Today I have decided to wax poetic about health and fitness, especially as it applies to the harried business person.
If you find this confusing, please reread my mission statement. ;->
Most succesful executives own and appreciate fine highly powered automobiles, not only for the status, but also for the fine craftsmanship, power and responsiveness.
And all pay through the nose to have these vehicles serviced to maintain that performance, as well they should, it is an investment.. interestingly, the higher the price/quality of the car, the lower the actual ownership cost usually is when you figure in resale values... just another example of the rich getting richer by being smart.
Now, what if I showed you a machine that could actually become faster, more agile and efficient, the more you drove it? Seriously, I'm not trying to sell cars here, I'm talking about a machine that the more you drive it, the better the gas mileage, and it's top speed actually increases!
You may have guessed it, I'm talking about your very own machine - your body. We all have one... most of the time... although I have been known in the past to have had some tequila induced out of body experiences, but that's for another blog...
Barring mechanical malfunctions (read: a physical checkup to make sure your basically healthy) you can actually make yourself better faster, stronger, healthier by simply USING your machine. If a car builder came out with a vehicle that did that we would all be beating a path to their door.
Yet it is suprising to me that more people don't take advantage of their own built-in capacity for just that type of miracle. Go for a 20-30 min walk 2-3 x week, join a gym, take some classes, do yoga 2-3 times a week, ride a bike.. whatever you do, do it for at least 6 weeks, consistently.
Do something, anything 3 x week for 20-30 minutes and after 6 weeks you'll be better, faster, stronger more efficient and most importantly happier! I can almost guarantee it!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
CRM and SFA, what's the big deal?
Today I'd like to talk about using SFA (Sales Force Automation) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools.
1st lets talk about the different names: SFA vs CRM.
A SFA is designed to be used as a sales tool, similar to a sophisticated outlook, a computerized rolodesk or 3x5 card file where a sales team can keep their lead/clients info, schedule callbacks, save notes and send personalized or formatted emails, among a ton of other bells and whistles.
A CRM on the other hand does all that a SFA does, but also has functions to handle and maintain current customers, such as billing, service issue tracking, and much more, hence the name.
I realize this is a gross oversimplification, but KISS is my moto!
One of the benefits of all these systems is the ability to manage a far greater number of clients/leads/prospects than one could with say simply Outlook, or any other type of address book.
With an effective CRM/SFA you can note what drove the client to your door, record the interactions, schedule call backs and automatically send out specific targeted emails/literature to individuals or groups based on what their specific interests are.
For example:
You're a sailboat manufacturer and your marketing team runs a special price campaign on your smaller sized boats (say 20 foot or less). You may receive, if your message is effective and your data base is good, 100 responses out of 1,000 emails (a stunning 10% return, but I'm trying to keep it simple here). 10 actually take you up on your offer (a closing rate of 10%; again, not too bad!). Now you have an additional 90 leads out there that were or may still be interested in a smaller sailboat. With a CRM/SFA you can put that group into a "bucket" of prospects that like smaller boats and can target emails and calls to take advantage of that fact. One example would be to send them updates of small boat races in their area or nationally, info/articles on how to handle a small boat in inclement weather, etc, etc. In addition the next time you run a special you can select those particular prospects for additional incentives.
Note: it is of VITAL importance that you always give these prospects the opportunity to "opt out" from receiving any more communications, which puts the onus on your marketing team to make the communications so interesting and topical that they don't .
Take a look a http://www.huspot.com/ to see how it's done.
If you keep those customers in the loop, have a good product (price and quality comparable to your competitors) then providing your prospects with relevant, interesting materials and offers will set you apart from a competior who doesn't.
The caveat is that despite all the automation, you still need some sharp individuals to manage these warm leads. The sales team, as mentioned in my previous blog, will not be able to provide the attention that is required to set you apart from the herd. The ratio of BusDev to prospects is something that depends on your sales cycle, volume and projected sales quotas. It does cost money to effectively and properly manage these leads/prospects, (TANSTAAFL* to quote Ray Bradbury) but the pay back will come, if done properly and given time.
1st lets talk about the different names: SFA vs CRM.
A SFA is designed to be used as a sales tool, similar to a sophisticated outlook, a computerized rolodesk or 3x5 card file where a sales team can keep their lead/clients info, schedule callbacks, save notes and send personalized or formatted emails, among a ton of other bells and whistles.
A CRM on the other hand does all that a SFA does, but also has functions to handle and maintain current customers, such as billing, service issue tracking, and much more, hence the name.
I realize this is a gross oversimplification, but KISS is my moto!
One of the benefits of all these systems is the ability to manage a far greater number of clients/leads/prospects than one could with say simply Outlook, or any other type of address book.
With an effective CRM/SFA you can note what drove the client to your door, record the interactions, schedule call backs and automatically send out specific targeted emails/literature to individuals or groups based on what their specific interests are.
