Lots of questions! Please help.

[damian_s]

Hello all.

I've been sat with a SugarCRM installation for a few weeks now but I'm still using my old spreadsheets because I'm not sure how to proceed with it. I want to have it all set up properly for my needs before I start throwing data into it, so I feel I need to work that out first.

I even find the terminology of 'leads', 'accounts', 'contacts' puts me off as they don't seem entirely relevant to my business. I hope that if I compile all of my notes here someone may be able to suggest a useful way forward for me.

Basically, I'm an entertainer. I get hired by individuals, venues and companies to perform for their guests.

The first thing I would like to know is where do I put all of these different people? And how do I keep them separate when I want them separate (mailing etc.). How does a contact differ from a lead? Do leads become 'accounts' once they have hired me? Are accounts companies or individuals? My clients are companies, individuals and venues. Would they all be accounts? I find all of this very confusing. I'm sure it will become clearer once I start putting data in, but I don't feel I should do that until I know the structure is set up nicely for me.

When someone makes an enquiry, and I give them a quote, are they a lead or a contact or an account? Do they become an account once they have paid me for one booking?

And what about the gig it's self? It should exist in the calendar as an enquiry that I need to follow up every now and then up until the point that it is either a confirmed booking, or the date passes, or my quote is turned down. How is all of this handled?

I'd also like to keep track of each booking I get as a separate entity.
Who booked me?
Have they booked me before?
How did they hear about me?
How much did I quote for this job?
When they contacted me?
How they contacted me (call, email, web form etc.)
How then responded to my quote

My wish list for the CRM:
I want to able to really easily print off a list of people I need to contact. This will mainly be 'people who have made an enquiry but have not yet confirmed'. Would that be easy to do?
I want the CRM to be able to tell me which forms of marketing are working best for me. For example: “How many contacts did I get from the XXX event I performed at?” “How many of them turned into bookings?” “How many people contacted me from Y website” “How many people hired me after contacting me via Z advert”
Other Segmentation (Why did they choose me? When did we meet, where? What search term did they use on line?). In which bit/bits would this segmentation information be? In the contact/lead/account? In the booking/enquiry details?
I'd like the system to be able to create deposit invoice once someone confirms a booking with me and a Balance invoice down the line.
I'd also like it if the system could remind me to do things. Eg 2 days before a gig, check venue location and plan leaving time etc. Also things like follow up lead if they've not responded after X amount of time. Maybe some of this could be automated!?
I've seen very complex email campaigns set up within programs like AdWebber and Infusionsoft, where if the person does or doesn’t do this set of actions then they do or don't get sent this next email or that one etc. Can SugarCRM do all of this, or should external services be used?

Can I modify it all to my own needs?

How can I add new areas of segmentation as and when I choose to add them?

What about contacts that are not potential customers (such as suppliers)? Is there a place for these or should they go into a different system? What about suppliers who become customers?

If I automate starting an email campaign after someone signs up to something, how can I stop the campaign (or change to a new one) when something changes (such as, they buy a product).

Must clearly show where gigs came from .. which pieces of marketing/media the client came via. This must be viewable individually and with stats for a selection of gigs (between time dates) and for all.

Can I send from different email addresses? (I have several different domains with different websites, but all related to the same core business.)

Can I integrate with MailChimp/Constant Contact/SignUpTo etc? Or do people use SugarCRM its self to send newsletters? What are the pros and cons of using Sugar or an external service?

Do I need to use email within SugarCRM, or can I continue to use Thunderbird?

Must be easy to segment (send this message to people I met networking .. send this one to people met at a conference .. send this one to people who have booked my twice though the 'Christmas entertainment' form [which doesn't exist yet, but you get the idea] etc).

Add sex to contact information, and a rough age range (if it's mainly 25 year old women that book me, advertise where they look!)

Must be able to show the %age of people that buy my Up-sell offers.

Multiple enquires and bookings from the same persona/company .. how are these events/gigs handled?

