The Prairie Group

How to Choose The Right CRM For Your Small Business

admin — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 06:06:23 +0000

Are you looking for a CRM system to help manage your business? If so, it’s important to choose one that fits your needs. There are many different CRM systems available, and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some tips for choosing the right CRM system for your business.

Business Size

First, consider the size of your business. A small business will usually need a simpler CRM system than a large business. On the other hand, a CRM software that is designed for a small business may not be able to handle the needs of a larger company.

Features

Second, think about what features you need. You need to decide what features are most important to you and your team – because you will likely be comparing tools that are “bare bones” vs. other tools that have all the “bells and whistles”. Some CRMs offer more comprehensive features than others, so it is important to choose one that will meet your specific needs. A CRM system should be able to track sales leads, customers, and contact information. It should also allow you to create reports and track customer activity.

Price

Many CRMs are expensive, but there are also some affordable options available. There are many CRM software options on the market, so you need to find one that fits within your price range. Finally, take into account the company’s reputation and customer service support. Be sure to ask around and read reviews before making a decision.

Why We Recommend Pipedrive

We recommend Pipedrive for a number of reasons. First, it’s simple and easy to use. This means that you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out how to use the software – you can just get started immediately. Second, Pipedrive is highly effective at helping you track your sales pipeline and keep your deals moving forward. This is essential for any sales team – you need to be able to see where your deals are at and what needs to be done in order to close them. Third, Pipedrive is very affordable. This is especially important for small businesses or startups that may be operating on a tight budget.

And it’s even more affordable if you partner with a company like The Prairie Group – be sure to ask us about our Pipedrive Partner program and schedule a consultation with one of our Pipedrive Training Experts

Overall, we believe that Pipedrive is an excellent choice for any business that needs a simple and effective sales CRM solution.

Choosing the right CRM can be a daunting task, but following these tips should make it easier. By considering the size of your business, the features you need, and the price you’re willing to pay, you can find a CRM that fits your needs perfectly.

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CRM Solutions Made Easy by The Prairie Group

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 01:12:35 +0000

The Prairie Group provides a wide range of services, including but not limited to:

Creating customized CRMs
Lead generation and marketing services
Telephony services, contracts, and e-signature products.

Our team is enthusiastic about assisting businesses in expanding, and we regularly invest in the most cutting-edge technologies to ensure that our clients continue to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Pipedrive CRM Onboarding

Pipedrive is a powerful CRM software, but what if you don’t know how to set it up? Get onboarded with The Prairie Group and you’ll be able to conquer the sales process like a pro!

Our onboarding certified experts will help you configure Pipedrive and train you and your team on how to not only navigate it, but to utilize it to its fullest potential. Don’t wait any longer, start building your sales pipeline now.

Data -Mining And Lead Generation Services

You’re busy, we get it. You’re just looking for a way to generate high-quality leads monthly and then close more deals. Well, you came to the right place Lead generation is made easy with The Prairie Group’s Monthly Lead Gen Solution.

We have a complete data-driven CRM that’s designed to work for you, no matter what line of business you’re in. We also provide marketing automation and coaching Pipedrive Training Services.

Ready to get started with Pipedrive?

The Prairie Group offers comprehensive Pipedrive CRM training options for your entire staff. Whether you are a Sales Professional, Sales Leader, Operations Manager, or Administrator we have a training solution for your team.

Contact The Prairie Group today to request a consultation!

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Pipedrive CRM Training 101: The Ultimate Resource

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 19:26:16 +0000

Pipedrive is a deal-driven customer relationship management (CRM) solution that functions as an account management tool and may help with marketing and the sales process. Our Pipedrive CRM Training will help you to take a proactive approach to organizing your records, sales activity calls, and emails instantly and synchronizes calendars across devices.

Pipedrive’s ability to see the sales process from beginning to end may particularly appeal to most small to mid-sized enterprises (SMBs). This may enhance productivity while also eliminating internal second-guessing, which is one of the most common reasons CRM projects fail.

