Automation Streamlines Sales and Reduces Admin Tasks for SpeakerFlow

SpeakerFlow is a startup that caters to experts who wish to turn their knowledge into a profitable public speaking career or side hustle. They offer two products: a CRM solution that helps people organize opportunities and track contacts, and an education platform where speakers can find classes and coaching to improve. As a startup, they needed to ensure they were taking care of prospective customers for both products, from the point of interest through purchase and beyond. They sought to save time and ensure all their systems were tied together.

SpeakerFlow, a startup offering a CRM solution and an education platform for public speakers, faced two significant challenges. The first was obtaining real-time data on prospects. Understanding how potential customers discover their product and their seriousness about making a purchase was crucial. However, they struggled with feeding their ad platforms with real-time data from their CRM about where their prospects were in their lifecycle stage. The second challenge was connecting different teams and handoffs. Handing off a new account from the sales team often relied on humans, leading to potential miscommunication and errors. They needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate their systems and ensure smooth team hand-offs.

SpeakerFlow turned to Zapier, a tool that creates automated workflows, to address their challenges. To solve the first problem, they used a Zap to connect conversions and HubSpot activity with their ad platforms on Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. This allowed them to target ads based on the prospect's lifecycle stage, progressing them to the next stage. To address the second challenge, SpeakerFlow used a 13-step Zap to handle customer purchases of professional speaking consultations. The Zap filters for a specific product referenced in a Stripe charge, passes that information to a spreadsheet, adjusts the format of the information, adds the customer to a Mailchimp list with custom tags, creates Asana tasks for the operations team, updates the customer's information in HubSpot, and after a time delay, creates a new deal for the customer and notifies the team in Slack. This automation streamlined the sales to operations handoff, saving significant time.

• The automation provided by Zapier has had significant operational benefits for SpeakerFlow. It has not only streamlined the sales to operations handoff but also reduced the potential for miscommunication and errors. The real-time data between the CRM and ad platforms has proven invaluable, allowing SpeakerFlow to target ads based on where prospects are in their lifecycle stage. The time saved has allowed the company to focus more on product development, culture management, and creative tasks. As a result, the sales team is more productive, customers are happier, and the company is better positioned to scale successfully.

• Zapier's automation saved SpeakerFlow nearly an hour every time someone made a purchase.

• The company saved more than 100 hours per week in administrative tasks thanks to Zapier's automation.