I am an absolute Notion fangirl. I have used it for everything from personal expense tracking to trip planning and of course, for just about everything we do at Plain Sight Ventures (the team behind Pano). Notion has our content calendar, simple CRM, project ideas, and more. And one of my favorite ways to use it is in tandem with Pano for adding context to each customer.
A lot of notes are kept in Notion for conversations with customers. Those notes are stored in a Notion database including the customer’s name, email, company, date of the meeting, link to the Fireflies recording of the call, and general notes. (Hot tip: Create a Customer Call Template for structured note-taking.) Any time we have a call with someone, we drop notes in there and share them with the team. Gabe, our head of partnerships and sales, does such a great job of keeping everything in there.
Because we are a small team at Pano, it’s likely that if you’ve signed up — you’ve spoken to a few of us. And that means there’s a lot of context needed so that you’re not having to answer the same questions over and over again. This is why we built Pano — to keep team members on the same page with customers. We wanted to build something simple that could integrate with all your existing tools. While there are tons of integrations we’ve built, I wanted to share why the combination of Notion and Pano is perfect for startups.
Notion’s flexibility gives you the range to figure out your best process
When you’re running a startup, it can be tricky to figure out the flow of things. Everyone is hustling to get things done and has their preferences for how to run things. However, amassing a large tech stack bill isn’t exactly the best move. This is why Notion is so great. It’s affordable, flexible, and allows your team to figure out the best system to support your team. (I swear Notion is not paying me for this post.)
We have used Notion for two years now, and it has come a long way! We didn’t always stick to certain methods (we killed sprint planning), but we did evolve it to work for us. We pushed Notion to the edge and found more and more ways we could optimize our workflows with its simple, customizable tables, calendars, etc.
Pano’s simple design allows for easy onboarding
Another thing you cannot afford to do is spend countless hours training team members on a new solution. Time is of the essence! And this was a big factor as we built Pano. We wanted a powerful customer intelligence tool that was going to be super easy for anyone to get in and use. We also wanted to make it affordable so that as small teams grew their customer base, they had a solution that fit both their budget and scalability needs. Pano makes it easy to get a quick snapshot of a customer and understand who is at risk of churning and who could be a great opportunity for expansion. All of this is done by its simple integrations with tools such as Hubspot, Zendesk, Salesforce, and… Notion!
Bringing simplicity and customization together
Notion and Pano are two solutions focused on ease of use and beautiful design. While Notion undoubtedly has more customization than Pano, there’s a lot you can do to personalize your use of our customer intelligence tool. Pano is built for both your team at large as well as you, as a user. This means that while the data we sync from your company’s tech stack can be relatively endless, how you view that data is up to you. Similar to how Notion’s expansive database functionality can be parsed down into a simple view, just for me. The depth of intelligence is still there, I’m just not being knocked over the head with it every time I log in. And that helps me stay focused and sane, two things my colleagues are very grateful for. ;)
The last thing I’ll say about this happy tech marriage is that Pano makes it possible to link everything you treasure in Pano alongside your CRM, support, payment, and marketing tools. If ever you want to link a customer record in Notion, that can be easily linked in that customer’s Pano profile. This allows your entire team to quickly see what notes have been taken on a customer, instead of digging through all their tools or Slacking you right before a call. Everyone has the information they need to do their job well — all within Pano.
Look, I’m not exactly the world’s expert on technology, and to be honest — this is why I LOVE Notion and Pano together. They make it feel easy to do my job, connect with customers in an informed way, and feel organized and on top of things. Gone are the days of unnecessarily complicated technology and data. We’re making moves toward simple, intuitive, meaningful solutions. Join us will ya?
Got a favorite tool that’s made your life easier? We’re all ears! Shoot me a message over on LinkedIn and let’s talk. :)
If you'd like to see Pano and Notion in action, be sure to sign up for a free trial.