From scattered tools to one revenue engine.
A corporate training company was running on disconnected software, and leads were getting lost between them. I moved the whole business onto one connected Zoho system, from the first website visit to the paid invoice, and trained the team to run it.
The problem
The business had plenty of tools. What it didn't have was one journey connecting them.
Software silos
Website, email, webinars, payments, courses and accounting all lived in separate tools that didn't share data.
A broken lead journey
No reliable record of where a lead came from, what they'd seen, or what should happen next.
Manual webinar work
Every webinar meant setting up pages, invites and follow-ups by hand, again and again.
Paying for overlap
Several subscriptions did similar jobs, and none of them talked to each other.
The lead journey, before and after
I started with the business, not the software: what they sell, who buys it, and the stages a customer moves through. The system was built around that.
Before Disconnected
- Leads arrive through different forms and tools, often without a source
- Follow-up depends on someone remembering
- Webinars set up by hand, one at a time
- Payments and course access handled outside the CRM
- Invoices created separately in accounting
- No single view of a customer's history
After Connected
- Every capture point is tracked, so leads land in the CRM with source, tags and segment Auto
- Nurture journeys run based on lifecycle stage Auto
- Webinars launch on schedule on Zoho Webinar or Zoom Auto
- Payment and course enrolment sync back to the CRM Auto
- Invoicing flows into Zoho Books Auto
- Every call, email and activity sits on one record Team
The system
Zoho CRM sits in the middle as the source of truth. Everything else feeds it or is triggered by it.
How I ran the project
Technology was about half the job. The other half was getting the business clear on its own process, and getting the team to use the new one.
- 01
Map the offer and the customer
Worked with the team to structure their training offerings and agree on the lifecycle stages a customer moves through, from first contact to repeat client.
- 02
Design one source of truth
Set up Zoho CRM with the segmentation, tags and fields needed to answer "who is this, where did they come from, and what's next?"
- 03
Track every capture point
Added tracking codes to the website, landing pages, booking links and webinar registrations, so every lead arrives with an accurate source.
- 04
Automate nurture and webinars
Built stage-based journeys in Zoho Marketing Automation and Campaigns, plus a webinar engine that launches on schedule without anyone setting it up.
- 05
Connect money and delivery
Integrated Stripe, the LMS and Zoho Books, so a payment enrols the learner, updates the CRM and flows into accounting.
- 06
Train the team and drive adoption
Trained staff on the new setup and helped them adopt the new processes, so the system actually gets used after handover.
Decisions that matter
The choices that made it a system, not just a pile of connected apps.
One source of truth, no exceptions
Every tool writes back to the CRM. If it isn't on the record, it didn't happen, and that's what makes 100% source accuracy possible.
Process before platform
Lifecycle stages and offerings were agreed with the team first. Then the CRM was configured to match the business, not the other way round.
The right glue for each job
Native Zoho integrations first, Pabbly or Zapier for simple hand-offs, and custom-coded n8n workflows where the logic got complex.
Consolidate, then cancel
Moving overlapping tools onto one suite cut more than $5,000 a year in subscriptions, while adding capability.
Build once, run on schedule
Webinars went from a recurring manual task to a system that launches itself.
Adoption is part of delivery
A system nobody uses saves nothing. Training and process coaching were built into the project, not bolted on at the end.
Where else this works
Any business that sells through content, events and consultations, and needs every lead tracked from first touch to invoice.
- Training & coaching
- Education providers
- Consulting firms
- Event businesses
- Professional services
- B2B SaaS onboarding