The halloween CRM admin and sales fails contest

The halloween CRM admin and sales fails contest



This Halloween, we're trading scary sales stories. Keeping with the good ol' Halloween theme, let's discuss the biggest fails we've come across in sales. We're talking the lowest of the lows, the horror of horrors you've come across, or those that you somehow managed to brave and make it to the other side.

For trick or treat, we're ditching the candy this season and offering five gift cards instead. The top five most interesting answers will get the following gift cards. 

$100 BestBuy Gift Card
$50 BestBuy Gift Card
$50 Amazon Gift Card 
$25 BestBuy Gift Card 
$25 Amazon Gift Card 

(All gift cards will be sent before Black Friday. If BestBuy cards do not apply in your region, we will send you an Amazon gift voucher instead)

You can include in your answer (post as a comment below), a few of these points:


 1. Horror: A telling of one of your most bizarre experiences with a potential client. We have all had some pretty bad luck with some deals. Strange, hilarious, or outright nerve-racking, some are just too hard of a nut to crack. Or, just any CRM admin nightmare story of your choosing. 


2. Trick: What you do to work around those tough corners and which Zoho feature has helped get you through it. 

3. Treat: A tip to help peers grow their business, something that you carried from this experience, that has always helped you stay ahead of the game! 

As I clearly can't divulge stories of one of our sales, GDPR and all, for an example here's one I heard from a buddy of mine who'd gotten flooded with deal closures last season.  


"It happened in the initial years of my sales career. I was passionate and opportunistic. I was enjoying converting our vending machines into dollars, and meeting the sales targets. Once, my manager even gave me a congratulatory hug. Which was so rare that I savored the moment too long and he had to push me away after a while.

However, the last quarter that year started slow. I was under pressure to close my targets, not just for the OTE but for that warm, long, and awkward hug too. Anyway, December approached and I was at the 40% mark. This was bad because December sales are always low, thanks to all the merry-making. I was getting desperate and started calling all the warm leads in my bucket, who were gradually drifting to the colder zone. 
​
One gentleman showed interest in meeting me on the 24th of December but was obvious on the call that there would be no order before January. Nevertheless, I decided to meet him in his office and see if there’s a slight chance of making the deal before New Year. I went to his office, we got into a room to discuss his vending machine requirements, but it did not go as I expected. He was too rude, to say the least. He had a grudge against his old supplier and he took it all out on me. Apparently, his previous supplier didn’t provide a good after-sale service when the machine broke down. He was irate and called out the entire salesmanship as an act of fraud. I tried to explain that we have an excellent service and that our clients are very happy, but nothing worked for him. One thing was sure though, he was not happy with his current supplier and wanted to return all the machines. So, there was a definite requirement. I grabbed this opportunity to show him our service. I asked him to take me to one of the broken machines. I took a look, called my engineer over phone, cooked up some Tony Stark stuff, and finally was able to restore the machine to working condition. I could not tell whether the client was impressed, so I took another shot: I offered to take back all the old machines he had and gave a 50% discount on the new ones ordered from us, plus free one-year service. Still, he had a poker face. I can’t do more than this, I thought, and packed my bags. I left my brochure, list of customer references, my business card, and a glimmer of hope in his office. 

​Next morning, while I was lying on my couch watching a re-run of The Office at home, I got this message over an email: “Hello, we had a meeting last night over the vending machines and looks like we can manage the budget for the price offered by you. It is to re-iterate that although you’ve offered free service, we would not appreciate any lag in the response. Also, the delivery should be completed by 31st Decemeber without delay. Merry Christmas!”

A few terms and conditions: 

1. The contest has no geographic restrictions. 

2. Zoho partners are welcome to participate but won't be eligible to win prizes. 

3. Language should be civil and not offend any member of the community. 

    • Sticky Posts

    • The halloween CRM admin and sales fails contest

      This Halloween, we're trading scary sales stories. Keeping with the good ol' Halloween theme, let's discuss the biggest fails we've come across in sales. We're talking the lowest of the lows, the horror of horrors you've come across, or those that you somehow managed to brave and make it to the other side. For trick or treat, we're ditching the candy this season and offering five gift cards instead. The top five most interesting answers will get the following gift cards.  $100 BestBuy Gift Card $50

      • Recent Topics

      • Filter contacts based on selected category in Zoho Desk ticket

        Hello community, I’m setting up the Tickets module in Zoho Desk and I need help implementing the following: When a category is selected in a ticket, I want the Contact field to be filtered so that it only displays contacts that are related to that category.

      • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

        Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

      • Assign Income to Project Without Invoice

        Hello, Fairly new user here so apologies if there is a really obvious solution here that I am just missing... I have hundreds of small deposits into a bank account that I want to assign to a project but do not want to have to create an invoice every time

      • Tracking Non-Inventory Items

        We have several business locations and currently use zoho inventory to track retail items (sales and purchase orders). We were hoping to use zoho inventory to track our non-inventory items as well (toilet paper, paper towels, etc). I understand that we

      • Profile Page View Customization

        I need to change the fields, sections from the profile view of an emplyoyee.

      • Zoho Desk Android app update: Filter, Sort and Saved filters Enhancements

        Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce the below features on the Android version Zoho Desk mobile app: 1. Filter & Sort support has been introduced for the Contacts and Accounts modules. 2. Sort options is now available in Custom Modules as well.

      • Accessing shared mailboxes through Trident (Windows)

        Hi, I have a created a couple of shared mailboxes. The mailboxes are showing up on the browser based Zoho workplace, but I cannot seem to figure out how to access my shared inboxes through Trident (Windows). Am I missing something or is this feature not

      • Feature Request: Ability to set Default Custom Filters and apply them via URL/Deluge

        I've discovered a significant gap in how Zoho Creator handles Custom Filters for reports, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This limitation has been raised before and continues to be requested, but remains unresolved. The

      • Closing the Loop: Why Lookup Asymmetry is Harming Data Integrity in Creator

        TL;DR: Lookup fields allow users to add new related records inline via the "+" icon, but there's no equivalent ability to edit an existing related record without navigating away and losing form context. Adding a native "Edit" icon—with automatic User

      • filtering lookup field options based on information in another module.

        In our CRM system. We have the standard Accounts and Deals modules. We would like to introduce the ability to classify Accounts by Sector. Our desired functionality is to have a global list of all sectors that an Account can select, with the ability to

      • Service op locatie organiseren met Zoho FSM: waar lopen organisaties tegenaan?

        Bij organisaties met service teams op locatie merken we vaak dat de complexiteit niet zozeer in de planning zelf zit, maar in wat er rond die planning gebeurt. Denk aan opvolging na interventies, consistente servicerapporten, en het bijhouden van installaties

      • Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

        Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

      • Does the ability exist to make tax on the customer profile mandatory?

        I am reaching out to inquire about the possibility of making the "Customer Tax" field mandatory when creating a new customer in Zoho. We want to ensure that all customers have their tax information recorded to maintain compliance with our internal processes.

      • email association with CRM

        Why is it 2024 (almost 2025) and Zoho has not figured out how to integrate email with CRM? It is so inconsistent at associating emails within CRM. I am an attorney. I have clients and work with other attorneys. Attorney John Doe is associated with multiple

      • Fix the speed

        It takes ages to load on every step even though my dataset is quite small.

      • Credit Note for Shipped and Fatoora pushed invoices

        We have shipped a Sales Order and created an Invoice. The Invoice is also pushed to Fatoora Now we need to create a credit note for the invoice When we try it, it says we need to create a Sales Return in the Zoho Books, we have already created a Sales

      • FSM - Timesheet entires for Internal Work

        Hi FSM Team, Several of my clients have asked how they can manage internal timesheets within Zoho FSM. Since their technicians already spend most of their day working in FSM, it would be ideal if they could log all working hours directly in the FSM app.

      • Add a way of clearing fields values in Flow actions

        It would be great if there was an option to set a field as Null when creating flows. I had an instance today where I just wanted to clear a long integer field in the CRM based on an action in Projects but I had to write a custom function. It would be

      • Role Management

        I am creating an analytics dashboard for a company that will be utilized by its various departments such as Finance, Marketing, and HR. My goal is to design the dashboard with separate tabs for each department. Additionally, I plan to implement role-based

      • Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

        Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

      • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.37.5.0)

        Hello Community! Trident for Windows just received a major update, with a range of capabilities that strengthen email security and enhance communication. This update focuses on making your mailbox safer and your overall email experience more reliable.

