Zoho One Review: 17 Things You Hate to Do in Your Business Made Easy

More and more of you have been looking for a simple way to run your business on a budget – Zoho One is my answer for so many reasons, but mostly because it’s affordable, easy, and I feel good supporting a company who supports me.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could offload all those tedious tasks to a single software? In this Zoho One review, I’ll show you why the new Zoho One is an amazing complete business platform that makes it possible to work on your business instead of in it.

What is Zoho One?

Zoho One is the perfect suite of 50+ business productivity apps for entrepreneurs overwhelmed by the technology they need to run their businesses. In some ways it’s very similar to Google or Microsoft — but better.

All of these companies offer basic “office” software such as spreadsheets, documents, presentations, and meetings. But then Zoho went off and did something crazy by bundling all of its apps into a single platform for a low price that’s honestly hard to beat.

But there’s so much more to Zoho One than the features and the apps. Zoho’s leadership has made a firm commitment to you, the small business owner and put their money and their efforts where their mouth is.

Every year, Zoho makes running your entire business from one platform at an insanely low cost. You simply cannot get high performing software like this to run your business — no how, no way.

Why You Want an All in One, Unified Platform

Zoho One is a unified platform. That means that all the software you need to do just about every function of your business is in one place; one tab, one platform, and one price.

Having a unified business software platform means that you choose a single brand of software and use all of the apps from that brand. Google is a unified platform. Microsoft is a unified platform. Zoho One is a unified platform.

The trend right now is to shift from a patchwork of software to a unified and integrated software. Here’s why:

• You’ll save time. You make ONE decision. Choose the platform and all the apps come with it. That’s it.
• You’ll save money. You’ll pay a small monthly fee for the platform and all the apps are free. Since they are already integrated, you don’t need to spend money on any additional apps or software.
• Unified platforms work well together. The integrations are built in and all the appropriate data is shared without your having to do anything.
• Unified platforms collect and share data across all the applications. This makes it easy to get a solid picture of your business performance.
• With all your business data in one place, you can leverage the power of artificial intelligence to help you gain insights you might have missed in your business.

Why You’re Missing Out on New Customers

You know what the biggest lie in small business is? That the most important thing you bring to the party is your technical skill or knowledge. I hate to burst your bubble, but just because you bake the best cupcakes, doesn’t mean your cupcake bakery will succeed. Just because you are a yoga pro, doesn’t mean your yoga studio will attract enough students to pay the bills. And, just because you make beautiful jewelry, doesn’t mean anyone will buy it!

The most important skill in running a business is — running a business. That includes all those tedious. technical, stick-a-fork-in-your-eye stuff that you’d rather pay someone to do like marketing, sales, accounting, building a website, HR, customer service,etc.

In 2019, BizSugar collected feedback from more than 600 small business owners just like you. And the results uncovered the great unsaid — most small business owners think that their biggest challenge is generating leads and customers. But the real problem is something more insidious.

30% of our respondents said they were working in their business instead of on their business. In other words, sales and marketing is only a challenge because you don’t have the time and energy to devote to them.

This is why you need to take a fresh look at Zoho One.

Why I Love Zoho One and Recommend it

My admiration for Zoho goes way beyond the software or what a great value for the money it is. Zoho excels in four major categories that I use to choose a platform; people, platform, price, and promise.

Zoho is a people-first company. That means that the small business owner is at the center of every software development.

The Zoho platform is seamlessly integrated so that you only have to make one decision; to use the platform. Other than that, there’s an app for anything you need for no extra cost. Use as much or as little as you like.

Of course, the price is insanely affordable. Just $37/mo per user. That’s it. There are no levels, no limits on features.

All this is great, but let’s get to what really matters. What can Zoho One do that you can’t do or don’t want to do?

Zoho One Replaces $400 per Month in Small Business Tools for $37/mo

What would you do with an extra $400 per month? That’s nearly $5,000 per year! While you think about that, check out some of the tools I’ve been paying for before using Zoho One.

