Hello everyone,

I wanted to share some of the things I spoke about regarding new business at our booth at this year's Macworld expo. The feedback we received from these presentations was great, and I felt it would be nice if those who couldn't attend the show were able to benefit from them.

What is the importance of a Sales Process?

We speak from experience. Marketcircle used to do custom web work, often having a cycle lasting 6 to 12 months. It was difficult to keep track of the ongoing opportunities, and we found we often had trouble remembering where we left off last with each of our clients.

- Some people use Excel spreadsheets, pens and paper (even pen and hands), or simply just their heads to remember where they are at with an ongoing sale. These systems don't offer any structure or consistency. Here are a few examples of why these do not work out well

• Excel: does not allow you to associate everything involved in a sale (emails, calls, appointments, etc.) with the opportunity
  
• Pen and Paper: half the time I can't read my own writing, or I forget what that "circle with the arrow around it" means. What if you lose your piece of paper? What if your colleague can't understand your random notes with symbols?
  
• Writing on your hand: I'll assume everyone here showers or baths regularly - I think that's all I need to say for this one
  
• Memory: I enjoy mountain biking on the weekends, and would be devastated to lose my entire "database" because I went down the hill too fast (and crashed into a tree)...oh, and what about forgetfulness?
  

What is an Opportunity?

- In Daylite we call these new chances for business Opportunities. An opportunity is a potential to generate revenue for your company, where the closing decision is ultimately in the hands of your prospect.

So how can we improve this process?

- The main thing to focus on is gain as much control of the sale as possible. The Pipeline feature within Opportunities is the backbone to your sales process. Of course there is no right or wrong sales process, and it can vary between industries. You want to keep your sales process (or Pipeline) as simple as possible, so that it's easy to keep current and up to date, and get new team members up to speed quickly when hiring.

- "Moving things forward" is one of the key methodologies that Daylite was created around. Without moving things forward, your business will remain at a standstill. As we all know, generating revenue is key to maintaining and moving a business forward. Using Pipelines will help you move forward, and will help you maximize your selling potential. By streamlining your sales process, you will not only prevent yourself from having a chaotic sales department, but you will be able to get new sales people up to speed, and help those who work above the sales team to understand why people are buying from them, and gauge how effective your sales process is. Daylite Delivery can then help deliver this crucial information to whom it matters most.

The Phone Rings

- What do you do? You pick it up, of course. But then what? What I do (I'm in sales) is I pickup the phone, and immediately start the task timer to log details about your phone conversation (by then way if you would like more information on certain features I mention in the application, just refer to the built-in Apple Help, where you can search for things such as the "task timer")

- Use the Quick Find (⌘ + F) to search for the contact (by name, number, etc.) to see if you've spoken to them before, so that if you HAVE spoken to them, you can quickly look over your communication history (emails, previous phone-calls, appointments, etc.) so that you know who you are speaking with before they've finished saying their hello's.

- When you are finished with the call, link it to the contact (or create a new one and link it to it), and then create (or look over an existing) opportunity for the potential sale, marking the pipeline progress accordingly, and adding in the products/services they are considering.

- You can then easily jump to the Opportunity, and create and send your potential client an estimate in seconds. You can send it directly through Apple Mail, automatically saving a copy of the email under your contact and opportunities activity.

Bored at work?

- So that was what you do when the phone rings...but what do you do when you have no emails sitting in your inbox? The phone isn't ringing? You've already checked Facebook 3 times, and none of your friends are online to chat with! Now is the time to examine what you have been doing well, and what you can improve upon. Daylite allows you to easily track your won and lost opportunities, and the reasons behind these "final decisions"

- Many people only pay attention to what they are selling, and how much money they are making - but it's important to see when and why you aren't closing the deal. Quickly run a report on the opportunities you've lost in the past 3 months and find out how you can prevent the loss of future sales! Was your price too high? Poor customer service? Did a competitor offer a better package?

No time to eat lunch?

- Many of us have also been in this situation - the phone won't stop ringing, your emails are pouring in, and your boss is still asking for that presentation you promised to give last week. Even if you can only spare 5 minutes of your time, you can at least spend that efficiently. What I've done, and what I refer to when I'm super busy, is my "Hot Opportunities". So what are Hot Opportunities? Well, I've defined Hot Opportunities as sales that are closing within a certain time frame, are at a certain stage of the pipeline and have a certain potential amount of revenue ($$$) to offer me. This way, even if I can only spend a few minutes going over my opportunities for new business, I can spend it wisely. You can even drag and drop these Smart Lists to the toolbar for quick and easy mouse or keyboard shortcut access.

In conclusion...

This is not THE way to manage your sales, but rather a recommendation from someone who works in and uses Daylite and Opportunities everyday. I welcome all sorts of feedback, and would love to hear how our other users are using Daylite to generate new business for their company, and move forward into new territories.

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to respond to this thread, or send an email my way. My contact info. is below.

Ryan,

I agree...but I would like to see the opportunities automatically linked to the contact (buyer) and their organization (account). Also I want to see the next task not isolated to opportunity. The next task should be automatically associated with the contact and organization.

When I pick up the phone with my account I want to see all my activities, tasks, meetings, projects and opportunities. I don't want to be skipping back in fourth when I am on the phone. Global search to me is if I forgot something...

I would also like to take this further because I agree with you on the importance of keeping opportunities moving along. Daylite in my opinion needs a starting point.
"Dashboard"...to get a complete picture of my tasks, appointments, projects. The calander is ok. I want to see as much as I can.

I always thought OUTLOOK's best feature was their "dashboard."

Also to make opportunities more attractive...creating them in BULK.

I have 100 accounts who I call on every 4 months ...I would like to create 100 opportunities at once. So I can begin the sales cycle. Right now I need to do this one by one. Not my favorite thing to do.

