Webmaster Forum - Online Business Forum

CRM Advice

webcrafters — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:33:30 GMT

Okay so here is the need and goals section

Track Clients/Customers
Track Projects with ability to collaborate for share holders
Offer limited access to resellers/affiliates by grouping
Process sales and email invoices/quotes/sales orders
Follow Leads and Lead History
Provide Trouble Ticket/Inquiry like access to clients/customers (Tracked)

Here are the solutions being examined/considered

vTiger Open Source
SugarCRM Community

Problems Synopsis

vTiger 5.4 is currently doing a great job in all areas except for the emailing of invoices. The customer portal has yet to be set up and tested as the pdf creation and attachment to emails is a high priority need and is currently not working and there is no history and no response for the current problem being faced. All pdf history is using a free limited and paid version of the pdfmaker module. It appears that all of the ability to create pdf's is native in the 5.4 release of vTiger so should be no need for paid modules.

SugarCRM has not been thoroughly tested and appears to be lacking the support ticket/inquiry ability.

The Why

Need a way to provide unlimited ability to take care of clients and provide access to others that would like the opportunity of being an affiliate or reseller without having to pay an elevated fee for per user access as autotask and others currently do. Need to be able to allow others to track their leads and sales without the pressure of having to produce in order for the access to be paid afforded by the company. Having to pay a per user cost also prevents company from being able to provide the best commission as the added expenses would have to be paid for per user somehow using the autotask etc methods.

What I'm Asking You

Are you familiar with either of these open source solutions? Do you currently or have you in the past used them? Have you heard of a problem with vTiger and PDF invoices being attached to emails? If so have you ever heard of what may be causing this or how to fix?

What is your opinion of the system being the best choice between the two, SugarCRM or vTiger? Do you have other open source solutions that are available to address the needs and goals?

Thanks for any input or suggestions you may have in advance...

Want to build an e-commerce site..

ImagesGym — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:19:45 GMT

Hello,

I'm willing to invest in a e-commerce site. However, I am a bit confused in few things.

Should I build a website from starch or would an e-commerce site based on wordpress should (professional with paid plugins and customization) would be suitable?

Basically, I don't have time, so I'll be hiring someone to do so. So, I would like to have an idea of rough estimate that how much investment it would require just to build the site.

You help is appreciated.

Easy Way To Make Money Offline - With Absolutely NO Competition!

Jamie-AndersonDotCom — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:51:21 GMT

People are always looking for new and fresh methods which can help them achieve their dream of having the freedom to work for their self. There is no reason why this method can’t make you enough money to live off if you scale it and outsource the workload once you have tested and found a formula that works for you.

Anyway, let’s get on with it...

Step 1: Join ANY CPA network. It's really not as hard as people make out. If you get rejected at first, then simply contact an affiliate manager via phone or AIM and ask why you were rejected, and what you have to do to be accepted. This alone is usually enough for them to OK your application.

Step 2: Have a printer or a friend/associate/member of family who has a printer.

Step 3: Read on and actually take action and try this once you’ve finished reading...

Anyone who is a member of any CPA network will know... There are a lot of email/zip submits that offer vouchers/possibility of winning vouchers for these big brand stores. For example, I'm from Scotland and we have the likes of Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons (all supermarkets), Next, Argos, PC World etcetara etcetara (we've all seen the multiple offers that vendors use to promote their email/zip submits using these huge brand names.)

American equivalents are Walmart, JC Penny, Target and many others (Probably loads of American alternatives to these, being in UK I only know a few of them though).

Here’s the actual money making part of this method...

I'm assuming that in America, as in Scotland, these huge retail stores have massive car parks (parking lots?). Use your printer (or afore mentioned contact's printer) to print off business card sized flyers stating something along the lines of...

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

Get your FREE [Insert store name] �250 (<--- or whatever monetary value network's offer states) Voucher at:

we're-giving-away-FREE-vouchers.com/.info (<--- .info if you have literally next to no money, I think you can even get .co.cc's for nothing.)

Hurry, Limited time only. (or some similar call to action).

