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ast-growing educational publisher MentoringMinds’ swift expansion is being aided by Legrand Software’s CRM package, says AndrewMuollo, general manager of the Tyler, Texas-based company.Muollo, originally from New Zealand, helpedfast-growing Mentoring Minds choose LegrandCRM, which was developed in 2002, by Australian-headquartered Legrand Software. Muollo says theKiwi-Aussie connection is pure chance — his Texanemployer opted for Legrand CRM totally on merit.In fact, Legrand Software has a US office inCalifornia and thousands of users in almost two dozencountries who are serviced by a world-wide resellernetwork. Mentoring Minds become a customer whenit went looking for a CRM product that integrated withits QuickBooks accounting software.It had been using QuickBooks not only for itsfinances, but for management of about 17,000 cus-tomer records as well. With a growing customer list— today the company has 140,000 — a purpose-builtpackage was needed.“The major issue we faced was that searching wasa nightmare,” Muollo says. QuickBooks simply wasn’tfast enough to bring up a client record while a cus-tomer service representative was speaking to them onthe phone.

Quick Search Needed

Mentoring Minds had three requirements of aCRM package: that it work with QuickBooks, that it beable to handle the expected growth in customer num-bers, and that it be able to search those records quickly.Its hunt soon led to Legrand CRM which, quiteapart from being faster than QuickBooks, recordsevery kind of customer interaction.“It’s the fairly standard stuff that you’d expect fromany CRM system, but Legrand CRM does it well and itties in very well with QuickBooks, which is importantto us,” Muollo says.Mentoring Minds is also a seven-year-old business,which, despite the worldwide recession that has buffet-ed the United States in particular, has expanded rapidly in the past 12 months. That’s, in part, thanks to the USGovernment’s economic stimulus package, which hasseen US$100 billion pumped into education.Not every state benefited equally, but Texas,Mentoring Minds’ home market and accounting forabout 70 percent of its sales, was one of the lucky ones.Sales of its teaching resources have boomed and it hasdoubled its customer representative headcount fromthree to six, out of a total payroll of 53.As the company has expanded the sophisticationof and reliance on its use of Legrand CRM has alsogrown. Initially, Muollo says, it was used for customerservice, with some application to marketing.Now, its role on the sales side of the business isbecoming more important, to a great extent because of its ease of use. Sales staff who as teaching professionalshad minimal exposure to computers, and others whowere familiar with different CRM packages, all rate thenew system.“The people who have come from using other sys-tems love Legrand — they’re amazed at how easy it isto use.”One new hire, within six weeks of being at thecompany, used the package to map out her quarterly sales schedule, Muollo says.“She did a full report on her territory, listed whather top-selling districts were and, within those dis-tricts, the category A, B and C campuses. She was ableto dig down and pull out all this information as thebasis of her Q4 customer visit schedule.”Muollo says the sales representative was able to runthe report on her own, after only a brief run through of the software’s key features.“She can look at a school district, see who haspurchased a certain product from us, make sure it isworking for them, then she has an advocate for thatproduct, and off she goes.”

Testimonials

The system also records customer testimonials, let-ting reps find endorsements of particular products, orcustomer service, by district, within seconds.Muollo showed the same rep the power of the

‘Taking on Texas’s Teaching Tools’

Legrand CRM is being wielded by Mentoring Minds totackle the Texas education market…

The people who havecome from using othersystems love LegrandCRM — they’re amazed athow easy it is to use.

Andrew Muollo,general manager