Recently I’ve been trying out Streak for gmail. Streak is a CRM (customer relationship manager) that lives inside your gmail. If you’re not a gmail user you probably won’t be interested but wait… you’re not a gmail user?!
It’s my belief that every artist should have a CRM. It doesn’t need to be on your computer or phone. It could just be index cards. But you should be keeping track of your customers and tasks in an organized fashion. On to Streak…
Streak integrates with your gmail and calendar. In its most basic form it allows you to tag emails, then view them as you would a spreadsheet, then move them to different stages – or steps within your funnel. The stages could be any sort of organization according to what you’re trying to accomplish.
As an artist you may want to manage your leads as follows:
- Email comes in
- Initial contact (call or email)
- Serious inquiry
- Just browsing
As you email and call your contact or work on a task, you move the item from one stage to another. Think of it as having a piece of paper with information about a contact and moving that paper from one folder on your desk to another. Streak has 3 pieces – pipeline, stage, and box. Pipeline is your funnel, stage is the step within the stage, and box is equivalent to a row on a spreadsheet that has all of the pieces of information.
You can set up any number of stages to your work flow or sales funnel.
The best thing about Streak is you can create powerful filters that allow you display your contacts, receive notifications, sort your email automatically, etc.
Do you have a favorite CRM? Have you ever tried Streak? Let me know what you think in the comments.
