This is a guest blog post by Laura Redmond.  Laura runs Redmond Accounting, a cloud-based accounting firm, and is a partner at Cloud Consultancy, the publisher of AERO.  Method is her tool-of-choice for automating manual business processes.

AERO is a new app for Method CRM that allows you to manage multiple staff performing multiple recurring tasks for multiple clients. It was developed because at Redmond Accounting, our previous process for keeping track of tasks proved to be inefficient. We are a staff of 5 who work remotely from our offices on both the East & West coast. We work with many different types of businesses, and even though our processes are standardized, our work can still vary from client to client. Before AERO, we would save everything in a master Excel spreadsheet that we kept on a server. However, this resulted in even more complications for us beyond the typical range of human error and file corruption. Since we already used Method CRM to manage our clients, it made perfect sense to create an app that would solve this one last challenge.

Here are the top three biggest pain points for task management that led us to create AERO.

1). Staff needed to know what tasks are due and when
With one master Excel sheet, only one person could access it at a time. Furthermore, even when tasks were completed they were still in the spreadsheet, both daily and infrequent tasks were listed, and everyone could see everyone else’s tasks. With such a large size our staff spent a great deal of time searching through it to determine what was needed from them that day. With AERO, each employee can find his or her own tasks easily and only needs to see what needs to be completed that day.

2). Tasks are listed without context
An excel spreadsheet can only hold so much information on each task, it is difficult to include notes on the task’s status, how to perform it, or client information without cluttering up the file for other staff that don’t need access to that information. The workaround for this was for each staff member to have his or her own cheat sheets and client docs. All of this is compiled together in AERO; each task includes notes and relevant info viewable on the same page.

3). Managers need to keep track without micromanaging
It’s always crucial to know exactly what your employees are working on and that it gets completed on time. I found it difficult to do so without sacrificing their ability to work independently and without interference. Too little time spent tracking everyone’s task, and important work may fall through the cracks; too much time, and your employees will think that they are not trusted. AERO solves this dilemma by giving managers a bird’s eye view of everyone’s tasks while in Method CRM. Thus, they can make sure their staff gets everything done while each employee is uninterrupted.

What have been your pain points for task management? What about your solutions? How could your firm use a service like AERO? Although AERO was designed for accounting firms with multiple clients and similar recurring activities, its task management system can be used by any company that wants to enhance their Method CRM experience.

AERO is available on the Method CRM app store at a subscription rate of $15 per month per user and requires Method CRM Pro. If you’d like to find out more about the app, please comment below or join our LinkedIn group by clicking HERE.

Laura Redmond
Redmond Accounting

Bio: Laura Redmond enjoys organizing everything from data to shoes.  In addition to running a totally cloud-based accounting firm, Redmond Accounting, she is a partner at Cloud Consultancy, the publisher of AERO.  Method is her tool-of-choice for automating manual business processes.

Hello and welcome to Method CRM’s weekly blog post. My name is Errol and today, I will talk about our user tutorial videos.

Of course, I always talk about the tutorial videos. And you know what? That intro line is now seared into my brain. I think I’ve said that line so many times that it just comes out naturally when I am greeting people or just muttering to myself at the grocery store.

"Hello and welcome to cereal. My name is Errol..."

You may be thinking, “Errol, you blogged last week!” And I did! But we have so many videos that I’m working through and we get so many questions on Importing Customers and Customer Leads that I wanted to share with you right away!

This one is chock full of information; it’s broken up into three parts! I won’t link all three parts here, just the first one, but the one thing we are trying to do is put in Annotations in our YouTube links! So at the end of the video, you will see a grey bar which will take you to the next video! How awesome is that?

I tried my best to keep it to two videos, but I just kept talking.

Just to give you a hint of what’s coming, we are working on a series for Activities! Everything you wanted to know about activities will not only be given to you in video form, but also documentation! Our Technical Writer, Alex, is hard at working trying to get all of this done. So stay tuned and next month we will show you more ways to make Method CRM easy to use.

