Tag: Merchant Cash Advance CRM

Reasons Sales Do Not Use Their Easy to Use CRM (And Solutions)

No matter what industry they work in, sales people, do not use their easy to use CRM for the same reason everywhere. Therefore understanding this “why” is just one-step forward to choosing the right best small business CRM for your SMB. There are several examples of successful and unsuccessful CRM adoption in this world. The cold reality is that even the best small business CRM fails because adoptions of online lead management software like CRM technology can often be an uphill battle. Now the question remains, why would sales representatives want to go back to using pen and paper, sticky notes, and spreadsheets to build their customer relationships? According to Cloudswave’s research, by using an easy to use CRM lead to sales conversion rate improves more than 300 percent.

No matter what industry they work in, sales people, do not use their easy to use CRM for the same reason everywhere. Therefore understanding this “why” is just one-step forward to choosing the right best small business CRM for your SMB.

To Love or Hate an easy to use CRM software?

There are several examples of successful and unsuccessful CRM adoption in this world. The cold reality is that even the best small business CRM fails because adoptions of online lead management software like CRM technology can often be an uphill battle.

Using a CRM can lead to sales conversation rate improvements of over 300%- Cloudswave Click To Tweet

Now the question remains, why would sales representatives want to go back to using pen and paper, sticky notes, and spreadsheets to build their customer relationships?

According to Cloudswave’s research, by using an easy to use CRM lead to sales conversion rate improves more than 300 percent.
Even we did hear from one of our customers using our Merchant Cash Advance CRM software that by using our ConvergeHub MCA CRM the company increased its revenue by 152 percent. While it is not 300 percent, however, we think that is really impressive, as we known and the customer also agreed that after using our CRM software they are well on their way to increased success.

Here is a look at some of the most frequently found reasons we have heard from sales teams in different organizations regarding difficulties and problems in implementing CRM application and why they seek a new solution. `

#1. Salespeople do not want changes

One of the most common and familiar sales tools to the sales reps to track customer relationships is the spreadsheet. Now the question is if the sales teams have been so good at their work so far with spreadsheets, they might not just want to use some other customer relationship management software and fix their existing spreadsheet-based process unless they feel it is broken.

Solution

You must convince your sales teams that easy to use CRM data benefits not only them but also the entire organization, right from marketing to accounts and also support.

Illustrate to your sales reps that when they close a deal without understanding or showing the steps taken to reach the conversion it is a loss. Reiterate the fact that best CRM for small business brings value to that ‘win moment’ because the entire organization can perceive the value of the deal for future reference, which can help in gaining would-be sales.

#2. Salespeople do not perceive the value

 

Speaking about value, another pertinent reason sale does not use their CRM platform is because they think that the customer information database software or CRM was forced on them. This situation typically occurs when the owner or the manager tell their sales teams that they need to use a CRM without discussing or explaining them about the benefits of the software.

“What a waste of money!”, “What a waste of time!”, or “I can’t learn this!” are some of the first thoughts that sales reps have once they are not explained about the utility of the CRM software, which consequentially makes them perceive even an easy to use CRM as a threat rather than a useful tool.

Solution

This trepidation stems back to not involving the sales teams and understanding their needs during the buying process. In an ideal scenario, organizations should see an easy to use CRM that is capable of solving specific sales-related problems and highlight those features to their sales teams.

Explain to your sales managers how their sales reps can close more deals if they are using the right small business CRM.

Always make sure, that the final decision about buying your easy to use CRM software is a shared decision by your sales teams.

#3. CRM software is too complicated

Good sales reps want to spend their hours selling rather than learning how to use the software.

Therefore, adopting complex CRM software sets sales teams up for failure. Moreover, unwanted bells and whistles set by the CRM software worsen the problems.

Solution

Choose an easy to use CRM like ConvergeHub that is known for its ease of use. Purchase a CRM that does not have a long learning curve, which can take weeks to learn.

#4. The CRM is not aligned with our sales process

Another reason why sales teams do not use their CRM platform is that it is not aligned with their current sales process.

To overcome this issue, you should go back to make the sales reps understand the features of their easy to use CRM and how important those features are for the growth of your organization.

Many CRM platforms include features like depicting deal stages, sales pipeline management, workflows, and others, which are absolutely necessary for winning more prospective deals.

Nevertheless, as all businesses do not track sales, in the same way, therefore, when a CRM field does not fit a sales process that your sales reps are familiar with, they will stop inputting data, unless you further customize the software to fit their needs.

Solution

Purchase a CRM that can be easily customized. Every organization has a different sales process, therefore your best small business CRM’s pipeline stages should be customized to suit how your salesperson sells.

#5. No training or support

Regardless of which industry you work in, software takes time to learn. Moreover, some people are less tech-savvy than others.

In the CRM space, those sales reps that do not know how to use your CRM will simply not use it or end up inputting inaccurate data into the CRM database .

Solution

Proper training is most essential even if you are using an easy to use CRM platform. This training can include basic instructions about the software.

Choose a CRM company that offers free customer support when it is needed.

Remember, there are several CRM companies that only offer support as a paid add-on, which can really prove frustrating for your sales teams.

#6. CRM keeps them stuck at their desks

Sales reps naturally spend a lot of time out of their offices, meeting prospects and building relationships in the field. Therefore, mobile phones are a necessary tool for their meetings on the go.

Hence, if salespeople have to remain at their desk for inputting data inside the CRM database, they will for certain stop using the system.

