Growing pains are often associated with physical discomfort and pain. In business, growing pains are also full of pain points, especially when growth happens too fast, and is often accompanied by a lack of structure and accountability.
In fact, Barclaycard research finds 57% of scale-up business leaders (defined as businesses with at least 10 employees and average annualized growth of 20% or more in the last three years) have experienced a moment when they were afraid their business would fail.
Luckily, one company has a secret cure to these growth ailments and has decided to reveal it to the world.
When the team at Scan2CAD, the world’s leading conversion software for architectural and engineering designs, experienced a massive amount of growth in a short period of time, it was surely tempting to throw caution to the wind.
When Scan2CAD’s customer base grew over 90,000, instead of doubling their team to support this, they kept their team small. As in, 25 people, small.
While other companies in this position may have hit the ground scrambling with new hires, markets, and products, Scan2CAD kept things simple.
Where It All Began: A Personal Trello Board
Scan2CAD makes bringing designs to life simple and easy, and when Luke Kennedy stepped into his role as CEO in 2010, he knew that their internal processes needed to reflect those values as well.
Inspired by simplification, Luke set out to find a single platform that would keep his team organized in the present and grow with them in the future.
Naturally, he turned to his personal Trello board and realized that his team’s processes and organizational woes could be cured by Trello as well. And thus, their internal project administration, blog content schedule, product management, and most notably, sales pipeline boards were born.
Fast forward to their growth spurt, by doubling down on Trello and perfecting one product for two core audiences, the team was able to keep their eyes on the prize (sustainable growth and process improvement) during a time that could have easily been chaotic.
How Scan2CAD Uses Trello To Manage A Sales Pipeline
To keep up with their skyrocketing user base, the Scan2CAD team quickly created a Sales Pipeline Board to manage incoming leads, annual renewals, and sales they’d won and lost.
By keeping useful information in the simply named “Useful Stuff” list, team members are able to access helpful resources such as CRM materials or workflows.
Companies who have expressed interest in the product are listed under the “Warm” list, so team members can visually see which client relationships need a bit more fostering. The ‘Company’ cards serve as a great space to notate contact information, talking points, meeting dates and notes, and the client’s current pain points.
The “Annual Renewals” list is used by team members responsible for creating contracts, administering renewals, and keeping everything in one easily accessed area.
With the “Hot” list, the team is able to see which leads have made regular contact and are engaged in learning more about the product.
Finally, the “Won” list is for clients who have made it all the way through the pipeline and have become paying customers!
Scrolling to the left reveals the “Cold” and “Lost” columns for the leads who didn’t convert.
The Scan2CAD team use these Trello features and Power-Ups to make their workflow even more clear and robust: labels to visually separate each company and card’s purpose, and the following Power-Ups to make their board even more seamless:
✅ Labels: These are used to designate which type of plan a lead is interested in purchasing.
✅Calendar: The Scan2Cad team uses Due Dates and the Calendar to keep track of pipeline activities and follow-up needs.
✅ Custom Field: This Power-Up is used to provide detailed information about each lead, such as lead source, main point of contact, and more, so anyone on the team can have context for the potential deal at a simple glance at the card front.
Succeed In Sales (And Business) With Trello
With almost all of their internal departments and processes managed by Trello, the Scan2CAD team can dedicate more time to delivering a user-friendly, quality CAD design tool to their users, and less time tending to their internal aches and pains.
Growing businesses can enjoy the same streamlined processes as Scan2CAD by creating a board from this Sales Pipeline Template and customizing them to fit their unique sales cycles.
The Scan2CAD team says it best:
“If it weren’t for Trello, we’d probably rely on 10 separate apps. We’ve saved hours of time and pain.”
Growing pains, that is.
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