first on Act!.