In this article, we will be breaking down all the steps in using Pipedrive and a number of its features showing why using it is a must. Let’s begin! We will also give you the option to try it for free for thirty days.

4-Step Guide to Using our Pipedrive CRM-Training

1. Set up your pipeline stages

Your sales pipeline is a diagram of your sales process. It is entirely adaptable to your working style. Choose a template or name the stages after the actions you take to complete sales. You are already starting to develop a pipeline when you get those initial thoughts about individuals and businesses who could necessitate what you sell.

You most likely have many prospects in mind. Some of them will be resolved and closed, while others will not. However, your pipeline will be formed by these interactions and how they develop. You create a pipeline by developing a series of steps that go from an initial concept to a completed transaction – these are the stages of your sales.

It is also crucial to note that the phases of your sales must correspond to your prospects’ or customers’ buying stages. Everyone’s purchase cycle is different, but believe that knowing your clients and how they prefer to shop helps.

2. Focus on sales actions

You must keep transactions on track and be aware of the sales actions you must perform after you have your pipeline phases written out. What are the characteristics or circumstances that will assist you in advancing your transaction from stage to stage as you move through? It may be sending a written proposal, identifying stakeholders, or budget approval. Each step has an event that drives the project forward.

Remind yourself that instead of focusing on the finish line, which is the sale, you must concentrate on the steps that lead to it. Any activity that pushes your deals closer to completion is referred to as a sales activity. A phone conversation, lunch, meeting, email, or anything in between can be used. Make a to-do list and let Pipedrive remind you when it’s time to accomplish it.

You can manage the actions, but not the outcomes, to keep the pipeline running. Setting goals for yourself, such as how many proposals you send and new prospect contacts you make every day, is the greatest way to ensure that your deal flow does not slow down.

3. Track progress towards goals

After you have established your baseline, maintaining track of your progress will help you gauge your progress. It also aids those who track in recognizing when they have reached a halt in their development. This is beneficial since it allows you to adjust your route. You have a good idea of what went wrong and why.

Pipedrive training acts as a coach, monitoring your performance as you complete activities and move transactions ahead. It estimates your average conversion rate so you can figure out how many fresh leads you need and what actions you need to accomplish to reach your goals. Real-time reports let you know if you are on track, giving you enough time to correct your path if necessary.

4. Optimize and grow

Companies today already have access to a plethora of information. Data is perhaps the most valuable resource a company can have. You may use data to promote good change and assist the success of your company. Every business decision should be based on factual information. Pipedrive’s data analytics can offer you vital insights that can help you make the best decisions for your business and customers.

Moreover, while decision-makers and experience are essential, business-related judgments should be based on evidence. It is impossible to make smart judgments regarding inventory management, pricing tactics, and other business considerations without data. Even when it comes to hiring new employees, actionable data may assist you in determining how many to hire and how to deploy them effectively.

Pipedrive’s simple analytics streamline your sales process. It is no longer necessary to close your eyes and hope for the best. Automations take care of administrative duties, while integrations with your favorite tools help you save time. All that’s left now is to fine-tune your winning strategy and set even loftier objectives.

Pipedrive CRM Training Features

1. Communication tracking

Create an infinite number of contacts and organizations, and view complete contact activity timelines. Manage sales discussions from your chosen mailbox, with emails linked to offers and contacts automatically. Make sales calls directly from your web browser for easy call monitoring, recording, and analysis.

2. Leads and deals management

Create a visual representation of sales with infinite, customized pipelines and begin sliding deals to win. To keep your pipeline clean and focused on transactions, gather all of your leads in one place. To prioritize your greatest catch, follow up and qualify new leads from a single location. With easy and completely configurable online forms, you can generate high-quality leads for your pipeline.

3. Automation

Automate recurring administrative activities to eliminate busy work and learn from artificial intelligence. So you do not have to worry about what to do next, your AI-powered sales mentor enhances your performance with tailored recommendations. Find important information about connections that can help you close business quickly.

