Technology Archives - Daniel J. Lewis

What I Need in a CRM

May 5, 2016 by Daniel J. Lewis 8 Comments

My podcasting business and responsibilities have grown enough that I realize I need a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

That feels a little too corporate to me. It's like I'm becoming a robot without a personality. But I'm very quickly overwhelmed with the requests for my attention and this is a way out of that. I really want to be accessible and spend time fully responding to every message, but I can't respond to everything for free, or else I would be a bad steward of my time and my responsibility to provide for my family.

A big source of such stress comes from my multiple inboxes. Requests for consulting, questions about products and services, questions about podcasting, feedback for my podcasts, and more. I can't handle it all, so that's where a CRM can help me and my assistants tag, organize, prioritize, and respond to each important message I receive.

My search for the right CRM has been frustrating. Thus, I invite your suggestions—whether you're a user or employee of a CRM provider.

Here's what I need in a CRM.

Integrate with/take over email accounts (potentially Gmail)

All of my email addresses are merely aliases that forward to a single Gmail account. These messages do receive some automated filtering and tagging within Gmail. Then, I can send from any these aliases.

I need a CRM to take over these email accounts for future conversations, plus integrate with previous conversations I've already had.

Allow collaboration

Many messages that I receive can be answered quickly by pointing to my large catalog of content I've already created. Thus, I would prefer an assistant to have the first view of incoming messages to particular addresses. That assistant could then reply on my behalf, or tag important messages for me to either address personally or consider for creating further content on my site.

Integrate with MailChimp

I use MailChimp as my email service provider. With any CRM, I need it to integrate with MailChimp to at least let me know whether the person I'm emailing is already on my list (and what group/segment they're in). It would be extra nice if I could easily add them to a list and group from the CRM.

Integrate with social

I want the CRM to show me the person's Twitter, Facebook, and other social accounts, plus maybe even their bios and latest messages from such accounts. Then, show me whether I'm already connected with that person and let me choose to connect with them right from the CRM.

So far, so good, right? The following is where most CRMs begin to fail.

Integration with WooCommerce and an API

I use WooCommerce for selling on The Audacity to Podcast™ as well as Podcasters' Society™. The ideal CRM would show me what products, memberships, or services a person has purchased from me. There would also need to be an API for connecting with my proprietary system in My Podcast Reviews.

Social lead generation

An important part of my business is monitoring relevant conversations on social networks. I have saved Twitter searches that help me find podcasters who need podcasting help or should use My Podcast Reviews™. If possible, I would also like to monitor Facebook groups, Google+ communities, subreddits, Quora, and such (goodbye, most popular CRMs).

Let's take Twitter for example. When I see a tweet matching my detailed search query, I need to immediately see whether I have ever tweeted that person before and whether they're already a customer (through integration with WooCommerce and My Podcast Reviews). Then, give me and my assistants the ability to respond and let me see that it was responded to and who did it. Afterward, that account would be marked as having already received a response from me at some point.

Plus, such searches and responses would be different for different social accounts. Thus, the CRM would need to support multiple social accounts (there goes Nimble, if I didn't already disqualify it).

Template responses

For email and social, I need to have multiple templates my assistants can use to respond. Such templates would be great if they were intelligent enough to prefill with the recipient's name. I know TextExpander can do that, but that means extra software.

iOS app

A mobile-friendly website is nice, but it would be best if the CRM is available as a standalone mobile app that provides all the functionality on mobile.

A single platform

I'm not interested in paying for and managing several different platforms to each do separate things. I want a single place to login and have the tools I need.

Simple

I don't want to spend days learning how to use a complicated CRM, and it would defeat the purpose for me to hire someone only to manage my CRM. Thus, the CRM must be simple enough that I can get working with its workflow on the same day I sign up.

Affordable

I'm willing to pay for this solution because I recognize the value in the time and frustration it will save. But to me, “affordable,” means under $100/month for two or three users.

Got suggestions?

I may update this post with additional needs. Is there any CRM that meets all these needs?

I've looked at Nimble, Insightly, Contactly, FullContact, HootSuite, Zoho CRM, Apptivo, Nutshell, PipelineDeals, Salesforce.com, and OnePageCRM. They all fall short in crucial areas (usually the social integration). I'll also be looking at others. But I'm starting to lose hope.

What do you suggest, based on my needs?

4 ways to choose which podcast subscriptions to drop (and how I unsubscribed from 10+ podcasts)

April 24, 2015 by Daniel J. Lewis 17 Comments

When you feel overwhelmed by the backlog of podcasts to consume, it's time to refine and simplify! This will give you more time, focus, and motivation for what matters.