      • Early Payment Discount customize Text

        Hi, I’m currently using Zoho Books and am trying to customize the standard “Early Payment Discount” message that appears in the PDF invoice template. I’ve reviewed the documentation here: https://www.zoho.com/books/help/invoice/early-payment-discount.html

      • Deprecation of SMS-based multi-factor authentication (MFA) mode

        Overview of SMS-based OTP MFA mode The SMS-based OTP MFA method involves the delivery of a one-time password to a user's mobile phone via SMS. The user receives the OTP on their mobile phone and enters it to sign into their account. SMS-based OTPs offer

      • Zoho Sheet - Desktop App or Offline

        Since Zoho Docs is now available as a desktop app and offline, when is a realistic ETA for Sheet to have the same functionality?I am surprised this was not laucned at the same time as Docs.

      • DKIM Now Mandatory - Changes to Zoho Forms Email Policies

        Hello Zoho Forms Users, This post is to inform you about an important update regarding the authentication of all email domains in your Zoho Forms account. This year, we are doubling down on our commitment to deliver a secure, seamless, and empowering

      • Call description in notes

        When completing a call, we type in the result of the call in the description. However, that does not show up under the notes history on the contact. We want to be able to see all the calls that have taken place for a contact wihtout having to go into

      • Email Address for Contact not Populating

        When I click "Send Mail" from a Contact's page, their email address does not auto populate the "To" field. How do I make this happen?

      • New in CRM: Dynamic filters for lookup fields

        Last modified on Oct 28, 2024: This feature was initially available only through Early Access upon request. It is now available to all users across all data centers, except for the IN DC. Users in the IN DC can temporarily request access using this form

      • Why hybrid project management might be the best fit for you?

        Project management techniques are designed to equip teams with proven methods for easy and efficient project execution. While management teams may have apprehensions about adopting the hybrid method of project management, we’ve compiled the top reasons

      • Allow all Company Users to view all projects, but only owner/admins can change projects

        I was wondering if there was a permission setting I could adjust to allow all our company users to see all projects created. Then, only the project owners and admins with the change permission. Thanks

      • Fail to send Email by deluge

        Hi， today I gonna update some email include details in deluge, while this msg pops up and restrict me to save but my rules has run for one year. can you tell me how to use one of our admin account or super admin account to send the email? I tried to update

      • Seeking help to be able to search on all custom functions that are defined

        Hello I have a lot of custom functions defined (around 200) and i would like to search some specific strings in the content of those. Is there a way to accomplish that? If not, is there a way to download all existing custom functions in some files locally

      • Totals for Sales Tax Report

        On the sales tax report, the column totals aren't shown for any column other than Total Tax. I can't think of a good reason that they shouldn't be included for the other columns, as well. It would help me with my returns, for sure. It seems ludicrous

      • Add Bulk Section / Grid Layout Duplicate Feature in Zoho Forms Builder

        Currently in Zoho Forms, users can only duplicate individual fields. There is no option to duplicate an entire section or two-column/grid layout with all internal fields. This becomes inefficient when building structured forms such as Family Details,

      • Leistungsdatum in Rechnungen (Zoho Books)

        Hallo, ist es irgendwie möglich den Leistungszeitraum in der Rechnung aufzuführen? Beste Grüße Aleks

      • Zoho Trident Windows - Streams Not Visible

        Namaste We’re having an issue with Streams not being visible in Trident (Windows), which is important for us as we share many emails internally. It appears that the feature to show Streams above the Inbox folder, as seen in the default mailbox view, is

      • Sales IQ Chat Widget is Only Displaying Last Name

        Can anyone suggest why the widget is only displaying "last name"?! We have the latest version of the wordpress plugin installed. Thanks Thanks!

      • Shopify - Item sync from Zoho Inventory

        Hi team, We’ve connected Shopify with Zoho Inventory. We want that when an item is created in Zoho Inventory, it must create a product in Shopify. But currently, new items created in Zoho Inventory are not getting created in Shopify even after clicking

      • Bulk upload image option in Zoho Commerce

        I dont know if I am not looking into it properly but is there no option to bulk upload images along with the products? Like after you upload the products, I will have to upload images one by one again? Can someone help me out here? And what should I enter

      • Is it possible to setup bin locations WITHOUT mandating batch tracking?

        Hi fellow zoho users, I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar issue to me? I only have some products batch tracked (items with shelf life expiry dates) but I am trying to setup bin locations for my entire inventory so we can do stock counting easier.

      • Next Page