Solution

Choose a CRM software that is mobile. If your sales reps can pull up conversation history, contact data, deal histories and more when they are out in the field (providing them with a big advantage over other salespeople who cannot) they will obviously like using your CRM.

Moreover, mobile easy to use CRM software empowers the sales teams to update their data right away rather than losing vital information after scribbling on their notebooks.

#7. No time is saved

In the sales world, it is natural that none likes to do data entry. Therefore, this is also yet another reason why salespeople do not use their CRM since they feel it is taking up too much of their precious time to learn and use the software.

Solution

Your chosen CRM should automate as many sales tasks as possible. Since a CRM that is incapable of doing that is not worth considering. 

#8. CRM has bad data

According to a survey done by Experian Data Quality, it was found that most companies lost 12 percent of their total revenue due to bad data.

Now if your new CRM consists of bad data like out-of-date information and duplicates records in the CRM database that none can trust to use, then your salespeople will end up doing the sales analysis on their own, which culminates in a waste of time.

Solution

To avoid the ever-true curse of bad data residing inside the CRM database, you should roll out your easy to use CRM implementation after cleaning the existing data and continue executing the data-cleaning procedure at regular intervals.

Conclusion

Therefore, the key to making your sales reps use your CRM software is in choosing the right easy to use CRM software that your sales teams will actually use.

Do you use a CRM?

If it is affirmative, let us know the incentive for using your CRM software, and if you are still not using an easy to use CRM use ConvergeHub free trail and find how convenient, your sales reps feel after using our best CRM for small business by clicking on the image below.

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9 Killer Outbound Marketing Tips To Drive Growth In Merchant Cash Advance Business In 2018

A merchant cash advance or MCA allows small business owners those who allow credit card payments to acquire an advance of the funds regularly flowing through the businesses’ merchant account. Hence, MCA is not a loan, but rather it is an advance based upon the future credit card sales of a business. An MCA provider weight credit criteria and evaluates risks differently than traditional bankers, as merchant cash advance providers examine the volume of daily credit card receipts to evaluate if the business can pay the MCA lender in a timely manner. However, whatever may be your business, even for Merchant Cash Advance organizations, outbound marketing is still a doable option for moving leads through their sales funnel.

What is Merchant Cash Advance?

A merchant cash advance or MCA allows small business owners those who accept credit card payments to acquire an advance of the funds regularly flowing through the businesses’ merchant account. Hence, MCA is not a loan, but rather it is an advance based upon the future credit card sales of a business.

An MCA provider weigh credit criteria and evaluates risks differently than traditional bankers, as merchant cash advance providers examine the volume of daily credit card receipts to evaluate if the business can pay the MCA lender in a timely manner.

Merchant cash advance companies are less concerned with FICO scores and more concerned with signing businesses up that have a steady supply of paying customers.- GSFunding Click To Tweet

Since in MCA the small business is selling a portion of its future credit card sales to acquire a capital, businesses opting for MCA get the required advance deposited into their accounts quickly.

Why use Outbound Marketing?

However, whatever may be your business, even for Merchant Cash Advance organizations, outbound marketing is still a doable option for moving leads through their sales funnel.

Although there has been a lot of clamor about inbound marketing in the recent times, however, it also has its drawbacks. For example, inbound marketing may generate demand for your content rather than your services. Hence, it is best used in combination with outbound marketing, in order to convert more leads into customers.

Here are nine highly useful outbound marketing tips to help users of merchant cash advance CRM to close more deals.

#01. Social media advertising

Every MCA business using merchant cash advance software is also much familiar with social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Therefore, with so many people on social media platforms these days, it is hard to go wrong leveraging social media advertising, when it is anticipated that the social media reach is expected to grow to 3.02 billion by 2021.

Advertising on different social media channels comes at varying costs. Nevertheless, Facebook is usually the cheapest, and Twitter is likely to be the most expensive.

Hence, do your research before deciding upon which channel is best or your MCA audience, before pushing your ads out into the digital world.

#02. Boost successful social media posts

Boosting a social media post is a little different from just posting your ad.

You can boost your existing posts by paying a little extra to extend its reach and put your post in front of more people.

The best time to boost your post is when you find any particular post doing well (having lots of shares and likes), as boosting popular posts is likely to skyrocket its engagement and thereby increase your social returns on your investments.

#03. Pay-per-click advertising

PPC or Pay-per-click advertising is creating an ad for your MCA firm with an image that is linked to a particular landing page on your website.

It is fairly easy to setup and runs PPC ad campaigns. You only pay Google once someone clicks on your ad, and so if your ad is not successful, you do not end up paying for the flop.

#04. Cold calling

Cold calling is still a necessary and viable part of any outbound marketing strategy. Especially if you are using a merchant cash advance CRM that can be integrated with call management software like Ring Central and others.

Even though many people will certainly hang up or say that they are not interested in your MCA business, a certain percentage of those you call will actually be interested in opting for a cash advance for their small businesses and become your leads.

Moreover, integrating advanced call management software with your MCA CRM lets you make more calls in much lesser time than it was possible before. Therefore, advanced telephony software used in combination with merchant cash advance CRM can turn your sales and marketing team into a lean, mean, calling machine.

#05. Email newsletters

If you are using a cash advance CRM, email newsletters are an excellent way to get the word out about your new and existing products and service offerings to new leads. You can leverage marketing automation solutions found in ConvergeHub merchant cash advance CRM to create professional-looking email newsletter in a matter of minutes.

