Think Pipeline - PipelineDeals CRM

Case Study: How Azure Uses PipelineDeals for More Than Simple CRM

How Azure Uses PipelineDeals:

Azure provides consultation and expertise to help companies fulfill their aesthetic visions. They are a globally distributed company that sources furniture from around the world. Their team is constantly looking for most exclusive niche shops and product developers to deliver the next trend in design etiquette. Dan Shand, the General Manager of Azure was able to take some time to speak with us.

Finding the Gems:

Azure operates in the highly competitive sourcing and interior design market. Maintaining a competitive edge and sifting through all the potential business can be challenging.  It can take 12 weeks to close their projects. For Azure, the process of qualifying prospects is paramount. On how PipelineDeals helps solve this problem: "Chasing the best projects with articulated proposals is crucially important. We have to have a system to help us align our capabilities with our client's goals/expectations. We need to be very selective to find the right fit for us. This is where PipelineDeals comes in. Once we input a new project into the system we know exactly what our next step is, and what our expectations are of our team."

"The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread":

There any many choices in the CRM landscape and making the best decision can seem like a daunting task. Defining the scope of the features needed can make the decision making process easier. Azure needed to be able to keep track of all their projects and deals. They tried many different tools before settling on PipelineDeals. After struggling with ACT Goldmine, Sugar CRM and Prophet CRM Azure realized they needed to have hosted model. "PipelineDeals turned out to be the best thing since sliced bread. It has the right structure and its simplified enough to really let me take advantage of it. And its $15/user/month!"

Getting Started on PipelineDeals:

At PipelineDeals we know your time is valuable. We strive to make sure you can be up and running quickly. According to Dan, the transition couldn't have been easier. "With Sugar, in order to input information it took so many steps. I felt like I had to complete all the fields. Sugar required too much maintenance. With PipelineDeals all I have to do was create a Deal then email myself a quote. I can then manage and update my Deals over the course of time. It couldn't be faster."

Beyond  Simple CRM:

Azure is finding innovative ways to use PipelineDeals for more than just managing their sales processes. Using multiple To-Do templates, Dan and his team are simplifying their entire product delivery workflow.  

Please take the time to visit Azure's website.  They are truly pushing the envelope in corporate and commercial design.  A big thanks to Dan and Azure for taking some time to sharing their experiences on PipelineDeals.

 

Now Launched: PipelineDeals API (Beta)

PipelineDeals has launched its API into a beta.  The API was designed to cover all basic aspects of PipelineDeals data objects and allows you to get started with writing custom applications quickly.

Please contact us at 866.702.7303, drop us an email, or a twitter message  if you are interested in participating.

How can you make use of the API?
The API will allow you to easily create simple applications which access the PipelineDeals database.  Some sample application ideas:

Web to Leads
Create a simple application to send leads from your Internet web forms directly into PipelineDeals.

Appointment Maker
Develop a nice widget to allow someone on your team to schedule appointments for other team members.

Custom Reports
Create reports to pull information on your deals, contacts, leads and notes.

API Development Environment
The API will have its own sandbox testing environment and database as well as a full set of documentation and examples.

Launched: Improved Weekly Agenda

Now launched: some new enhancements to our weekly agenda on the application home page, new features include:

Adding New To-Dos & Events
You will now have the ability to add new to-dos directly into your weekly agenda on your home page.  You can also use the keyboard shortcut, "t" to add a new to-do item.

Editing To-Dos & Events
You also have the ability to edit and delete existing to-dos and events directly from the home page.   You will see edit and delete functions when you mouse over to the left of the event. 

Postponing To-dos & Events
The postpone icon is also new on the agenda.  So you can easily click on the postpone icon to move events quickly (with one click) forward to the next day.   Postpone also now works for your late items.  If late items are postponed, then they will show up on your weekly agenda for today.

Sort By Type
We have improved the sort by type feature with a more prominent button and improved display.  This feature allows you to quickly sort your agenda into actionable buckets for the week, e.g. phone calls, milestones, to-dos, emails to send, and meetings.   We now have listed phone calls first.

Late Items
Late Items are now exposed in a separate module above your weekly agenda.  You will be able to see how many to-dos and events are past due.  Just click the link to see your late items organized by this week, last week and older.   You can also sort your late items by type:  (calls, meetings, to-dos, etc.)

Late items can also be postponed as mentioned above.

