Sarah Westbury, Author at Great Ideas are Born Here https://integrityco.io/author/kim/?molongui_byline=true&mca=https://integrityco.io/author/sarahwestbury/ Asking the right questions. Tue, 16 Mar 2021 04:35:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/integrityco.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-36712-7-light-bulb-clipart.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Sarah Westbury, Author at Great Ideas are Born Here https://integrityco.io/author/kim/?molongui_byline=true&mca=https://integrityco.io/author/sarahwestbury/ 32 32 194763870 Why should mindfulness be part of every business strategy? https://integrityco.io/why-should-mindfulness-be-part-of-every-business-strategy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-should-mindfulness-be-part-of-every-business-strategy Wed, 03 Mar 2021 18:48:34 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=736 Working in 2021 is fast-paced and high-intensity, regardless of any industry you are in. There is pressure to be successful and make money. Mix in the unstable political climate and most of us employees are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, at least sometimes. There’s a good reason why mindfulness has been a buzzword lately and not […]

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Working in 2021 is fast-paced and high-intensity, regardless of any industry you are in. There is pressure to be successful and make money. Mix in the unstable political climate and most of us employees are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, at least sometimes. There’s a good reason why mindfulness has been a buzzword lately and not just because of the Netflix show. (Highly recommended by the way! Put it on your watchlist if you haven’t already seen it) Mindfulness has been helping people all over the world with many difficulties. From mental health, productivity, concentration, creativity and problem-solving. Mindfulness has been getting a lot of awareness! 

 

Employees who feel overworked and stressed take less initiative, have lower creativity and generally produce a lower quality of work. No matter what industry you are working in, whether that be finance, tech, manufacturing and beyond. Stress levels are going to be part of the process. There is no magic pill that can make this stress go away. 

 

Fortunately, there are alternative outlets that you can implement in your business strategy to mitigate these hard times and provide support to those who do ‘burn out’.

Supporting your employee’s mental health can empower them, prevent burnout and increase their productivity. 

 

So what exactly is mindfulness?

To simplify things, mindfulness is the ability to see things clearly. Free from judgment or criticism. Simply seeing things as-is. 

 

As explained by the American professor and mindfulness guru, Jon:

 “the awareness that arises by paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” — Jon Kabat Zin

 

By cultivating attention in a non-judgment way we can see things more clearly, insights or actions and create an environment that supports our goals and targets. With mindfulness, we set ourselves up for logical action and success. 

 

Mindfulness offers many benefits but the most popular corporate programs are building skills to manage stress, build resilience, and other emotional intelligence skills needed to cope with changes and stressful workdays.

 

Why should you integrate mindfulness as part of your business strategy?

No, it’s not just because Google and other big companies have started a cool work trend. Mindfulness can be used in many ways and you will be sure to see the benefits:



Mindfulness for work culture

A company’s success is defined by its’ employees success. If your company’s values are oriented towards the well-being of your team, you are your business for success. Wellness should be a core principle in your work routine. As a result, your employees will be positive to be engaged with collaboration, happier to come to work and be goal-oriented. Mindfulness empowers the individual and promotes them to think critically in regards to their initiatives.

 

Mindfulness for innovation and creativity

In the competitive industry, a company must also think outside of the box, to think the unthinkable and innovate. Innovation is about improving our life, creating value and new opportunities. By applying mindfulness at your workplace workers can develop abilities to recognize problems, find solutions and identify realistic and creative solutions to improve the business model.

Innovation=Something new + useful

 

Mindfulness for setting SMART goals

With daily meditation, you give your employees the practice of self-reflection. Here, you can thoroughly analyze your past successes and failures. With this knowledge, your company can better plan and tackle any future challenge. 

Mindfulness can teach employees to stop and reflect upon their goals. As the dynamic economy keeps evolving it is important to keep coming back and re-evaluate your goals. Mindfulness can help to clarify your ideas, efforts and help you target your effort towards a productive place. To fulfil your SMART goals and reach your fullest potential!

 

Mindfulness for work-life balance

By promoting mindfulness at work, the entire team can reflect on what matters most. From here, they can prioritize the totality of their lives and avoid burnout.

