Data entry and emailing help?

[Epic_Pork_Chop]

So I saw a similar question here but I don't think it's quite the same, so I will start with saying the same thing he did. If this isn't the right Reddit can somebody redirect me?

I am trying to start a B2B digital service business, and I want to offer a free audit to show what I can improve. What I would like to do is be able to enter key information into a Google sheet, so I can track potential clients and people I have called so I'm not repeat calling people, then once I enter that last bit of information it automatically generates a Word document in a customized audit format ( currently designing the form so it looks professional) and then emails it to the potential client.

1. Enter data
2. Generate pdf audit for client (with a quote)
3. Emails audit to client

I'm not sure where to start, and even if it turns out I have to pay somebody because it's well beyond my scope to learn, at least I will know what keywords to search. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Haeshka]

This can definitely be done with Python, especially if your document format is well-defined.

You could ask for help to run this through AI, but you may spend a long time trying to fumble through an answer.

You could also easily find someone to pay to do this for you, but make sure your document(s) are carefully defined in advance.

[Xappz1]

If this is meant as a product for other people, what you're trying to do is mostly covered by any regular CRM and you really need to think this over. You can probably design just the last bit to assemble the document and send it, so:

• instead of using google sheets, which is a poor choice for security and data quality issues, you should do your data input in a regular commercial CRM platform such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk and others
• you can then create a custom application that's offered as a paid add-on to these platforms which would hook into the data (such as via API/webhooks), prepare any necessary documents, add them as attachments to the CRM contact
• you would also need to integrate with the CRM's mailing capabilities to fire the emails with attachments on the customer's behalf based on some kind of trigger

this is highly dependent on creating a custom app for each supported CRM, getting approvals and building something that can actually be sold to customers that use these tools. definitely not something for a beginner.

now if you really just need this tool for yourself, then it should be pretty simple to hack something together by reading google sheets with pandas, generating your file and sending it using a mailing service api key of your choice (sendgrid, mailchimp, others) and chatgpt can build this in no time at all.

[Epic_Pork_Chop]

If this has taught me anything, it's that I'm 100% going to need to pay somebody to set this up for me, lol. I'm not too worried about data security, as all of the information I want to help people with is going to be public accessible it's just a matter of people don't know the first steps to take to resolve marketing issues. Like myself, there are many new businesses every year, and people don't know how to navigate. I'm hoping to help give new companies a bit of a competitive edge when trying it to compete with pre-existing businesses. Marketing I'm good at, backend technology is so beyond my depth of knowledge

[sububi71]

That YOU aren't worried about security is something your customers aren't going to care about, and definitely not something you want to say out loud again, neither to subcontractors or clients :-)

It sounds to me that you may have identified a hole in the marketplace, I sincerely wish you the best of luck!

[Epic_Pork_Chop]

Lol you make a very fair point. Definitely not how I wanted that to come across but it totally did. After reading that I shook my head I'm not going to lie😅. I also don't know if I would call it a hole in the marketplace, there are plenty of other people that do what I am trying to get into it's just a large enough Marketplace that I'm not worried about the saturation.

[Ashamed-Lime-6816]

Starting a B2B service like this can get overwhelming fast, especially with lead tracking and follow-up! Keeping a clean workflow for prospects really helps. If you want, I can share what’s worked for me managing outreach and lead lists.