Always select or design email templates that fit your brand’s personality, after which with your CRM software’s email marketing capabilities, you can send it to your entire list of leads in no time.

#06. Print and radio ads

You may think that these marketing strategies are dead, now that we have ventured into the age of digital marketing. Nevertheless, radio ads and print advertisements can be even very successful for cash advance business, especially for smaller firms with a local presence.

Therefore, when you are developing your outbound marketing strategies, do not forget to consider these types of ads and target small brick and mortar business establishments in your community.

#07. Video Ads

Video ads are no exception, as they are also one of the most engaging forms of marketing contents. Channels like YouTube and Vimeo lets you easily upload your video clippings and even determine your targeted audience. Moreover, like PPC advertising, you can also run Pay-per-click video ads of your cash advance business, and when someone shows interest in your ads that makes it another cost-effective solution for outbound marketing.

#08. Tradeshows and other industry events

The oldie but still a goodie, tradeshows are still there, so why not sponsor one and show up with your best sales reps, highest-quality marketing materials, and most experienced product experts. Tradeshows are one of the best ways to land and shine in front of your leads. It also helps to how superior or at par, your business establishment is compared to other cash advance companies.

If you are using a mobile cash advance CRM software, you can easily enter the information of your new leads instantly to your CRM database, without even bringing the lead-sheet back to your office.

#09. Email blasts with one-time discounts or offers

Good old email blasts still work. Despite the onslaught of social media email use is still on a rise. Therefore, if you are using a merchant cash advance CRM for managing your cash advance business with the right email marketing capabilities like ConvergeHub, which aids in creating emails quickly. Use your CRM’s marketing automation capabilities and send email blasts to new leads with one-time discounts or offers.
People love free stuff.

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Conclusion

Although inbound marketing has been seriously on the surge in the last few years, when it is used in unison with outbound marketing tactics, they can form the perfect marketing storm to help you generate more leads.

Additionally, as inbound marketing cannot convert leads on its own, therefore, when it is complemented by outbound marketing strategies using merchant cash advance software it will certainly aid you in closing more deals.

5 Time-Saving Ways To Use Your Easy To Use CRM For So Much More Than Just Sales

Your easy to use CRM can do tasks greater than just monitoring and managing sales. For most, typically you would use your easy to use CRM tool to manage your sales activities. Nevertheless, you should not just think of your small and medium business CRM as a tool designed for daily monitoring of your prospects and leads. There are so many ways you can use your best small and medium business CRM software! Therefore, whether you are looking for competition tracking, accounting and bookkeeping, HR support, or even any task as uncomplicated as making a content calendar- a proper CRM system can carry out all these jobs for you and more.

Your easy to use CRM can do tasks greater than just monitoring and managing sales.

For most, typically you would use your easy to use CRM tool to manage your sales activities. Nevertheless, you should not just think of your small and medium business CRM as a tool designed for daily monitoring of your prospects and leads.

CRM applications can help increase sales by up to 29%, sales productivity by up to 34% and sales forecast accuracy by 42%.- Nucleus Research Click To Tweet

There are so many ways you can use your best small and medium business CRM software!

Therefore, whether you are looking for competition tracking, accounting and bookkeeping, HR support, or even any task as uncomplicated as making a content calendar- a proper CRM system can carry out all these jobs for you and more.

Here are 5 other ways to use your CRM system to help you automate time-taking manual works.

#1. Integrate Email Marketing Processes

Any monotonous email marketing task can be automated and enhanced with the help of CRM platform. You can use an easy to use CRM like ConvergeHub to gauge the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Here is a snapshot of what you can do:

  • Fully sync your inbox to any major email provider
  • Send emails to your contacts directly from ConvergeHub, which will then be synced back to your inbox
  • Use customizable templates to save work time preparing recurring communications
  • Look at a specific deal or contact and see all emails associated with that deal or person at-a-glance

#2. Account Management

 

There are many who think that they can only track their primary preliminary sales in the CRM, but you can also use your small and medium business CRM software to up-sell or create stronger relationships with your customers over time.

Remember your job is not done once you make a sale or sign a deal. Churn is the enemy of sustainable growth in any organization. Therefore, you must use your CRM software to handle the customer’s complete buyer journey, to aid you in growing higher revenue per customer and keep up that ever-necessary average-lifetime-value of your purchasers over time.

#3. Accounting and Bookkeeping

By integrating QuickBooks Online with your best small and medium business CRM software you can use your CRM for allowing your employees to create new transactions (such as sales orders, estimates, invoices, and payments) in your CRM- without requiring direct access to an accounting software like QuickBooks.

QuickBooks CRM like ConvergeHub helps you to find a measurable increase in convenience, efficiency, and productivity, whereby users can view any customer payment status and history within the CRM platform.

Moreover, by creating QuickBooks CRM integration free with your CRM software you can get rid of dual data entry by linking payments, invoices, and estimates to opportunities, customer contacts, or projects.

#4. Deal and Commission Tracking

If you are using Merchant Cash Advance CRM software, which is customized for Alternative Funding industry, you can track deals from leads to underwriting, through collection. Support refinancing of existing funded deals and syndication of deals with individual investors and other funders.

Additionally, you can also administer commission payout to brokers and other funding companies. Easily compare scheduled amounts to settled amounts both within your organization and with external sources.

