Need recomendations for software that helps with sales, CRM, and marketing automation

Each of the software you listed above expertise on its own.
I personally dont believe all-in-one apps much, thats like putting all eggs into one basket.

However, as your business is growing, you will soon realize that you might need to outsource some of your work, such as emailing/newsletter campaign etc.
Cant do everything yourself. Not even automation will help. - just my personal opinion.

Freshbooks billing, integrates with Salesforce & Mailchimp.

In my opinion, if a company tried to tackle everything they wouldn't do anything well. Right now my workflow is formstack -> freshbooks -> mailchimp & payment gateway. No CRM as we're basically a one off.

bzizzler wrote: ↑any ideas?

Why? For what reason?

bzizzler wrote: ↑I wish I could do my email mktg and crm etc using GMAIL as my main hub.

I think they might offer it, but what happens when you get flagged for abuse and locked out of your business?

At the very least, get on a PAID gmail, and make sure these people are actually getting back into their accounts.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=I'm+locked+out+of+Gmail

Like these people...

http://knol.google.com/k/how-to-recover ... ur_Account

And, I know it's been a while since there were those bans on hotmail.com accounts. Remember when forums and membership websites refused to allow access to those users?

Maybe it is not far off from people banning gmail.com

http://www.theabsolute.net/phpBB/viewto ... =10&t=5590

If it helps... I know the cloud is appealing, but if you are doing anything substantial. You need to have a local backup, so whatever you choose, try to at least look for that. It's not absolutely necessary, but I've lost plenty by not backing up, and I am not sure if I could find anyone who hasn't had a data loss which has proven to be disastrous, both in the cloud and on the desktop.

[EDIT]

It looks like its possible with GMAIL, but there are send limits, requirements to whitelist IPs, SPF records, ect... it could take you a few days to set up. If you try it, why not start with a PAID version, and then see what the support is like. If it is Google, you might not like it, if you are not the type that is willing to tear their own hair out for a few days at a time. jmo...

For anything other than Email, there is a good chance that some Google services might not make it across the border. I mean some services have been active in the USA for years now, and they are just not available over here.

This is an interesting predicament

You've reach what I refer to as the "Dark Age" for your company with respect to streamlining your technology and operations. You're possibly too small to invest in your own technology infrastructure and servers but too big to use existing solutions without customization.

Dark Age, is because the growth of productivity and efficiency declines, nothing really new is happening, just business as usual.

So what do you do?

Well the easy thing is to hold tight! and deal with the pains. Gmail? is too cumbersome for high volume of emails no?

The smart thing is to focus in one area which is most flexible SALESFORCE!

Email Marketing and Saleforce CRM can be combined very easily. and invoicing and a certain level of bookkeeping can be integrated using some apps from Appexchange.

For the POS and eCom you could possible channel all your POS entries through your eCom and consolidate the purchasing channel through that system.

In the end it really depends on your business. You'll be amazed Salesforce.com is by far the most flexible of all your systems because of the apps available so invest in a good consultant that knows it and can customize it for you, I have a good network in this field so please reach out if thats what you would like to explore