Notes from new interaction with a previous contact. Where do these go?

Is there a tool to change big addresses in spreadsheets into multiple entry/line addresses ready for import? I use Open Office calc and most of the addresses in there are the full address written out in one cell.

Is it possible to have multiple businesses in the CRM? Performing is my main profession, but I have a couple of smaller businesses. Should these be integrated into the one SugarCRM installation or each have their own installation? If they should all have there own, is that an easy way to add a contact from one to another or just manual cut and pasting. I probably wouldn't need the same company/person in more than one business crm very often, so that's not a big problem.

Can the Calendar use multiple calendar's like Sunbird/Lightning can? I believe Google calendar can too, but I don't use google products. I'd like to be able to have the same Calendar for my business and private life all fed to one place (my iphone), but don't know how to go about this.

I'd like to keep track or which package people choose when I offer them various alternatives. I'll also like to see at a glance what percentage of people paid full price for X and who negotiated (and how much they paid)

Would I be able to add noted to both people and events so that they popped up whenever I dug out either?

Does SugarCRM have the facility to let me give special offers and discounts?

I currently have SugarCRM CE installed on a Linux machine in my garage that's always on. Is this a good idea, or should it (can it?) be installed onto my webspace?

It would be GREAT if it could be integrated with something like Bing Maps (not google .. I don't like google), so that as someone was on the phone with me I could put in their address and it would tell me how long it would take me to travel to them and how much extra to charge! Is that possible at all or am I wanting too much?

My quotes don't need to be documents, I just put them in emails. I would need Invoices as documents. I usually create these in Open office and then email them out as PDF's. Can this type of thing be done?

I'd also like to be able to tick if an invoice has been paid or not within the details of a gig/contact. Then I'd hope to be able to quickly list all outstanding payments.

I usually give multiple options of services and prices within my email quotes. I'd like to be able to keep track of all of these too so that I can see how many people I offered what to and how many took me up on which options.

Each venue that I perform at (whether that's because I've been hired by them or more often because a company or individual has hired me to perform there), I'd like to be able to store information such as how far way it is from me. How long it takes to get there. Who they key people at the venue are (or would they be contacts?).

Is most of this already set up and I just don't realise it?

Should I learn how to set all of this up?

Should I hire someone to set all of this up for me?

Maybe it's not all even possible.

I know this is a WIDE ranging post, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I've put pretty much everything into this post that's be going around my mind regarding CRM. I hope it's not too off putting and that a few of you can offer me some help.

Cheers
Damian

[sts]

Lot's of questions... I'll try to answer a few of them.

leads vs. accounts vs. contacts:
A lead is someone (a person or company) who maybe will hire you. You are in contact with him but not fully sure if he'll hire you.
If you have a contract with him you'd convert the lead into an account and contact. The account is normally used for the contract partner, the contacts (it could be more than one e.g. for a company) are the people you talk to (for private persons account/contact would be more or less the same off course and it's your decision how to handle that exactly).

Quotes: you can give it to accounts or leads. If you were hired before you'd add it to the account, if not to a lead.

[damian_s]

Thanks for that Stefan,

So would suppliers not be in my CRM?

And what about Venues that I've worked at, but not for. I guess they'd be leads right?

Can anyone else tackle a couple of my mountain of questions/thoughts?

Thanks
Damian

[sts]

If I understand you right your supplier has some kind of contract with you. I would take him as an account. You can add an extra field to that module to differentiate between different types of accounts (or use an existing field for that purpose that you don't need otherwise).
An alternative would be to create a new module called "supplier" (but I personaly would prefer the other solution).

venues: I would only take those organisations or people as leads where you try to get a contract for a gig. As far as I understand your needs venues are a special object where you'll want to store some kind of special information like distance, information regarding the stage, maybe some techical stuff, etc. I would create a new module for that with a 1-to-many relationship to accounts, contacts and leads.

So you'd have the following objects:
- places for your gigs: venue module
- people: contacts
- contract partners: accounts
- 'future business': leads