Alex and I are here hard at work. Honestly! We are!

If you have any questions, or suggestions for a video topic, by all means, please leave a comment below. You can even tweet me if you wish, @Method_Errol. Both Alex and I use social media a lot and would like to talk to other people other than ourselves!

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day! Bye bye!

Now you know all my recording secrets...

Allo! Errol here again with my second blog post to let you know how you can Do More with Method CRM! I am excited because I get to blog on a monthly basis, and if you can tell from my videos, if there’s anything I like to do, it’s talk. Thing is, it’s almost strange for me to write a blog post knowing that I have my microphone just behind me and I could just give you a vlog instead.

However, then it would be quite difficult for my editors to edit me, and trust me, I need to be edited. I tend to wander in my thoughts.

This month, I’m going to focus on the videos that are currently posted in the Help Center under the Setup section. Do you remember getting Coach Steps emailed to you when you first signed up for Method? All of those Coach Steps are found there under Setup:

• Synchronize with QuickBooks
• Invite Users
• Upload your Logo
• Specify your Email Provider
• Add a Web-To-Lead form to your website
• Add a Payment Gateway
• Setup your Portal

And now each of those Coach Steps has a tutorial video attached with it. So if you have skipped your Coach Steps, or didn’t get them at all, here is your chance to set up your Method site!

If you would rather see all of the videos in a handy YouTube Playist, we are here for you.

In the future, we have many more tutorials lined up for you. My counterpart, Alex Krueger, who is the Technical Writer in charge of all things documentation, has been quite busy getting the written portion of the topics I video all organized.

In fact, he also edits all of the captioning that happens in the video just to make sure we get the correct spelling of “Ta-Dah!”

Once we are done, we do plan on releasing a new set of videos and documentation in a few weeks, so stay tuned!

If you have any questions, or suggestions for a video topic, by all means, please leave a comment below. You can even tweet me if you wish, @Method_Errol. I’m lonely on that account so a “Hi” would be nice.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

Web design sits at the intersection of art, technology and sales. And that’s a tough cross-roads because art is subjective, technology can be empowering while intimidating, and sales is the lifeblood of every business. Needless to say, good web-design plays a key role in a company’s brand identity and ability to drive more leads.

You met Rodolfo, VP of Product at Method, a few months back when he first joined the team. He’s an ideas guy who’s passionate about design (and Dumplings, if you ever want to grab lunch with him.)

One thing that differentiates Rodolfo from other designers is his approach:

“My job is to align the technology, business goals and the user’s needs into one cohesive product,” Rodolfo says. “I'm the guy who asks the "why" of everything, which sometimes can be a pain in the butt, but it pays off big time in getting results.”

So whether you’re planning a redesign or starting from scratch here are Rodolfo’s:

3 Things to Improve Your Web Design

1. Business owners should be clear on goals. But keep them simple. If you want someone to give you something, facilitate the process. Don’t put barriers in between. So if your website’s main goal is lead generation and collecting email addresses, don’t make a customer click through three dropdowns, just ask - the fewer hoops a users has to jump through, the higher your conversion rate. And don’t put too much information on the homepage. Sometimes a person visiting your site just wants to have a glance. If you keep it simple and capture their attention, they’ll stick around for more.

2. Ask for several ideas and make sure they’re fairly different from each other. They don’t have to be full mockups as long as you can visualize what the finished product will look like. Maybe it’s just different colour palettes or maybe it’s completely different layouts. Then test these within your environment. Remove yourself from the test group and show it to your wife/husband, kids, friends, co-workers, peers and see what they have to say. Moreover, ask trusted customers for their feedback. A free survey tool like SurveyMonkey makes this fast and easy.

3. Listen to your designer’s recommendations. Yes, you have strong opinions and you’re an expert in your business. When it comes to online, your web designer is an expert too. They’ll benefit from your customer knowledge and will use that info when designing. Then they come up with a few concepts that might be simpler than you imagined and have a lot less copy. That’s OK. Creating an awesome user experience is their job. Let them do it. This quote from Albert Einstein applies to so many things, including Web Design: “Make everything as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

What’s been your experience working on your site design? Are you a DIY type of person or do you rely on someone with professional expertise? What tips would you add?