We spend so much of our time at work and no matter how much we love our jobs there comes a point where we all need to take a break and supercharge our energies, “You only leave once” [YOLO] and you want to make sure that this one time is the best. By providing your team with mindfulness tools your employees will also adopt wellness and mindfulness values outside of the office.

Consequently, be happier in their personal life and then come motivated and empowered to the office! [or to Zoom]

 

mindfulness isn’t just a trend, it is a way of life and as leaders and entrepreneurs, it should be our mission the be mindful founders and find better ways to cope with modern stress. 

 

How to Bring Mindfulness into your Organization

There is no one size fits all or best method. In mindfulness, it’s about taking what aligns with you and what fits your schedule.  

 

Going through a global pandemic has highlighted the necessity of employees’ well-being. As a result, we can predict that in 2021 we will see a rise in well-being values integrated into business strategies. 

 

With ‘mindfulness’ on a rise, there is more in-depth research around this topic. We see more science-based research including brain imaging and studies on the benefits of mindfulness to the modern economy.

 

The positive benefits aren’t late to come and with our evolved technology we see more and more tech resources accessible. There is plenty of information and practice tools out there. Online apps and software are out there for you to explore at your convenience. Mindfulness doesn’t have to be practiced in the form of a 30-minute meditation sequence. 

 

Here are our top 3 suggestions to start practicing mindfulness today:

 

  1. Headspace is our top recommendation for guided meditation and mindfulness. A good place to dip your toes in the act of being mindful. (Pssst: there is even a free version to get started)
  2. The Miracle of Mindfulness is our top recommendation for mindfulness book. This is one of the best books written about mindfulness (Even for the beginners out there!)
  3. The Happiness Planner is our top recommendation for those who journal! (Sometimes it feels more real when you write it on paper, journaling is powerful!)



“Mindfulness takes you to the present moment, the only place that life exists. To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

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Staking Your Claim in the Data Rush https://integrityco.io/staking-your-claim-in-the-data-rush/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=staking-your-claim-in-the-data-rush Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:35:00 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=622

“Data is the new oil.” Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 15 years, you have probably heard the phrase “data is the new oil.” It was 2006 when Clive Humby, a mathematician and entrepreneur originally coined the phrase – and it has been echoed by thousands ever since.  Clive Humby […]

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“Data is the new oil.”

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 15 years, you have probably heard the phrase “data is the new oil.” It was 2006 when Clive Humby, a mathematician and entrepreneur originally coined the phrase – and it has been echoed by thousands ever since. 

Clive Humby probably never expected this phrase to make such a lasting impression but it really was the perfect comparison. Oil and data have a lot in common.

Look around you, in some way or another, oil has played a crucial role in the existence of everything around you. Many everyday items are a product of oil, they are manufactured in a factory powered by oil, then transported by vessels which are also powered by, you guessed it, oil. 

Today, data is making just as much of an impact. Data is used in a multitude of ways that influence decision making in government, public policy, healthcare, science, and of course business.

Society relies on data and oil to make things go. For that reason they are considered valuable commodities – that many governments, policy makers and businesses are desperately trying to get their hands on. Data and oil are power. Without them, making things happen can be challenging. 

Most importantly, when we drill for oil or mine for data, to do so successfully requires some knowledge and the right tools. Otherwise it could be a colossal waste of time and resources. To drill for oil requires knowledge of where the oil might be and how to extract it. It requires machinery, and man power. Once the oil has been extracted, it needs to be refined so it can be used in its full potential. 

The same goes for data. There must be knowledge of where to collect data and how to extract it. It requires specific technology and manpower. Then once the data has been collected, it needs to be refined so it can be used to its full potential. 

Unlike drilling for oil, you won’t break your back trying to collect data. But it does require some effort. Collecting data is the first step in answering those valuable questions before we can refine it and get its true value. 

Here are some best practices for collecting data:

Have a robust internal system:

Collecting data in-house is the best practice when solving internal business challenges or identifying opportunities. To collect data in-house means that information is being recorded and stored internally on a consistent basis. Typically data is collected and stored in a customer relationship manager (CRM). And if your team is using your CRM, you probably have a pretty decent set of data to get insights from. If they aren’t using the CRM to its full potential – you should really consider it. Having some data, even if it is incomplete, is better than having no data at all. 

