Brent's CRM Blog

Don't Sleep on Zoho

Don't sleep... a term I don't think I've used since the 80s, but it did seem to fit. If you're not already familiar with Zoho than please do yourself a favor and get familiar with them. And while I tell y'all (yes I'm in the south) not too sleep on these guys, I have done just that for way too long. Thanks to Zolis Erdos of the Enterprise Irregulars and his great post for motivating me to finally do this.

In some people's eyes (not mine), Zoho is considered to be a poor man's Google, with respect to all the free (or close to free) apps they have created over the last few years. Which is why I've been meaning to post on what these guys are doing for small businesses for a long time, especially after I had an opportunity to talk with their Evangelist Raju Vegesna last month for my show to discuss their new enterprise edition of the CRM service. Then I meant to post on hearing about the new functionality in Zoho Sheets that allows you to run Excel-like functions such as macros and pivot tables. And then they made it easy for users of Google and Yahoo! services to use their ids to try Zoho apps.

Now the single sign-on thing may not seem like much, but it shows you just how much Zoho GETS small business and our needs for simplicity. Zoho already has a dizzying array of quality apps aimed squarely at SMBs. Many of these services are free of charge (Writer, Notebook, Sheets, etc.) with others at a very affordable rate for even the smallest of businesses. And they keep churning these apps out - in fact by the time I'm done with this post they'll probably have another app out the door. This alone makes Zoho important in the small businerss world. But what I like is that they are willing to find ways to make their services work the way we need them to, and not try and force us to fit their needs. That's why the single sign-on piece is helpful, and smart. We all have Google and Yahoo! accounts, so why not allow us to use these logins instead of making us add yet another username and password that we'll have to keep track of. Zoho gets that we don't live in a vacuum, and that there are other companies that are providing good services that we may just want to continue using. They don't seem bent on ruling the world, but on making the world a better place for small business types.

I applaud Zoho for their approach to small business. They put out products that real small businesses can use. They make them work the way we need them to. They make them work with products from other companies we depend on. They may not have every bell and whistle others have, but they cover the basics. And they do it in a way that makes easy for even the smallest companies to jump into. Plus they're on the lookout to provide more stuff for us all the time.

Check out the conversation (approx. 15 minutes) I recently had with Raju on the impact of Microsoft CRM Online on small business adoption of CRM, what Zoho CRM Enterprise has to offer, and how Zoho's business culture differs from Salesforce.com.

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Solopreneur Tools: Will Zoho Give Microsoft and Google A Run for Their Money?

First off, thank you all SOOOO MUCH for the overwhelming response I've received from my BE.com proclaiming 2008 to be the year of the international solopreneur. I really had not anticipated the quantity and quality of email people sent me. It's always gratifying to know that folks appreciate something I put out there, but I really enjoyed the stories people shared with me with respect to their solopreneurial dreams and aspirations. I would like to share a few of them but will need to get permission from them before I can do so. In fact I'm planning on doing more writing on this subject as well as adding a solopreneur spotlight segment onto the radio show once I get it out fleshed out in my mind.

In the meantime one of the questions that I received over and over centered around tools that aspiring solopreneurs can begin using to get things started. There are a number of them that I will be covering over the next several months. But today I thought bring up a company that is putting together a slew of nice tools that are easy to use, pretty cheap, and in some cases these services are totally free. Now I could be talking about Google or Microsoft, but you already know about these guys. But have you heard of Zoho? Now would be a good time for you to check them out. They have many of the same online services as the big boys, and then some. From word processors, to spreadsheets, project management, web conferencing, slide presentations and even CRM. I've been checking them out for the last eight or nine months, and have been really impressed with what I've seen so far. Just recently I spoke with their chief evangelist Raju Vegesna and came away even more impressed than before.

Now I haven't been able to get hands on with all the things they're putting together, but do plan on doing so in the weeks and months ahead. But they are making some really smart moves, like making their tools available even when you're offline. And they were quick to make a few of their tools available on the iPhone, as well as some nice integrations with Facebook and other services, like Box.net's online storage service. But everything isn't wine and roses, as the wiki tool isn't the greatest, and they don't have a blogging tool or any deep integration with the leaders in the space. And I have to take a second, closer look at their CRM app to see how it's progressing. But they do have the resources and the determination to put together even more tools for the SmB crowd. And the emphasis on the "S" was done purposely, because Zoho does seem intent on being a player when it comes to providing tools for the little guy.

So you should check Zoho out to when you get a chance. And check out the below snippet of a conversation I had with Office 2.0 conference organizer Ismael Ghalimi to get his take on Zoho.

If you want to hear the whole conversation with Ismael below is a link to the show. Office 2.0 is something every serious solopreneur should be aware of, and Ismael is the guy in the middle of it all :

http://www.businesstechnologyradio.com/recentshows/tabid/25382/bid/2924/Office-2-0-Online-Video-Ads-and-Their-Impact-On-Your-Small-Business.aspx

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