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Business

CRM, networking, and software implementation??

Some of the things I've been dealing with lately in my company are sort of referred to in some of the business courses, but I was wondering if someone knows which courses would be helpful with these or if there are similar resources to learn:

1) CRMs -- how to choose one, how to learn most effectively, how to evaluate, how to train people, even how to structure one if I want to program a simple one. 2) Networking -- I was hoping this would be included in Soft Skills, but it's not there. I need to figure out how to attend events, follow up with people, integrate with LinkedIn, etc. 3) Software implementation -- I often help clients choose software (CRMs, project management tools, office software, etc). Are there methodologies for putting together guides and steps to help people learn something that isn't intuitive?

I hope Treehouse includes these kinds of courses in the Business section in the future (how to implement technical skills I've already learned!), but does anyone know other ways of learning these? Have I missed any courses that would help me? Thanks! I know this is a super involved question :)

1 Answer

Lewis Cowles
Lewis Cowles
74,902 Points

Hi Rosi,

1) it seems from 3) you already do this. CRM offerings are such an advanced topic and there is so much variety IMHO unless they are selling the one I use or that suits my style, I would not take the course, many other businesses would likely feel the same... My business has actually developed our own CRM, and we still learn about these things every day from VoIP integration and the nuances that can bring, to handling comments, support requests etc. From a base point of view taking the PHP (or rails), web design and wordpress courses and completing both tracks could let you make a really under-performant generic low-end CRM; but in reality these products have many people working on them and cannot be easily replicated, hence the lack of courses in how to make a CRM or ERP, or social network.

2) Online Networking is indirectly covered, and even better you are doing this now. Forums were one of the earliest tools built for online networking, but there is also GitHub, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, G+ etc. Treehouse do give you some free tools to help you establish your authority publically with your public profile, but as with anything decent, networking cannot be automated and face-to-face networking would be hard to teach as we all do it differently.

3) Is this about software consultancy, or training, it seems to be a bit jumbled, so I've separated into two parts a) software consultancy requires familiarity with packages and knowledge of the target market. Treehouse has a non-exhaustive list targetted at the developer / designer entrepenuer's. It won't help with SAP (unless there is a diabolical plan I am missing), but for web-projects there is a bit of everything. You will also need heaps of experience 5-10years+ to do this well regardless of courses. b) Training techniques might not be a course here, but watching the video's can definitely give you awesome tips for your own training and client-engagement, and caters for a range of Persona's. My Personal fav's are Guil, Andrew and Kenneth right now, (apologies if I mis-spelled any), but this will change over time and situationally, so watch as much as you can, make notes on the course as well as things you like about the training, and try out the training methods on people. Worst case scenario you go back to being yourself unchanged.

Have a great weekend!