by Jacob Allred | Apr 14, 2015 | Tips
Infusionsoft makes it easy to track any kind of relationship between contacts. For example, your business may want to track which contacts are business partners. Or maybe your business needs to keep track of which contacts are family members, such as husband and wife. Infusionsoft calls this a “relationship link” and gives you the flexibility to configure them in whichever way makes the most sense for your business. To setup a relationship link, pull up a contact in Infusionsoft, and then click the Linked Contacts tab. If you haven’t created any link types yet, you’ll need to click Manage Link Types, then New Link Type. Give your link a name (such as “Spouse”). You can also limit how many contacts can be linked together with this link type. For example, a spouse link type should probably have a limit of 1 because you can only have 1 spouse. Click Save. Next, create the relationship link. To do this, go back to the Linked Contacts tab and search for a contact. Select the type of link and click Save Link. That is it! Once you have a relationship link established, you can merge a linked contact’s details into your email. For example, you might include a reference to a contact’s spouse, or cc a business partner. This will show up in your list of available merge fields under the name of the type of link (such as...
by Joey Novak | Apr 13, 2015 | Tips
IVR’s are those magic phone systems most companies have when someone calls. As much as I would love to have a full-time receptionist, it just isn’t practical for our business. We wanted our IVR to be different, and not lame. Give it a call at (480) 725-3434 to check it out. It isn’t hard to setup one of these either. Using a combination of Twilio and OpenVBX it can be setup in about an hour. While we don’t manage IVRs as a normal part of our business, we may do it as a sign of goodwill for somewhere around $500 for a couple of phone lines if you would like some assistance. Give us a call and we’ll work something out. If you want to set it up yourself, here is what we recommend: Start with a timer widget so you can set your open hours. If your office is open, send them to a menu widget, otherwise a message saying you’re closed and then to voice mail. Earlier this week, I said to turn off voice mail, but this voice mail can be automatically sent to your email account, so it flows well. Make your menu recording interesting and brief. Make sure all menus include a “0” option so people who are impatient and push 0 go somewhere (like a receptionist or other individual that can help route the call to the right person). That’s...
by Joey Novak | Apr 10, 2015 | Tips
Last year the time finally came for us to get an office phone instead of using my personal cell phone as the main office line. We didn’t want to actually get a land-line (so last decade), and we didn’t need a cell phone since it’s just for the office. After a few hours research we opted to get a Skype subscription with a Skype number (a few bucks a month) on an account that isn’t listed in Skype’s directory. We bought an older Android phone with wireless charging. This essentially gave us a cheap cordless phone for the office. We bought a Nexus 4 from Swappa for $60. It doesn’t need cell service to be used with Skype; just connect it to your office wifi. It sits on my desk, and when it rings I can pick it up (or one of our devs since it isn’t “The Boss’s Cell”), handle the call, walk around the office, etc. We can also take calls on a computer if we want since it is a Skype number. This gives us flexibility for a very low initial and on-going...
by Joey Novak | Apr 9, 2015 | Tips
Google Inbox is a new way to work with email. Most of us have used our email to manage tasks and get things done for years. Google realized this and created a new interface for Gmail called Inbox. It doesn’t replace Gmail, so if you try it out for a few weeks and hate it then you can always go back to Gmail without losing anything. Inbox is optimized to let us work from our email faster. It still has all the features you’d want from a mail client but it is simplified and includes some needed features for completing tasks. Easily schedule a task associated with an email for a specific date in the future, or add recurring reminders. It’s currently by invite only, so make sure to go to the site below and request an invite. It has made me more productive, and better at follow-up. Check it...
by Joey Novak | Apr 8, 2015 | Tips
I have to admit, I am an evangelist. Not the religion, but of the products I like. I’ve tried a lot of task managers over the years. I’ve even written a few myself. At Novak Solutions we’ve tried a half-dozen or so and the one we’ve enjoyed the most so far is Asana. Some of the reasons Asana is great include: It’s free. It has great team features. It’s SIMPLE (this is one of the bigger reasons we chose it). It doesn’t spam you on every single update. Did I mention it’s simple? You can rapidly enter a number of tasks and group tasks without needing to use your mouse. Try it...