#5. Create and Store Files

Many CRM systems like ConvergeHub and others can create, organize, and store files for things like applications, contacts, briefs, and more.

Once these documentations are in your easy to use CRM, you can easily categorize and thereafter use them to suit your marketing, sales, and support processes. Storing files in the CRM help find any of the documents quickly without trawling through your computer or depending on your email service provider’s basic filing system.

Conclusion

This entire article is dedicated to helping you learn how you can make your easy to use CRM software your new virtual assistant since there are plenty of practical ideas to inspire you to use your customer relationship management software in more innovative ways.

Per say any business procedure that needs a well-thought-out series of actions, and steps can be managed and automated with ConvergeHub CRM.

Therefore, whatever be your business necessities, CRM is a tool that will be able to help you in making all areas of your business operations more proficient.

Just remember, your best small and medium business CRM software is not only for sales, but almost every department in your company can benefit from it.

However, the question is- are you making the most out of your best small business CRM?

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7 Factors To Evaluate Merchant Cash Advance CRM For Financial Services

If you are in financial business, before making a decision as to which Merchant Cash Advance CRM software to go with, you need to consider a few factors that include: 360-degree view of the customer, Intelligent cross-selling/marketing campaigns, Tracking buying behavior, Auto alerts and reminders, Collaboration capabilities, Size and scope of your business, Integration with other systems.

If you are in financial business, before making a decision as to which Merchant Cash Advance CRM software to go with, you need to consider a few factors that include:

  1. 360-degree view of the customer
  2. Intelligent cross-selling/marketing campaigns
  3. Tracking buying behavior
  4. Auto alerts and reminders
  5. Collaboration capabilities
  6. Size and scope of your business
  7. Integration with other systems
There is currently $80 to $120 billion dollars worth of unmet funding needs among SMB, and MCA companies are in the best position to meet this demand.- Oguz Konar Click To Tweet

360 Degree View of the Customer

One of the primary factors to look at while adopting a customer relationship management software for cash advance business is what type of information the Merchant Cash Advance software can collect and display for each of your customers and if it is easily available around the clock. Moreover, you also need to find if the CRM solution can display a holistic view of the customer to all the stakeholders in your company, which can assure quick response in crucial circumstances.
When working for a cash advance industry in the financial sector, businesses need to collect a large amount of information of their customers for compliance and for serving the customers better in the longer run. So apart from tracking basic information such as name, address, and phone numbers, in alternative funding industry, you need to track other vital information and analytics, if you want to provide better service to your customers. For example, in cash advance business, you have to keep track of conversations you had with your customers about specific investments, their risk appetite, and goals. Storing this information in your Merchant Cash Advance CRM software allows alternative funding businesses to readily refer to these data before offering any advice and therefore helps in cross selling its products to its customer base.

Intelligent Cross Selling/Marketing Campaigns

Most of the easy to use CRM software allows the users to send customized marketing messages to their customers on the information collected and analyzed by the CRM platform. For example, if you are promoting cash advance, you can also scan through customers who are interested in mutual funds and bonds or looking for other investment opportunities, based on the discussion you had with them in the past.
At this point, Merchant Cash Advance CRM software can send out customized emails to each of your customers in the CRM database with pertinent verbiage using customized templates prebuilt in the software.
You can also send monthly newsletter related to various investment scenario and other key financial trends to any specific mailing list, using a mail-blaster from within the CRM.

Tracking Buying Behavior

Another functionality that you may want to look for in your MCA CRM solution for finance businesses, is the ability of the Merchant Cash Advance CRM software to track customer decisions and activities. For example, like most cash advance firms if your company is also selling small business loans and investment products to your customers, you need to keep track of what products or which loan each customer prefers and purchases from your financing organization. By tracking this data, you can create a profile for each customer and ascertain what type of investment or loan he or she likes. This way, when you have a new product available in your portfolio, you can easily select the list of customers that may be interested to purchase your new offerings. Tracking the customer’s past purchase decisions will provide you with an idea of how much they might be willing to invest in the future and the most appropriate product that you can offer to them, which might pique their interest.

Auto Alerts and Reminders

When choosing a Merchant Cash Advance CRM for your alternative funding industry business, you also need to find an easy to use CRM software that generates reminders on the basis of configurable settings. Like any other business, one of the most vital factors of being successful in the financial service industry is to develop relationships with your customers. Most Merchant Cash Advance CRM software like ConvergeHub and others nowadays incorporates exiting social networking features to help view comments, profile information, and mutual friends. It reminds you of important dates in your customer’s lives such as his or her birthday, anniversaries, and other, which can go a long way in helping you to grow your relationships. By using automation functionalities in the CRM, you can even program the software to automate mailing services to send birthday cards and other greetings to your customers.

Apart from this, you may approach a customer about a particular product that you want to sell and the customer tells you to check back after a fortnight. If you are using CRM software, you can easily input this data into the CRM program and set a reminder for the appropriate data and time, whereby you can get an alert a few hours before the scheduled task. Therefore equipped with all up-to-date information you can now call on the prospect, which increases your chances of winning the sale.

Collaboration between All Stakeholders

Depending on the size of your cash advance business, you may need to be able to collaborate with multiple partners, departments, and customers. If your MCA CRM solution offers the ability to allow multiple users to input and access information, this will not only boost synergy in your business but even help to serve your customers in an effective and efficient manner.

