Ignition blog  /  Increase efficiency  &  Leverage technology  /  Top 10 hacks to boost efficiency by connecting...
On average, a business uses 22 apps, if you can connect and automate them, it can save you almost 31
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On average, a business uses 22 apps according to Business at work 2017 report. Connecting all the services they use and making them work together is all the rage.

Ignition has partnered with the best business automation tool, Zapier, to simplify your life by automating the basic tasks you’d otherwise need to do manually.

Drinking our-own Zapiers’ champagne

Zapier is a hyper-critical part of our daily workflow at Ignition. Currently, our monthly usage looks like this:

So that’s 34 different zaps (many of which are multi-step, meaning they trigger actions into several apps at once) and approx. 8000 different tasks. Zapiers’ research suggest that each tasks saves a person 60 seconds on average. If we were to take that number, what does this mean for Ignition in terms of time saved?

31 hours per week...

This is astonishing! Zapier equates to almost a full-time employee for us. As we scale up and our usage increases we'll soon pass the typical 40 hour work week of a full-time employee. To Ignition, Zapier provides us a minimum savings of $50,000 per year.

So, how does it work?

Zapier connects Ignition with a wide suite of applications, sales and marketing tools, CRMs, education and training platforms, project management tools and more! You can create workflows (aka Zaps) from Ignition (triggers) or to Ignition (actions), let’s review some of the most popular ones along our users below.

1. Mark won prospects on client signature with Hubspot CRM

It’s important to know which of your deals are successful in your sales pipeline, and which are still in qualification. With Hubspot CRM and Ignition, this becomes an absolute breeze.

HubSpot CRM is everything you need to organize, track, and nurture your leads and customers. As an even better bonus, it's 100% free, forever.

How does this Zap work?

Do you want to keep your sales pipeline up to date automatically in Hubspot CRM? When your client accepts their proposal in Ignition, Zapier will automatically update your deal to the "closed won" stage in your Hubspot CRM deals pipeline.

2. Celebrate a new client with your teammates on Slack

Nothing is more exciting than bringing a new client into your business. You should celebrate that with your team! Slack is a great place to do that.

Slack is a platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. Offering instant messaging, document sharing and knowledge search for modern teams.

How does this Zap work?

Would you like to notify your team the moment you win new business? This Ignition-Slack integration template will automatically post a message to Slack when a new proposal is accepted in Ignition. Now you can celebrate, or just get straight to work.

Pro Tip: Additionally, you could notify specific slack channels to let a certain team know that your new client has signed up for services they need to take action on).

3. Turn accepted proposals and services into project tasks with Trello or Asana

As they say, first impressions last. One of the best things you can do to set an amazing first experience is to start to deliver value immediately. Therefore, getting the right tasks assigned in your workflow tool immediately is critical to get the work started. Let’s see how Trello + Ignition can make this happen.

Trello is a team collaboration tool that lets you organize anything and everything to keep your projects on task.

How does this Zap work?

When you sign up a new client to your professional services business, there's always a number of steps you need to take to onboard your new client. This Zapier integration will create a new card in the Trello board of your choice, immediately after your client accepts their Ignition proposal or their new added service. You can even create a checklist, assign the card and set a due date (and much more) for the card automatically!

Not using Trello? You can also create a new task in other project tools like Asana, when services are accepted in Ignition.

4. Share next steps with your customers automatically with Box (or Google Drive)

When you onboard a new client into your professional services firm, there’s going to be a lot of information you’ll need to share with your customer. With Box, sharing this information just became a whole lot easier.

Box lets you keep all your businesses files in one place for simple online collaboration.

How does this Zap work?

If you have several documents you need your client to access as soon as they become a client, Let the Zapier integration automatically grant your new client access to a specific folder in Box, as soon as they accept a proposal in Ignition.

Using Google Drive instead? You can also create Google Drive folder to share with your new customer when Ignition proposals are accepted.

5. Send an important document for signature with HelloSign

So you got the engagement letter signed through Ignition, invoices are being created in QBO and Xero, and payments have started collecting. Awesome work! But what about that additional form that you need signed by the client before you get started? Enter HelloSign.

HelloSign is a brand new way to collect signatures and send important documents from an easy web interface. Just upload a PDF or Word Document and make your templates, and send them to anyone!

How does this Zap work?

Sometimes you need your customer to sign additional documents when they accept a proposal in Ignition. This powerful Zapier integration will automatically send a signature request for your HelloSign document template to your client, immediately after they accept a proposal in Ignition.

*Note: To ensure you send a legally-binding document, you must have a paid HelloSign API plan. If you don't this Zapier integration will only send the document in test-mode (non-legally-binding)

6. Create a new lead when a prospect completes a Thinkific training course

Using online training courses as a lead generating tool is a fantastic way to demonstrate the value of your services and expertise before a prospect becomes a client. Thinkific is a fantastic online Learning Management System to deliver a course that gets your prospects excited to work with you, and, with the help of Zapier, get their details into PI immediately.