If you are not sure what to collect, it is still a great practice to capture as much data as you can. It’s never possible to know exactly what’s going to be of value in future. So collecting data in a structured format that can be translated into information and insights down the road and can create new opportunities in the future. And the good news is that data storage is cheap these days, so holding onto that data isn’t going to make much of a dent in your budget. 

Buy data from third parties:  

There are times when a company is unable to collect their own data because they could be a start-up, a company looking to enter a new market, or there is a major gap realized in the current set of data. Instead of starting from scratch, buying data from third parties is a good option. There are plenty of  data sets out there that third party data brokers have carefully taken the time to put together. They have a wide variety of data sets that are usually made up of data that is challenging to collect, data that is challenging to access, or very large sets of data – that could take decades to collect.

If you aren’t sure where to start, Quandl and Explorium are reputable data brokers with plenty of data to go around. 

Use third parties to buy training data: .

If you are looking to partake in the AI and Machine Learning boom and want to take on a project, the algorithms are going to require some training data to learn from. If there is a shortage of training data available, third parties are also a good solution for this as well. Third parties can provide data sets a lot faster and efficiently rather than trying to put together a set of training data

There are many options for training data, check out Hive, Scale, NTT Data, or Weights and Biases.

Use third parties to collect training data:

There are times where third party data brokers don’t have the exact set of data needed to answer that million dollar question. When specific data is needed but maybe your team doesn’t have the manpower, tools, or time to collect data there are third parties that can collect that data for you. Once again, long behold the third party data collectors. One of the most popular examples of this is Amazon Mechanical Turk. A platform that individuals from around the world collect data based on the instructions they have been provided with. 

Scrape data off the internet:

As everyone is aware — there is a lot of data on the world wide web, readily available at the tips of our fingers. This practice does require some expertise to create specific tools. But once that has been handled, very specific data can easily be scraped off the internet, parsed and used accordingly. Please be respectful of the terms and conditions of where you scrape data from though! Only do it if you allowed to do.

For example, something that our team has been successful at while scraping data off the internet for lead generation. Instead of sales reps spending hours prospecting qualified leads, our team created a tool that scrapes data off service providers websites such as lawyers and accountants to generate leads. The information was parsed and then put directly into the CRM to be accessed by the sales team. With the right expertise, a tool can be created to collect data on anything and be used to answer that million dollar question.

Ready, set, mine.

The top two reasons that businesses don’t collect data is because it appears to be either too intimidating or time consuming. What this really comes down to is not seeing value and the potential prosperity that could be uncovered. Data drives decision making and uncovers new opportunities. If data collection isn’t a priority, opportunities and insights are being left undiscovered, while challenges are being left unaddressed – both now and in the future. Which can equate to hundreds of thousands of dollars slipping through your fingers.

Collecting data is the easiest part of the process, especially with a little bit of guidance. Refining it is where things can start to become a bit trickier. Luckily, there are data experts out there who can help you uncover the true value of your data.

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Data Science: The Secret to Driving Sustainable Sales and Growth https://integrityco.io/data-science-the-secret-to-driving-sustainable-sales-and-growth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=data-science-the-secret-to-driving-sustainable-sales-and-growth Fri, 01 Jan 2021 20:26:00 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=426

Plus ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr In case you don’t speak french (or you forgot almost everything you learned in highschool – looking at you Canadians!). The timeless proverb; “the more things change, the more they stay the same” implies that no matter what turbulent changes we experience, the status […]

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Plus ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

In case you don’t speak french (or you forgot almost everything you learned in highschool – looking at you Canadians!). The timeless proverb; “the more things change, the more they stay the same” implies that no matter what turbulent changes we experience, the status quo is reinforced. 

Our first thought jumped to sales operations. Sales ops has come a long way over the last few decades. Before, when many of us thought about sales the first thing that popped into our head was a sleazy, used car salesman, trying to nickel and dime you at every corner. Or the guy in the fedora, going door to door, selling the next best vacuum or tupperware set. Heck, even over the last year we have seen a major shift in sales operations from in-person to almost exclusively meeting our prospects over Zoom. 

Our point is, the sales process has changed a lot over time. And regardless of all the trends and changes in the market, sales operations has always been about selling better, selling faster and selling more. This is a capitalist market-driven economy after all. 

