6 Essential Productivity Hacks for Every Small Business Owner

After I had my own home based business, small tasks like searching up email exchanges with prospects or answering customer queries would occupy the majority of my day. At that time, I wondered ways to get these tiresome tasks taken care of to pay attention to business priorities.

In my business, adopting technology to automate busy work was the answer, also it didn’t just finish up being convenient - it had been necessary.

With technology like Salesforce Essentials, our crm (CRM) system designed for businesses, you are able to turn tiresome tasks into only a couple of clicks. Listed here are six productivity hacks that will help you find more prospects, earn more business, and your clients happy.

1. Cut back amount of time in your email inbox

The length of time would you spend inside your inbox? Studies have shown that the person with average skills spends 11 hrs per week on email. That’s considerable time, and it is simple to forget what’s important.

Being overwhelmed with email isn’t unusual, especially as a small company owner who assumes multiple roles, for example managing deals, handling customer queries, and collaborating with colleagues.

If you want to cut back amount of time in your email inbox, try Einstein Activity Capture in Essentials. It instantly populates your CRM records like leads, accounts, contacts, and possibilities with email exchanges and calendar records between you, your clients or prospects, as well as your team people who also employ Salesforce. Leave behind digging around your inbox!

2. Schedule conferences with zero back-and-forth

With Salesforce Inbox, that is incorporated in Essentials free of charge, you will not have to spend some time going backwards and forwards with prospects and people to schedule conferences. Rather, Inbox enables you to choose occasions in your calendar and drop them to your email. When the recipient chooses a period that actually works on their behalf, Inbox instantly results in a calendar invite for the two of you.

The good thing? If among the occasions you dropped in will get booked by another person, it won't appear in all of your other emails, so there isn’t any need to bother about double booking yourself.

3. Manage all customer queries in one application

Whenever your customers have questions or comments, they’ll likely achieve out via email, using your website, or on social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Having the ability to react to every request from one application is actually handy. Plus, for those who have multiple people fielding customer queries, getting all demands inside a central place helps avoid confusion and keeps your team accountable.

Essentials makes answering customer queries easy having a service console that enables both you and your team to handle and react to all demands without departing your CRM.

4. Never type in the same response two times

If you were answering customers for over a week, you’ve most likely observed a design - certain questions keep getting requested constantly diversely. QuickText is a superb Essentials feature that can help save your time and standardizes messaging with predefined text bites, for example greetings, solutions to common questions, and notes.

You should use QuickText in support situation responses, chats, and emails that you simply distribute from Salesforce. You now - as well as your team - won’t have to spend your time recreating exactly the same messages again and again.

5. Strengthen your customers help themselves

Most customers would prefer to find solutions themselves than make contact with an assistance agent. With Help Center in Essentials, you are able to rapidly spin up an internet page and publish your Understanding Articles onto it. It’s victory-win solution- your clients will find solutions how they prefer and both you and your support team can concentrate on more complicated demands.

6. Keep an eye on key metrics effortlessly

As a small company owner, profits figures may help you stay on edge. Don't you want you can keep an eye on profits progress without constantly getting to satisfy using the salesforce, request email updates, or spend hrs on spreadsheets?

When it’s all in Salesforce, its not necessary to inquire about updates or by hand evaluate data - simply pull-up a dashboard and take a look at progress instantly.

Salesforce Named One of the Best Places to Work in the Greater Washington Area for Second Time

I'm excited to announce that Salesforce has been named one of the Best Places to Work in the Greater Washington Area by the Washington Business Journal.

In 2013, I joined Salesforce to lead the North American Public Sector team. Over the last six years, our teams have not only expanded in Herndon and Reston, but we've also expanded our sales and marketing efforts globally. Throughout our growth, our culture has remained consistent and strong.

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to work with amazing teams who are not only dedicated in the office, but who are equally as passionate about improving the local communities in which we do business. Last year, our team completed over 16,000 hours of volunteering throughout the D.C. area. Through Salesforce's 1-1-1 Philanthropic Model, we've raised money for Loudoun County School System, packed thousands of meals for the Backpack Food Program, and partnered with customers to clean up the Potomac River.

