Today, we’re more than happy to announce our partnership with Close {link} CRM. In this article, we’ll go deeper on why we decided to build a native integration and how as Close users, you can leverage your Sales data and better track your Sales Funnel.

Our Close story: How it began

6 months ago, we were growing organically through product-led growth but we also realized we were talking to many companies and losing deals. We realized we sucked big time at sales.

No wonder, we had never done it. That’s when we decided to work with an awesome sales coach. Paul Gassée (https://paulgassee.com) taught us everything we know about B2B Sales. One of the first things he advised us to do was to implement a proper CRM (we used to have everything on a custom and messy CRM on Airtable), and his #1 recommendation was Close.

Since then, we’re using Close as our CRM. Close is simple and flexible. If you’re a growing startup that needs an affordable solution to track your Sales Activity, Close is definitely an option you should consider.

Close is a tool that will support your growth: you can start on a simple plan with basic features and progressively build a complex and strong customer relationship management system and that’s exactly what we did.

We like Close for several different reasons. Smart views are one of Close’s most important features: it allows you to get dynamic lists of Leads and Contacts that match one, or several criteria. The smart views play an important part in our Sales daily activity as they help us find Leads and Opportunities easily, such as, Leads that have not completed key actions, or big deals that have been stuck in our funnel, or even Leads that had fewer follow-ups than expected.

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Close is also natively integrated with Gmail, and allows us to track clients’ discussions, reply on behalf of other sales and launch automatic email sequences.

Finally, it’s a very efficient Sales Task manager that allows our team to be on top of every Deal.

Why we wanted our Close data on a spreadsheet interface

As our Sales Funnel activity grew, we wanted to build a strategy that would increase our deal value, increase our deal win rate, and shorten our sales cycle: in short - we wanted to get better at sales and understand our leverages in order to do this. The more we started to use Close’s CRM, the more we were getting frustrated to not be able to get insights easily with the native reporting. We felt like we were not using 100% of Close’s data.

As any low code user, a quick way to do it was to extract Opportunities, Contacts and Lead’s data from Close and get this on a spreadsheet interface. This was the first step of our process, but still: CSV extracts did not include every data we could get, and we wasted so much time refreshing our google sheets reports that this process was not efficient.

How to leverage your Close data

Actiondesk is an easy-to-use spreadsheet that connects your data from multiple sources, including databases or SaaS, into one place and allows you to work on your data live. Actiondesk works just like Google Sheet or Excel, that way you don’t have to learn a new tool.

To get started, you’ll need to connect your Close account, and then import your Close data. It’s a 3-click process that allows you to get your Lead, Opportunities, and Contacts in a table:

{small gif on the integration and import with Close}

Once imported, this data will be refreshed every hour. That way, every report you’ll create out of this table will be dynamic. With the integration, you can import:

• Leads
• Contacts
• Opportunities
• Any Activities (Calls, Meetings, Tasks completed...)

You can leverage your Close data in three ways:

• To understand
• Get ad-hoc analyses on specific questions you have on your Sales Funnel. Such as:
• What is the average deal value and win rate by source?
• Should I spend more money on one specific outbound channel?
• Is there any seasonality in my deal activity?
• To track
• Follow your top-view activity to answer questions like:
• Who are my best sales right now?
• Does my Sales Rep have stuck deals? If so, at which step of my Sales funnel?
• Have our yearly and monthly targets have been reached?
• How many meetings, or calls have we done in the last months?
• To Measure
• You can create week over week reports and get those reports to help you measure the results of your actions:
• Did the key actions we undertook shorten our sales cycle length?
• Does my ROI get better with this new Ad?
• Are we getting better at Closing Deals?

3 examples from active Close & Actiondesk users

Tracking generated MRR

A Close user initially had this report on Google Sheets: they were tracking the generated MRR every week, thanks to a CSV export from Close. This process was time-consuming. By connecting Close to Actiondesk, we imported the Opportunities and built an always up-to-date report that’ll allow them to get an instant view of the realized MRR against the target:

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Following your Sales Activity Week over Week

A Close user wanted a global overview of his sales activity on a week-over-week basis. This report was not easy to build on Close, especially the calculation of the conversion rate that are the main driver of his activity.

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Thanks to this report, every week he’s tracking the conversion rate evolution by week from the top (lead generation) to the end (win rate).

Get your ARR generated by Source

Another report we built for a Close user is the ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) generated by each source of his sales funnel. We measured by sources several critical KPIs:

• Total # of leads
• Total # of opportunities won
• Win rate
• Time to close
• Average Annualized Revenue per Won Account
• Total ARR

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With this report, he could build a data-driven strategy for his go-to-market by spending more resources on sources that were driving high-valued deals and converting well.

Other reports that you could find on Actiondesk

If you’re still not sure what to build with your Close data, don’t worry: we got it covered for you. Our data team has created some reports that can be reproduced using your Close data. Also, we’re offering a free data consulting call to help you properly leverage your data.

Here are some reports that you could get:

Deal Leaderboard Report

Get the deal amount closed by Sales rep per month

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Deal Value by Pipeline Report

Get an overview of the value that currently stands in each step of your Sales process.

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Cohort Analysis on Deal Won

For X deals created in January, how many did I close the same month? And one month after? And two months after? This report answers these questions and helps you see seasonality in your sales funnel.

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You can learn more on what type of reports you could build by visiting our template page. {link}

Why do you need Actiondesk with your Close data?

With Actiondesk and Close integration, you’ll get to:

• Avoid time-consuming reporting: The only way to get proper insights today is to build and maintain several Zapier integrations or a complicated BI tool or use the native reporting view Close has. It's time-consuming. With Actiondesk and Close you can have live data in a simple interface.
• Get a better picture of your Sales Funnel: You can't quickly see how your sales pipeline is performing on a week over week basis or a month over month basis. With Actiondesk and our templates, you will be able to get this information easily and quickly.
• Access to information faster: Actiondesk would allow users to access Close database and very easily filter on custom attributes, emails, status to obtain lists and information faster. That way, you can dig in your Close data easily.

Actiondesk x Close - Special Offer

As part of the partnership, we’re happy to offer 15% discount on our plan for the first 3 months (price varies), and a free data consulting call to connect Close and build the most important report you’ll need from your Close's data.

You’re not a Close customer yet? You can start now for free.

Do you already have a Close account? Book a time now to learn more!

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