Cano Liquor Licenses – Zoho CRM Transformation Case Study
Industry: Licensing Consulting & Brokerage (Retail) |
Location: Torrance, California (USA) |
Team Size: 5
Apps: Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, Zoho Flow
Executive Summary
Cano Liquor Licenses is a consulting and brokerage firm specializing in liquor license sales and transfers for multi-unit retailers nationwide. With five employees and nearly a decade of experience, the company needed a purpose-built CRM to manage thousands of licenses by market, region, and status. Zenatta redesigned their Zoho platform to streamline operations and improve accuracy.
By restructuring Zoho CRM, automating deal creation and cleanup, enhancing escrow documentation, and synchronizing state license data via Zoho Analytics, Zenatta delivered a centralized system that speeds searches, reduces manual work, and keeps records clean across buyers, sellers, and licenses.
The Challenge
After switching from Salesforce to Zoho, Cano struggled to organize and maintain large volumes of license data. Searching and matching licenses across states was slow and error-prone. The team also needed reliable, automated document generation and consistent data updates across related records.
“We have been much more efficient in tracking down liquor licenses in our database.” – Louie Cano, Owner/CEO, Cano Liquor Licenses
Why It Mattered
Licensing moves fast. Without clean data and automation, opportunities stall and compliance risk grows. A specialized CRM would enable quick license matching, accurate documents, and confident reporting for nationwide retail clients.
The Zenatta Solution
Zenatta transformed Zoho CRM into a licensing-first platform and connected it with analytics-driven imports and targeted automations.
- CRM Customization & Automation: Restructured the Licenses module as the operational hub. Added a Create Deal button to generate deals from licenses with mapped account, contact, DBA, and premise details. Built bidirectional linking between buyers and licenses; on Closed Won, workflows remove related buyers/deals to keep records clean.
- Document Generation (Start Sheet): Implemented an automated Start Sheet generator that pre-populates buyer, seller, license number, and premise details. Improved validation and error handling, and added fields to support different license types across states.
- License Data Integration: Expanded California and Arizona imports (expiration dates, addresses, statuses). Scheduled sync keeps CRM aligned with Zoho Analytics tables. If a license is set to Cancelled, linked open deals auto-update to Closed Lost. Phone edits on contacts cascade to related licenses.
- Marketing & Communications: Connected all WordPress forms to Zoho CRM via Zoho Flow, routing submissions into a custom module for faster follow-up. Guided the transition to the new company email domain and provided step-by-step training.
- AI Exploration: Kicked off 2025 initiatives to match buyers/sellers faster and surface high-value leads, using AI within Zoho to enhance reporting and prioritization.
“They helped with customizing our database for our unique business model… The importing of our unique module, licenses, has helped tremendously.” – Louie Cano, Owner/CEO, Cano Liquor Licenses
Results
Cano now manages licenses, buyers, and deals from a centralized, automated CRM. Searching is faster, documents are accurate, and records stay synchronized—freeing the team to focus on closing transactions.
- One-click deal creation from licenses with clean mappings
- Automated Start Sheet documents with robust validation
- Analytics-driven imports keep multi-state data current
“Responsive, efficient, and intuitive… Jordan engineered a much easier CRM for us to work with. User-friendly consultants and helpful video tutorials.”
– Louie Cano, Owner/CEO, Cano Liquor Licenses