Ideal Business Size

Your business size also plays an impact on the type of Merchant Cash Advance CRM software you should implement. While in large alternative funding company, where scalability, integration, and processes are more demanding and complex than small and medium-sized businesses you may require on-premise CRM.
However, for small and medium cash advance firms, cloud-based CRM like ConvergeHub is more popular and effective as it considerably reduces cost and implementation time of the software.

Integration with Other Systems

Last but not the least, before choosing a Merchant Cash Advance CRM software, you must find out whether it integrates with other programs that you are currently using to store important customer and product related information.

For example, if your MCA CRM allows you to integrate with Google Calendar, Gmail, MS Outlook, DocuSign, QuickBooks, Box, Zapier, and other third-party software seamlessly it will help you to integrate your billing, call management, e-signature solution, and others, for a complete customer data and smarter selling.

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Takeaway

Therefore, in a gist CRM software, not only has the potential to improve user experience by making the marketing and sales processes easier and effective, but CLM CRM also helps in Customer Lifecycle Management to keep your customers coming back for more.

Missing Important Goals with your QuickBooks CRM for sales teams? Here Are the Sales Objectives You Need to Track

Building the perfect sales team is always the first priority and the highest challenge for any organization. Since, tracking your leads, customers, and prospects using the best QuickBooks CRM for sales teams, and measuring your sales metrics are close to redundant, if you do not have the right salespeople who are capable of using your sales process. The best sales managers in all organizations across the globe always understand the human inside the sales reps and trust in the spectrum of emotions involved in the day-to-day roles acted by their salespeople in the team.

Building the perfect sales team is always the first priority and the highest challenge for any organization. Since, tracking your leads, customers, and prospects using the best QuickBooks CRM for sales teams, and measuring your sales metrics are close to redundant, if you do not have the right salespeople who are capable of using your sales process.

The best sales managers in all organizations across the globe always understand the human inside the sales reps and trust in the spectrum of emotions involved in the day-to-day roles acted by their salespeople in the team.

Integrating QuickBooks and CRM helps your business deliver a better customer experience. Click To Tweet

We all know, each stage of the sales process comes with its own distinct challenges and anxieties that sales managers must factor in while making decisions around the sales metrics, which you want to track.

Therefore, even after using the best QuickBooks CRM making sure that you pick the right people for your business, which is of utmost importance. For, it is the personality, ability, and determinations of your employees, which are the most crucial factors that will directly determine the growth and success of your business.

Once you have the right salespeople in place and you are using the best CRM software for QuickBooks, it is up to the management to create the right environment for the people to thrive with the flexibility, opportunity, and support to perform what they do best.

In other words, the clarity around your employee’s performance, your expectations, and motivation are the main parameters that will deliver the arena your team needs to make the most out of their professional skills.

Simplifying your sales tracking and structure

You can never get the optimal performance out of your salespeople even if you are using the best small business CRM software if you are too bogged down with useless tracking.

According to a user of our Merchant Cash Advance CRM, stripping things down and getting back to the basics will always help you to create a simple sales process that aids your sales team focus on their primary objectives. This simplicity in the sales process should also combine with a powerful corporate ethos that you must communicate constantly. Therefore, keep reminding yours sales team to focus primarily on selling and make them find the assurance in your words that it is your task as an employee or a manager to make sure that the rest is taken care of.

However, it does not mean that you should neglect and ignore the CRM data you receive from your QuickBooks CRM or Merchant Cash Advance CRM software.

What is really implies, is that you need to expend your efforts focusing on what can really make a difference for your sales team and thereafter filter all the most important and actionable insights from your CRM software that integrates with QuickBooks.

Rather you need to refine your tracking and focus on a few (or just one) key metrics from your CRM data, at each stage of your sales process.

This will help your salespeople using your small business CRM from clogging their work with reporting and other administrative tasks.

Focus on the “Indicator” rather than the result

Once you are a user of QuickBooks CRM or a Merchant Cash Advance CRM software, you just cannot escape talking about KPIs, however, we too often ignore the real meaning of KPI- that it should not be viewed simply as a result.

KPIs are indicators of performances. Elements that should be taken into consideration to find a better understanding of how certain results are being achieved and how things can improve in the future to grow your business.

According to some of the veteran sales managers those who use our Merchant Cash Advance CRM, to them, they found that salespersons too often get obsessed with the result, rather than focusing on getting their process right.

Here is one of the most commonly used CRM metric in sales:

Wins

When we talk about wins, we specifically talk about closed deals against a monthly or quarterly quota.

Clearly wins in sales helps you to know how your team is performing in a broader sense, but nevertheless, this metric in your QuickBooks CRM or any other small business CRM software provides very little insights into the “Why”.

Wins are an outcome and not an indicator, for they can never tell what your sales reps can do differently or how you can optimize your sales process to achieve better results.

Therefore, knowing the number of wins is just a CRM data without any insights, since knowing the results does not help you drive more sales.

Sales metrics that you should focus on:

Therefore, these are certain sales metrics that you should be spending your time, which can measure what develops the action at each stage of the sales process, as opposed to simply focusing on the results.

  • The total quantity of deals in your sales funnel
  • The average size of the deal in your pipeline
  • Close ratio (Average percentage of the deals closed)
  • Sales velocity (Average time taken to close a deal)

Sales reporting of any small business CRM software provide a detailed look at every stage of your sales pipeline. As each of this reporting is generated automatically in the QuickBooks CRM, it becomes easy to visualize your sales process and pinpoint the areas, which requires immediate improvement.

