Whether you’re a mom and pop shop or a large corporation, companies can often need help implementing business solutions for branding such as creating promotional products, finding print solutions, warehousing solutions and billing services. Christine Moran is account manager at American where she is one of over 500 sales representatives in Canada, the US and Puerto Rico that helps businesses find solutions that work for them. Daylite is the Mac CRM that Christine uses for sales tracking so she’s always on top of her clients.
MC: Who are your typical customers?
Christine: Most of my customers are in the South East (Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia), but the company has customers globally. We have some small companies, although most of our clients are larger companies like Home Depot, Chuck E. Cheese, Bridgetown/Firestone, Cabela’s, etc. Whether our customer is a mom and pop shop or a big corporation, we’re more focused on the relationships with people vs “the big sale”. We pride ourselves in building personal relationships with our customers. For this reason, we’ve been able to maintain a high retention rate for re-order. In my case, 85-95% is repeat business.
MC: What makes you passionate about what you do?
Christine: I enjoy finding solutions for what people need. I don’t look at it as selling something to someone. What I try to do is sell or find a solution to something my customers is already purchasing and provide them a better price or find them a better service. That’s what makes me passionate about what I do. It’s not just selling them a product, it’s selling them an added solution. If something is wrong I’ll fix it and find a solution that works best for them.
MC: What are some of the challenges you face?
Christine: Customers don’t always know what they want. Sometimes they don’t understand or they think they can create their own solution that in my mind is sub par. For example they may want to create their own letterhead but might not have the right software to create the right look or the logo doesn’t come through clear. We want to make sure it is consistent whether it is a marketing piece , a cheque, etc. We want it to be consistent and accurately represent who they are and how their customers identify them. You wouldn’t want the colour of the logo to be wrong just because the ink on their personal computer is off. Once they understand how it works, they understand that you get what you pay for.
MC: What were some of the challenges you faced before Daylite?
Christine: The biggest challenge we faced before Daylite was not having a way to keep up. When we found a solution for a company it was great from the time the customer placed the order, but there were no tools in place for me to keep up with the customer until the order was placed. Once it was invoiced I could track it but up until that point I couldn’t.
MC: How does Daylite help with your workflow now?
Christine: Daylite makes everything so much easier to find. It organizes everything together for each customer. There’s a lifecycle for an order. Daylite keeps the whole lifecycle in one place where I can find it, whether I am in the office or in my car. It seamlessly syncs with my mobile devices and computers which is unbelievably helpful.
MC: Who do you have to thank for showing you Daylite?
Christine: I was referred to by another sales rep in North Carolina. We were using another product and when we started our own group of Mac users I tried out Daylite. It’s easy enough. You can pretty much figure it out just like a Mac. I figured it out on my own mostly. Carolyn from Marketcircle answered any questions I had and was very nice and prompt with a reply. The user guide and tutorial videos were helpful as well. We made the decision within 15 days of the trial run that we wanted to use Daylite. I’ve hired an assistant so we can team sell together. With Daylite we can see each other’s items. Behind the scenes my team member can be me and I can be her to help each other out.
MC: What are some of your favourite features in Daylite?
Christine: Daylite Mail Assistant is the best function because I do almost everything by e-mail or phone and now I can attach the correspondence to the project I’m working on. I also like that I can add so many things on the fly. I add keywords with the P.O number and link it to my customer’s name and vendor name for whatever item I’m ordering and I can put the date in for forecasting so I know when I need to order again. Before Daylite I had to do that manually or write a report in Excel and pick things off a report, which wasn’t fun!
MC: How does Daylite help you manage your sales goals?
Christine: It gives me an accurate view that is easy to access and see where I’m at with that goal instead of having to run a report in our other software. With Daylite I can control what goes in there. I can enter in an order and forecast when I’ll need to reorder, include the cost, how many I ordered, and any problems I had.
MC: What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Christine: I love going to the beach and I’m really close to it. I read a lot as well in my down time and play with my grandchildren as much as I can.