Sales Ops in 2021

It is fair to say that sales has become more difficult over the past few decades. 

Information is more widely available. Competition is stiffer. And for that reason, the modern customer has higher expectations and there must be a sense of trust before a purchase is made. Creating strong honest relationships is crucial to driving sales in the modern day. 

We are also living through the 4th technological revolution. Technology has swept through sales operations and has streamlined many of our day to day processes. Seems like there is a service or a tool for anything you could ever imagine. Then you blink and somehow, somebody has created another tool to make your business even more efficient. 

Despite all the amazing software services and solutions out there, many sales teams are still living in the stone age. Otherwise known as… superstar culture. 

Superstar Culture Sales

Is highly individualistic. It relies on a couple people to carry the team to the sales quota. Energy and resources are poured into the few sales wizards that seem to hold the world on their shoulders. Meanwhile, the rest of the sales team is not being given the support needed to improve their processes.

This culture is bad for two reasons. Firstly, sales superstars are not common. They know their worth, and if they left the company for a better offer, you better pray for another one. 

Secondly, when focus is on the sales wizards, the rest of the sales team is left in the shadows. They are not getting the coaching or mentoring they need to develop into becoming the next up and coming sales wizard. They also know their worth and if work culture is lacking – they will be gone too. And nobody wants a churn and burn culture. 

Data Science Technology Prevents Superstar Culture.

One of the biggest tech changes in recent times (that we would argue is here to stay) is the integration of data science technology into the sales process. This changes decision making entirely. Instead of making decisions based on observation and opinion. We can much more confidently make decisions based on data and numbers. We are not forced to rely on a couple sales superstars to hold things together.

Data science combines domain expertise, programming skills, and knowledge of mathematics and statistics to extract meaningful insights from data. 

By taking a data science approach we are choosing a science-driven culture.

Science-driven culture prioritizes:

  1. Technology is used to make our day to day processes more efficient. It is also a crucial tool to collect the necessary data to make informed decisions.
  2. Processes are what exactly your team is doing to move opportunities down the sales funnel. By prioritizing processes onus is being put on the functionality of the sales funnel steps rather than the individual. When a problem is identified, we look to how we can fix the process, not the person. 
  3. Teamwork is crucial to science driven culture. All processes need to be documented and shared within the organization. When mistakes are made or insights for best practices are discovered they are not to be kept as a secret by the individual. Instead they should be shared to benefit everyone and the organization as a whole. 
  4. Skills are acquired when we learn from our mistakes and successes. This is an ongoing process. When we continuously collect data and get feedback we are able to learn and improve in the places we are struggling most. 

Science-driven culture is about continuous feedback, learning and making decisions based on numbers and data. It is about fixing weak processes, not fixing people. 

Why Data Science Works

Data science relies on numbers. Not opinion. Not intuition. But cold, hard, calculable, numbers. 

Metrics must be measurable and objective. If your metrics are subjective, based on observation and personal experience – consider them an opinion. And opinions with all due respect are not important and can’t guarantee results. Without numbers and data your metrics are meaningless and left open to debate. 

Let’s apply the scientific method to the sales funnel using a subjective methodology:

  1. Observation: We aren’t hitting our sales quota 🙁
  2. Question: Why aren’t we hitting our sales quota?
  3. Hypothesis: Hmm, well looks like the sales reps aren’t making enough calls. 
  4. Prediction: If the sales reps make more calls we will make more sales. 
  5. Tests: *sales reps make more calls*
  6. Results: Still not hitting the sales quota.
  7. Refine: Well, that didn’t work. Maybe it’s ______. (and repeat).

Using a subjective methodology (aka our intuition), we tend to make an observation, make a hypothesis, and test it.  And rinse and repeat steps 3-7 when your first hypothesis doesn’t turn out to be the problem. Repeating these steps is a massive waste of time and resources. 

However, when we use data science and recognize there is a performance gap somewhere in the funnel. The problem can be easily pinpointed by just looking at the numbers. No need to play the guessing game. From there feedback can be provided and a specific solution can be prescribed that is geared towards that exact problem in the sales funnel. This means a much faster turnaround time when solving issues. Rather than having to repeat steps 3-7 until you are just about ready to give up and try to solve the next problem.

