Odoo vs Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring): Which is a better fit?

Charles: Hi, my name is Charles. I'm a mental performance consultant. I've been using Odoo for my personal business and I give it a rank of four out of five. Before using Odoo, I wasn't really using anything, which meant that a lot of responsibilities and task fell on my desk. So I started using Odoo to kind of schedule everything out, make sure I organize everything, work on billing, work on implementing an e-commerce, and also just learning to manage project between the different people that we had collaborating with us. I decided to choose Odoo because I needed a system that was a bit more precise and concise to work with the different people that we had, with the different schools and the different projects. And at the same time, I wanted to use the same platform that was going to allow me to work on billing and invoices without using another software in order to complete that task. So implementing Odoo was fairly simple. Obviously it's a new software which always takes time. But the person that helped me set it up made sure that things were running smoothly and that we didn't really have any issues. The big plus of Odoo was the easy customer service and the fact that the app was very user-friendly for myself, but also the people that was also on board using the platform. The main advice I have for anyone who wants to use Odoo in their business, if you're looking to save time and really you having multiple things to do all the time, Odoo will just help you facilitate those roles and understanding, facilitating and delegating all that work that falls down on your lap, that was a big different changer for me. The biggest thing was just accepting that the business was growing and that I needed help to make sure that every single files were completed on time, which is the main reason and the main advice that I tell you on why you should use Odoo.

Josh A.: My name is Josh. I'm the founder and CMO, and I give SharpSpring a five out of five. If you want more reviews like this, you can click below. Prior to using SharpSpring. I was using a few different tools. I was using Pardot, Pipedrive, ActiveCampaign and MailChimp. The reason that I was looking to change solutions is because those solutions... Well, it depends on the solution. For Pardot, it wasn't really easy to use. It required more of a professional kind of Pardot expert, and we didn't always have one around. For Pipedrive, it was more of a CRM, so it wasn't really a fully functional marketing or sales automation software. It really just kind of kept track of your leads. With ActiveCampaign, I felt like their tool's on a good track, but not nearly as refined as what I later found with SharpSpring. Soon as I saw SharpSpring, I realized there was a lot more functionality and capability and that it was more refined than ActiveCampaign. And the last one that I would explain would be MailChimp, and MailChimp really worked well as a good email marketing tool, but it wasn't a holistic kind of complete marketing and sales automation tool. So those are the reasons, those are the tools that I use prior to SharpSpring. The reason I chose to use SharpSpring and [inaudible 00:01:21] SharpSpring is because it's so robust. I feel like the team at SharpSpring does a good job of continually adding new features, and plus, they have a very solid base, a good foundation of features already in place. It allows us to do both marketing and sales automation, all in one software, which is a huge convenience. I don't have to worry about connecting different pieces of software. For the most part, it all works together in one tool. And it's very affordable, knowing that you get all those different tools in one place as well. If there's a capability that it doesn't have, then it works really well with APR so you can, you can kind of make up a gap for anything that you don't find built-in to SharpSpring by default, which makes it just a very robust and powerful tool. Yeah. SharpSpring, as far as integration goes, was very easy to integrate and stand up. That part was really quick. I would say there's a little bit of a challenge in just being able to customize the software. And it's probably a challenge to customize and integrate software in general, when you're dealing with any sales and marketing automation tool; every company has very specific needs. I know quite a few companies that actually use SharpSpring, so I've been able to see this firsthand. But everyone has different needs and different capabilities, so getting it just right takes a lot of work and a lot of refinements. I think it's important for companies to know that from the start. What I will say is the SharpSpring does a really good job of giving you options and flexibility in their solution set so that you can make sure that everything gets set up to the way that you like. It just may take a little while to get there as you're figuring out exactly how to harness their tools and harness their setup options, to get it set up exactly how your organization wants. When someone is considering to look to integrate SharpSpring or to choose a similar like sales and marketing automation tool, there's a few things that I'd recommend. Foremost is, I would recommend creating a very clear set of use cases. For me, a use case is just how you're going to use the software, so if you can come up with all of the core reasons that you're going to be able to use the software and want to use a software, define those at the very beginning before you even start your search. So that makes your search a lot easier; if you're asking questions, you'll know what to ask. You'll know what are must haves, what are not. And then as you are getting sold on the software or going through the sales process, you can ask to make sure that all those things can be accomplished with the software and what type of time and cost to expect with a software. Now with SharpSpring, for the most part, everything is built into the same price. There's no major ad-ons, so that's a huge advantage, but in general, it's just nice to know what exactly it is that you really need in your software and for your solution before you get into the sales process.