Conclusion

Pipedrive is one of the most user-friendly CRM platforms today. You will be able to expeditiously get started, and the user interface is basic enough that you will spend less time fiddling with it and more time focusing on your next sale.

You will be pleased with the outcomes if you follow this ultimate Pipedrive CRM Training guide. In summation, set up your phases and concentrate on your sales actions rather than the final objective. Then, keep track of your progress toward your goals. As you advance, use the data and analytics you have gathered to optimize and grow. There is no time to waste! Try Pipedrive, free of charge for 30 days.

Learn more about our instructor led classes

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CRM Rating’s

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 21:58:55 +0000

Pipedrive Outranked Nearly 700 Competitors in the CRM Space to Win Top Award by The Blueprint, a Motley Fool company by: Craig Borowski

Pipedrive, the first CRM platform developed from the salesperson’s point of view, today announced that it has been named the “Easiest to Use” CRM solution by The Blueprint, a Motley Fool company that helps business professionals make better decisions by offering unbiased, objective, and trustworthy technology advice and reviews.

The Blueprint cites Pipedrive’s seamless user experience, breadth of tools, and pricing structure in its decision to designate the company with the award. The review states, “Pipedrive is economically priced, ridiculously easy to use, and is made by sales experts, for sales experts. Just about any small business owner who generates leads, closes deals, or sells services could make wise utilization of Pipedrive. If your website generates leads or sells products, then Pipedrive offers a generous collection of smart marketing and CRM tools that are reasonably priced.”

Craig Borowski, Managing Editor of The Blueprint, said that out of a handful of different awards they give to the most highly rated software solutions, the ‘Easiest to Use’ award is in many ways the most significant. “Ease of use is routinely cited by small- and mid-sized businesses as the number one factor they look for when comparing and deciding on software purchases. Following in at a close second is overall cost. With a robust free trial option, multiple generously priced subscription tiers and a streamlined and intuitive UI, Pipedrive combines both in one very attractive, polished package.”

Said Timo Rein, CEO of Pipedrive, “We are humbled by being acknowledged as the ‘Easiest to Use’ CRM solution. We always seek to improve in providing a solution to salespeople that is useful and simple at the same time. A key to assuring that is always listening to customers. Our goal is to help people be inevitably successful in sales as we aim to help companies through thick and thin, and withstand any dynamic in the economic environment.”

Marketing Technology News: PPT Solutions Announces Kathryn Martin as New Vice President of Human Resources and General Counsel

The Blueprint evaluated nearly 700 CRM solutions for the award. They narrowed that down first by selecting only those that contain the right mix of CRM applications, then focusing on CRM solutions that really make sense for SMBs. Next, solutions were filtered by budget-friendly pricing structures, giving preference to those that also offer fully functional free trial options. Finally, the shortlist was presented to reviewer Tom Rayner, who has 15 years of firsthand experience using and recommending CRM tools and applications.

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Pipe Drive

admin — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 16:21:12 +0000

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Soft Skills

admin — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 02:40:26 +0000

Soft Skills: Key to a Successful Freelancer Career by: Nick Kolakowski

The freelancer life is a hard one. If you’re lucky, you lock down a couple of solid clients who pay reliably; but even the most experienced freelancer will inevitably find work drying up for (hopefully short) periods.

A recent (pre-COVID) study by UpWork, which surveyed more than 6,000 freelancers in the U.S., emphasizes what workers already know: Freelancing has become a long-term career choice for many. “Skilled services” such as programming, consulting, and IT made up 45 percent of freelancers.

Some 77 percent of UpWork’s respondents said that technology had made it easier for them to find work. But knowing how to write code or hunt down a bug wasn’t the only valued skill among freelancers: Some 78 percent of them said that “soft skills are at least equally as important as technical skills to succeed in their work.” (That seems like something that wouldn’t change, whether or not there’s a viral pandemic shifting the very nature of work.)