It is beneficial at both an individual and organizational level. From an individualistic standpoint, we can analyze where a performer is successful and where they are struggling. This feedback is personalized and can help the individual to improve where they need it.

On a larger scale, this data can be used by the organization to make a more efficient sales process and provides valuable insights for the next-best action with future customers. 

Got the Data?

Most organizations, once they have reached a certain size, have a formal sales process in place and are collecting data. This ensures that they can continue to scale. A typical sales report breaks down the basic key performance indicators (KPI). Number of calls/emails, conversion rate, opportunities lost, profit margin, customer acquisition costs and so on. Not to say these are bad indicators. They are necessary for every business. The problem is they just don’t tell the whole story. 

KPI’s tend to be high level. They leave out the finer metrics that can give us a more accurate picture of what exactly is going on. It is important to know your industry and know what KPI’s are relevant to the problem you are trying to solve. Furthermore, if you are looking to take a science based approach in sales ops, it is crucial to have somebody who knows how to ask the right questions, can extract the necessary data and come up with meaningful solutions.

Tune in next week,  We’ll be following up with a post on “How to Collect Meaningful Data”

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Why Small Teams Work Better https://integrityco.io/why-small-teams-work-better/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-small-teams-work-better Tue, 15 Dec 2020 18:12:29 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=367

Over the last decade we have watched Jeff Bezos climb to the top of the ladder to become the richest man on the planet. As founder and CEO of Amazon – it is clear that his leadership made an impact on the success of the multi-billion dollar corporation that started from his garage in Bellevue, […]

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Over the last decade we have watched Jeff Bezos climb to the top of the ladder to become the richest man on the planet. As founder and CEO of Amazon – it is clear that his leadership made an impact on the success of the multi-billion dollar corporation that started from his garage in Bellevue, Washington in 1995. 

There is one aspect of Bezos’ leadership, more specifically team building that I would like to focus on, as I believe it is one of the cornerstones of his success. It is known as the two-pizza rule. Simply put, if you cannot feed your team with two pizzas then it is too big. This number sits at a maximum of 10 highly effective team members. 

So, the secret to being a successful team is a small team. Let’s break down the benefits of keeping your team small and pizza bill low:

1. Smaller teams have healthier communication.

In a group of 10 or less, with proper introductions, team members are going to know one another by name. Which ultimately leads tighter knit relationships. Instead of seeing your teammate as employee #2342, they are another human. With their own strengths, weaknesses, fears and aspirations. Having a personal connection with team members fosters a sort of mutual respect. And creates an environment where people are not afraid to share their ideas or make mistakes.

Having a smaller team also leaves more room for open and thoughtful discussion. Team meetings can be run more efficiently with a smaller group of people. Rather than one hundred people chiming in at once. A small team meeting allows team members enough time to formulate and present their ideas in-depth. All while leaving room for feedback.

2. Smaller teams hold themselves accountable.

There is a well known theory called the “Ringelmann effect.” It was realized by French agricultural engineer Maximilien Ringelmann in 1913, it still holds true today. Ringelmann created a study where he had volunteers pull on a rope. He observed that the more people that pulled on the rope resulted in the individual putting forth less effort. 

He concluded that in a larger group, there is more anonymity among the team. It is much harder to tell who is pulling the rope and who isn’t. But in a smaller group, it becomes quite clear who isn’t pulling their fair share. 

This means, you don’t need a huge team of people to pull the rope per say. Instead you need a strong team that is going to pull their fair share of the rope, hold each other accountable and get you across that finish line. 

3. Smaller teams are nimble.

The only thing in this world that is constant is of course, change. In this fast paced world it is crucial that teams are agile and can respond to changes both quickly and efficiently. In a large team, decision making is often a long, drawn out and bureaucratic process. A slow response to external changes can result in a variety of losses for an organization. And in some cases organizations will end up folding – unable to keep up. 

On the other hand, a small, tight knit team can quickly come up with strategic responses to changes in their market and environment. With fewer decision makers, the decision making process is dramatically reduced and strategy can be implemented at a much faster rate. 

4. Smaller teams cost less money.

This almost goes without saying. Of course, having ten team members is going to cost less than fifty team members. Less people equals less resources spent. Yes, this even applies when you have some real unicorns on your team that might cost a little (or a lot) more than your average employee. 