For example:
You're a sailboat manufacturer and your marketing team runs a special price campaign on your smaller sized boats (say 20 foot or less). You may receive, if your message is effective and your data base is good, 100 responses out of 1,000 emails (a stunning 10% return, but I'm trying to keep it simple here). 10 actually take you up on your offer (a closing rate of 10%; again, not too bad!). Now you have an additional 90 leads out there that were or may still be interested in a smaller sailboat. With a CRM/SFA you can put that group into a "bucket" of prospects that like smaller boats and can target emails and calls to take advantage of that fact. One example would be to send them updates of small boat races in their area or nationally, info/articles on how to handle a small boat in inclement weather, etc, etc. In addition the next time you run a special you can select those particular prospects for additional incentives.
Note: it is of VITAL importance that you always give these prospects the opportunity to "opt out" from receiving any more communications, which puts the onus on your marketing team to make the communications so interesting and topical that they don't .
Take a look a http://www.huspot.com/ to see how it's done.
If you keep those customers in the loop, have a good product (price and quality comparable to your competitors) then providing your prospects with relevant, interesting materials and offers will set you apart from a competior who doesn't.
The caveat is that despite all the automation, you still need some sharp individuals to manage these warm leads. The sales team, as mentioned in my previous blog, will not be able to provide the attention that is required to set you apart from the herd. The ratio of BusDev to prospects is something that depends on your sales cycle, volume and projected sales quotas. It does cost money to effectively and properly manage these leads/prospects, (TANSTAAFL* to quote Ray Bradbury) but the pay back will come, if done properly and given time.
Some examples of these systems:
SalesForce, (http://www.salesforce.com/)
Sugar CRM (http://www.sugarcrm.com/), an open source system
GoldMine (http://www.goldmine.com/
Industry specific:
REA 8 (http://www.gorea.com/) for the commercial real estate professionals, which is an outstanding tool.
BTW: I am not a salesman for any of these vendors, nor do I receive any renumeration for mentioning them... yet! LOL
There are a ton of good systems out there and selecting the right one for your specific needs is important, and I will be discussing the things one should look at before making the investment in my next blog.
Thanks for visiting!
*(drop me a line if you just have to know what TANSTAAFL means.)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
B2B business development in this age of SEO
This is my first forey into the blog-sphere, so please excuse this old dog trying to run with the young greyhounds.
Recently all one hears in the marketing and business world (besides the impending doom of a recession) is the importance of SEO & e-commerce, which, I agree, cannot be underrated.
However once a prospect/lead has raised his/her hand by responding to your irresistable offer and or website, then what? 90% of the time (unless your offer is of such minimal cost or so extraordinary that you'll soon be out of business) the respondant will want to review, compare others, mull it over or just think about it. We are all familiar with the glacier speed even the most decisive C level exec's can move at, lets not even talk about the purchasing agents or the poor first year employee who has been tasked with researching a particular solution.
At that time the single most important part of the business team, your sales force will need to be able to nourish and cultivate that prospect.
-HOWEVER- salesteams are by nature busily working the immediate deal, the ones about to close, or the current client screaming in their ears about the latest glitch that support can't seem or doesn't want to fix. After all, the salesteam needs to put food on the table and meet their quota, and lets face it, the best sales person is usually the most disorganized. I'm just stating the obvious here and if any salesperson wants to disagree I challenge him or her to respond.. go ahead, write yourself a reminder to blast me back... when you have the time, with all your closings, putting out the fires, jumping through the hoops, filling out the reports, dealing with the installers, updating your quotas, explaining your losses, justifying expenses, fighting management over discounts, ad naseum ;)
The new prospects, the ones not ready to commit, can and often will fall by the way side. Even the best intentioned and most organized sales person cannot maintain the broad end of the funnel , and your lead/prospect will be relegated to a life of occasional mass produced email and even (gasp) and occasional glossy mailer ('member those?). Yes, putting the clients name on the message is nice, even trying to customize the message as best you can, but who are you fooling? Certainly not the prospect whose inbox by now is so overflowing they shudder to open it in the morning! A good sales person can effectively and personally handle around 20 long to medium term prospects in addition to his clients and the hot/about to close prospects.
What is needed is a team of specialists that have the time AND the motivation to continue a personalized and targeted communication stream with that client:
Business Developers (BusDev).
In my opinion, using a state of the art CRM or SFA (just google CRM or Sales Force Automation you'll be astounded at the variety), a single BusDev member can handle hundreds of leads/prospects, with personalized touches, answering questions, and forwarding pertanent information on a regular and (hopefully) non-annoying basis over a 6 month to one year period. I don't want to get into the details of how that's done, but suffice to say it has.
If the BusDev team has a fiduciary stake in nuturing this lead, so much the better and a relationship will be established that should eventually produce fruit. If the lead is simply put into an automated drip program, chances are that lead will die on the vine.
In addition, the BusDev can become an complimentary addition to your marketing program, my former Marketing Director, Dudley Larus (dlarus@gmail.com) had an outstanding ability to fuse BusDev, sales and marketing into a comprehensive and fully integrated unit, not leaving any member out, and as a result the company he and I worked for was so succesfull it was bought by a much larger competitor (so much for doing a good job!).