Please share your thoughts. And as the 3 Things series grows we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on what’s worked and what hasn’t, and how you adapted or improved on an idea we shared.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com
Twitter: @methodCRM

And one more question for Rodolfo - When is Method’s new, redesigned site launching? :-)

Till next time.

Jamil... in conversation with Rodolfo Novak.

Hi Everyone,

The Support Team - Adam, Jason, and Ashur (that’s me) - are here to help you with your questions about using Method CRM.  Call us, email us, tweet us - we love to hear your feedback and find ways to help.

When customers bring up tricky topics we like to create Solutions and publish them on our Help Center (I like to refer to them as articles). That way all Method CRM users have access to these Solutions 24/7/365 in our easy-to-search Help Center. And starting now, we’ll be blogging regularly to highlight and share our latest Solutions to your questions.

The topic I would like to bring up today is:

Linking Method Users with QuickBooks (QB) Employees

You may be asking yourself "Why would I want to do that?", well let me tell you why. Linking someone’s Method User to their respective QB Employee will allow your organization to assign certain records to them, such as Leads or Customers.

For example, Bob's Auto Parts has a sales team of three (3) people, and Bob wants to divvy up his Method Leads evenly amongst his sales team. All he would need to do is edit the Lead and assign them a Sales Rep (QB Employee). Now, when Bob's sales team navigates to Leads and Contacts List, and uses the My Active Lead Contacts filter view, they'll only see the Leads which have been assigned to them. Cutting out the clutter is great, right?

Follow these simple steps to link a Method User to a QB Employee:

1. Navigate to the Customize tab.
2. Click the Users tab link.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate the user, then click Edit... next to his/her user name.
4. On Step 1 of 10, locate the Link to Employee/Vendor/OtherName (SalesRep) option and select the QB Employee from the dropdown list. *Note: If you want to link the user to a QuickBooks Sales Rep then look for names that are followed by initials in brackets, e.g. Joe Smith (JS1). Only Sales Rep records contain initials.
5. Click Finish, and once the screen has refreshed, advise the user to sign out of Method then back in, in order to utilize the user setting change.

Hope this has been a helpful tidbit of information - there's plenty more where that came from!

Let us know if there are any topics you need more clarification on, and we'll be happy to write up some more juicy articles for our Help Center knowledge base. This blog was brought to you by Ashur and the rest of the Support team. Signing off for now.  Have an awesome day and stay tuned for lots more blog posts designed to help you do more with less 

How to get in touch with Support

Phone: 1-888-925-6238, select option 2
Email: support@methodintegration.com
Forums: http://www.methodintegration.com/cs/forums/

Till next time!

Ashur

Every business needs a great story, the kind that engages customers and partners, builds long-standing relationships and generates referrals.

And if it’s really compelling, other people will tell it for you. That’s the essence of solid public relations.

So how do SMBs get started in PR?

As a former agency owner, I want to say, hire me :)  However, you can do a lot to lay a strong foundation yourself, especially in the first few years. These days, I’m the resident PR/Content Strategy specialist at Method so I thought I’d let you peek under the PR hood.

Here are three things you can do to get started on PR for your business:

1. Craft your story. Some people call it a news hook or elevator pitch. It should be a short yet captivating overview of who you are, what you do and why you do it best (no more than 100 to 150 words). Drill down to the essence of your business and add in dramatic details (i.e. little guy battles big established player). Just be sure to avoid jargon. Write it down and then read it aloud to hear what it sounds like. Tell it to your trusted colleagues, friends and family. Ask them if they have any suggestions for improvement. Then listen to the feedback, revise and practice some more. You’ll know you’ve got it right when people’s eyes light up as you tell it.