On that note, it is worth investing more in a small team that is multifaceted and offers deep expertise in a variety of areas. 

5. Smaller teams are more innovative.

When seats on the team are limited, you have to be picker with who makes the cut. Having a small, focused team, full of multifaceted experts (in a variety of fields) can make it much easier to come up with creative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges businesses face today. Take a look back in history, some of the most notable inventors did not just specialize in one narrow discipline, rather they had a wide range of skills. 

Lets use Benjamin Franklin as an example. He wore many hats. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States, a writer, a scientist (that most notable made many major contributions towards electricity research), a businessman, an author and printer, and made many civic contributions to his community, by founding a fire hall, academy, hospital, and an insurance company. This paragraph hardly does any justice for the guy. But my point is, finding a few people with deep skills and curiosity will drive innovation at a much faster rate than one hundred average joes would.

One example that comes to mind when considering team size is a 2015 interview between Ried Hoffman, host of Masters of Scale, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. Schmidt recalls his introduction to the Google founders team and their strategy to oversee growth within the company. 

In one year, Google had quadrupled their number of employees. Eric observes that exponential growth is not always a positive attribute. Rather, the team size should be scalable to the product or service being offered. Growth should be controlled and bringing on new team members should be strategic. 

To control growth, Eric Schmidt did a full review on hiring and the hiring process. Each employee would have something to offer and was brought on to contribute to projects in a specific way. This would reduce the number of what he referred to as “glue people.” Employees that were loyal and assisted in activities but were not necessary to the teams success.

The benefits to having a small team are clear, but what does it actually take to make your small team run smoothly, efficiently and meet deadlines? Here are three tips on building a small team for success.
  • Hire wisely. Just because your team is smaller than ten, does not automatically make it an all-star team. It is important to choose your teammates carefully when there are limited seats available. You want to choose people that offer an array of skills, with a deep understanding of both the business and technical side of things. 
  • Create a thriving work culture and environment. This is important to establish early on when creating your team. Team culture is created whether intended or not. And who you bring onto the team will help define the culture. Building strong relationships among team members in the early stages creates a space that team members can be open and vulnerable with one another. A space that it is okay to brainstorm and make mistakes will lead to innovative solutions faster. 
  • Outsource projects. No matter how fantastic your team of ten really is, you won’t be able to take on the entire world. Recognize when something that is out of your team’s scope or that a group of experts might be able to do better. Then hire the right consultants to take care of it. Firstly, this ensures that the job is going to get done right the first time. Secondly, this prevents your team from becoming overwhelmed by work load. Instead they can focus their attention towards challenges that they are skilled to fix. 

This is not to say that there is no place for large teams, but a business must carefully evaluate the scale and resources available when choosing the right size team for the project. Larger teams tend to work best when looking to maintain or advance and develop in their given industry. Whereas smaller teams are best in situations where innovators are trying to keep up with the latest trends or looking to disrupt the status quo – which is what most of us start-ups would like to do, isn’t it?

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The Rise of the CRM in a Work from Home World https://integrityco.io/the-rise-of-the-crm-in-a-work-from-home-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-rise-of-the-crm-in-a-work-from-home-world Tue, 24 Nov 2020 03:04:20 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=73

After doing her market research, Sarah shares her key insights when choosing your CRM. Your CRM is your new virtual workspace and if you want to work efficiently, CRM is your new friend!

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We will spare you the worn-out talking points, we all understand that COVID-19 has forever changed our familiar life and economy. Face masks, two feet distance and all of a sudden we became hand-sanitizer experts. But to stay successful in the market, the real expertise you want to acquire for remote working conditions is how to manage your business successfully.

While COVID-19 faces us with many challenges, technology has also progressed and offers creative ways to work from home and manage a team, clients and lots of data.

So, with social distance standing in our way, how do we maintain work collaboration, customers, leads and all of our information in this digital world?

We present to you, the CRM!

By no means is this new technology, most companies are using a CRM of some sort. And with a consumer-driven economy, all companies can benefit from this tool. From E-mail marketing, sales, business development, customer service, B2B, CRM is your company’s go-to for online productivity.

But what is it and how can we use it to our advantage?

