aign because of that opportunity and those options. As soon as that customer has signed that contract, ActiveCampaign will automatically move that customer from Contract Sent to Contract Signed.
When they hit Contract Signed, the next stage in [00:26:30] the deal process, a number of tasks will automatically be created for the relevant team member to then follow up with whatever the next task needs to be. Once the contract is signed, usually things like send to accounts for creating the invoices. Another task is assigned to one of our team members to start the process of migrating their website. Another one is saying, “Prepare the welcome pack, ready for completion.” All these things start firing off. [00:27:00] Once those are all marked as done, client then moves into the final stage, which is testing and then Account Setup.
That’s pretty much the workflow of our business. [00:28:00] Obviously, there’s a little bit more to it into the minute intricate detail, but in general as a bird’s eye view, that’s pretty much how ActiveCampaign runs our business for us.
Chris Davis: I love it. I was just sitting here as you were talking just kind of smiling because you are using the platform exactly as anticipated. You’ve got proposal software, you’ve got other people on your team, you’ve got tasks. This is [00:28:30] what automation looks like. Everybody, this is automation. This is marketing automation, the perfect blend of manual processes and automated processes, like finding that balance.
Bear in mind, this is the first time we ask them for a favor. We don’t upsell, or cross sell, or offer them other products in this period because it’s the period [00:30:00] of building value. If you sign up with us today and tomorrow I say, “Now you can buy this, buy this, buy this,” you may feel a bit of buyer’s remorse, you may feel like I’m trying to squeeze you for every pound or every dollar. We leave it for three months and in that three months, we just deliver the value. We get on with the updates, we show them that we’re actually doing the work for them. In three month’s time, we hope they’ll be happy to leave a positive review for us on our social media, on our Google page, or even just email it privately so we can share it with the team. That’s another automation that kicks [00:30:30] in.
Chris Davis: That’s huge. Just think about it here. Everybody, Suraj said he has around 300 customers, right?
Suraj Sodha: Yes.
Chris Davis: Just imagine the amount of time it would take for one individual to keep track of three months in to reach out and contact every customer.
Suraj Sodha: Right. It’s impossible to do, but now we can reach out three months in, six months in. We recently hired [00:31:00] a graphic designer in house and he’s designed one year anniversary cards, and we’ve filmed a little one year anniversary video, just a bit of a laugh to be honest. It’s now easy to track that one year. We’ve got a date-based automation just to alert us internally that says, “One week before your one year anniversary since your customer became a customer. Prepare the one year anniversary card to mail them in [00:31:30] the post, and in a week’s time, email them this email to say, ‘Can you believe it’s been a year? We’ve made you a little video to say thank you and to share with you what we’ve been up to.'” That goes to a landing page somewhere.
Suraj Sodha: That’s the kind of stuff, it’s hard enough doing it the first time and sending a thank you email or three month thank you email, but now we can do three months, six months, nine months, and then one year. In the future, who knows?
Chris Davis: For everybody listening, [00:32:00] just think about this. If you could send communication to all of your customers in three months, six months, nine months, and 12 months, what would that be? Just do the mental exercise. We hear how you’re using it, Suraj, but make it personal. Make it personal to your business. How could that transform your business? It’s just amazing to me how some of what appears to be some of the most [00:32:30] simple automations, like a day-based automation three months after date is completed, trigger this, that seems to a lot of people too simple. They think that it has to be more complicated, and no it doesn’t.
I’m so glad to hear and witness how you’re using it. I am an advocate in many forms of your business, an advocate of you just toughing it out and [00:33:00] shifting with the market, an advocate of you taking your manual processes and not trying to automate every single one of them, and then an advocate of just how you’re using not only ActiveCampaign but understanding what other tools are important in the process to plug in and really give that consistent client flow that feels personal and is an aide. Everything that you’re doing is an aide now and will be later as your company [00:33:30] continues to grow. Absolutely amazing. We’re reaching the end here. If I could have you just dial back a bit. When you first started with ActiveCampaign, if you could tell the Suraj of the past, if you could give yourself some advice when you were getting started, what would that advice be to help people [00:34:00] achieve quick success with ActiveCampaign?
Suraj Sodha: There’s two things that I would advise myself.  Literally, how many entry points are there into your business?  All of these things, list them out. These are all the entry points or the triggers into your business. Then what happens? Who’s responsible for phoning them? If you’re running a business just by yourself, then most of these alerts will only come to you, which is absolutely fine as well.
Draw it out, and literally map out that roadmap to say, ” [00:35:00] If Customer A came into your business from one of these routes right now, what would be the flow and the journey from the sales process, to sending them your contract or your proposal, all the way through to getting paid, your invoice aide.” Whether it’s a recurring monthly invoice, or a one off job, or a one time service that they’re buying from you, write the way through to that point, and then draw maybe a line down the page [00:35:30] and say, “Aftercare.” That’s where ActiveCampaign really comes into its own. I think most of your listeners, most of the users, will have, give or take, some form of process where there’s manual, ActiveCampaign, or otherwise from the point of inquiry through to the point of invoice. Most of our friends here will already have that process somewhat refined, but what ActiveCampaign, we found in our business, really changed the game [00:36:00] was the aftercare, like I said before, the periodic emails, the alerts to us.
We now have birthday emails and all sorts of alerts and tasks, which for our business, are more important to have automated than the sales process. The fact that our sales process is now so automated, there’s a massive bonus as well. That’s the first bit of advice, map it out. Whether you’ve got a big whiteboard, or a bit of paper, whatever it is, map out that [00:36:30] journey. Secondly, start clicking, and dragging and dropping, and playing with the system. I think of myself as quite a techie person, and even I couldn’t break ActiveCampaign. The way I like to learn is to click around, make mistakes, press a button, see what happens. When I first started with ActiveCampaign, I added myself in as a test client so all the alert emails just came through to me. [00:37:00] You weren’t experimenting with your real clients, but that way I got to learn the system, especially if you’re gonna be using it yourself or whoever at your business is gonna be using it the most, just give them time to play around with it. Try to break it because, I promise you, you can’t.
The support is amazing as well. Depending on which plan, I guess, the listeners are on, if you have an account manager or an onboarding manager, use them because they are really, really good. They will save you hours, [00:37:30] sometimes, trying to figure out how to run a specific automation. Of course, you can just play around with it yourself, but why do that when you’ve got someone who can give you the answer straight away?
Suraj Sodha: It can be overwhelming if you don’t have that [00:38:00] plan.
Chris Davis: Yeah, that’s our Plus plan, the one that you’re talking about. Listeners, our Plus plan is the one that comes with the deal CRM and enables you to automate your sales process as well as any process, as you just heard Suraj doing so.  That’s an important piece.