As members of the Greater Washington D.C. business community, we realized that we could make a significant difference in our communities, especially in the lives of children, with the resources and skills we have at Salesforce. We've adopted several local schools apart of Salesforce's Future Ready initiative. Local program highlights include:

• Our work with students at Sugarland Elementary, helping them earn 2nd place in a county-wide robotics competition.
• Our team hosted a K-8 Junior-Achievement-in-a-day at Clearview Elementary during which we took over the school and mentored kids in the “I Can” curriculum.
• We provided backpacks for students at Herndon Elementary to be sure kids had what they needed to start the school year right.

I didn't think anything would be able to top our celebration of the Washington Capital's Stanley Cup victory, but I was wrong. Thus far, participating in “Bring Your Kids to Work Day” was a shining highlight for our hub. We hosted 50 children for a full day of activities. Watching employees speak with passion about why they love about their jobs with these future Trailblazers was an incredible moment. We told them about different career paths, how our team and software helps the government, and how much we value workforce diversity. I loved when the kids were asked, “what do you think your parents do at work?” One replied, “they build apps,” another said, “they sell software.” Of course, there's always one who's brutally honest: “they talk on the phone.”

Looking ahead, we're going to keep doing what has made us so successful; working together as one Ohana (the Hawaiian word for family) focused on our helping our customers and partners succeed, and in our communities to help make the world a better place. I'm proud we've been recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of the area's best places to work, and I'm even prouder of the contributions our employees make every day

Blancheporte Selects Salesforce to Support its Digital Strategy

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, announced that Blancheporte—the sixth largest French e-merchant in the fashion sector and the leading company for the over-50 market—has partnered with Salesforce to build the brand's new ecommerce site, providing its customers with seamless, personalized and omnichannel shopping experiences. Two projects initiated include Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Einstein for Commerce, adding artificial intelligence for greater customization along the customer journey, and improved time-to-market to ensure Blancheporte’s collections are always up-to-date.

Putting artificial intelligence to work for an ultra-personal shopping experience

With a background in distance selling, Blancheporte has become a pioneer in data analysis and use, learning how to know and recognize every one of its two million customers. The brand has created robust omnichannel customer journeys, meeting shoppers at intervals on its social networks, website, blog and through the pages of its catalogue. Einstein for Commerce will allow Blancheporte to take personalization even further by using artificial intelligence to decode its data, wherever it comes from, and create highly engaging customer experiences.

Synchronizing and speeding up time to market

Since the launch of its retail website in 2005, Blancheporte has relied on a more frequent renewal of its collections, styled by its in-house design office. The brand now offers 1,600 new models every year, many of which are only available on its website. With Commerce Cloud, Blancheporte will now be able to analyze the reception of its innovations in real-time, both online and in-store, and adjust its ranges accordingly.

“Coming from a distance selling background, a pioneer in data analysis and use, Blancheporte has learned how to know and recognize every one of its two million customers. By linking our historic experience to the powerful Salesforce platform, we will be able to adapt our collections further to the wishes of the fifty-somethings, present our range in more flexible ways and further improve our plans for retention and increasing customers. This collaborative partnership will also enable us to improve our own skills so that we can further decode and respond to our customers’ expectations,” said Salvatore Spatafora, associate marketing, multi-channel and customer director for Blancheporte.

“We are proud to support Blancheporte, a two-hundred-year-old company that has become the sixth largest e-merchant in the French fashion sector, as it moves into the next stage of its development. With Commerce Cloud, we are going to bring data collected on all of Blancheporte’s channels together so they can interact with each other. Gathered on the Salesforce platform, they will become smarter and more efficient, working for a redesigned customer experience. Using the full power of artificial intelligence is an important way of gaining competitive advantage. Blancheporte has understood this perfectly,” added Olivier Derrien, Salesforce Managing Director in France.

About Blancheporte

Founded in Tourcoing (59) in 1806, Blancheporte is today the 6th largest fashion & home e-retailer, the leading fashion site for the 50-somethings market and 3rd in the plus-size segment. Blancheporte’s in-house design office creates its own accessible fashion & home collections, to suit women's preferences for colours and sizes.

Through effective use of the paper/digital combination, Blancheporte maintains the joy of receiving a catalogue, while strengthening its unique position online. Its website gets 2 million unique visitors a month, with 35% of searches also on mobile. In addition, Blancheporte sends out 70 million catalogues a year to its communities, each an inspiring encounter for the customer.