How Daylite Helps Stephen Manage Multiple Businesses and Build Stronger Relationships

Our Customers / October 23, 2020 / Kristie

Syncopate Advisors consults with professional services firms, helping them acquire new clients, expand client relationships, and develop talent. President and Co-Founder, Stephen Pappaterra is also an attorney specializing in estate and financial planning, as well as a professional drummer.

We interviewed Stephen to learn more about how he uses Daylite to manage his multiple businesses and build relationships with clients without missing a beat.

“For business owners in professional services, your business is your relationships and Daylite is an elegant way to manage that. It’s a way of keeping track of activity, what you need to do, and what’s important to people.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

The challenge

When Stephen left the corporate financial world to start his own consulting firm, finding a CRM to fit his needs was a must-have. Being in the relationship business, he knows how important it is to keep track of every tiny detail and communication with clients.

“When you’re dealing with wealthy, multi-generational families, it’s not a transactional business. It’s a relational business. If someone tells you details about their family and an advisor changes, they need to understand the relationship’s history and get up to speed fast. You need a CRM to do this. The same is true when I’m coaching professionals on how to better communicate their message. I need to know what we’ve covered and what has to get done next. Daylite helps me track my tasks in addition to the details of our working together.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

When Stephen began looking for a CRM for his firm he wanted something that not only integrates with the Mac, but is specifically designed for it.

“I tried Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and HubSpot, but they felt overwhelming, clunky, and more focused on sales than relationships. I wanted a CRM that would help me stay connected to clients, prospective clients, and my professional network. The fact that Daylite works so seamlessly with Apple Mail made it a clear choice.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

The solution

When Stephen tried Daylite, he loved how comprehensive the platform is. It enabled him to keep track of client communication, relationships, and manage projects, tasks, and new client opportunities.

“What sold me on Daylite was the integration of all the capabilities. I can keep track of everything and see it all within an elegant interface that is as attractive as it is intuitive. Daylite is also very cost effective. When I compare it to what we had in the corporate world, it’s an absolute bargain!”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

Keeping track of relationships

To build stronger relationships with clients and others in his network, Stephen uses Daylite to store emails, details about contacts, meeting notes and relevant files, and log calls – all in one place.

“I’m diligent about recording my conversations in Daylite. I can’t catch up on a conversation I had three months ago because I may not remember it. It’s gotta be in my CRM.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

Stephen also uses the linking feature to track the connections between all of his relationships, projects, and opportunities.

Following the right steps

An important piece of building long term relationships with clients and referrals is ensuring that you’re on the ball and following through. To help make sure he’s following all the right steps, Stephen created Project Pipelines and Activity Sets in Daylite so he has a defined process and checklists.

“One of my clients has a list of procedures and it’s easy to miss stuff. So I setup an Activity Set in Daylite so I can work through my checklist and make sure everything is followed.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

Another way Stephen helps stay on track is using Project Pipelines in Daylite when bringing on a new client to make sure he’s onboarding them consistently.

“When bringing on a new client for my legal business I use a Project Pipeline for tracking all the steps. For example, I need to get an engagement letter signed, add them to my mailing list, notify people who have referred them to me, etc. The next stage is drafting estate planning documents. It’s critical that I’m able to have a history of what I’m doing and I don’t have the time to search all over to find what I need or ponder what I need to do next.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

Staying top of mind

To make sure Stephen stays in touch and top of mind with past clients and others in his network, he uses Daylite to filter contacts according to category and time of last interaction. This way, he can see those with whom he has not engaged and, perhaps, use Daylite’s Letter and Mail Merge features to reconnect with them.

“If I want to see which clients I haven’t touched base with in a few months, I can just run a report in Daylite and see who I should reach out to. I do this using a Smart List and filtering by Categories and/or Keywords.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

Organizing multiple businesses

To help organizer the multiple businesses Stephen manages, he uses a Category for each business so he can colour code the tasks, projects, and appointments for each business.

“I like that in Daylite I can go to my tasks and sort them by which company it’s for and then filter by priority to help me focus on what I need to get done today. I then print out this list (usually the Worklist) so I can have it at my desk in front of me.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

The benefit

By having everything in Daylite, Stephen feels (and is) more organized and less stressed while he works so he can focus more on his clients and building relationships.

“There’s a lot more that Daylite does, but at its core, Daylite keeps me organized and provides a history of my relationships with people. Plus, the Daylite Support Team is responsive and very helpful.”
– Stephen Pappaterra, Syncopate Advisors

He also regularly recommend Daylite to other firms that use Apple devices.