2. Build relationships before the ‘ask’. As with customers, your relationships with media, bloggers and other influencers don’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop credibility and trust. So as you’re creating your story, start paying attention to who’s writing about your industry in your local paper, magazines, online publications and blogs. Introduce yourself, comment on their posts and share them with your network. After a while they’ll start noticing you and maybe even ask you to tell your story before you pitch them.

3. Understand that not all news is created equal. Don’t expect to be covered on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or even your local paper. Your new product or expansion may be the biggest thing to happen to your business but, as they say, may not amount to a hill of bean to local media if you haven’t positioned it properly. You need to know how you fit in the news cycle – most likely you’ll be a soft or feature story, which doesn’t have the same priority as breaking news.

Like comedy, the secret of PR is timing and storytelling. Make sure you’ve got both when you go out with your pitch.

Have you tried doing some PR for your business? Any other tips to add?

Please share your thoughts. And as the 3 Things series grows we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on what’s worked and what hasn’t, and how you adapted or improved on an idea we shared.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com
Twitter: @methodCRM

Martin

Allo!

A lot of customers told us they’d love it if we offered additional info on how to get the most out of Method CRM, including more Video Tutorials! So we listened and I’m here!  

My name is Errol. Maybe you’ve heard my voice already if you’ve called in to Method or caught a few of our newest videos in the Help Center.  If not, then welcome to my post!

I was brought on to Method to create easy-to-understand video tutorials. And I totally love my job. First, not only do I get to learn and talk all day, but I get to be 'me'! (That may be frightening for some of you and my coworkers, till you get to know me, that is.)

I'm the one in black that didn’t get his own pizza.

I hope you’ll watch the videos (or 'screencasts'). We’ll be producing them on a on a regular basis and want to hear from you and know what you think! Why? Because the videos are for you and designed to be helpful and show you how easy it is to customize our platform for your needs.

And if you haven't seen one yet, here's a short example that will be going in our documentation (Yes! We are going to have documentation too!)

Click the picture and the magic of the internet will take you to our Help Center!.

There are many more videos in the Help Center and we will keep adding new ones as they’re produced. For now, the first seven articles under "Setup" each has a video! I even added some handy-dandy links at the top of each article so you won't miss the video.

See that link? I put it in because I care.

So by all means, check them out and please send us your suggestions. And if you have any ideas for a video or questions you want answered, please let us know. You can comment on the blog! Comment on the video! Tweet us @methodcrm!

We really want to hear from you so we can create the kind of content you’re looking for. And if we don’t hear back... Well, let’s just say I’ll have to start doing videos chronicling my lunch hours. No one wants that.

Take care and have a great day!

 Last Friday we decided to try something new: a virtual pizza party with a few customers. “Virtual” because most our customers are in different cities from us. “Pizza party” because we sent pizzas to their offices at lunch time. And this little experiment lead to today’s 3 Things post:

Surprising and Delighting Your Customers

1. Random Acts of Kindness. So to finish the pizza story, once a month we do a demo day, where staff show each other what they’ve been working on. It's exciting...but it was missing something: our customers!

So on Friday at 11 am, we decided to surprise a few customers by getting pizza delivered to their offices, and then chatting with them on Twitter, while we ate pizza “together”. The feedback we got was they loved the surprise. It gave that little morale boost they needed on a Friday. (P.S. If you want an invite to our next Virtual Pizza Party tweet us @MethodCRM with #ShowMeTheDough.)

2. Ask the “Magic Wand” Question. This is a fun and whimsical way to ask your customers for feedback. Here’s how we’ve done that with Method customers: “If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about Method right now, what would it be?” The answer you get will be your customer’s #1 pain point with your product or service. Maybe offer them an hour of free consulting or a small discount on their next invoice in exchange. Either way, I bet you a nickel at least some of them will say, “I’m really impressed you’re taking the time to do this”.