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

Now, you (or even better, pay some teenagers next to nothing) put one of these business card sized flyers under the window wiper every car in the car park of the store, every day of the week. Alternatively, you can just slide it in between the gap in the rubber seal and the window of the driver’s door, that way you don’t have to touch the vehicle at all.

How many of these huge stores do you have near you? Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, it's going to be a lot. There is no reason why you can't buy a domain for each different store and have teenagers place these business card sized flyers under every window wiper/on driver’s door of every car in the car park with your marketing message on them.

The amount of people who pass through these stores is crazy, especially at the weekend. The amount of people who will also take these flyers home and fill out the email/zip submit offer that you have redirected/iframed on your domain is also crazy.

You can also add another part to the monetisation if you like...

Take the likes of fortumo.com, daopay.com or zaypay.com (I've never used any of these companies in the past so I don't know if they pay, but if somebody is texting a number to get these vouchers, they are almost definitely going to visit the webiste and fill out the offer) and get a text word and number... By this I mean...

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

Text OFFER to 88888 to get your FREE �500 ASDA voucher (For example)

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

Now, every person has been given two opportunities to make you some money. The reason being that these SMS companies charge each person up to �10! (You recieve up to �6/$10 per text sent, it's up to you to select the cost of text, in the UK OFCOM insists you must clearly display how much the text message will cost but at the end of the day, if you put in smallish print... (Texts cost 10 GBP) at the bottom of your sign/flyer, you will still get a lot of people texting the number for the FREE vouchers. It may be a good idea to have the cost per text lower than this however, in the UK the standard premium rate text message costs between �1 and �1.50.

Anyway, once they text the number, you have set up an auto reply which texts them the website to visit (As in the redirect of CPA offer for selected store). This is perfect because it is on their phone, they can refer to it when they get home and fill out the offer without having to hold on to flyer or remember the website.

Now, you have MINIMUM of �1/$1.50 per customer from the text message OR if you went direct for the website on the flyers, you've made like a $+ from the email/zip submit alone. If you've done both, your laughing.

BUT, if you are really clever, you'll make a squeeze page, which you will advertise on ALL flyers in EVERY car park. Or, every text you send out will contain this website address with the squeeze page. Then you get them to double opt-in. Then you have a list of hungry consumers that you can market offers to over and over again.

Now, some of you may be thinking about possible legal issues here. I myself am obviously not aware of the legalities of this in whatever city, state or country you live in personally. Remember, you can just as easily walk the streets and do this to parked cars all over your city, all day if you wanted to. All you’d have to do is change up the offer to something more evergreen like make money online/biz opps/weight loss etc. I for one am always coming across people who have placed flyers under my window wiper advertising local businesses and services, so see no reason why you couldn't do the same with your own online site.

While the method may need some refining and testing, I’m sure that this would return a nice investment on your time and effort if done properly. If you could turn it in to a profitable system, then you would just have to outsource the distribution of the flyers and scale the whole operation up.

If anyone has tried something similar to this in the past, I’d love to know what sort of results you got. I think this method is perfect for noobies to dip their toe in as well and would love to hear some feedback from someone who followed this advice and gave it a try.

What is your hidden secret to improve your website ?

apexpranav70 — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:52:22 GMT

Tell me some hidden secret of yours, which is never heard before. 8)

Best web based project management tools

lora93 — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:10:47 GMT

There are many tools and software's are used in companies to effectivley control and monitor the project by controlling employees performance. For this purpose companies are investing tons of money to purchase these software's and tools to complete their projects. As a project manger i m going to shear a list of web based project management tools list.

Financial projection planning chart
Prince2 software
Gantt charts
BCG matrix templates
Excel time tracking templates

7 Things To Consider Before Selling Your Company

snakeair — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:19:51 GMT

Thinking about selling your company? Take a look at this blog post before you do anything.

Quote:

While getting acquired is something many young startups hope, dream and sometimes even plan for, the actual deal doesn't always follow the script. One reason startup acquisitions often don't go as planned is that the founders may not know what to expect and how to ensure they're getting the right deal. That's especially true if it's an early exit - before the company has fully matured.