• Microsoft 365 ($8.25/mo)
• Dropbox Business ($20/mo)
• Zoom ($14.99/mo)
• Keap.com ($100/mo)
• Kajabi ($119/mo)
• Constant Contact ($20/mo)
• MailChimp ($14.99/mo)
• Buffer ($5/mo)
• Evernote ($9.99/mo)
• Quickbooks Online ($40/mo)
• Calendly ($12/mo)
• SurveyMonkey ($32/mo – billed annually)
• Zapier ($19.99/mo)
• Zendesk ($19/mo)
• WebinarJam ($42/mo)

I’m pretty sure there are more, but these are just the tools I’ve replaced with Zoho One.

Zoho One has two pricing plans:

1. Flexible user pricing: Starts at $90/user/month. Under this pricing model, companies can purchase any number of licenses for managing their business better.
2. All employee pricing: Starts at $37/user/month. Under this pricing model, companies must purchase licenses for all their employees. For more information please head to https://www.zoho.com/one/pricing/

The pricing I’m quoting here is for an annual contract. You can also pay monthly at $45/mo.

Saving money is great! But the real benefit of using Zoho One as your business operating system is in how it either eliminates some of those tasks that everyone says you should do — but you don’t do because it’s a complete pain in the neck.

I’ve made a list of tasks and responsibilities from some of the small businesses I’ve worked with and outlined how Zoho One either eliminates the problem or makes it easier to do.

17 Dreaded, Annoying and Tedious Tasks Zoho One Will Do For You

Typical software reviews talk about features. But in this Zoho One review, I want to talk about how Zoho One simplifies your life. I’ve pulled together all of those tasks that keep you from working ON your business that Zoho One simplifies for you.

1. Choosing software to run your entire business.

It can take as long as two years to choose a software for your business. Imagine how many more new customers you could get in that time? Zoho One’s cloud software combines CRM, project management, email marketing, website design, HR, and more into one platform. All you need to do is choose it and use it.

2. Making software work together.

Even after choosing your software, the next challenge is having it all work together. Integrations often break down and it takes an expert to set them up and fix them when they break down after an update. Because Zoho One is an all-in-one unified platform and the integration is already set up — not a problem.

And another thing.

Business software tends to multiply. As soon as you choose two different platforms, you’ll usually need a third to integrate it. But wait, then you want to look at everything in one dashboard – now you need a fourth platform. Most businesses aren’t that technical. This means that you have to jump from one application to another to measure your progress. As a result, you’re missing out on new leads and opportunities.

If you’re using the Zoho One platform, the integrations are seamless. Not only that, but Zoho One also pulls your data together all in one dashboard.

3. Put all your business performance data in one unified dashboard

How many times have you tried to pull together a business performance report and gotten different numbers from a team member who pulled the report?

This happens All. The. Time. It’s insanely frustrating because you might choose one set of criteria and someone else will choose another set.

Because Zoho One seamlessly integrates all your apps, all you need to do is set the criteria and select what you want in the dashboard. BOOM. Everyone sees the same numbers and track progress consistently.

4. Figuring out what customers want.

Experts tell you that you should always be gathering feedback from your customers. You can run a survey and get the numbers, but wouldn’t it be great if you could include a survey link at every step of the buying process and then have that data all in one place?

Zoho Surveys is the answer. Imagine being able to collect customer feedback and then have their responses synchronized to their Zoho CRM record!

5. Capture leads from everywhere and put them in one place.

Every small business wants more leads and customers. But the challenge isn’t “getting them” so much as collecting them all in one place.

Prospects enter your business from email, from social media, from forms on your website, from recommendations, and from direct phone calls.

With Zoho One, you can capture those leads, categorize them and put them in one place.

6. Automatically follow-up and move leads through your sales process.

Did you know that the number one reason you aren’t converting leads to customers is because it’s difficult to keep track of all your leads as they go through your sales and marketing funnel.

Zoho One helps you automate your entire sales process. You can create automated workflows that instantly label or tag leads and make it easy to follow up.

7. Run and manage all of your marketing campaigns from one place

Of course you’re frustrated with sales and marketing! You’re losing leads because they come in from all over, you aren’t following up with them, and nurturing those leads with emails takes so much time!

Most integrated sales and marketing platforms can cost hundreds of dollars per month — and they aren’t connected to the rest of your business. That’s no help!