Most best small business CRM like ConvergeHub QuickBooks CRM and MCA CRM software, allows visual display to view the above metrics that helps in simplifying the sales process, enabling you to proactively measure the performance of your sales team and make necessary changes as and when it is needed according to the nature of your business.

More specifically, you can evaluate the following sales metrics of your sales team:

  • Sales Pipeline Coverage
  • Opportunity Win Rate by individual sales reps
  • Historical Sales Cycle Velocity

What is Opportunity Win Rate?

Opportunity Win Rate details the percentage of the closed deals that were won.

Simply speaking, if you can increase this metric, you will be able to bring in more revenue for your business.

With this metric, you can:

  • Measure the impact of new business development initiatives
  • Look into sales strategies that you have implemented across customer segments
  • Compare the performance of different sales reps in your sales team

Most importantly, if you look at the different stages of your sales funnel and analyze where the opportunities are being lost for your sales reps individually, using a QuickBooks CRM software you can recommend training plans for them to improve their skills in certain areas, which include:

  • Rapport building
  • Improving product knowledge
  • Improving demo skills
  • Improving negotiation and closing skills

By deconstructing the sales funnel and having the CRM data in your hand, you can work with your sales reps on a personal level, to build their confidence and skills in their weakest areas of performance.

Remember to always think in this logical path:

  • Data
  • Analysis
  • Action

Working with your sales team using a QuickBooks CRM in this manner is more pertinent, pragmatic, and useful than merely tracking the number of dials, measuring talk times, or demos scheduled, and then asking your sales team to “do more”.

What is Sales Cycle Velocity?

Sales Cycle Velocity is the average time taken by your sales to win any deal. You can also measure the average time taken by your sales reps for individual stages in the sales process, which is termed as “duration in stage”.

Looking into the average historical sales cycle can help you to build a picture of the likelihood of closing your current deals and understand likely buyers and at-risk opportunities.

This metric can help your sales reps to understand which deals need their time and efforts.

Using this CRM data you can also create a weighted sales pipeline when forecasting (opportunities with higher likelihood are assigned more value), enabling you to forecast your sales results more accurately.

Simplify your metrics to help your team focus on selling

Now using the metrics of a QuickBooks CRM, since you are aware where your team is, you can evaluate each stage of the sales pipeline, forecast more accurately, and coach your sales reps individually in specific areas where they are weak.

Therefore, use your Merchant Cash Advance CRM or QuickBooks CRM to assign just one key metric to measure the performance at every stage of the sales process and start un-complicating your sales metrics so that your team focus on one primary thing that matters for any sales managers and representatives- Selling.

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Why Use Merchant Cash Advance CRM For Your MCA Business?

What sets Merchant Cash Advance CRM apart are those functionalities that cater to MCA industry for meeting with their unique purposes. MCA CRM is designed to help Cash Advance businesses run their front-end operations and at the same time improve their customer lifecycle management for retention of the clients by providing unsurpassable services. Apart from this Merchant Cash Advance CRM also enables the lenders to keep detailed client data and maintain timely customer follow up with loan pipeline management to stay in control of the business.
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Merchant Cash Advance CRM like all other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has the same basic functions, which includes:

  • Automation
  • Client Data Collection
  • Analytics
  • Marketing

However, what set Merchant Cash Advance CRM apart are those functionalities that cater to MCA industry for meeting with their unique purposes.  MCA CRM is designed to help Cash Advance businesses run their front-end operations and at the same time improve their customer lifecycle management for retention of the clients by providing unsurpassable services.

CRM gives businesses a 65% boost in sales quotas- Innopple Technologies Click To Tweet

Apart from this Merchant Cash Advance CRM also enables the lenders to keep detailed client data and maintain timely customer follow up with loan pipeline management to stay in control of the business.

Comparing Merchant Cash Advances to Traditional Business Lending

MCA or Merchant Cash Advance are gradually becoming more mainstream as several small and medium businesses that are not being able to secure a bank loan are turning to alternative funding sources. This is because; a merchant cash advance can be availed by a business quickly and that too with minimal paperworks. Hence, as banks continue to be very tight with their loans; merchant cash advance is becoming extremely appealing to small business owners over time.

How MCA works?

To illustrate in layman’s terms, Merchant Cash Advance, or an MCA provides purchases a pre-defined amount of a business’s future credit card receivables in one lump sum in return for the receivables, which is paid back to the lending organization over a certain period of time, which is usually calculated as a daily percentage of the customer’s debit/credit card totals. This is the key benefit that distinguishes MCA from conventional loans.

In other words, Merchant Cash Advance is not loaning a business any money, rather it is a simple process of buying a portion of the customer’s future business revenue.

Advantages of MCA Borrowings Over Bank Loans

The primary advantage of MCA over bank loans is that Merchant Cash Advance, in general, does not require any collateral, and liens (although this is always subjected to certain conditions). Apart from this, the other ranges of benefits that small businesses receive from choosing this kind of funding are:

  • No rigid monthly payments
  • No upfront fees
  • No UCC-1 (Uniform Commercial Code-1) at the time of funding
  • No collaterals (subjected to certain conditions)
  • No limits on how you spend the fund
  • Minimal approval time for disbursement of the fund

Therefore, the greatest advantage of MCA is that the amount, which the business pays, is based on the sum total of the credit card transactions that the borrower receives every day. As there are no set fees that must be paid every month, so small businesses taking merchant cash advance still have an access to a greater portion of their own revenues. This implies, if your sale drops for a specific month, your MCA payment will also become low to reflect that change.

