Setting up all the different pieces of software you need to run your business will cost you either time or money. Most small businesses are using free software for either their business or their marketing. But it’s not as free as you think. Your time is not free! And in most cases, you have to pay for the functionality you should be using, like extra emails or reports.
I spoke with a wedding planner who told me that she had put off her dream of kicking her business up to the next level for a long time because she didn’t know what to do – what she needed, how much it would cost and who to trust, which is really the biggest thing.
She told me she spent a lot of time trying to get help from the internet, but was getting confused and it was taking up too much of her time. She said a builder wouldn’t try to build a nice house all by himself – a builder would put a team together to do it, so that’s what she is doing now. That analogy is so appropriate.
Finding what you need in free software and setting it up is time consuming, if not totally frustrating. Now she is confident she’s moving forward with someone who will watch out for her best interest and provide her everything she needs in one fell swoop for an affordable price!
A good technology partner will tell you to get your own domain and make sure you know how to make changes if you need to. They will do extra things like tell you that you need an Analytics account and set it up for you – and give you access to it so you know what’s being done so you can see for yourself if the technology or your marketing is working or not.
Did you know there were several different kinds of SEO? For starters, there is internal (which you should always have set up on your website) and external SEO (external links to your site or blog). Yes, you should also have a blog and keep it updated! It’s a big part of your SEO marketing. If you write interesting articles, or offer a good download, and post a link to it on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or other Social Media, people will share it and bring in more visits, which will also help your search engine ranking, if not your sales.
Your website needs to be submitted to all the search engines. That will get you out there for potential clients to find you much faster and more dependably. Your ranking also depends on updates to your website – and resubmission to the search engines so they pick up your new blog or page.
We have many years of marketing experience – let us share with you where you’ll get the best results for your investment! Either we or our partners develop Facebook and Google Ads, promote you with social media, provide SEO (Search Engine Optimization), publish and promote your book, put you on TV, provide press releases and much more!
We can help you define your niche, keywords and target market – your demographics, which you’ll need before you do any marketing. You always need to look at your competition, and we can show you tricks on how to find out what they are doing.
Another problem with new businesses is that some need to use contracts to protect themselves from potential problems that we can point out – for instance in development, you need to limit your hours on a project so that the customer can’t keep coming back and asking for more work. Home contractors and consultants each have their own challenges, as do many other types of businesses.
One major deficit in most small businesses is that they need the technology to run their business. Excel is not a business system or a CRM – it doesn’t allow mass or selected email campaigns.
The following are the things that we can put together for you in one database, on one dashboard, in 1-Box Integrated CRM and Business System that will give any small business a way to start up or handle a growth spurt.
1-Box List
We put the forms on your website and the information will update to 1-Box automatically so you don’t have to remember their info and what happened when you contacted them:
1) Scheduling – appointments for clients and customers, then if you need to schedule your employee(s) to fulfill that appointment. We have that form update your database automatically and add to your calendar(s) with any appointments scheduled. We integrate with your Google calendar. We know that appointment reminders decrease no-shows.
2) Lead Capture Forms – these are the forms where your website or landing page visitors enter their name and email (and any other info you request). Where does that info go? Most likely it just gets emailed to you – then what? You might even reach them at the time, but then what? You need to keep that info where you can retrieve it quickly and easily. 1-Box provides that.
3) CRM – Contact/Customer Relationship Manager, which is the base of 1-Box. Many small businesses are trying to run their business using Excel – and that’s OK for a while, but at some point, you need to either call your business a hobby or step it up. If you want to grow, or if you’ve grown very quickly, you need a database that will keep up with you and your growth demands and provide a way to keep in touch with your lead and customer base with targeted mass emails and texts.
4) Document Repository – which works like a drop box but with the added functionality that you can attach the uploaded documents or images to emails, on demand. Folder and subfolder creation allow you to keep your documents organized by functionality and once completed, by client/customer.
5) Task Manager / Instant Messaging – use this option to assign/share tasks are as an inter-office messaging system.
6) Order, Item and Invoice Tracking – first we set up eCommerce on your website, which is the buying process from item presentation to payment, and all of that information will update to your database automatically – the customer information, the items purchased, the pricing and possibly sales percentages – really any process that you follow in your business can be set up for you quickly and affordably.
7) Referral tracking – if you pay a percentage for referrals or just want to keep track, this should be a priority in your business.
8) Customer Portal – where the customer can log in and update their information, schedule appointments, buy product using their credit card on file, or any other purpose your business requires.
9) Consultants Portal – where your client can log in to view your videos and downloads in an organized manner. This is integrated into a website so that you don’t need to pay for both separately.
10) ANY OTHER FUNCTIONALITY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS!
