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Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

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40hz:
I can hear you saying it now "If they can't be trained to do simple CSV export/import, what makes you think they can learn to use a CRM?", but speaking from experience it's never as simple as that, and it never ends there.
-JavaJones (March 31, 2010, 12:31 PM)
--- End quote ---

Nope! That's the absolute last thing you'd ever hear me say.

That's tantamount to blaming the victims as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, if this were all as intuitive as most people would hope it to be, about a fifth of the people who frequent DonationCoder would be out of business tomorrow morning!

Seriously though, you have a very valid point. Most of this is more complex than it might be.

So... maybe it is high time for "somebody" to really do up a well thought out CRM/general management solution for small business. Still, I don't know how well that would work out since individual business requirements would vary widely enough in their respective markets that I doubt an absolute one-size solution is viable. The one word that doesn't ever seem to apply to small businesses is the word 'general.'

Then there's development costs. How you could earn enough money to continue developing something like this is anybody's guess. Especially since small businesses are notoriously tight with their cash even on those rare occasions when they actually do have some to spend.

Maybe that's why the "vertical application" market is made up of so many small software/consulting firms catering to very narrowly defined industry segments?
 

"It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes."  as Sherlock Holmes would say.

 :)

Note: I didn't find any of the mail services I've used to be particularly crappy. More like some of them didn't work "correctly" (as in: the way 40hz thought they should work).

But that's a topic for another day. ;D

JavaJones:
Thanks, I appreciate your perspective on the problem, and that you see the complexities and challenge here. I agree that on both sides of your point that perhaps there is an opportunity here to develop software to fit this niche, yet at the same time many businesses need different workflows. That being said, two thoughts occur to me on that.

First, at least in the case of this flower shop and, I'd wager, many other very small businesses (that are nonetheless needing or at least wanting to start using more advanced tools to help them focus on the really important and unique parts of their business), it seems very probably that they could be made to adapt to a certain approach to their business flow, provided it was clear and simple to use. If a static approach provides enough other benefits (e.g. universal data synchronization, workflow automation, etc.), then it can still be embraced despite requiring changes to existing work processes. And I realize in fact that many businesses do adjust how they do things to fit existing solutions when they see that solution as "the" way to do things, for example Quickbooks. While it's a somewhat flexible tool, it still enforces certain ways of doing things (partly for legal reasons, partly just because it has its particular approach to things). I've heard many times from small businesses owners "Well we do that because that's how Quickbooks codes it" or whatever. Probably that rings a bell for you too. Even if it's not Quickbooks, it's *something*. So arbitrary constraints can be adapted to provided sufficient incentive.

The second thought that occurs to me is some kind of easily and fully customizable system might be used by IT consultants to make a custom(ish) solution, but without breaking the bank. If you want a custom solution from any of the major CRM manufacturers, it is usually major money. An open source customizable solution that could be setup by a competent IT person and not require any significant new coding to establish e.g. a particular workflow, or change the names of primary fields, or whatever, could cost small business owners far less. If it was done right, with lots of modular bits and plugins, all of which could still be updated easily through a central update system (think Linux package manager, or Ruby Gems or similar), it might be a very functional solution, allowing reasonable customization by non-coders (still requiring "experts", but at a much lower and less costly level), maintaining ease of upgrade, and getting people the functionality they need.

I think though that the first approach is really the most practical and I'm quite interested in considering it further. I still maintain hope that someone out there has made the defacto "This is the best way to organize your business, and our tool makes doing so very easy so use it!" system and we can just buy it, I can train them, and then they'll be off and running. I'm quite sure if I gave them a system that allowed them to manage all their contacts, accounts, associated tasks and documents, was accessible from the web remotely, from their blackberry, and integrated/synced with their web store and Quickbooks, they'd be happy to take some time to learn how it worked. They might occasionally curse the rigidity of the system, but 90% of the time it'd be making their work faster and easier.

- Oshyan

40hz:
Sounds like it's time for you to generate a formal requirements document for yourself.

Grab a pen and start listing everything you (and your friends) can think of that you'd want this digital wunderkind to do.

And don't skimp. Ask for everything you can think of up front. You can always cut it back a little later. (And you will cut it back once it gets to the design and implementation or 'purchase decision' phase. Oh my, yes...) But that all comes later. Now is the time to dream.

So let's think big!

Got the list? OK, now do some logical task subgroupings, and ideally rank the list into three categories:

1) Must have
2) Should have
3) Nice to have

From this document you can either move on to designing and coding your own; or finding an existing product that most closely matches your requirements.

Fun stuff! :Thmbsup:

JavaJones:
Yeah, if I want to do it *right*. But who wants to bother with that? :P

Honestly I think I'll know it if I see it (and I admit that may sound a bit presumptuous). So for now mostly what I'm doing is looking for general CRM tools and then checking feature list, followed by screenshots or demo videos (if available), followed by actual functional demos (again, if available). So far nothing has made it past stage 3 intact, hehe.

- Oshyan

40hz:
Honestly I think I'll know it if I see it (and I admit that may sound a bit presumptuous).
-JavaJones (March 31, 2010, 04:54 PM)
--- End quote ---

Maybe...

Then again, that very same approach worked for me when I first met my GF - so far be it from me to criticize... :P

Keep us posted on what you find! :Thmbsup:

-----------------------

* "Why is there never enough time to do something right - but an unlimited amount of time to do something over?"

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