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Traditional small businesses may be hesitant to dip their toe into new technology. But for 5P Consulting, a small consulting firm founded in San Diego, technology is the very business of their business.

5P Consulting’s mission is to optimize organizations and drive them to improve business productivity through process and technology. After investing in the right customer relationship management (CRM) system for their small business, 5P Consulting experienced incredible business growth — 998% ROI to be exact.

Affordable technology became a game-changer

Before using Salesforce, the 5P Consulting team knew they needed a CRM to help them centralize data, create shared dashboards and reports, and support their lead-to-cash cycle. But with only five leadership team members that would need to be in the CRM, the team also knew they wouldn’t be able to afford an enterprise-built CRM system.

When 5P Consulting discovered Salesforce Essentials, they jumped on the opportunity to invest in CRM. The reasonably priced CRM system paired with its free trial made it ideal for them to get started.

A quick implementation led to immediate results

After only 12 hours, they implemented Essentials and 5P Consulting was ready to get up and running on Salesforce. Now, after 18 months of using the system, 5P Consulting has experienced a 998% ROI of the system and reaped quite a few benefits:

• Increased user productivity: By centralizing all data and operations on Salesforce, 5P Consulting reduced duplication on data entry efforts and cut down on time spent searching for account information.

• Increased lead generation: Since implementing Essentials, 5P Consulting tripled its lead generation rate. The team used the Web-to-lead functionality to automatically create leads from inbound traffic to their company’s website. With the Gmail integration, they were also able to automatically populate inbound email traffic into Salesforce, update contacts, accounts, and tasks.

• Increased data transparency and visibility to sales pipeline: The 5P Consulting team can align on company health via shared dashboards and reports. Now, they don’t have to set up multiple meetings to align on performance and sales numbers. Plus, trust in data has increased company-wide.

• Avoided a business development hire: With Salesforce, the 5P Consulting leadership team has visibility into account information. Now each member of the team is responsible for bringing in new leads each week and converting leads into opportunities per month aligned to metrics and overall company growth plans. This process and system allowed the company to avoid one, full-time business development staffer.

Y’vonne Ormond, Founder and CEO of 5P Consulting, has no doubts that Essentials has helped their business on its path to success.

When it comes to advice Y’vonne would give small businesses, she says it’s all about investing in what’s best for your business:

“Small businesses need Essentials so they can work quickly and effortlessly. You can’t afford not to invest.”

The ROI percentage is based on a case study conducted by Nucleus Research and sponsored by Salesforce. Additional information and the full report is available here. 

Salesforce Essentials helps you find more customers, win their business, and keep them happy so you can grow faster than ever. Learn more about our small business CRM solutions by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Photo via Salesforce

This article, “How a Small Business Saved 20 Hours Per Week With This One Technology” was first published on Small Business Trends