CRM is the acronym for customer relationship management and just as its name suggests, it is a software that helps businesses to manage relationships with customers, team and information. It is the substitution of the physical space we used to hold and translated it to the virtual world for the organization’s workflow.

With remote-working and new business models, having a successful system to operate within is essential to your success. However, most sales reps are not using it to its full capacity. 87% of sales reps admitted they only use the CRM because their company requires them to and 78% said they only “check the boxes.” This means a lot of important activities and information are being left out of the CRM and kept in the sales rep’s records. Which of course will have dire consequences for the business. When this much information is being left out of your main database it is a given that business will fall through the cracks and relationships will fall off. Amid a recession triggered by COVID-19, we must adopt new digital techniques to keep our business in the game.

In this article, we want to show you how you can leverage your CRM to make remote work more efficient for you and your team. Your team must understand that CRM is not just a tool for management to police what everyone is doing. Instead, it is a sales enablement and communication tool that can be used from anywhere. If it isn’t already, this should be your business’ new home base. So be sure to get your sales team on board with using the CRM.

Enter all relevant data and activity into your CRM.

This is the most crucial step a sales rep could take to improve the business while working from home. Your CRM is a secure and centralized database. Having all your data in one place has an array of benefits.

Keeping detailed records means that anyone on the sales team can quickly pull up a customer’s history and offer top-notch customer service because they already know what preferences they might have or challenges they might be facing. All of a sudden extra data comes into play! Our computers can hold more information than our brain and with an organized CRM you can pull that bit of information at the right time, the right place and SEAL THE DEAL!

And for the future, having heaps of relevant data is valuable. Data can be analyzed and leveraged in many ways to make a customer’s experience more personalized, improve customer service and increase revenue.

So all in all, with data being romanticized in the modern world, a bit of extra data can never hurt anybody…

Integrate all workflow applications into your CRM.

Integrate emails, calendars or any other workflow applications your team might be using. Keeping all your information on one platform reduces confusion and ensures that tasks or meetings don’t fall through the cracks (which can happen with distractions around the house).

It is the easiest way to communicate, create a smooth operating system across multiple channels and automate any task that doesn’t need direct human interaction.

All in all, it saves you a lot of time, energy and consequently, money.

Clean up your CRM data and automate where you can.

We cannot emphasize this enough. Seriously, a CRM filled with junk either turns a sales rep to use their methods of maintaining records or they end up wasting an unnecessary amount of time trying to sort it out. During this time, many people holding off on investing in their companies, you might find yourself with more downtime than usual. It is the perfect opportunity to start tidying up your CRM. You can start by getting rid of any redundant or useless fields, filling in any missing information or activity on prospects and customers, update leads that have fallen through the cracks, and merge duplicates.

Of course, if your CRM is large it could take years to clean it up. If duplicate and outdated leads are a challenge, now is the time to look into getting some of these mundane and time-consuming tasks automated. It will save you a lot of technology frustration, ultimately, creating more time to focus on developing your business, building stronger relationships and reaching a new level of success.

Final words.

While there are many CRM options in the market, each one specializes in different challenges. Pick the CRM that tailors to your goals and business strategy. By using CRM you connect all your workpieces and letting the CRM bring your business to new success.

You can think of your CRM as the new office. With employees working remotely, this is the new home base where everyone on the team can coordinate and keep up to date on what needs to get done. While some of us are still trying to navigate through Skype, Facetime, Slack, Zoom, Google Hangouts and making our home as our office. The CRM was built for the remote worker, collecting, storing and analyzing your data. So, it increases work efficiency and now is the time to leverage your CRM!

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New beginnings and the rise of integrityCo https://integrityco.io/new-beginnings-and-the-rise-of-integrityco/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-beginnings-and-the-rise-of-integrityco Tue, 24 Nov 2020 00:05:50 +0000 https://integrityco.io/?p=71

Hamid has been in the tech space for over a decade, as a software engineer, data scientist, entrepreneur and consultant. He has always been passionate about using technology, more specifically AI, machine learning, and data science to make business processes simpler and more efficient.  Throughout his time in the tech space and as an entrepreneur […]

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Hamid has been in the tech space for over a decade, as a software engineer, data scientist, entrepreneur and consultant. He has always been passionate about using technology, more specifically AI, machine learning, and data science to make business processes simpler and more efficient. 