Combine that with 81 percent of respondents saying that they need additional training, specifically in networking and growing their career, and it’s clear that knowing how to interact with people in a business context is paramount for freelancers, despite all the jokes about how freelancing is a job you can do in isolation, from your couch, pants optional.

‘Office’ Soft Skills vs. ‘Freelancer’ Soft Skills

Deploying your “soft skills” (such as empathy and communication) in a freelancer context is obviously a little bit different than in an office environment (or a virtual office environment, at least for the time being). For starters, freelancing—particularly the remote variety, where you may never walk into any kind of office environment—doesn’t involve the same kinds of office politics that full-time employees face on a daily basis.

But just because many freelancers will never have to negotiate a company hierarchy in the same way as full-time employees doesn’t mean that some of the top soft skills tips won’t apply to both groups. Whether freelance or full-time, when applying for new jobs, it’s important to emphasize your use of teamwork and aptitude for collaboration, because even the most isolated, homebound freelancer will likely need to work with others at some point.

In a similar vein, freelancers must take pains to underscore their sterling communication and collaboration skills. Office workers are often given a bit of flexibility when it comes to responding to emails, delivering work product, and so on; if worst comes to worst, a manager or colleague can simply walk over to a worker’s desk for an answer or update.

But freelancers don’t have a desk twenty feet away from the person managing them, so the game is a little bit different. Simply put, many teams will freak right out if a freelancer doesn’t respond promptly to an email or phone call; there’s also the suspicion on the part of many managers that freelancers can’t collaborate with the same degree of closeness as full-time employees.

In light of that, it’s important for freelancers to collaborate tightly, “check in” often, and make sure that all communications are returned as quickly as possible. These kinds of soft skills are absolutely essential if you want the client to renew your freelancing contract for another term.

Observation and listening are also key for freelancers, especially since much of their communication with a client might be asynchronous and conducted by quick phone calls and one-line emails. When you’re far away from an office, it’s easy to lose sight of how you fit into a company’s strategic roadmap; it’s worth asking yourself (and your manager) periodically how your work fits into that broader context.

The further away you are from office politics and hierarchy, in other words, the more effort you should devote to getting to know the people you work with. Communicate frequently, empathize with their issues, and make sure to respond to feedback as quickly as possible. One of the keys to a successful freelancing career is a long-term relationship with your clients, and soft skills are perhaps the biggest part of that.

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Remote Workers

admin — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 02:38:43 +0000

Effective Time Management While Working Remotely During The COVID-19 Pandemic by: H.V. MacArthur

Time management is one of the most common issues in the way of productivity under normal circumstances. But we are operating in strange times. Working from home automatically comes with its own additional time management challenges under regular circumstances. But we are all dealing with time management on top of the undeniably chaotic events that are unfolding due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“An important distinction between working remotely in this circumstance and remote work in general is that our remote work today is happening on a platform in an extreme state of uncertainty and anxiety. Now is the time to have compassion with each other,“ recommends Matt Martin, cofounder and CEO of Clockwise. In our interview he shared insights on how workers are adjusting to working from home. Clockwise has optimized calendars for thousands of workers at hundreds of companies (from Lyft to Asana to Slack), giving Matt unique insights on how people are spending their work time – including how much time is wasted on low-value tasks and non-work related things like reading the news and social media.

Some tips he had for all of us to consider to set us up for success during this unique time include:

Embrace that meetings are increasing. Over the past few weeks, he and his company had a bird’s eye view into how many of us have shifted our time management while moving into a full, work from home operating model. Within the first week of ‘shelter in place’ Clockwise saw a 12% increase, 1.5 hours per person, in meetings in their clients compared to just a week before. Without the ability to have the organic conversations that in-person offices allow, virtual meetings, whether impromptu or scheduled, will be the lifeblood of how people engage with one another.

