All Forum Posts by: Collin Goodwin

ActiveCampaign for the prospecting and Lead Gen, Podio for the sales and operations automation

Greetings! 

I want to thank everyone for reaching out about my last post regarding Podio Automation... The response has been overwhelming and humbling. Thank you!

Since that time, I have had the opportunity to work with several investors from BP and just wanted to take a moment to share some of the things we have been able to do.

When it comes to "Automation" there are a lot of misconceptions because the term is so broad. Yes, Podio is a great CRM, and great with "Deal Flow", but to be honest, its not great at Prospecting or Lead Generation. 

Since this is likely one of the most popular topics on the forums, I would like to get as much feedback, and provide as much help as possible in the hopes that it will, at a minimum, show the possibilities...

First, let's distinguish between Prospects and Leads. 

Simply put, for the context of this post, prospects consist of a broad audience or group of people who match your pre-defined criteria, and leads are prospects who actually qualify for your services. In other words, prospects are cold/warm and leads are hot. 

When it comes to marketing our services to prospects, we choose a plethora of mediums: direct mail, social media, signs, organic search, print ads, etc... 

The entire point of this is to clarify that automation can be used for both prospecting and lead generation, but are completely separate functions. 

So, lets say we go to the courthouse, acquire a list of prospects, and send a mass direct mail campaign. 

In our mailers, we will typically use a Call to Action (CTA) such as a phone number or website address. 

Whichever method you use is your choice and preference, but this is where the automation typically starts. 

Say the CTA was to visit a website and fill out a form... 

Based on the criteria provided, we can use resources such as Podio, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, etc... to pre-qualify our leads, based on the information that they input! Yes, you can use "robots" to filter your leads and set a pre-defined criteria that rises the "hottest" leads to the top. 

Once that is complete, we now need to reach back out to the lead and do one of the following: 

1. Get more information

2. Close the deal

Both of these processes can also be automated. When a lead reaches a certain criteria (you can do this by scoring or setting campaign goals based on specific actions), our software now knows it's time to take action and take care of items such as: scheduling walk throughs, showings, sending contracts for esignature, scheduling closings, etc. 

Once these are complete, then the job is done, or we need to follow up with those who did not take action. 

Here is how I currently have the model setup: 

1. A prospect fills out an online form through a sales funnel

2. Based on the criteria they input, they are advanced in the sales funnel to a series of videos where I explain our services and how we can help (saves tons of times and builds instant credibility)

3. After they are pre-sold (step #2), I ask to do business... either through an automation, or phone call. 

4. Once we have an agreement, I the status is changed (manually or through automated triggers) and the on-boarding process begins where we schedule an inspection, sign the electronic contract, schedule closing etc... all done in sequence with automations. 

5. In the event that the lead "falls off" at anytime, we enter them in a follow-up sequence that will retarget them. 

Now that we have defined the process, its time to start with the fun stuff...

As investors, we try multiple techniques to turn prospects into leads,  and ultimately customers... In our specific funnel, once a prospect shows interest in our services, and ultimately matches our criteria, let's just say we don't let them slip through the cracks...

Once in the funnel, we automate our communications with them until they become a customer... this includes direct mail (yes, you can automate usps direct mail), Ringless voicemails, texts and emails. I have attached a photo below of a how flow works once a lead enters the pipeline (the two purple actions represent a sly broadcast and direct mail letter sent through the automation sequence)

Feel free to post specific questions on how to implement this in your business!

Thank you, @Elizabeth Wilson! @Josh Humbert I'd be happy to help

@Diana Gomez here's my take, for what it's worth. If your using a paid lead source, that anyone can use, you may not always have exceptional results. I'd focus my time and money on mastering a process that I control. 

On a more positive note, I would 1000% recommend getting started with Podio. Don't get caught up in all the details or automations. That's the beauty of Podio. It allows you to start EXTREMELY simple and free, while adding tools to your skill-set, without having to recreate or alter your data. It will always be there. 

Please feel free to dive into specifics!

 Hey, Patrick! I wish... what are some specific things you are trying to do that are holding you up? 

 With regards to pulling information out of Appfolio, into Podio, we did this on a limited basis. Out of a team of 15, it was only myself and 1 other property manager that operated inside of Appfolio; the entire other team operated in Podio. The reason for this was that we let Appfolio shine where it did,  accounting and leasing, and we did almost everything else in Podio. 

So... here was our general process. When a new guest card was submitted, we used Mailparser.io to scrape the information from the guest card email (We set up our mailparser email as an actual user on Appfolio, and enabled email notifications for guest cards only). Once this information was in our Podio database, we could now use it as a reference field in all other applications such as screening, move-in flow, inspection, work orders etc. The automation got the data in, once the person was in our database, it was a simple reference field from then on out and flowed quite nicely, without ever having to duplicate the entry. 

As previously mentioned, we used Podio for virtually everything outside of accounting once the tenant or client was in our database. This included all move-in/move-out flows, Property Inspections, Maintenance, Maintenance Invoicing, Customer Service, Payables, New Client Acquisition, Showing Scheduling, Client & Property On boarding, and a few other features. 

I'd be curios as to why you are using Zapier + Google Docs outside of Podio? There might be a missed opportunity here to bring int into Podio. 

With regards to getting started and setup with automation, I'd say my top time saver was autoresponders to guest cards that allowed them to schedule showings (mass showings!) through calendly. This could be replicated with almost any autoresponder service, but the fact I was able to do it with Globiflow was a huge help as it kept me from having 1,000,001 tools. 

I don't have experience in those systems. I asked Yardi for a free trial and they turned me down... likely because they know that most wont be successful without a on boarding process. 

Were you referring to accounting automation? We used Xero for our maintenance program and once a work order was marked complete by a technician, and reviewed by a supervisor, an invoice would be automatically created in Xero (and sent to the client!) on a time and material basis. 

What are some specific workarounds that are currently holding you up? 

I've actually have never heard of Process.st until you just mentioned it! I checked it out and it looks to be comparable. 

Are you using it for team collaboration and project management in your mortgage business? 

Maybe I can help uncover some key differences... what exactly are you using Process.st for, and what are you not able to do in it that you wish you could?

 Thats awesome... I'll have to look into that. Thats nice to have. 

Absolutely - would love to dive in further. Feel free to reach out anytime

Hey, @Timmi Ryerson - the best frame to look at this in is an extension to your management software. 

Think of a new client (property owner) you acquire for your business. From start to finish, they typically follow a similar path:

Attract>Connect>Educate>Ask>Nurture>Deliver>Recycle

Property Management software typically only provides you capabilities in the "deliver" category, although it does some tenant marketing (attract) and your website helps you connect. 

So, when we talk about property management tasks, we can use Podio and other softwares as an extension in the delivery for automated workflows such as move-in/move-out flows, maintenance dispatch & tracking, email automation, billing, scheduling, e-signatures, and much more. 

But there are also opportunities to help deliver in the sales and marketing portions of our business. That is where a lot of the CRM capabilities come in. 

In essence, its a one-stop control center with almost unlimited add-on functionality and automation.