So we asked seven young founders from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) - many of whom have been through the acquisition process - to share reasons why an early-stage exit might not work out, along with their best advice for making sure things do go as planned:

Continued at: http://readwrite.com/2013/05/13/7-th...g-your-company

Any thoughts from the company owners?

Looking for opinions

tsswd — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:59:29 GMT

I need some thoughts on how to make this work.

I need to raise some funds for my site in a short period of time. I was thinking about offering a year of advertising for $50. The ad would appear on my site and the widget (wich runs of several sites). A link through whos.among.us would be provided for live tracking.

Is this s good strategy to bring in advertisers? Does it sound too gimmicky? How can I make this work and where would be the best place to post such an offer to get people to buy?

Thank you in advance.

Is online business training good for business improvement?

scottbaird — Wed, 01 May 2013 08:14:21 GMT

I want to improve my business online and also want online training for business. Can anyone help me to suggest best business improvement training online?

How can i start a cake delivery business?

vikkydonlad — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:29:18 GMT

Hi, i want to start a cake delivery business in California.
Can i cook cakes in my home and sell it?
I wanna deliver the cakes with my car.
What do u think how can i start it?

ELANCE, how to get success?

Semish — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:44:44 GMT

i am doing work at ODESK and getting contracts, but i just created account at ELANCE too, any tips of success at ELANCE?

How a Mentor Can Accelerate Your Career

snakeair — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:36:40 GMT

Anyone have one? Read this blog post when you get a few minutes.

Quote:

At the beginning of your professional career, everything in front of you can appear daunting. During these formative years, you are deciding what you want to do, who you want to be and where you are going to start. Many of us change our minds about our future career before we hit the workforce, and then there are, of course, job changes throughout your career.

The overwhelming stress of this phase can be alleviated by finding a mentor to give you guidance and help you achieve your career goals. Learning from a successful mentor in your field of interest...

Continued at: http://mashable.com/2013/04/28/mentor-career/

Any feedback?

Can we sell PLR on Fiverr?

bloggersjoy — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:21:57 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Can we sell PLR content on Fiverr and SEO clerks? Please share your ideas and experiences.

Thank You

Any idea about Craiglist

bloggersjoy — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:36:34 GMT

Hello Everyone,

I want to explore the features and facilities provided in Craiglist but do not know much about it. Can you please help me to learn Craiglist?

Thank You

Webpage help! We want to start our own store instead of ebay store!!

HRPerformance — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:59:57 GMT

Hi,

I currently own a small business, we sell used auto parts. We have been in business for the last 4 years now. I've slowly went from working part time on the side to full time running the business.

We currently have a domain name & website. The web site is basic and has a link to our online store (ebay). We have been using the ebay store as our main site for sales. It has been doing well, we shipped out over 1,000 parts last year (blackthorne pro is our current listing tool).

However Im completely fed up with ebays policies, fee structure, aswell as buyers being able to pretty much get away with everything!

The goal is to set up a professional looking webpage with a working check out. Ideally we need a management tool that can manage both ebay and separate online store inventory.

This management tool would need to be able to create one listing that can be uploaded into ebay page aswell as our webpage at the same time.

Any suggestions? Also looking for a web site host that offers a package to build what we need!! I've been on the net for hours looking into different web builders ect, my head feels like its going to explode!!!

Thanks,

Josh.B

Getting Past Abandoned Shopping Carts

snakeair — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 05:04:17 GMT

I've actually left websites because of how things was set up on their sales page and bought the product somewhere else. If you run a shopping cart type of business, read this blog post. You just might improve your sales making a few changes.

Quote:

Shopping cart abandonment has become one of the major concerns for many online business owners. In accordance with various reputable industry researches, like those by Internet Retailer, Baymard, Forrester, etc., the average shopping cart abandonment rate has risen to almost 70% for the last 3-4 years. The most crucial consequences of this negative tendency are missed income opportunities, significantly decreased online sale volumes and customer satisfaction rates, which may turn to be fatal for any online venture.

Below I�m going speak about some crucial factors making online shoppers abandon their carts as well to provide useful tips on how to stop this negative tendency in your particular case.

Continued at: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/g...g-carts/62194/

Anyone have any feedback?