{"id":14804,"date":"2024-06-19T11:42:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T18:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=14804"},"modified":"2024-09-12T06:30:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T06:30:58","slug":"productivity-hacks-smb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/in\/blog\/productivity-hacks-smb\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Productivity Hacks for Small Business Owners Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For many small and medium business (SMB<\/a>) owners, small tasks like looking up email exchanges with prospects or responding to customer inquiries take up most of the day. So the question is, how do we get these tedious tasks out of the way to focus on business priorities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For any business, adopting technology to automate busy work is the solution, and it doesn’t just end up being convenient — it is necessary to compete in today’s marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With technology like Salesforce Starter Suite<\/a>, our customer relationship management (CRM)<\/a> system built for small companies, you can turn tasks into clicks<\/a>. Here are six productivity hacks to help you find more prospects, earn more business, and keep your customers happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your productivity hacks: <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Spend less time in your email inbox<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Schedule meetings with zero back-and-forth<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Manage all customer inquiries in a single app<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Never type up the same response twice<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Help your customers help themselves<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Keep track of key metrics with ease<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    1. Spend less time in your email inbox<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    How much time do you spend in your inbox? Research shows<\/a> that an average person spends 11 hours a week on email. That’s a lot of time, and it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Being overwhelmed with email isn’t unusual, especially as a small business owner who takes on multiple roles, such as managing deals, handling customer inquiries, and collaborating with colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you’d like to spend less time in your email inbox, try Einstein Activity Capture in Starter Suite. It automatically populates your CRM records like leads, accounts, contacts, and opportunities with email exchanges and calendar entries between you, your customers or prospects, and your team members who also use Salesforce. Say goodbye to digging around your inbox! (Back to top.<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Take the first step with Starter Suite<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

    Wherever you are, just start. Kickstart any business at any time, with the right tools for the job. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\t\tGet started<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t
    <\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\"\"\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    2. Schedule meetings with zero back-and-forth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    With Salesforce Inbox, which is included in Starter for free, you won’t need to spend time going back and forth with prospects and customers to schedule meetings. Instead, Inbox lets you choose times on your calendar and drop them into your email. Once the recipient chooses a time that works for them, Inbox automatically creates a calendar invite for both of you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The best part? If one of the times you dropped in gets booked by someone else, it will no longer show up in any of your other emails, so there’s no need to worry about double-booking yourself. (Back to top.<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Manage all customer inquiries in a single app<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When your customers have questions or comments, they’ll likely reach out via email, through your website, or on social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Being able to respond to every request from a single app is really handy. Plus, if you have multiple people fielding customer inquiries, having all requests in a central place helps avoid confusion and keeps your team accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Starter makes answering customer inquiries a snap with a service console that allows you and your team to manage and respond to all requests without leaving your CRM. (Back to top.<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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