There’s always something to howl about.

Digital Access Pass: A Membership Site/CRM

I have–as a lot of people know–been searching high and low for a workable CRM for my business. I miss desperately the easy fun that was ACT 6.0, and hated every version after that.

I tried Highrise, but it lacked “activity serieses” at the time, schedule once, do often.   I tried HEAP, and while it has suitable features, a great developer and a good ethos, the interface was not one I could think of.

Infusionsoft was an utter rip-off.  Staffed by the same types that brought Option Arms to all of the west with nonchalance, Infusionsoft was expensive, it has a bad interface, and worst of all, you have to adopt to it.  In 20 months of being self employed, Infusionsoft was the only thing that made me feel like somebody’s bitch.  The sales staff lied about its capacity “out of the box,” and the employees that ran it wanted to teach me something about being an entreprenuer, condescendingly selling me coaching.

Still, I think that the $700 I spent was worth it just to learn some slight of hand.  The marketing was so good, so emotionally connecting that I believed, despite evidence to the contrary that they cared.   So, the lesson learned was hire a copywriter so good that you feel happy to have been ripped off, and hopeful despite evidence to the contrary.

I’ve been playing with a lot of membership site software.  And, on Twitter, a tweet about WP-Wishlist got a clever guy following me, the developer of a piece of software called Digital Access Pass. DAP is not without its flaws.  It’s not yet perfect.   But, the structure and the thought behind it is, and it’s going to power a large bit of my customer service for the foreseeable future.

Dap sees things as “product” oriented.  Each product has a group of files and emails that are sequentially released to the customer at an arbitrary interval.  Day 1, email one, file one.  Day 2, email 2, file two.  Etc.

I emailed Ravi, and suggested one feature: that the “emails” that go out can be sent to an arbitrary address, defined on each one.  He wanted to know why: simple: with filters, you can use that as reminders.  So now, if you get a lead you can demonstrate how well you do with dap.   He made the change the same day I pinged him, and has been nothing but a joy to deal with.  (Full disclosure: he has comped me something or other, at some point, yet that has nothing to do with why DAP rocks.)

Put someone into Dap and whatever 8×8 or 12×2 can be expressed automatically. A combination of emails and reminders for you to call can be sent.  With a little elbow grease, you can generate a TODO list or whatever.

The other part is this: you control it.  100%.  It’s not “pay as you go,” it’s “put a script on your server, and then have a SQL database.”   You can also email Ravi and get him to make changes.  It seems that about every 3 weeks he’s adding features and simplifying things.

If your model includes selling anything on the Web, and if you want a way to educate your people, try DAP.  It says “membership site,” but I’m using it as a CRM.   I’ll let you know how I do.  It’s $167, and Ravi will have your back when stuff blows up.