 3. Gift of Time. Instead of a card, bottle of wine or box of chocolates in December, give a few of your most loyal customers the Gift of Time. Start by asking them for their top 3 charities. Then follow up by offering to volunteer or attend the next fundraiser (ask for 3 charities so you get at least 1 that aligns with your values). You could just cut a check, but I bet you another nickel your customers will be more surprised and more delighted if you offer a little piece of your time.

Surprising and delighting doesn’t have to cost a lot or take more than a few hours… and it’ll be remembered for much longer than that.

So if you had a magic wand and could change one thing about this blog post, what would it be?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. And as the 3 Things series grows we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on what’s worked and what hasn’t, and how you adapted or improved on an idea we shared. And please let us know if you have any pain points or challenges you’d like us to cover.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com

Twitter: @methodCRM

Till next time.

Jamil

Last week Paul launched our new blog series “3 Things” by talking about his obsession with finding solutions and how this relentless focus on solving problems, for our customers and ourselves, has become part of Method’s DNA. 
 
When I joined Team Method last month I was struck by how much Method’s value system reminded me of the first place I had the incredible fortune of working: CHUM Radio.  And this led to today’s blog post:
 
Valuing Your Team.
 
Here are 3 Things I learned in radio on how to value your team:
 
1. The little things make a big difference.

First a quick story… when I met Mr. and Mrs. Waters for the first time (the owners) I was nervous, a little sweaty and mumbled my name. Yet even with 100+ employees, from then on both Mr. and Mrs. Waters always remembered my name.  They didn’t say “Jamal” or “Jemil”.  They called me “Jamil”, and that’s not an easy one to remember.
 
They were the owners.  I was the Intern.  And this simple courtesy set the tone for my entire 7 year run.
 
It’s easy to remember a name, set reminders for birthdays, get treats for the team on Friday afternoons (something I love about Friday’s at Method). Doing these little things builds goodwill.  And most importantly, your people feel valued.  Take it from the Intern -- me.
 
2. Organize your team in a circle; not a ladder.

Picture this: your team is standing in a circle, and your goal is in the middle.  Doesn’t that sound more collaborative and focused than standing on different rungs of a ladder?
 
Here’s what happened at CHUM: by using the circle instead of a ladder, the whole team understood the company’s goals, and their role in achieving them.  Most importantly, we understood why we were doing what we were doing – not just what someone else told us to do.   That made the company efficient because all staff, from junior to senior, were empowered to work independently.
 
3. Our people are our most valuable asset.

The Waters family would regularly say, “our most valuable asset is not the transmitter, building, or broadcast license.  It’s our people… the talented folks who create amazing radio and client partnerships every day.  They went so far as to call us “CHUM People”.  What effect did this have?  It made us feel privileged to work there.  And it made CHUM a highly coveted place to work. I still feel proud to say I was a CHUM person.
 
Maybe it sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid -- what I do know for certain is I felt privileged to be part of something unique. A big salary doesn’t buy that kind of loyalty.
 
What do you think? What can you do to make your team feel privileged to be a part of your company?  Any similar experiences? Please leave a comment or question, or hit us up on Twitter @MethodCRM.  Every week we’ll have a new post featuring 3 Things you can do now to elevate your business.

Till next time.

Jamil

I consider Method to be a solution-obsessed company. I personally get very geeky about problem solving, and find that this characteristic has woven itself deeply into the entire company's DNA. It has defined who we are.

At Method, we're a technology company, but the beliefs and practices that have led to our growth and success are applicable to any small business, regardless of the location or industry.

We're going to share what makes us a solution-obsessed company as the first theme of a new weekly series we are launching. I know you are busy running your companies, facing tough choices, balancing priorities and doing the most you can with limited resources and time. So our series will be focused on giving you three effective ideas for your business you can put into practice right now.

So let’s get started with a topic everyone can relate to:

Customer Service

Here are 3 things we practice at Method:

1. Stop selling. Start helping. As a solution-obsessed company, you need to be a good listener in order to understand the problem you are trying to solve. Seek further clarification to help you understand not just what the customer needs, but why they need it. When you know why, you can make better recommendations, set better expectations, and anticipate future needs or roadblocks.
   