The new Zoho One has a suite of sales and marketing apps that are already synchronized in a way that allows you to capture leads from a form, your site, or a phone call and then automatically place them into your CRM and the proper marketing campaign. No matter where a new lead comes from, you can make sure that they receive timely and relevant follow-ups.

Let’s not forget about the relationships you build and nurture on social media. Zoho Social is also included in Zoho One. Use Zoho Social to post, track and run reports on your social engagements.

But here’s where Zoho Social shines — you can capture LEADS from social and automate their progress through their sales funnel. All you need to do is tell Zoho Social when you want to move a lead into your marketing funnel.

8. Building and managing a website or ecommerce site.

The trouble with small business websites is that you often need a team of technical folks like designers, developers, SEO experts, analytics experts and social media experts to make your website do what it’s supposed to do.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve been burned by this entire process. You’ve thrown money at it and gotten nothing in return.

What you need is a website that funnels new leads to your business! That’s what Zoho Sites does. And yes, Zoho Sites is included in the Zoho One platform.

Zoho Sites has all the awesome features of most DIY website builders:

• Tons of gorgeous professional templates
• No code, drag and drop building
• A/B testing and analytics
• SEO optimization
• And more….

But none of this is all that different from other site builders like Wix or WordPress. What makes Zoho Sites so powerful is….its ability to automatically integrate with your entire business system:

• Collect leads and add them to CRM and your marketing automation (Zoho Campaigns).
• Optimize for user experience and SEO with Zoho PageSense
• Provide chat support with Zoho Sales IQ

If you’re a brick and mortar business, ecommerce business, manufacturing business or service business — this is an ideal platform for you.

9. Automatically track your business success with pre-built reports and dashboards.

Whoever said “You can’t track what you don’t measure” hasn’t tried to integrate a dozen custom apps into one dashboard without custom coding or spending a fortune on reporting software.

The new Zoho One provides more than 1500 pre-built reports and dashboards so you can finally be the one to boast about your business growth.

10. Got a question about your business? Ask “Zia”.

One of the most frustrating things about running a business is data analysis. Luckily Zoho One has an AI, lovingly named Zia.

If you’re a Star Trek fan, it’s like having your own “Enterprise Computer”!

The great thing about Zia is that “she” can search your entire Zoho One database and answer some of your basic questions.

You can type your question or even use voice search to ask your question.

11. Easily onboard and train new team members.

You’ve worked tirelessly to create a business process that delivers quality – but it seems to take forever (and cost a fortune) to train everyone on your team to follow them. Zoho One includes a powerful Learning Management System so that you can quickly, easily and automatically onboard employees and create on-going training programs.

12. Be two places at the same time!

Zoho One’s “Lens” custom app gives you the ability to troubleshoot virtually. This is an ideal app for service businesses like HVAC repair that have a service team on the move who need to solve problem.

13. Eliminate email overwhelm and critical tasks falling through the cracks

Another major annoyance for small business owners is dealing with a flooded email inbox that mixes external emails with team communication. This can lead to missing important information makes collaboration and follow-up difficult.

This is where TeamInbox saves the day. This is a shared inbox for teams so that every team member can see all the messages related to a project or customer issue. You can assign owners to each incoming message so that no email is left without a response. You can see what everyone is working on, share thoughts and ideas, and most importantly, make sure that all of your customers get the right answer as fast as possible.

One feature I really love is that you can configure all of your channels in one place so that you’re not jumping from one tab to another.

The great thing about TeamInbox is that you can run ALL of your emails (internal and external) through this app. Not only that, but you can also create tasks and communicate ALL from your inbox! This is especially useful when dealing with online reviews.

14. Backup and secure your data without an IT department.

Most small business owners don’t have an IT department. We count on the tools we use to keep our data private and secure.

Well, get this. When you have Zoho One, you also get “Vault”. This is an app that allows you to easily and securely backup all your data.

15. Don’t work alone! Stay connected, chat and meet with your team anytime, anywhere

The biggest challenge business owners face when working virtually is connecting with their team — not just for meeting, but for quick questions, announcements and even a quick video chat.

Zoho One’s Cliq app is your alternative to Slack.

