No Fluff. Just Results.

TLDR;
The rest of this page is worth reading but also very long!

I'm a freelance Zoho developer specialising in automation and custom development across Zoho's suite of business apps.

If you need help with:

  • Migrating your business onto Zoho
  • Automating your Zoho systems with code

I can help make that happen. Click the button below to get in touch and arrange a call.

Get in touch

Who Am I?

Hire me and you can write off trips to Wanaka as a business expense.

My name is Liam and live in Wanaka, New Zealand. I have 17 years of experience solving business system problems with special expertise in the wholesale import/distribution sector across Australia and New Zealand.

I take a straight forward and reductionist approach to development.

What I Do

Step 1: "Pre-Zoho" Work

How to get the most out of your system

Fair warning: I love this stuff but you may find it boring and sometimes a little revealing. I promise it's for the best though. Trust me.


Despite what some will tell you, I often find there is significant amounts of work that needs doing before we even talk about a new system/CRM.

This includes:

  • Data cleaning: (the boring bit)
    • We need to get your data "CRM Ready". I can do this for you but you may find it more affordable to work on this in-house before we get started. Either way, I can walk you through where we need to get to.
  • Process mapping: (the revealing bit)
    • This works best if we completely forget about Zoho for now and do a whiteboard session. CRMs are incredibly powerful tools and can automate a lot of things. However, if you haven't documented your business process first then the full power of CRM will not be unleashed. Don't worry if you're not there yet. I can help guide you through this process.
  • Tool scoping - what tools are you currently using? (slightly more exciting)
    • Tools that need to stay:
      • Determine avenues for integrating them with your CRM.
      • Determine their data structure as this will guide the setup of your CRM.
    • Tools that will be replaced by Zoho:
      • We'll investigate their existing configuration, their failures, potential replacements and methods to extract the old data.

Step 2: Implementing Zoho One

Zoho One consists of a huge array of apps. You won't need to (and shouldn't) use them all but here's a quick summary of how I approach building out your Zoho One ecosystem.

Zoho CRM - The heart of the system

CRM Setup and Integration

CRM is the centrepiece of the Zoho apps ecosystem. In this stage we'll focus on getting it configured, integrating it with various apps and business tools such as your emails and customising the structure and process that is used.

Automations

I create automations (both in CRM and elsewhere) that focus on four key areas:

  1. Validation: Ensuring the right info is being inputted at key stages
  2. Stagnation Prevention: Automated reminders to keep things moving!
  3. Allocation: Notifying the right people at the right time what they need to do
  4. Integration: Making sure data can flow automatically between apps.

Other Zoho apps to consider

  • Zoho Flow
    • Connect Zoho apps with your industry-specific tools using Zoho Flow where possible. Don't worry if your particular app isn't integrated with Zoho Flow, we may be able to spin up a custom integration.
  • Marketing and sales tools:
    • Zoho Forms
      • Create forms to embed on your website, we can then feed the responses into your Zoho CRM, into Zoho Desk as tickets, into Zoho Marketing Automation for EDMs or anywhere else you need these enquiries to go.
    • Zoho Marketing Automation
      • This is Zoho's EDM tool, similar to Mailchimp, Active Campaign, Klaviyo etc.
    • Zoho PageSense
      • Zoho's version of Google Anlytics
    • Zoho SalesIQ
      • Adds live chat on your website as well as various other analytics features.
    • Zoho Socials
      • Similar to Hootsuite or Buffer.
      • Tracks all your social channels, and lets you schedule posts.
  • Zoho Desk
    • Ticket Desk software for customer support with great CRM integration.
  • Zoho Books
    • I find in many cases for businesses in Aus/NZ, we'll often want to use Zoho books to send out invoices and take payment but then keep Xero as the "main" accounting system. Integrations to facilitate this are fairly straightforward.

Zoho Creator - This app gets it's own section

I find myself turning to Zoho Creator time and time again. It's such an excellent platform. When you need to do something that the main apps can't do, but you don't have the budget/time to get a fully custom app built from scratch, Zoho Creator is the go to app. It's what we call "low code" which means that most of the basic building blocks are quickly created freeing up time to work on writing some Deluge code to determine how your app works.

Deluge - Zoho's coding language

While much of Zoho work involves point and click configuration, the real magic happens with Deluge scripting. It's a simple but very powerful scripting language native to Zoho that can save you incredible amounts of manual labour. If you're trying to do something in Zoho and the standard options don't seem to do what you want, there's every chance it can be done with a bit of Deluge code.

Step 3: Enjoy your system.

How do we work together?

As you may of guessed by now, I like to do business a little differently.

In my humble opinion business should be:

  • Fun
  • Honest
  • Productive

80with20 is designed to be a small co-operative business of solo freelancers so we work together closely and you'll always have a direct line to the person doing the work.

We're purposely a small team so that we can create close relationships with a small handful of clients.

Why are you called 80with20?!

In short, because we're data nerds!

In most areas of life we find that the distribution of what we measure is highly uneven. This effect, often referred to as the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle, shows us that:

A small number of factors frequently account for a disproportionately large share of the effects.

That's great, but how does this help my business?

Lets take a look at a few examples of how this might look in the real world.

  • Client Analysis: 20% of clients typically generate 80% of your profits.
  • Software: 80% of users only use 20% of the software's features.
  • Cybersecurity: 80% of security breaches could have been avoided with just 20% of the most fundamental cybersecurity strategies.
  • Customer Support: 80% of support requests come from 20% of your customers.
  • Marketing: 80% of social media engagement often comes from just 20% of your best posts.
  • Learning: 80% of proficiency in a given discipline can usually be achieved with just 20% of the most crucial learning material.
  • And some fun ones!
    • Outdoor Gear: 80% of your outdoor adventures can be done using just 20% of your key bits of gear.
    • DIY: 80% of workshop projects use just 20% of your tools.

Now clearly these figures are not exact data. But in most cases you'll find that the effect is even more severe (90/10 or even 99/1).

This is why we started 80with20

We wanted to create a digital services company that keeps the 80/20 rule front and centre in everything we do.

In this way we can massively accelerate the results achieved by prioritising those strategies that will deliver the most outsized effects for your business.

We'll help you get 80 when maybe you only have 20 to play with 😊

So, why choose a solo developer over a big shiny agency?

Agencies certainly offer some advantages over solo developers and will be more suitable in certain situations. However, there are also advantages of hiring me instead!

Advantages of Working with Me:

  1. No long term contracts. Just an simple hourly rate.
  2. Direct communication: You explain the requirements and I build them. No middle managers.
  3. Transparent workload management: I'll be upfront about my availability so you'll always know when work will be done.
  4. Simple pricing: I work on hourly rates and document what each hour was allocated to.

When to Consider an Agency Instead:

  1. Many brains. An agency will likely have multiple people working on the problem which can help in combining different skillsets.
  2. Your project requirements exceed what my current availability can handle in your given timeframe. Some projects are just too big for one person.
  3. You have high availability requirements. I structure my work week fairly rigidly to work on different projects in a fair manner. This may mean sometimes I'm not immediately available to pickup the phone as an agency might be.

Ready to get cracking?

Click the button below so we can arrange a time to talk about your project. No sales pitch, just honest discussion about how I can help streamline your business with Zoho.

Get in touch