Thinkific is the all-in-one platform to create, market & sell your online courses. Deliver beautiful courses on your own site, with no technical or design experience required!

How does this Zap work?

Do you use a Thinkific course as a lead generating tool for your professional services? When one of your students completes your free course, be ready to convert them into a long-term paying customer with Ignition. This Zapier integration will automatically create a new lead in Ignition when your Thinkific student completes your course.

Pro Tip: Client training services are an amazing revenue generator and a cornerstone of professional service firms, particularly bookkeeping and accounting firms. An online Learning Management System (LMS) such as Thinkific, can put these services on autopilot. Additionally, you could automatically enrol your new client in a Thinkific course when they accept your training service in Ignition.

7. Send your client a welcome email or add them to your newsletter with Mailchimp

It’s nice to say thank you! Mailchimp helps you do that well, by allowing you to send a beautiful, branded welcome email to your brand new client. To go even further, if you send a monthly newsletter, you want to make sure all of your clients receive it automatically.

MailChimp is an email marketing service provider, founded in 2001. It has 6 million users that collectively send over 10 billion emails through the service each month.

How does this Zap work?

Would you like to send new clients a welcome email or add them to your newsletter email list? Using this Ignition-MailChimp integration, when proposals are accepted in Ignition, the recipient will automatically be added as a subscriber to your MailChimp list. Never forget to add a customer to your list again!

8. Create a new client in PI when you add a contact in Insightly

Keeping your CRM and Ignition in sync is critical to keep the sales funnel flowing. Another fantastic CRM for Professional service firms to do exactly that, is Insightly.

Insightly is a CRM and project management app that helps small to medium businesses manage contacts, track relationships, monitor sales pipeline, organize projects and more. It keeps all your critical business info on all your devices, so your company sells more and satisfies customers better.

How does this Zap work?

Be ready to create and send a proposal from Ignition immediately after you meet a new contact! With the help of Zapier, when you create a new contact in Insightly, a new client is created in Ignition automatically.

9. Qualify your prospects with a Typeform sales questionnaire and turn them into a lead

One way to know if a prospect is serious about working with you (rather than just kicking tyres) is to send them a qualifying questionnaire. With Typeform, you can send your prospects a beautiful, branded survey so that you are prepared with everything you need to know about your prospects before going into your scoping meeting.

Typeform helps you ask awesomely online! If you ever need to run a survey, questionnaire, form, contest etc... Typeform will help you achieve it beautifully across all devices, every time, using its next generation platform

How does this Zap work?

If you ask your customers to fill out a form as part of your sales process, you can use this Typeform-Ignition integration to automatically create a new client in Ignition from new Typeform entries. Then you'll never need to copy and paste contact information again!

10. Be ready to convert a prospect as soon as they’ve booked a meeting with you in Calendly

Calendly is an amazing way to find a convenient time for both parties to meet. Let’s see how you can be ready to win your new prospect by automatically adding their details to Ignition.

Calendly is an elegant and simple scheduling tool for businesses that eliminates email back and forth. It helps save time so that businesses can provide great service and increase sales.

How does this Zap work?

When a prospect books a sales meeting, you may need to copy their details into Ignition so that you can prepare a proposal. This Zapier automation creates clients in Ignition automatically, so that you're ready to start building the proposal straight away.

BONUS Hack: Make your new client smile :)

We think the saying “Sometimes the little things in life mean the most” is absolutely true. A small token of appreciation goes a long way. With Ignition, Bonjoro and Printfection, we can show you how you can easily make your client smile.

Bonjoro lets you send personalized welcome or thank-you videos to your customers. Their mobile app allows you to easily record a personal video, add a message, and send it right to your customer’s email inbox. Drive engagement by creating a custom call to action and brand experience.

Prinfection helps businesses to grow their brand and customer engagement through the use of swag marketing. Providing online marketing tools that let you buy, manage, and send promotional products.

How does this zap work?

When a new client accepts a proposal in Ignition, Zapier will either automatically add a to-do task to your Bonjoro video task list to delight them with a personalized video message or automatically Send a card or mailer to your client to say Thank you, or both!. Bonus options beyond a thank you card (with your content) can include customized stickers, shirts or awesome coffee mugs! Amazing!

Those are just some of the examples you can use, if you have not found your ideal zaps, have a look at the endless possibilities in Ignition integrations and Zapiers’ Explore page. You can also watch a webinar recording introducing the Ignition + Zapier integration, where we work through some really cool multi-step zaps and showcase the power of PI and Zapier together.

Takeaway

Save time, win more clients, do less admin, boost cash flow and scale your business with automation and seamless integrations to thousands of applications - all with Ignition. Ignition will streamline your proposal, compliance and payments collection. Get started with our support article now.

Do you use Ignition and Zapier in a more creative way? Share your ideas in the comments below!

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Angela Gosnell
Angela Gosnell

Global Content Marketing Lead 

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Published 20 Dec 2017 Last updated 19 Mar 2024