Why use a Merchant Cash Advance CRM?

While all CRM may work for any business, Merchant Cash Advance CRM is specially designed for MCA businesses, as it not only helps in easy collaboration with the funders but it also helps MCA business in the following ways, which include:

  • Find a central repository for merchant contact information, related documents and underwriting information
  • Escalate the power of communication by integrated with DocuSign, Email, and Fax application templates for merchants and funders
  • Track deals from underwriting to funded stages
  • Syndicate and track approval numbers, management fees and commissions
  • Increase agent’s productivity by using quick lead capture form, easy edits, 360-degree merchant profile view and one-click deal conversion
  • Multiple fund submission and tracking

Takeaway

Therefore as a small business owner, if you find that you have the opportunity of expanding your business, but you do not have the time for traditional funding to come through, it is the perfect time to consider Merchant Cash Advance to get the finance you need, especially just when you need them.

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Choosing an MCA CRM? Avoid these mistakes!

Let us face the reality; you do not want to make the mistake of picking up the wrong MCA CRM just like others. MCA CRM software can save a lot of your precious work hours, but then again, it comes at the price of a learning curve. A learning curve that can make you shell out a lot of money, in case you have to change the MCA CRM platform down the line. For the convenience of such buyers of MCA Customer Relationship Management platform, we have put together a few ideas to mull over when choosing a CRM. Let us review them one by one now and we are hopeful that these suggestions will help.

Let us face the reality; you do not want to make the mistake of picking up the wrong MCA CRM just like others.
MCA CRM software can save a lot of your precious work hours, but then again, it comes at the price of a learning curve. A learning curve that can make you shell out a lot of money, in case you have to change the MCA CRM platform down the line.

For the convenience of such buyers of MCA Customer Relationship Management platform, we have put together a few ideas to mull over when choosing a CRM.

There is currently $80 to $120 billion dollars worth of unmet funding needs among SMEs, and MCA companies are in the best position to meet this demand. Click To Tweet

Let us review them one by one now and we are hopeful that these suggestions will help.

Not finding whether or not you are looking for a specific solution

A specific or a niche solution may be perfect for your business if you are wishing to use the CRM solution at its optimal level. Now, if you are just utilizing your CRM platform for basic data input, you will definitely not benefit from such a high-powered customer relationship solution with myriad bells and whistles. However, if you are using the CRM solution to track multiple areas unique to your kind of business, such as retail, MCA, legal and others, you should consider using the appropriate niche CRM solution that fits with your business’s modus operandi.

Not understanding the needs of all the users

Once you purchase a CRM platform, it is most likely that you are not going to be the only one who will use the CRM system. Therefore, before buying a CRM, you will have to take time out to consider the needs of the other users who will use the CRM along with you in your company. Never run into a risk of fully investing in a particular software solution that will only reward you and your executives, but your evaluation of the CRM platform should take into consideration the cross-section of all the users who will collaborate with the software.

Picking the solution that will not address the problem

This statement may seem clichéd and obvious, yet it is one of those critical issues that are mostly overlooked. For example, let us take that the most pressing issue for your urgency in buying a CRM is to facilitate communication with your customers. Therefore, communication should be the make or break feature for purchasing your CRM system. Therefore, do not get caught up with other fancier aspects of the CRM software if you find your desired CRM lacks the ideal communication features while purchasing the CRM.

Always keep in your mind that the software solution that you select for your business must be accurate and effective in addressing your problems. However, we have seen that it is not uncommon for companies to select CRM solutions that do not necessarily address their pressing issues. Hence, the primary problem the software solution is expected to resolve should always be there at the top of your checklist before buying your Merchant Cash Advance CRM.

Opting for a CRM that does not save time

In any sort of businesses, most companies can very quickly identify at least two time-taking business processes when it comes to managing their customer relationships. Therefore, before finalizing carefully map these burdensome processes and match the ideal CRM solution that is capable of streamlining these cumbersome issues. Remember, you selected CRM must always save your business resources and time to justify its ROI to the company.

Not being thoughtful about ongoing IT needs and anticipated resources

There can be several scenarios and you can be a part of any one or more of these issues. Like, you can have access to manage an in-house team of IT professionals or you may have limited access to reliable professionals and resources that can solve your IT problems as they arise, or you may even have access to IT resources but they do not align with the particular needs for a given CRM solution. Therefore, when selecting your CRM system, always take into account the potential support requirements of the skillsets that you require from your technical team before purchasing the CRM software.

Not testing the software

Last but not the least, the most common mistake that businesses make while opting for a CRM system is to make a selection even before scheduling a demo of the software. Ideally, you should consider evaluating several CRM solutions simultaneously before selecting your preferred CRM software. Most CRM brands offer a walkthrough or a free trial to their prospects.

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Conclusion

Remove guesswork before selecting your CRM. We are confident that if you are capable of avoiding these common pitfalls in choosing your CRM, this article will help you to find the right CRM solution for your Merchant Cash Advance businesses.

