The Smart Company website (www.smartcompany.com.au) recently posted an article on “10 marketing tips that won’t cost the earth” which I thought was a decent read for any small business owner … read it here.

Some interesting and innovative ideas there that wouldn’t be difficult or costly to implement.

We use and recommend a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system called info@hand. euler:design it has implemented it for a number of our clients as well, with some customisations to suit their particular business process and need. That would be my number one recommendation when looking into adding a CRM into your business – going with an organisation and application that would be able to provide customisations – so that it will work according to your business process, rather than changing your business process to work with the CRM. It is only software after all and should be there to serve you – not the other way around.

Some of the key benefits I have found with our CRM system include:

1. Easy and fast quote development – setting up standard products and prices makes it quicker to create quotes.
2. Even faster invoice development – once a quote has been accepted, a couple of clicks turn that quote into the invoice.
3. Easily track incoming payments and how much an account owes through the built in statements.
4. Using the built in campaign module to send out newsletters by email to clients, and tracking opens and click-thrus for each email.

We are currently looking at building on an additional module that will integrate our CRM with Saasu, the online accounting system. With this we will also be able to integrate accounting, payroll, bank integration and day to day book keeping into a single package.

Of course, if you would like to know more about how a CRM system can help the everyday running of your business gives us a bell.