Catalyst QUE

If there’s one thing salespeople hate, its the over-kill data entry screens you get when setting up contacts and prospects in a CRM.

In CatalystQUE, we’re trying to do things a little differently and we hope you’ll agree that its a better way of working with your contacts.

Here’s how contacts work in CatalystQUE:

1. Enter a business card
When you meet a prospect, enter the details from their business card into CatalystQUE. A company record will be created with the contact attached.

2. Get linked in
CatalystQUE will automatically display the contact’s LinkedIn public profile if they have one. This is a great way of getting a little more background information about your prospects.

3. Enter any other info you need
If you have other information you want to track, you can add any additional fields you need to the company and/or contact.

4. Work with contacts in bulk
Sometimes its easier to work with contacts in a spreadsheet, so CatalystQUE has a worksheet mode that allows you to work with all companies, or all contacts in an online spreadsheet. Add and edit companies and contacts and add columns to record additional information. Everything you enter in worksheet mode is automatically updated in CatalystQUE when you click the Save button.

5. Use the information
All information that you enter against a company or contact in CatalystQUE is available in quotes and will be able to be used in our upcoming pricing module to filter prices.

6. Sort, filter, group, pivot, export
Using spreadsheet mode, you can slice your contact database as you like and export it to common spreadsheet formats for use in other systems.

We think that these features will mean that you get more from your contacts in CatalystQUE by doing less.

Today’s update includes a number of improvements to the quote. These include:

• You can now define your own terms of service in the ‘Quote Settings’ screen
• You can now update the default quote number
• Quotes now have quantities and unit prices (if the quantity is 1, then it won’t be displayed)
• You can now add more than 3 pricing options to the quote
• You can now create and save a new client while creating a quote
• The dashboard graphs have been improved
• The quote PDF now has smarter page-breaks to ensure sections are kept together nicely

All of these improvements are based on your feedback – so please keep it coming.

We’re also looking for some additional BETA testers – so if you’re interested, please contact support@catalystque.com.

Thanks for all of your BETA feedback.  We’re working on some bigger features but have rolled out a update this morning to do a number of small suggestions, including:

• Align your logo to the left in the quote PDF
• Allow a primary color to be set in the quote PDF
• Put the client’s name as the heading in the quote PDF
• Sections (like pricing) will be kept together in the quote PDF (ie no page break in the middle of the section)
• When emailing a quote – show the client’s email address as well as their name in the select list
• Weekly notifications now actually work (sorry about that!)
• The quote number will be automatically set

Please keep the feedback coming by using our feedback forum.

The BETA version of Catalyst QUE is now ready.  This is a pretty light version, but you can complete the full sales cycle using it, including:

• Add prospects with multiple contacts per company
• Raise quotes with different pricing options and project/job details
• Email the quote as a PDF to the prospect (with other collateral attached)
• Enter notes against the quote and record a rating
• Copy quotes to quickly apply new pricing options or to re-use a quote for a different prospect
• Convert a quote to a sale
• Drop a quote
• Report on user activity, your sales pipeline and sales closed 
• The dashboard shows quotes raised & closed per day over the last 30 days, your total quotes raised and closed and your hottest quotes (by rating)
• Receive reminders after 7 days of no activity on a quote
• Add multiple users to track personal sales queues and a company-wide pipeline
• Customize the quote PDF template
• Customize the email signature

We’ll be tidying up the UI over the next few weeks and adding features based on our feedback forum so please add your suggestions here.

Welcome to Catalyst QUE.  This is the sales tool that I’ve always wanted and the time is right to build it for myself, for my customers and for you.

Catalyst QUE is designed to be a simple and efficient online tool for creating and maintaining quotes.  It keeps a queue of quotes from first contact to closed sale and allows you to add notes and contact information on current and potential clients.  It also helps keep track of the mood of each deal so that you can get a view of your hottest prospects and see the quality of your sales pipe.

From the 5th of January 2009, Catalyst QUE will be in closed BETA while we try it out with some real quotes.  Once we’ve aced our sales targets and Catalyst QUE has proven itself – then we’ll open it up for everyone to use for $US 10 per month.

We’ll be posting more about the system over the next few weeks and months and adding a few FAQs.