Case Study: How FutureBrand is Using PipelineDeals Simple CRM

How FutureBrands Uses PipelineDeals

FutureBrand is an extremely cool company. In their own words they are a global brand consultancy. After spending time with them, you realize FutureBrand does more than just brand consulting - they obsess over brands, specifically the brands of tomorrow. FutureBrand's work ranges from personal submersibles to British Airways to InBev's Brahma Beer. FutureBrand's work exudes sophistication and a flair for  excellence. A truly global company headquartered in New York with offices in everywhere from Dubai, to Buenos Aires, to Beijing. Mario Natarelli, Managing Partner of FB-X, was kind enough to lend us some of his day to discuss
his team's use of PipelineDeals:

"As Good As Our Last Project"

In the business Mario is in, he is keenly aware that the last project out the door is the yardstick against which potential future clients will judge him. Cultivating and developing new business in a project based industry is critical. FutureBrand is always looking in new directions and must be able to manage a myriad of deals in various stages. Staying informed and sharing information including deal status and more specific contact information is important to keep developing the lifeline of future business.

Enabling the Distributed Sales Team

FutureBrand is a global business with 600+ people deployed across the world in offices on every continent. Coordinating efforts among disparate sales people while maintaining coordinated customer-facing communication is vital. On how PipelineDeals helped solve this problem: "PipelineDeals has enabled us to create a real-time shared environment, in multiple time zones and geographies, to leverage the sharing of information."

Chase Relationships, Not Proposals

FutureBrand dabbled in other applications without much success having tried Excel, Salesforce and ACT. "We were manually collecting spreadsheets once a month. We also used an internal tool to chase proposals, but needed something to chase relationships." As far as migrating from existing business practices to PipelineDeals, Mario had this to say, "Transition was easy, in fact it was effortless. We didn't require any training. We were up and running as fast as I could distribute the link."

Hooked on PipelineDeals

"We're hooked on PipelineDeals because everyone has to work together to keep it current. FutureBrand uses PipelineDeals primarily as a lead and prospecting tool. It's our first look at our sales forecast. We track success ratios carefully as well as sales activity by different users. The tool is giving us the ability to track suspects or "leads" versus more seriously baked prospects. We're now much more scientific about our closing ratios. The ability to add leads so quickly and easily keeps our various contributors happy. The reports are awesome. The killer feature in this app is the deals page. In less than 10 clicks I've set up a client, who the contacts are, how much its worth, and we've captured everything we need in one place."

Advice: Keep It Simple

Of course, we took advantage of our time with Mario to get some recommendations for improvement. "I would like to build more charts dynamically. Basically, get more out of the reports side. It would be great if PipelineDeals could help support our proposal workflow process."

Mario's parting words of wisdom cuts to the core of our daily work:

"Keep it nimble and simple. Don't over engineer it. Its beauty and strength is in its simplicity."

Truer words have never been spoken. Please take the time to visit FutureBrand and their Clients. FutureBrand's work is incredible. Take the time to sign up for their self-published online magazine, Propeller on the FutureBrand website in the Leadership Section of their Showcase. A big thanks to Mario and FutureBrand for taking some time and sharing some perspective on PipelineDeals.

Launched: Deal Sharing & Collaboration

PipelineDeals is reviving an old feature called Deal Sharing.  This feature will be launching soon.  Deal Sharing allows two or more users on to work together, share deals and collaborate on closing on a sales deal.   

How to best use Deal Sharing?

Deal sharing is perfect if your sales teams require a coordinated effort between more than one individual, company, or even across time zones.   

Each sales team member has access to the same information on the deals page, can add information such as notes, to-dos and events, documents, and even post short messages to a deal conversations board.  In short, deal sharing is a sales collaboration tool.

Watch the Video 

How does it work?

From the deals page, simply do the following:

1. Search and go to your specific deal to be shared
2. Select share from the deals actions menu 
3. Type a few letters of your team mate's last name 

Your team mate will be able to work on, edit and view the deal in their deal directory and their sales pipeline. 

 

Deal Conversations

We are also introducing a new concept which will facilitate communications about deals among team members or between sales managers, sales executives and their teams.

Deal conversations allows team members to post quick messages right onto the deals page - front and center.  We will always display the most recent messages first and you can click on the more link to see the conversations history.  

To-Do Assignments

To-do assignments can now also be made for other team members to facilitate deal collaboration and workflow.

Deal sharing and conversations is the first of our efforts to provide more sales collaboration tools within our simple CRM application.

PipelineDeals - Mobile CRM Projects Underway

Today, we are announcing a new mobile CRM strategic initiative. Our goal with our mobile CRM solutions will be to take the same simple CRM tool we provide at PipelineDeals to mobile devices.

Our mobile CRM solution will provide the same simple and powerful tools to manage your sales pipeline, contact, leads and deals.

Why Mobile CRM ?
Sales professionals by their very nature are road warriors. They spend time in airports, hotels, at client / prospects' locations, and every cafe and coffeehouse in between. They need critical access to prospect contact information, notes, prior communications, tasks and directions to their offices. In short, they need access to their CRM tool while on the road.

