SmartBiz Case Study

SmartBiz scales business volume 500x within 6 weeks of Salesforce Launch.  Transaction volume increased 500x and revenue 7x

Evan Singer, CEO of SmartBiz.

"We would not have made this move without 100% confidence in AcousticSelling to guide us all the way through.  They delivered beyond our expectations”, says Evan Singer, CEO of SmartBiz.

About SmartBiz
SmartBiz Loans is the leading small business financing platform, helping equip every business owner with reliable access to the right capital. To date, SmartBiz Loans has served 230,000+ business owners and helped facilitate over $9 billion in business financing across SBA loans, term loans, and line of credits. In 2020, SmartBiz Loans hired AcousticSelling to set up their Salesforce instance.

Before the AcousticSelling engagement, SmartBiz had originally built and maintained their own CRM. Although the legacy system provided flexibility, its limited features made enhancements and customizations a time-consuming task for engineers who were primarily dedicated to the company's core products. Consequently, their CRM remained static, failing to adapt to the evolving needs of the company.

When the Federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was enacted, SmartBiz Loans anticipated a 500% increase in loan demands. Unfortunately, their legacy CRM was not up to the challenge.

“Our loan processing loads were already high under normal conditions so we knew that we needed the ease of use and scalability of Salesforce to handle increased loads due to PPP.  In the depth of the pandemic we had a narrow window of opportunity to migrate from our legacy CRM in preparation for future growth.   Little did we know that window would get shortened to 6 weeks before PPP launched, which we anticipated would increase our volume.  We would not have made this move without 100% confidence in AcousticSelling to guide us all the way through.  They delivered beyond our expectations”, says Evan Singer, CEO of SmartBiz.

Acoustic worked closely with the newly formed Sales Operations team to implement the Salesforce CRM platform and made sure it was ready for immediate deployment. We introduced a sophisticated yet user-friendly loan assignment engine, designed to adapt swiftly to internal capacities and internal business logics. We customized the Salesforce CRM to introduce approval workflows and comprehensive user training and enablement for the SmartBiz Sales team.

The goal was to deliver a CRM that is not only user-friendly but also scalable. This approach ensured that the engineering team could focus on the company’s core product development, while the business unit oversaw administrative tasks and maintenance. The Salesforce CRM that was implemented is flexible, making it adaptable to new product offerings and adjustments in business processes. It caters to the needs of diverse teams, handles various workflows, and integrates seamlessly with other systems.

The path to success: build, test, deliver, train, and maintain.

In close partnership with SmartBiz Loans, Acoustic launched the Sales Cloud in 6 weeks and transformed how the SmartBiz Sales team engaged with prospective borrowers, increasing overall transaction volume 500 times and revenue 7 times. Inquiries are now processed with greater speed and efficiency, eliminating the need to juggle multiple systems. SmartBiz's employees, executives, and IT team unanimously express satisfaction with the outcomes. Additionally, six months after the launch, its internal teams assumed control of the project, achieving full self-sufficiency.