Being Nimble in a Social Selling World

Since 1997, I have been involved as a software adviser and advocate for Customer Relationship Management Software solutions. To be sure, the aspirations of many Sales Executives were realized when they first came on the scene. Integration with Outlook, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s like the Treo, remember that one?), marketing, mobile synchronization, and sales forecasting were the drivers for demand back in the day.

Suffice it to say, CRM software is required to do different things now as a result of the recent paradigm shift in selling and marketing in the 21st Century. At SmartThoughts, we are constantly searching for software tools which can help facilitate the development of stronger and more impactful business relationships. And, that’s why we wanted to share some thoughts on an innovative software tool available now called Nimble CRM which shines among very few peers leading in this area today.

If you are not familiar with Nimble CRM, you should be. As the Nimble tag line suggests, “With Nimble, Building Business Relationships Has Never Been Easier” .  Social Selling is paramount in order to be found and to find new opportunities. Social Selling is not just the wave of the future, it’s a necessity for businesses to remain relevant. Sales advisers need tools like Nimble to remain viable.

What is Nimble CRM?

Nimble is the only solution to offer small businesses the best features of high-end CRM systems combined with the power of social media. Nimble CRM is used by small organization to handle the basic tenets of CRM but shines in helping define the right leads and improve relationships with future & existing advocates.

What do we like most about Nimble CRM?

• Smart Contacts Widget: From your browser (in LinkedIn, Gmail, etc.) you are able to simply right-click a name to “Nimble” it and you’ll be prompted to find out more about them.

• Social Signals: On a contact or account, easily view all the social activity streams in one view.
• Engagement: Nimble you can view and filter your social signals such as birthdays, job changes, and new connections to leverage these signals as engagement opportunities and start reaching out!
• Rapportive:  With Nimble, your contacts now follow you into your most-used app, Gmail, with a new plug-in. When you are reading an email from a Nimble contact – or hover your mouse over an email address in a thread – the contact details appear in the Rapportive widget. If the contact isn’t in Nimble, you can easily import him with the click of a button.

Yes, Nimble is now joining the ranks of Google, Facebook and other companies who have become their own verb. Way to go Nimble!

Certainly, like all software, Nimble is a work in progress. It will never be completely done or complete. That noted, it would be great to have better reporting capabilities for activities and opportunities. In addition, it would be better if Nimble handled account and contact linking better. In other words, when you desire to have common data fields such as revenue which is present on both the account and contact records which are updated when either is changed.

However, in this day of “Social Selling”, Nimble excels beyond expectations. And, if needed Nimble can do even more.  Through Nimble’s API it can be integrated into systems like Salesforce.com, Marketing Automation platforms like ACT-On, ERP systems like Netsuite, or potentially WealthEngine for development officers to gain insights into not only “Social Activity” of donors with Nimble but also donor giving history and capabilities (Awesome!).

Truly, it’s an exciting time to be a sales adviser, donor development officer, or business with tools like Nimble to help build stronger relationships.

If you would like to learn more, I am a contributing author on TrustRadius. And, you may find a full review by clicking My review of Nimble CRM on TrustRadius here. Or, sign up for a “Free” Nimble Software trial today by clicking here.

I will be reviewing more CRM, Social CRM, and Marketing Automation Software solutions soon!