I have previously shared a list of all the podcasts to which I subscribe in 2014. But I couldn't keep up; I had nearly 300 hours of unplayed podcasts!

Thus, I did a podcast shakedown and unsubscribed from more than a dozen podcasts. Without naming any of the unfortunate victims, I'll tell you how I chose which podcasts to drop. Plus, I'll give you actionable tips on how to clean up your subscriptions, too.

You probably shouldn't apply these ideas to all other areas of life!

1. Remove irrelevant podcasts

I'm no longer in the business of designing websites. That was a hard decision that I will explain later. I was subscribed to several podcasts covering WordPress management, WordPress development, web design, and CSS. While I still occasionally tweak my own CSS and that of the podcasters I help, but I don't make complete designs.

Even though I'm still interested in the field of web design and development, it's no longer relevant enough to my personal or professional interests.

Actionable tip: When you change or a podcast changes, re-evaluate what you consume. Remove what is no longer relevant to where you are or where you want to be.

2. Leave the disliked podcasts

I often enter a niche and start to consume every piece of content in that niche. This sometimes means even subscribing to podcasts I don't like very much. It could be that I wanted to hear from my “competitors,” or that I just wanted a broader perspective on the field. Am I the only one who does this?

Leaving these podcasts not only reduces my incoming information, but it also improves the quality of my life by keeping just what actually enhances my day.

Actionable tip: When a podcast regularly annoys you, stop torturing yourself and just leave it! If you don't eagerly await the release of each new episode, that may be a good podcast to leave.

3. Drop the podcasts with no benefits

There are plenty of great podcasts out there with great information. But I realized that many of my subscriptions weren't providing me with any benefits. I wasn't learning anything new. The information was just presented from a different perspective. These shows certainly have their places and can help many others, but they weren't benefiting me.

Actionable tip: If you're not actually learning something new, drop the time-wasting repeats of what you already know.

4. Unsubscribe from podcasts with low quality

“Quality” can mean many things to many people. In The Audacity to Podcast, I've talked about the four quality cornerstones for a great podcast: content, presentation, production, and promotion. When I'm objective, I recognize that some of my subscriptions were to low-quality podcasts.

For some shows, the content was low quality (I covered that in #3); for many, the content was not presented very well; and for others, the audio quality was too poor to consume comfortably. (Poor audio quality isn't just a matter of the mic!)

Actionable tip: You may be able to endure a form of low quality when something else is good enough. But when you're tired of poor quality, unsubscribe!

Don't feel guilty

Podcasts are often very personal and even intimate forms of content and connection. It can be hard to leave a podcast you once loved. The hardest part of my own decision was unsubscribing from podcasts hosted by people whom I now call my friends.

Don't feel guilty about refining the amount of information you receive! This simplifying will allow you to focus more, waste less time, and get more of what you need for feeding your passions.

This can also help you delete individual episodes

You may not be able to cut down on the number of podcasts you're subscribed to, but you may be able to reduce the number of episodes piling up. Try applying these same tips to the episodes collecting in your app. This is easiest when the podcast puts out topic-focused episodes.

How do you choose the podcasts you unsubscribe from?

Why I don’t participate in LinkedIn Groups anymore

February 27, 2015 by Daniel J. Lewis 15 Comments

I'm withdrawing from all LinkedIn discussions and have ceased interacting in LinkedIn groups. Why?

Two words: email notifications.

No, it's not that I hate receiving email notifications for discussions in LinkedIn groups. It's that the emails are now next to useless.

Not long ago, discussion notifications would contain the full text of someone's discussion comment.

Clicking “Comment” would take me directly to that comment on the LinkedIn discussion page, making it really easy to continue the conversation.

Now, discussion notifications barely contain any text from someone's discussion comment. Even this text is confusingly buried under the heading and description of the discussion. It's practically as small and insignificant as the post meta info!

Additionally, clicking “Respond Now” doesn't take me directly to the comment, anymore. It now takes me to the top of the discussion, so I have to scroll down to that specific comment. What is there even to respond to?

Even worse, LinkedIn discussions are now lazy-loaded via Javascript. That means content doesn't load until I scroll down to it. So if a discussion has a lot of comments, I have to scroll down, wait for content to load, scroll again, wait again, scroll, wait, scroll, wait.

GAH!

Seriously, this killed my enthusiasm for participating in LinkedIn discussions—I can't tell what someone said from the tiny excerpt of their comment, and I can't quickly get to their full comment.

This has made me cease all participation in LinkedIn discussion groups (even discussions in which I previously participated).

What do you think about this change?