Throughout his time in the tech space and as an entrepreneur he noticed some recurring patterns that disproportionately affected small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), that just didn’t quite sit right with him…

The first thing he noticed was that many startups, small and medium sized companies did not have the capacity to come up with innovative technological solutions to their everyday business challenges. Oftentimes, this comes down to an affordability issue. As a new company there is not always an excess of capital available. And to bring a team of “experts” in is a huge upfront investment, and most smaller companies just don’t have the budget for.

In other cases, there is already a team of data scientists but they lack experience, knowledge and aren’t sure how to ask the right questions and identify which projects to invest in for the highest ROI. A successful project not only requires a talented technical team but experienced product and project managers that understand the business behind it as well. If you’re lucky you come across that unicorn 10X data scientist that both understands the business side and the  technical side of the projects. Unicorns are damn expensive to hire full time and typically don’t work for a salary. 

The second thing he noticed was that companies that did have the fiscal capacity, who approached consulting firms felt that there was a mis-alignment of interests. Rather than being provided with solutions to solve their business challenges, they were offered strategies with limited guidance on execution… which in most cases does not work. Typically, firms that offer both strategy and execution are pretty good at what they do, but are exorbitantly expensive and unaffordable for the bulk of SMBs. This results in clients spending a ton of their budget on a project that has an absurdly low ROI. With much needed company resources essentially being burned right in front of their eyes. 

With limited access to affordable and innovative technological solutions, small and medium sized businesses don’t have much of a fighting chance at competing within their market. This even includes large low-tech companies in manufacturing, transportation, etc… While tech-positive corporations invest in more and more advanced technology to improve operations and efficiency, they gain a massive advantage in their market. The continuation of tech development and expansion without a disruption for these large, tech savvy corporations, means that smaller businesses are getting strangled out of the market. 

2020, undisputedly has been a year for the books. The misfortune that many of us have experienced or witnessed this year, have brought to light many serious social and economic problems that our society faces as a whole. 2020 has left many of us questioning our own morals, judgement, re-evaluating where our priorities now stand and even where we are spending our hard earned dollars. 

This was certainly true for Hamid, using his own experience and knowledge, he felt the best way he could chisel away at these problems was through entrepreneurship. He wanted to create something that would disrupt the patterns he noticed in the tech space. Furthermore, something that would emulate his own core values; innovation, humility, quality, and most importantly, integrity.

And, long behold the creation of integrityCo. AI & Business experts, who unlock the opportunities in your data and excel your business. With low risk and high reward.
Enabling companies to grow, advance and bring your vision into reality.

The first mission of integrityCo is transparency from start to finish. While integrityCo loves to take on a great challenge, there is also an urgent sense of accountability. A free consultation will tell whether or not a project is worth investing in – integrityCo only commits itself to projects which they believe has an ROI of at least 10X, because an investment to improve business operations shouldn’t be like playing a game of roulette. 

The second mission of integrityCo is accessibility. Making advanced technology more accessible to all companies regardless of size. SMBs have been hit the hardest in 2020. According to Business Wire, 43% surveyed reporting a significant to severe impact as a result of COVID-19, while CEO’s of massive corporations like Amazon, Microsoft and Zoom saw their wealth increase by as much as $48 billion. While SMB’s would greatly benefit from business process optimization, with a lack of financial resources it is not always possible to make these kinds of investments upfront – even if it would pay off in the long run.

The third mission is to promote equality, diversity and accessibility within integrityCo. At some point in our lives we have all heard somebody say “change starts from within.” While this statement might be overused and a little bit corny, there is some truth to it. integrityCo’s team is highly inclusive and made up of people of colour, women, all coming from varying degrees of education and life experience. integrityCo puts emphasis on a workspace that is inclusive, experimental and safe to be vulnerable. This trifecta has created a forward thinking team, who is not afraid to think outside the box when solving some of the most pressing challenges that businesses face today. 

As a start-up business, integrityCo has put emphasis on working with other start-ups, small and medium sized businesses. Ensuring access to top technology that is affordable, innovative, data-driven and tailored to the individual needs of each business. And most importantly provides solutions. All while building more meaningful relationships, partnerships and a stronger community of people and businesses with similar mindsets. 

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