Pay attention to fragmented time. Fragmented time occurs due to the small pockets of 15 to 30-minute blocks of time that exist between scheduled meetings. These can work well as breathing space if planned for intentionally. But most of us are very passive with our calendars. Clockwise saw a 17% increase in the amount of fragmented time per person per week (blocks of time less than 2 hours) and a 1.27-hour (8%) decrease in the amount of focus time per person per week (blocks of time longer than 2 hours).

People tend to schedule us for meetings based on what works for them and the open space they spot in our calendars. But that may leave you very little time to actually get work done and the fragmented time ends up sucked up in busy but unproductive activities. It’s important that you get intentional about the ratio of fragmented to focused time you allow in your schedule.

Hone your boundary setting skills. This will have to be done both with your work team and your home team. If you are sharing a living space with roommates, spouses, children or just a gang of hyper dogs, you will need to get structured about space and work hours. On the work side, discuss with your manager and team members what hours should be focused time and what needs to be available for meetings and impromptu calls.

Proactively manage your calendar. Instead of leaving your calendar as a blank open slate for others to populate, set your time up to support getting work done. Every Friday, spend time plotting chunks of focused time in advance for you to meet the demands of the projects or responsibilities you’re managing for the next two weeks. Treat the time as a locked meeting the same way you would if you were meeting others. Don’t tag it as tentative. You can always change the meeting if priorities are pushing for that time but you want to stick to holding it for focused work as much as possible.

Don’t be part of the problem. Jason Fried, author of the book, “Rework,” and co-founder and president of 37 Signals says, “These two staples of work life – meetings and managers – are actually the greatest causes of work not getting done at the office.” Well now we’re not in the office but are we still contributing to holding unnecessary or meaningless meetings?

It’s tough to balance how much is too much when it comes to meetings when managers have to consider the need to connect with their teams for morale reasons, to gauge engagement and productivity and to simply keep their teams updated. The best solution is to come up with a short list of meeting rules of engagement that everyone abides by. Work with the team as a whole to determine the best frequency and purpose of meetings to set everyone up for success.

Manage your work from home guilt. The popular issue that circulates when the topic of working remotely gets brought up is how will managers ensure employees aren’t abusing the system. In reality, most employees end up working way more hours than they did in the office.

It’s easy for someone to get caught up working from morning till night when already at home. At least in the office, there’s the element of needing to go home to get some sleep. The other side is the concern that we don’t know how to show up in a way that keeps us visible to the powers to be. Our guilt can drive us to work longer hours in hopes to show our usefulness. But that’s a recipe for burnout. Be sure to lay out clear office hours with your manager. Work to have the focus be on results vs. visible time on the computer.

Prioritize energy management. Being sensitive to one another’s energy helps us all work more effectively. Pay attention to when you are the most productive and focused. It may be the first few hours in the morning, when you’re fresh from a night’s sleep. Or it may be towards the afternoon when you start to get a sense of what really needs to get done. Work to schedule your calendar to align with those energy windows. Discuss how to coordinate those energy windows with the energy windows of the others on your team.

Be sure to consider what your family or personal obligations are at this time. Discuss what you can with your manager and team so everyone is able to support one another’s energy ups and downs during this time.

Lead with compassion. If you’re a manager, it’s easy to get obsessed on whether people are taking advantage of this time at home or actually working. As mentioned earlier, these are strange and stressful times. Now is the time to extend compassion, assumption of good intent and a culture of support. “Your employees are your best asset—whether they’re coming to work every day, working remotely, or unable to do their jobs,” says Miri Rodriguez, author of, “Brand Storytelling.” “Companies need to create a trusted space to acknowledge how team members may be feeling anxious or down during these times.”

Everyone is tackling this time with more than just work concerns. How you respect people’s need for time and privacy can make a huge impact on how everyone comes through all this and operates together on the other side.

In the end, time is one of our most valuable, if not most valuable, resource. To allow these circumstances to cause us to waste time or spend it on things that don’t matter will only add to the stress all the recent changes we’ve been thrust into. Time management has become more than just a tool for productivity, it’s now a way to create more meaning, stability and empowerment through all the chaos of change each of us face.

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