PipelineDeals iPhone mobile CRM Solution
Our first mobile CRM solution will be for the Apple iPhone.

Below we share some preliminary designs for the PipelineDeals iphone mobile CRM solution. We won't share all of the designs as we have some nice surprises up our sleeves.

Access Sales Deal Information
Easily access, view and edit all of your critical sales information from the deals summary.

View & Type Notes
Of course, you will be able to add notes for your leads, contacts and deals when they are most timely after your meeting on site at the prospect.

Search and Find Contacts and Leads
You will be able to easily and quickly locate your contact information quickly for all of your deals, leads, and contacts. And with a few clicks, you will be able to call them directly from the iPhone.

Access your Agenda and Calendar
A simple view to see all of your relevant sales appointments, meetings and tasks will be included in the agenda application. The agenda application will be consistent and similar to the PipelineDeals Weekly Agenda on your home page.

We will also be developing additional mobile CRM solutions for Blackberry, Windows Mobile and potentially even Google's Android platform.

Let us know what you think, and which features you are looking for in an iPhone or mobile CRM solution.

Now Launched: Welcome Tab and More Videos

Now Launched - The Welcome Tab, a friendly way for new users to get acquainted with PipelineDeals.

Welcome New Users
The Welcome Tab is the first place you land if you are new user on PipelineDeals. The goal of the Welcome Tab is get you up and running as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

Watch the Video

The Welcome Tab for New Users
For a new user, you can watch a 5 minute overview of the entire application, as well as some simple videos to import your leads and contacts. In addition, there are more in depth videos available on each of the application tabs, as well as links to our blog, faqs, and forums.

The Welcome Tab for the Administrator
If you are the administrator for your account, we have a new series of videos which take you through the setup, configuration and customization of PipelineDeals for your account and users.

Turning the Welcome Tab Off
You can easily remove the welcome tab by clicking on the hide link. The welcome tab can be turned back on by changing your options on the My Settings page, so you always can have a handy place to get back to any of our instructional videos.

We hope you find the Welcome Tab useful and that it helps get your team setup quickly so more time can be spent selling and managing your sales pipeline.

Now Launched: Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are here. You can now use PipelineDeals to manage your sales pipeline even faster than before with simple keyboard commands:

NAVIGATION KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Type the letter "h" or the number "1" = go to the Home Page
Type the letter "d" or the number "2" = go to the Deals Page
Type the letter "c" or the number "3" = go to the Contacts Page
Type the letter "l" or the number "4" = go to the Leads Page
Type the letter "k" or the number "5" = go to the Calendar Page
Type the letter "o" or the number "6" = go to the Documents Page
Type the letter "r" or the number "7" = go to the Reports Page

FREQUENT TASKS

Type the letter "s" to open Rover search
Type the letter "a" to go to the Add Contact form
Type the letter "z" to go to the Add Lead form

Type "n" - to create a new note on the deals or contacts profile page
Type "t" to create a new to-do or event on the deals or contacts profile page

WATCH THE VIDEO

COMMON REPORTS

Type the number "8" to go to the Notes Report
Type the number "9" to go to the Deals Tag Report
Type the number "0" to go see your Reports Dashboard

Now Launched: Rover Search

Today, we are previewing our new global search feature on PipelineDeals, aka Rover Search. This feature is not yet live but will be launching soon.

What is it?
Rover is a global search feature that very quickly scans all of your data in PipelineDeals. More specifically, Rover will search the following:

- Deals
- Leads
- Contacts
- Documents
- Notes
- To-dos & Events

In a few clicks, you can find your specific deal, lead, contact or note and directly access it. Rover even searches your Notes content. So, you can find that one note you wrote about that sales prospect a few months ago very quickly.

How do I enable Rover Search?
Rover is accessible from the top navigation Search link or a shortcut key: simply type "s" key.

Watch the video

Improved Contacts Search: Now Launched

Some nice improvements to our contact management application will be launching soon. Specifically, we will be launching the following:

IMPROVED CONTACTS SEARCH
Our current search for contacts works only on by searching last name. Many of our customers found this very limiting and we agree. Many sales professionals often only know first names at a specific company early during the early leads prospecting phase.

Our new search feature will allow a live search based on: First Name, Last Name or Company Name.

ADVANCED SEARCH
We also will be launching some long overdue advanced search options. You will be able to search your contacts by the following attributes:

1. Name
2. City
3. State
4. Postal Code
5. Phone
6. Tag

EXPORTING CONTACTS
Working in conjunction with the new advanced searching options, you will be able search and export the contact list.

RECENT CONTACTS
We will now be keeping track of your recent contacts by always displaying the last 10 contacts viewed. This will now be the default view on contacts. We heard many requests to change the default view from the current one of listing your contacts ending in "A", the first letter on the rolodex.