16. Schedule meetings and even get paid for your advice with one click

One of my biggest peeves is going back and forth with someone to schedule a simple meeting. Zoho One’s “Bookings” app is how I schedule meetings with one click.

Another peeve is not making money on the advice I give and not knowing what types of meetings yield new clients and customers.

One of the features I love most about Zoho Bookings is that you can turn a meeting into a lead and that lead into a customer! Again — this is the benefit of a unified and synchronized operating system that doesn’t let a single interaction go to waste.

Sure, you can use other Calendar tools — but they won’t give you REPORTS the way Zoho Bookings does.

You can create reports by meeting type, revenue reports and so many more!

I’ve also created “breakthrough sessions” as a meeting type that allows clients to schedule 1-hr consulting meetings and where I can get PAID for my advice. This has been a game changer for me — because I hate asking for money. Instead, I simply tell my client to schedule a “breakthrough” session. This is a low-investment for them and allows me to get paid for my advice.

17. Leaving money on the table because you aren’t keeping the books

You know that feeling when you put on a coat and stick your hand in the pocket and find a $10 bill? I can see you smiling already.

Well, your business has money hidden in the nooks and crannies; phone consultations that go unbilled, getting lost in a project and not billing for all your time, pricing too low because you don’t understand your costs — and so much more.

Luckily Zoho One has Zoho Books.

When you use Zoho Books along with apps list Zoho CRM, Zoho Bookings, Zoho Sites and other integrated apps, you’re not leaving any money on the table.

New and Improved Zoho One Pulls Everything Together at a Price You Can Afford

Zoho One is a robust suite of business applications, designed to help entrepreneurs handle their most important tasks from anywhere with just an internet connection. They have the tools to run your entire company from accounting and finance to sales and marketing. 

I’ve been using Zoho for about two years now, and I’m very happy with it! I love that you can share documents with other users so we don’t have to email around spreadsheets or files anymore! There’s also a chat function where we can communicate in real-time – it’s great for brainstorming sessions or getting feedback on a proposal before submitting it. 

So Many Apps — Where Do You Start?

This is the most important question you can ask yourself. The best way to start using Zoho One is to start with a single app, get familiar and comfortable with it, then add the next most obvious app.

Here are some basic “triggers” or entry point apps to Zoho One:

Bookings (Calendly Alternative): This is how I started. A calendar booking app is simple, we all understand how they work, and, because it’s connected to your calendar, you’ll get some basic experience with connecting or integrating Zoho One to your existing calendar tool.

Bigin (Simple CRM): Another great way to start with Zoho One is with their basic, simple CRM, Bigin. This is a “Trello” like CRM that is ideas for anyone who has NOT used a CRM before. Again, you can use it out of the box, without integrating to anything. So it’s a great place to start.

Invoice: A lot of my friends start with this one. It’s a free invoice tool, you can also connect it to Bigin and just work on managing and growing your sales.

Zoho CRM (Salesforce alternative): This is the most popular way to start using Zoho One and a lot of companies choose this one. It’s not at the top of my list for solopreneurs because it can feel overwhelming (That’s why I recommend you start with Bigin). Now, you can start with some bare bones features because EVERY Zoho One app integrates with CRM, like everyone. So I’d recommend you connect your apps to Zoho CRM and you can jump into it when you are ready.

Ultimately the answer of where you start is up to you. Just start. Start with one app at a time and work your way up.

The Bottom Line

Zoho One is the ideal choice for a startup or new business that hasn’t committed to a wide variety of software just yet. Zoho One works best when you have all of your information in the single platform. That’s where the magic happens.

If you would rather spend your time working on your business, serving customers and seeing how your business is doing by glancing at a dashboard – Zoho One is for you.

Overall Zoho One and its apps are outstanding and will serve the needs of 90%+ of small business owners. Granted if you are very specific in a particular area, you may want to use particular tools or you might find that some Zoho apps don’t have the advanced features you want. BUT — Zoho One is very customizable. And if you struggle with measuring business results and making business decisions because you can’t see all the data, investing in some customizations will be well worth it.

Zoho One has made it easier for small businesses to operate out of one secure platform by seamlessly connecting all their apps so they don’t have to worry about data silos or multiple logins anymore. They can now focus on what matters most – growing their business!