   
2. Be consistent. Avoid case-by-case promises that cause one customer service experience to differ from another. Instead, make fair and reasonable policies and empower staff to make decisions. Train your staff with online material that is always up to date, giving them access to the knowledge of their peers. At Method we use articles (“solutions”) and encourage all staff to contribute and update as needed. The result: rookies and veterans both provide solutions to customers that are accurate and relevant.
   
   
3. Seek feedback. Before getting off the phone with a customer, let them know the date and time you'll be calling them next to give them a status update. Never leave a customer in limbo. When we are working on an issue for a Method user, we often give them a recommended solution, ask them to try it and then let us know how it went. But silence is not success - a service ticket is not closed until the customer says it is closed, so we reach out daily for up to two weeks until we get confirmation that the issue is indeed solved.
   
   

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you and if you have any other tips to offer.  As the series grows, we’ll be adding guest bloggers and looking for your stories on how you put what we suggested into practice, how you adapted or improved on it and if you have any pain points and challenges you’d like us to cover.

Email: 3things@methodintegration.com
Twitter: @methodCRM

As they say, good things come in threes.

Paul

By Mark Evans

Mark is a Toronto-based tech blogger and startup marketer. He sat down with Rodolfo Novak to learn about why he joined Method and his plans for the coming months.

Without a doubt, it has been an exciting couple of months for Method. It kicked off the year in style and generated considerable industry buzz by raising $3-million in Series A financing from Klass Capital. And now, it has snapped up Rodolfo Novak, one of Toronto’s hottest user experience and product strategy professionals.

With Method aggressively moving forward, attracting top talent such as Rodolfo is a big win. Rodolfo’s portfolio includes work with high-profile companies such as WattPad, RipeApps, BMO and AppHero (which, by the way, was recently described as the “best free app ever”).

So an obvious question to Rodolfo is “Why Method?”

“No one – not even Salesforce.com - is doing CRM for small business right,” he said. “There is a huge under-served market out there of small businesses using terrible software. The big and exciting opportunity for us is to make these businesses perform better with great software.”

With Rodolfo now on board as VP of Product (a position often occupied by marketing and project managers), it is clear that Method CEO Paul Jackson sees UX as a critical part of the strategic and tactical mix.

At the same time, Paul is assembling a top-notch team to evolve Method’s CRM platform and drive the company’s growth.

A native of Brazil, living in Toronto’s red-hot tech sector, Rodolfo said he has exposure to many opportunities, but jumped at the chance to join Method because it is tackling a challenging and complicated problem: creating a customizable CRM platform specifically for small business owners.

From the outside looking in, you might ask: “Why is creating a CRM for small business such a big deal?”

The answer is small business owners have many different needs, so they want a CRM that adapts to their unique business, with minimal investment, but at the same time be useful and friendly for their staff.

“One of the biggest hurdles in creating a next-generation CRM, is that it has to be robust and flexible,” Rodolfo said. “The mandate that Paul has given me is bold and inspiring: we’re going to take on the market with a new model. Method is going to provide an affordable way for small businesses to have the level of personalization previously available only to larger enterprises.  My job is to take this powerful engine that makes Method run, and present it in a way that is intuitive and immediately useful to the small business user.”

So what are the top things on Rodolfo’s plate?

With meeting the needs of SMBs as the focus, Rodolfo said Method will launch an app store that will make it easy for developers to build new tools or modify existing ones to add new features – all without writing a single line of code. While apps are hot these days, Rodolfo said the important difference with Method’s approach is encouraging the creation of small granular apps that are fine-tuned to do specific tasks, and then allow the apps to be further customized to each business. In addition, these granular apps will play nicely with SMB's backend accounting system (QuickBooks, FreshBoooks, Wave, Xero, Intaact).

The first critical release of the next version of Method is the mobile application. One of the key considerations, Rodolfo said, will be creating a mobile experience that is not a replication of the desktop experience – yet will be just as customizable to each company.

