We spoke to Lars Helgeson, Founder & CEO of GreenRope: The world’s first and most complete CRM and marketing automation solution.
Overview
GreenRope is a complete CRM, an all-in-one solution offering sales, marketing, customer service, and operations tools in one single system. Our mission is to deliver powerful technology that helps businesses streamline their business processes, create better customer experiences, and saves them hundreds to thousands of dollars in total cost of ownership.
Too many businesses are wasting their precious resources, both time and money, on software that doesn’t connect the dots. It is either too complex or does not integrate the basic functions a business needs to deliver effective, data-driven strategies. GreenRope ties all of your business processes together, so you have a full, 360-degree view of both the customer AND the business, on every level. This type of information and level of integration is almost impossible when you have to piece together multiple third-party solutions. GreenRope takes the hassle out of managing your business. Just like the strands of a rope, the more your business is tied together, the stronger it becomes.
How did you come up with the idea for your company?
The idea for GreenRope came about in a couple of ways. In 1997, I walked into a bookstore and picked up a book called “Teach Yourself CGI Programming In A Week”. I then processed to build my first company, CoolerEmail, which was one of the first email marketing software platforms on the market. The idea for GreenRope came years later when I was trying to build a solution to help manage our hockey team. I quickly realized that a lot of the functionality I was building could also be translated to business. After many years as an entrepreneur myself, and having already built an email marketing platform, I understood the pain points small businesses felt and made it my goal to build a platform that could significantly improve the way businesses are managed, from sales to marketing to operations.
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How has GreenRope helped businesses during the Pandemic?
When Covid-19 hit, we knew we could really help transform businesses into online, data-driven organizations. GreenRope played such an integral role in helping businesses survive the pandemic. While our software is a great fit for any sized business, we offer affordable packages and top-notch, 24/7 support – something SMBs desperately needed. Businesses could use our platform to reach their customers in new and engaging ways. For example, we have one client that, before the pandemic, had teams that went to salons all over the country, teaching classes in person. Of course, Covid-19 completely flipped their business model upside down. With GreenRope’s learning management system, they were able to offer the same educational courses online. They didn’t have to stop their efforts, and instead, they evolved to overcome the challenges Covid-19 put in front of them. This is just one example of how we were able to help businesses not only survive, but flourish in what could have been disastrous circumstances.
The fact that we offer an affordable, all-in-one solution gives small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to invest (without exhausting precious resources) in digital transformation.
We also launched our #GiveBackCRM program that gives non-profit organizations our software completely free.
What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
Be very careful who you get into business with. Especially who you give shares of your company to in the early stages. Be sure if you have a partner, that that partner is as committed to the vision as you are. Regardless of how you feel about that person, prepare for the worst-case scenario. What happens if your partner(s) decide to not take an active role in the company anymore? What objective standards can you each hold yourself to, so that ownership is relinquished if those standards are not met? What happens if a key person passes away or becomes incapacitated? These are all hard questions, but if you don’t plan for them, they will eventually catch up to you.