I have not seen a substantiated ROI on a Business Development project, and would love for anyone out there to give me their take/experience on this.
This is what I call taking the Japanese approach, investing without expecting an immediate return on your investment, but realizing it EVENTUALLY.
It does stand to reason that, although not all leads will bear fruit (were it only so), an organized and personalized approach to following up and continuing to provide value to a client via the personal touch will produce results; one of the only companies so far that I have dealt with that probably does the best job of providing relevant and usefull mass emails is http://www.hubspot.com/, but they even have a sales/bus dev team. I had the pleasure of working with Heidi in particular, and although my previous employer could not see the wisdom of replacing their part-time gardner, part-time SEO in favour of Hub-Spot (at thousands per months vs $250 per month) or at the least letting her take advantage of it, they have continued to provide me with information and data as needed.
My next blog will be on the proper use and implementation of a CRM/SFA, I think I'll call it: "Implementing a CRM or how to get your 5 year old to eat their spinach".
Bryan
(anxiuosly awaiting the fallout from the sales people out there)
Recently all one hears in the marketing and business world (besides the impending doom of a recession) is the importance of SEO & e-commerce, which, I agree, cannot be underrated.
However once a prospect/lead has raised his/her hand by responding to your irresistable offer and or website, then what? 90% of the time (unless your offer is of such minimal cost or so extraordinary that you'll soon be out of business) the respondant will want to review, compare others, mull it over or just think about it. We are all familiar with the glacier speed even the most decisive C level exec's can move at, lets not even talk about the purchasing agents or the poor first year employee who has been tasked with researching a particular solution.
At that time the single most important part of the business team, your sales force will need to be able to nourish and cultivate that prospect.
-HOWEVER- salesteams are by nature busily working the immediate deal, the ones about to close, or the current client screaming in their ears about the latest glitch that support can't seem or doesn't want to fix. After all, the salesteam needs to put food on the table and meet their quota, and lets face it, the best sales person is usually the most disorganized. I'm just stating the obvious here and if any salesperson wants to disagree I challenge him or her to respond.. go ahead, write yourself a reminder to blast me back... when you have the time, with all your closings, putting out the fires, jumping through the hoops, filling out the reports, dealing with the installers, updating your quotas, explaining your losses, justifying expenses, fighting management over discounts, ad naseum ;)
The new prospects, the ones not ready to commit, can and often will fall by the way side. Even the best intentioned and most organized sales person cannot maintain the broad end of the funnel , and your lead/prospect will be relegated to a life of occasional mass produced email and even (gasp) and occasional glossy mailer ('member those?). Yes, putting the clients name on the message is nice, even trying to customize the message as best you can, but who are you fooling? Certainly not the prospect whose inbox by now is so overflowing they shudder to open it in the morning! A good sales person can effectively and personally handle around 20 long to medium term prospects in addition to his clients and the hot/about to close prospects.
What is needed is a team of specialists that have the time AND the motivation to continue a personalized and targeted communication stream with that client:
Business Developers (BusDev).
In my opinion, using a state of the art CRM or SFA (just google CRM or Sales Force Automation you'll be astounded at the variety), a single BusDev member can handle hundreds of leads/prospects, with personalized touches, answering questions, and forwarding pertanent information on a regular and (hopefully) non-annoying basis over a 6 month to one year period. I don't want to get into the details of how that's done, but suffice to say it has.
If the BusDev team has a fiduciary stake in nuturing this lead, so much the better and a relationship will be established that should eventually produce fruit. If the lead is simply put into an automated drip program, chances are that lead will die on the vine.
In addition, the BusDev can become an complimentary addition to your marketing program, my former Marketing Director, Dudley Larus (dlarus@gmail.com) had an outstanding ability to fuse BusDev, sales and marketing into a comprehensive and fully integrated unit, not leaving any member out, and as a result the company he and I worked for was so succesfull it was bought by a much larger competitor (so much for doing a good job!).
I have not seen a substantiated ROI on a Business Development project, and would love for anyone out there to give me their take/experience on this.
This is what I call taking the Japanese approach, investing without expecting an immediate return on your investment, but realizing it EVENTUALLY.
It does stand to reason that, although not all leads will bear fruit (were it only so), an organized and personalized approach to following up and continuing to provide value to a client via the personal touch will produce results; one of the only companies so far that I have dealt with that probably does the best job of providing relevant and usefull mass emails is http://www.hubspot.com/, but they even have a sales/bus dev team. I had the pleasure of working with Heidi in particular, and although my previous employer could not see the wisdom of replacing their part-time gardner, part-time SEO in favour of Hub-Spot (at thousands per months vs $250 per month) or at the least letting her take advantage of it, they have continued to provide me with information and data as needed.
My next blog will be on the proper use and implementation of a CRM/SFA, I think I'll call it: "Implementing a CRM or how to get your 5 year old to eat their spinach".
Bryan
(anxiuosly awaiting the fallout from the sales people out there)
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