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Tip and Tricks for Users of Merchant Cash Advance CRM

If you are using MCA (Merchant Cash Advance) CRM to help you run your business lending company, you should definitely be aware of the best practices of using MCA CRM for getting the most out of your customer relationship management platform. Knowing the best practices that you should follow while using MCA CRM is most necessary, as, at the end of the day, you must have invested a lot on the CRM system and also have spent a considerable amount of time in it. The primary benefit of using a Merchant Cash Advance CRM is- Workflow, which is the foundation stone of any CRM platform regardless of its use in any kind of businesses.

If you are using Merchant Cash Advance CRM to help you run your business lending company, you should definitely be aware of the best practices of using MCA CRM for getting the most out of your customer relationship management platform. Knowing the best practices that you should follow while using MCA CRM is most necessary, as, at the end of the day, you must have invested a lot on the CRM system and also have spent a considerable amount of time in it. However, if you are still sitting on the fence and not using a CRM for the day-to-day operations of your lending business firm, then we can easily cite an example to let you understand your lacuna, whereby not using a CRM in Merchant Cash Advance institution is like a professional racing car driver not using a sports car.

There is currently $80 to $120 billion dollars worth of unmet funding needs among SMB, and MCA companies are in the best position to meet this demand.- Oguz Konar Click To Tweet

Nevertheless, if you are one who still does not use a dedicated MCA CRM, here are a couple of key points you must know if you want to get right from the beginning.
The primary benefit of using a Merchant Cash Advance CRM is- Workflow, which is the foundation stone of any CRM platform regardless of its use in any kind of businesses.

We are aware that with most of us, the very first thing that comes to our minds when we hear about workflow is that it sounds like a lot of work. For creating, a workflow involves going through the entire business process, documenting all activities that everyone does, registering how the files pass from one department to another and many more. We know to run a business we absolutely need to do these tasks, but for MCA CRM workflow, these are not what we ask for, rather you should ask yourself the following questions:

  • What statuses or stages do your customer’s applications fall into throughout their life cycle to get a customer-funded?
  • There are several common mistakes, which most customers make, can you avoid them by using your MCA CRM and generate more productivity?
  • Can Merchant Cash Advance CRM help to create a higher retention rate for your employees, as it can help create higher conversion rates when it comes to their marketing efforts?

Stages and Statuses are not Tasks

We have often seen many business lending organizations creates tasks instead of creating stages and statuses in their CRM workflow. However, it is extremely important to understand that stages and statuses are not the same things. For example, tasks can be created in most of the CRM systems to remind sales reps to perform their day-to-day duties. However, instead of writing “Application Out” or “Contact Sent” with MCA business if your status reflects “Merchant Reviewing Application” or for a file sent to the funder for review and underwriting falls under the status “Funder Reviewing File” it will be more productive for MCA CRM business.

Therefore, instead of just implementing workflow process that expresses tasks create a workflow that shows stages and statuses, for which your team will thank you down the road.

Keep it Simple

We have seen several customers who have created such complex workflows that it would require probably a Ph.D. in Statistics to understand. For this, we want you to remember that more complex is the workflow, the more difficult you are making it for your team and yourself to accomplish or supervise the job. An ideal workflow should always be created in such a manner, that even a new recruit in your company could look at it and understand what it means or what its purpose is.

Hence, it is best to consolidate status and stages to fill the gaps with the task. For example, MCR CRM users often create statuses like “Collect Tax Returns”, “Collect Bank Statement”, “Collect Driving License” and others, all of which can be consolidated into a single status “In Document Collection”, which is not only simple but also very easy to understand.

We must always remember Einstein’s great quote in this respect:
“Anyone can make something complicated.  It takes a genius to make it simple.”

Automated Triggers and Drip Email Marketing

We know your primary thought on this matter would be “what do drip email marketing and automated triggering have to do with workflow?” Well, to be blunt and truthful, it has everything to do with it. For any CRM platform workflow is the cornerstone to almost that goes out to your staffs or to the customers in an automated way. For example, once a status changes for a customer, with  Merchant Cash Advance CRM platform, like ConvergeHub, you can easily create an automation whereby an email can go to the customers from their assigned reps so that it looks like it is a personal email. Moreover, if a customer remains constant in a certain status for a specific period of time an automated email can to go the sales rep based on the time to make him or her attentive and look into the cause of that sudden delay.

The best part about using an automated system with nicely created workflow is that the CRM platform will perform on behalf of the sales reps and the company. Remember, using workflow management notifying both your customers and staffs can only help in your efforts to grow your business in the longer run.

Task Management

Keeping your office staffs on task every single day is truly the name of the game. Since the more tasks, your staffs complete successfully the more revenue everyone makes in your Merchant Cash Advance agency. Much like creating triggers and drip email marketing, task management also helps in creating a good and solid workflow. For example, if the status for a customer in your Merchant Cash Advance CRM changes to “In Doc Collection” a series of tasks can be automatically created like, “Collect Tax Returns”, “Collect Voided Check”, “Collect Bank Statement”, “Collect Driving License” and so on.

Conclusion

Therefore, in gist, if you truly want your MCA business to grow, by remaining on top when it comes to efficiency and productivity, a well thought out workflow will help you to generate more revenue and close more deals by using a Merchant Cash Advance CRM system.

According to one of our notable MCA agency customers of ConvergeHub Merchant Cash Advance CRM, Rob Abramov of Flowrich Capital quotes on us:

“Whether you are a one-man operation or a 100 person army. ConvergeHub allows you to keep your business organized, maintain customer data efficiently, and automate the entire process from beginning to end.”

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