When asked to describe what he wants to achieve at Method, Rodolfo has a big goal.

“People start small businesses because they aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They want to disrupt their markets, and quickly turn their ideas into reality. I believe CRM systems should not only keep up with these leaders, but actually help them go faster. We want to help small businesses out-innovate their competition.”

About Mark Evans:

Mark Evans works with early-stage startups and fast-growing companies looking for strategic and tactical help to jump-start their marketing activities. He writes a regular blog about startup marketing, as well as a popular newsletter about Canadian startups. Mark is also one of the organizers of mesh, Canada's leading digital conference, and meshmarketing. Learn more about Mark here: www.markevanstech.com/ 

With all the madness of the last month, we nearly forgot to let you know about a couple great new features to Method: Tags and a new List Builder. These features allow you to get more done in Method in less time than ever before.

Tags help you more easily categorize the people you need to reach and keep track of. They are more powerful than a traditional category field because you can assign multiple tags to the same record. For example, you could tag a contact with "Friend", "Partner" and "Influencer" meaning they have earned all three of these qualities.  

As for the List Builder, in addition to us creating a faster way to generate marketing lists, it also plays nice with tags.

I’ll give you a quick demo. Here's what Bob Crenshaw's contact screen looks like with no tags (I've highlighted the tag field in red):






When you hover your mouse over the tag icon you get a list of potential tags to assign to Bob Crenshaw (you'll need to create some tags here if your list is empty):




Here's how Bob Crenshaw's contact screen now looks like when he is tagged as a Friend, Influencer and Partner:






You can search for contacts with those tags in the Customers and Contact list (see the help center article for special tag search tips):






To use these tags to generate a marketing list, let’s go to the List Builder. Here I am getting a list of all Partners or Influencers. But I am making sure that any of those contacts who is also a friend is filtered out:




And here are the results, ready for an email blast:



Tags will start to play a bigger role as we roll out new features this year - so get used to them! What I love most about tags is that in many cases they save you from having to customize screens in order to add new custom fields.

To learn more about tags, please check out the following article:
http://www.methodintegration.com/method/kb.aspx?folder=methodcrm&id=254

Enjoy,

Paul

The community is buzzing today about the announcement on TechCrunch of our $3 Million Series A capital raise, led by Klass Capital (backed by HOOPP - a $40 Billion pension fund).

This is exciting news for me, for our team, and for the amazingly innovative small businesses using Method.

We have a different story from the stereotypical tech startup.  We’re a few years in now, but up until this raise, we had no outside investors.  I was fortunate enough to have built and sold a previous software company, so I kicked in the cash to get us started. But from there we have relied on our ability to deliver value to our users in order to grow. We learned about you, what worked, what didn’t work and what we should focus on next.

We have grown rapidly, and built an awesome 25-person team. We serve thousands of loyal users, earned a 5 star rating on Google Apps Marketplace and have the top rated CRM on Intuit App Center.

So…..why did we raise capital? We didn’t need to do it. We could have kept doing what we were doing and growing organically, right? Yep….but that just wouldn’t have been good enough. We owe you more. Let me explain.

The more we work with small business owners, the more clearly we see why you do what you do. You want to build a business with your own hands that you can be proud of. You want to implement your own ideas, and those of your staff and customers - and you want to do this fast with nothing getting in your way.

We have learned that you use Method because we help you be agile. We are the tool that adapts to you and keeps pace with your brilliant ideas. We help you out-innovate your competition.

Just like you, we’re a small business. What we see in you, we see in ourselves. Our original ideas took Method to where it is today, and it’s your feedback that will take us where we need to be tomorrow. We have found 100 new ways to make you even more agile, and we want to move fast.  To do this, we need to be more agile too.

So we raised capital to increase the size of our team faster than we could grow organically.  The extra breathing room means we’re able to move at a rocket ship pace. We’re hiring some of the brightest minds in our local backyard, and also from around the world - I’ll be able to share some exciting news on this front soon – keep an eye out.

