It Suddenly Seems Like Everyone Has Been Paying Too Much For Software!
I decided to spend the day with the Zoho One Tour at Galvanize in Phoenix last week to gauge the interest level for the products in the small business community. It was quite the turnout, larger than the Zoho team had expected. That, and the quality of the presentations confirms for me that so far this company is really doing things right. The Zoho One Tour Staff did an excellent job with their presentations in spite of the internet playing some games with our connections. The audience of business owners had some excellent questions, and the Zoho staff was spot on with the answers. Every software package and organization has it challenges, but so far I'm very impressed with Zoho as a set of solutions and as an organization. Galvanize is a great place to visit too. The place just oozes with startup creativity.
Zoho One is a collection of over 40 integrated applications that can cost as low as $30 per month per user when all computer using employees are signed up (5 user minimum), or $75 per user per month for any number of users. That is simply an amazing deal that really is an operating system for business covering marketing, sales, accounting, operations, personnel, service, and everything in between.. No wonder Zoho is getting some organic buzz from within the small business community. Of course, their whimsical marketing style does not hurt:
At Raging Sanity Consultants, we have actually converted all of our systems from Salesforce to Zoho. Not that Salesforce isn't an excellent solution, but for our current size, Zoho offers just so much more bang for the buck, especially with the marketing applications such as Zoho Campaigns for email marketing, Zoho Social for social media management, Zoho PageSense for heat mapping and A/B testing, and others. It's a rare small business that can afford the excellent marketing suite offered by Salesforce, so Zoho has strategically targeted the SMB space with an impressive suite of affordable tools that let small businesses market themselves like the big boys - assuming they also dedicate the staff to writing good copy. It also made sense for use to use this product since we decided to add it to our list of offerings at Raging Sanity Consultant. And there's no better way to discover the promise and frustration of software than to use it yourself. Fortunately, my experience as been more promise and less frustration when it comes to Zoho. That's not to say that there is not a small learning curve, or that occasionally I scratch my head as to why they designed something a certain way. Yes, I have posted a few suggestions for improvements since taking on this project. But, in some instances, I discovered that it was my own thinking that was outdated (I've been in this game a while), and that Zoho was actually designed for the way things work NOW rather than a few years ago.
So, if you are a small business looking to do more (marketing, sales, analytics, support, BUSINESS) with lower software costs, call or email me and I will help you to determine whether Zoho or some other outstanding product is the best way to leverage technology to grow your profits.
-- Rich Astone