Your thoughts?

Christian

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. I'm going to pass your suggestions on to our engineering team.

The idea of having an "opportunity blueprint" so to speak is something I'd like to see as well. The ability to create multiple opportunities at once, or grab your typical opportunity from a set of templates or "blueprints" would help to improve efficiency.

I'll suggest to our U.I. designer to take a look at Outlook's dashboard for some possible ideas.

Can you elaborate on what you'd like to see when you mentioned "When I pick up the phone with my account I want to see all my activities, tasks, meetings, projects and opportunities. I don't want to be skipping back in fourth when I am on the phone. Global search to me is if I forgot something..."?

Anyone else with any thoughts?

quote:

I have 100 accounts who I call on every 4 months ...I would like to create 100 opportunities at once. So I can begin the sales cycle. Right now I need to do this one by one. Not my favorite thing to do.

I've been begging for this for years now! (Including the same for tasks, not just opps).

Thanks Howard. I'm going to pass on your reiteration for the request.

quote:

Daylite in my opinion needs a starting point.
"Dashboard"...to get a complete picture of my tasks, appointments, projects. The calander is ok. I want to see as much as I can.

What would you like to see on your Daylite Dashboard? What would the ideal dashboard look like for you?

quote:

What would you like to see on your Daylite Dashboard? What would the ideal dashboard look like for you?

Hi Brandon. I'd like to add my voice to the "Dashboard" idea. Let me start by saying that Daylite is invaluable to our our business. I'm just thinking of a way it can (in my opinion) be even better.

Years ago, someone showed me ACT. One of the things that really impressed me was the centralization of information on what you could maybe call a "Dashboard" ---- a single screen that displayed all the core information and from which one could do everything important and go everywhere important.

Right now, there is no real center to Daylite. Opportunities are stated as being the center - but, in the interface, they really aren't. If one clicks on an Opportunity, most of what is visible in the window is nothing to do with that specific Opportunity. One is left with having many clicks to get to all the relevant information about that Opportunity.

It could be very difficult to decide what should be in a Dashboard. Different businesses might have different priorities. But ACT apparently has 2.7 million users, and their centralized information system works OK for all those people. So the first point I want to make, for now, is that it is clearly possible.

Personally, I'd like to see a Dashboard for Opportunities and a parallel one for Projects. Like many people, I don't use a separate program for project management. That enough! What would be in a Dashboard is another matter. Thanks.

Thanks for your feedback Michael - some great ideas!

In the meantime you may want to play around with the current customizations abilities. Remember that Daylite "remembers" the different layout setups of each Smart List you create.

I for example, look at my "Hot Opportunities" in a much different way than I look at my "lost" opportunities. I use this flexibility in many areas of the application, i.e. contacts, projects, tasks, etc.

Hi.
Good stuff about Sales.
I have been using Daylite since 1.8 and became a partner around version 1.9.
I have for a long time wished that the Opportunities would automatically link both the contact and their associated organisation (if applicable). I have requested this feature from MC over 9 months ago but nothing has come.
I have kinda given up on it and have got used to manually linking opps for a contact to an organisation. It seems a simple thing to do but I guess there is a big list of other features.
If you create a appointment for a contact it will automatically link this to the organisation. If you create a task for a contact, it will automatically link it to the organisation. So the logic would suppose that the same should apply to opportunities - surely.

Having said that I am very pleased to have the bulk editing of opportunity state that sets today's date when you want to change the state to "won" for a bunch of sales.

regards

Bill

I haven't heard of this suggestion myself, but I'll mention it again to our engineers on your behalf. You may be able to create a script as a workaround in the meantime.

I. Dashboard...

I believe a "dashboard" is starting point to begin the day meets Top 10 Lists. Top ten opportunities, tasks, phone calls, projects and meetings/appointments. It gives a person a total overview. Also Opportunities "totals" to show where you are sales number are at (if you use this in your business). All linked to their respective areas. Key it should have options of what should be on there to fit one's business.

"Can you elaborate on what you'd like to see when you mentioned "When I pick up the phone with my account I want to see all my activities, tasks, meetings, projects and opportunities. I don't want to be skipping back in fourth when I am on the phone. Global search to me is if I forgot something..."?" I would like to see all my activities more on the main screen, then open the activity screen. I think details and when the contact/organization for edit/created should be moved to tab.

Christian

Thanks for your feedback Christian.

Let's keep this thread alive!

Hi Christian,

Although there is no "Dashboard", we do have features which will give you similar information. The shortcut bar(check out this video for more info on the shortcut bar) allows you to easily switch between lists.

You could easily have one shortcut for your opportunities, your calendar (which when the due list is present, also informs you your tasks for the day), projects etc. The great thing about the shortcuts is even they have shortcuts (Cmd+1,Cmd+2,Cmd+3 .... Cmd 9).

I know Ryan has already logged your feature request but I wanted to present you with an option for the time being.

Hi.
I to would like to automatically link a contact's organisation when I create an oportunity.
After all it does this already if you create a task or appointment for a contact so why not for an opportunity?
I requested this feature about 9 months ago now but I am not convinced MC see the value in it.

I hope they consider it for inclusion soon

Cheers.

Hi Bill,

I would not necessarily say MC does not see the value in your request because ALL requests are valuable.

In regards to your request, let me ask you a question.

If you have seven people working on a project, do you want all 7 linked organizations to those contacts automatically linked every time for every contact? Organizations linked to the project may have nothing to do with the project. The idea behind linking is being able to connect related information, when you start linking unrelated information, you lose the integrity of your data.

Engineering may be able to devise a method to include this feature request. If you can expand
on why you would like this feature, I can add further comment for your feature suggestion.