There’s lots of excitement at Method HQ and we’ve already started to ramp up with new BIG projects. Throughout the first half of this year, we’ll be beta testing a series of integrations and improvements. We hope you’ll try them and share your ideas about how we can make them work even better for you. A whole new Method is around the corner.

Thank you for your support and feedback. We couldn’t be doing this without you.

Stay tuned!

Paul

Paul Jackson
Founder & CEO
Method CRM
Twitter: @PaulAlexJackson

At Method CRM, we’re firm believers that online is the future for small businesses. I mean, we did create an online app after all! This month the first SmallBizVCon is being hosted by Stacy Kildal and Dawn Brolin, both avid users of online solutions and named CPA Practice Advisor’s list of “2012 Most Powerful Women in Accounting”. Method CRM is a proud sponsor of this conference and what it means to the small business owner.

So what is a VCon?

VCon = Virtual Conference. Who doesn’t love a good training conference? As great as they are, sometimes they’re just not practical. The logistics and cost of arranging travel, being away from the office, the list can go on and on. It’s tough, so they’re bringing the training TO YOU! You don’t even have to shower to attend this training since you can do so from the comfort of your own home, office or wherever you are at the moment.

So what can you learn about?

In addition to learning about why CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is important for small business owners, you’ll learn about other business topics that help you run your business. Some of these topics include:

• Setting up a killer website.
• Managing your finances & payroll.
• Making filing your taxes less of a pain.
• How to track your customers and why you should care about it.

So who’s sponsoring the VCon?

Here are a list of the sponsors attending the conference.

• Method CRM
• Intuit
• Transaction Pro Importer
• Bill.com
• ScanWriter
• BillQuick
• UniData
• Jen Puckett

So how much does it cost?

Only $95 per person! To register for the conference, click here. Spaces are limited.

We look forward to seeing you at the SmallBizVCon. I know this is something that Stacy and Dawn plan on conducting throughout the year so please let us know your thoughts on the event.

Have a fantastic start to 2013,

Danny

Intuit App Center received a big update last week, something that had been anticipated from an earlier announcement in their IPP blog, where they wrote:

"We will be presenting apps based on a simple formula: number of reviews x star rating (to represent quality). "

On the surface, this may seem like trivial news. It may even beg the question "Doesn't it just make common sense that the best apps should rise to the top". To someone from the outside, I bet it almost seems like they "fixed" something with the App Center listing.

In reality, this change goes much deeper. Developers and QuickBooks end-users alike should be shouting "hooray!" at the top of their lungs.

They didn't fix the listing in Intuit App Center. They unfixed it.

You see, Intuit has put a lot behind the Intuit App Center, and is pouring more and more resources into it. The apps listed on Intuit App Center consist mostly of 3rd party apps like Method CRM, Bill.com and MavenLink, but also include Intuit’s own applications. So...if you are Intuit, and your apps are listed together with 3rd party applications, you have 2 choices.

The choice:

#1: Give Intuit owned applications preferential treatment and the most prevalent listings in order to get maximum exposure.

-or-

#2: Make a commitment to developers - "Let the best app win, regardless of who wrote it".

From a developer's standpoint, do you want to write applications for a partner platform knowing that no matter how great you make your app, you'll always get second class treatment? Hell no! You want choice #2, a strong commitment from the platform that if you try really, really, hard to make a killer app that creates supreme customer happiness, you'll rise to the top.

From the end user standpoint, you want developers fighting for you. You don't want app developers relaxing because they were already promoted to the top for political reasons. You also don't want 3rd party developers de-motivated because no matter how hard they try, they'll never get full recognition. So Intuit’s choice to make a commitment to developers is a huge win for end users too.

So I tip my hat to Intuit for making the right choice. Their commitment will attract more developers, creating a community of better applications, happier end users, and ultimately a stronger Intuit.

Paul


Paul Jackson
Founder & CEO
Method CRM