Which CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software?

 Articles, Management, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More, Uncategorized  2 Comments »
Feb 172010
 

I was recently part of a discussion on CRM and the best way to choose a Customer Relationship Management package. With CRM/SFA/contact management becoming mainstream and accepted more and more questions come up about which one of the myriad of options is the better one.

I have been part of sales team for Oracle CRM and Sage CRM. I have also been the user, competed against or part of the buying process for Siebel, SAP, Salesforce and Sage. Here are my thoughts.

First and foremost, the starting point should not be the features and functionality of the technology. The departure point is the needs of the buyer, the existing processes of the company, how they need to change and improve and the goals that need to be realized. If these factors have not been mapped then the company is not ready for a CRM purchase.

Moreover, which software has proven capability in the buying firm’s niche, vertical or broad industry?

Next, remembering that CRM is there to enable the company to know itself and its customers, how does the productivity tool play with the company’s actual data and processes? This is where a customized demonstration including the aforementioned information is very helpful. No, not a generic demo and no not a downloaded sample of the program. Can one see the needs fulfilled in the CRM and can one see the desired improvements fulfilled in the potential package? If any integrations are required, can this be demonstrated? What about the reporting capabilities, formats in which the reports are available and, crucially, their ease of use? Which vendor gives you the best training for their product?

Incidentally, avoid paying for features one does not need and will not use.

I don’t want to get into the hosted versus on-site flavours of CRM discussion here, but should one be considering a hosted or SAAS (Software As A Service)/cloud software (the cloud refers to the nebulous Internet mode of delivery) the question to ask is what happens at the end of the contract period. Who owns the data? How can one receive it from the hosting company? Is there an additional fee attached to these stipulations?

Of course, cost is a factor. SAAS operates on the leasing model (low up-front costs/potentially more expensive overall), while the traditional method gives you the software in perpetuity (except there is an installation cost and time-line that needs to be factored in). As I said, won’t get into this aspect more at this time.

The technology’s capability will only follow the determination of wants, needs, processes and desired outcome strategies. Mastering these has the added benefit that they necessitate consulting and working with the end-users of the product, thus helping obtain their buy-in. What is the purpose of buying CRM if sales, service or the marketing department really do not want to use it?

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Outsourcing Telemarketing, Lead Qualification Or Generation

 Articles, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling  1 Comment »
Feb 142010
 

A professional marketing contact brought up the topic of outsourcing telemarketing and lead qualification and generation this week. What are the advantages and pitfalls of such arrangements?

Marketing departments like these services and gravitate towards such arrangements. Sales managers are desperate for sales and are looking for solutions. Salespeople are often less amiable. The arrangement frequently leads to tension between the sales and marketing departments, within the sales departments and even discourages the sales team from pursuing any leads that have been generated if the initial pass is less than optimal.

Outsourcing is no longer exceptional at companies of any size. Respective marketing departments feel that outsourcing agencies are a simple and relatively pain-free answer to the demands of the organization for lead generation and lead creation (after all that is part of what marketing does). The sales department is constantly asking for more and better leads. It all seems to come together. Consequently, the number of outside agencies that take over some of the functions of sales and marketing departments has ballooned. From being the front-line for inbound calls to outbound calling and even setting appointments the outsourcing firm stands ready to do all or a part of it.

Marketing is looking for a Return On Investment justification.

Sales is looking for increased sales leads or slam-dunk sales.

Sales management is hoping for the same as above two, and needs to ensure the integrity of its processes and effort.

I have been involved with organizations that have hired outsourced firms several times. The results have been uneven. The promise, inevitably, exceeds what is delivered. There is no silver bullet and if anything is too good to be true, then it is.

Here are several tips and factors to consider:

  • Marketing must involve and integrate the sales department into its decision-making process. If the decision is made to go ahead then the salespeople – the direct beneficiaries of the outsourcing – should be part of the team that trains the outsourcing firm’s team.
  • Do not short-change training.
  • Plan for change management. How are product updates handled? How are changed versions taught? How is a change in company goals and target market communicated? Have you budgeted for these including trips, visits and training?
  • Do not discount the need for airtight definitions including leads, prospects, hot ones, credit, time-lines that are acceptable, appointments (should that be part of the mandate) and the definition of acceptable and unacceptable leads, calls, appointments, sales, etc. While outsourcing companies often provide some credit or replacement time, calls or leads for any ‘returned’ results that were not acceptable, these can quickly become overwhelming and a source of dispute. Moreover, companies do not always have the best feedback mechanism set up internally.
  • Similarly, what are the metrics, what is the formal mechanism for feedback and what rights does it confer upon the two parties?
  • Could you, for efficiencies sake, integrate and automate your internal sales tools and software with the outsourced agency’s?
  • What is your fallback and contingency plan? Should the new arrangement not succeed have you kept an infrastructure in place that can be reactivated internally?
  • What is in the contract cancellation clause?
  • Do not allow the new arrangement to become a source of conflict between different departments. Involve all concerned prior to pulling the trigger (see first bullet above) and have an internal charter, agreement and buy-in before proceeding. To do otherwise, is to contribute to disappointment and create resentment and disenchantment just the opposite of what the sales and marketing groups sought.

How To Obtain New Customers?

 Marketing  3 Comments »
Dec 272009
 

A couple of weeks ago a professional e-mailed me wondering how a young and budding new company would get new customers. This Indian-based gentleman was at a loss as to how a small, up-start company would market itself and how it would get its voice heard over the clatter of bigger competition. In that particular case, a useful suggestion was ‘guerrilla marketing.’ Creativity and novelty would have to trump inside-the-box methods.

So, how does a company go about its business and attract customers? For the purpose of this post let’s assume you are not the head of marketing for Time Warner. That is, the marketing budget is below average, limited and corresponds to the depth of experience and dedicated resources at hand.

Many would consider a variety of marketing techniques as a starting point. That would be a mistake. A much better approach would be to understand one’s product or service and the associated customer (or if not enough exist, the target market’s) psyche.

Understanding one’s customer involves understanding one’s target market. What is it? A small firm needs to be brave enough to be able micro-target. That is, be willing to accept that you will not be servicing a major portion of the society. What niche within that target market is under-served, under-developed or, due to novelty, unaddressed? Leave the prejudices behind and let the customer speak for itself. What does the market say it wants and cannot currently get. How much of it do they want, at what frequency and how much is it worth to them? Let the voice of the customer surprise you.

An existing client base will complete and augment this information. Existing clients need to be mined for information. Part of his information is already available.

  • What is the existing average sales figure?
  • At which price level, and how often, were customers lost?
  • What did they purchase, what did they not purchase and what else was added to the sale from external sources?
  • Where did your customers find you in the first place? Where did those, which were lost, end up?
  • Was the money not spent with your firm banked, spent on the company Christmas party or move to your direct competitors?

The above information should be of a large enough sample to lend itself to aggregation and slicing and dicing. Three customers: bad! Three hundred responses: better!

The data derived should enable your company to limit – that’s right, I said limit – your pursuit of customers to a very tight grouping of potential customers. All the residents of Northern France are not a target market. Expatriate Brits living within 50 km of Paris, though, is somewhat better.

This kind of triangulation will allow your company’s limited resources to be spent with a narrow target in mind. This is where a small firm will find where it needs to call/advertise/be present/sponsor/showcase/call into/other in order to yield maximum output for the tight marketing resources. Additionally, this type of marketing is self-perpetuating. The Anglophone Brits living near the capital of France are more likely to know and communicate with one another and may become your inadvertent word-of-mouth marketers (for instance).

Two New Books Made Me Think

 Articles, Management, Marketing, Negotiating, Prospecting, Selling  Add Comments »
Nov 262009
 

Common wisdom in sales and management circles has revolved around the need to set personal goals, visualize, negotiate, and achieve.
A new school of thought suggests that the secret to success could actually be to take the opposite route.
Two new books regarding happiness, success, communication and persuasion argue respectively that happiness should not come at the expense of realism and the way to negotiation is to be receptive and listen with purity.

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, from the author of over a dozen other books, has used her experience as a breast cancer survivor to argue that the advocates of positive thinking are doing their followers a disservice. She insists that being positive about everything is not always good or superior. In other words, in corporate-speak, not every problem is a challenge and not every challenge is an opportunity. Ehrenreich claims that the incessant abuse of positive thinking has lead to a culture of not confronting problems. This school of thought leads to tangible problems.

Dr. Mark Goulston’s Just Listen: Discover The Secret To Getting Through To Absolutely Anyone comes from the perspective of a psychiatrist and an FBI negotiator. He claims that the contemporary needs for ‘producing’ costs us business and personal relationships. Should we accept that sales, marketing and management have relating and relationship building as their cornerstones then we would do well to delve deeper into his thoughts. The book takes the stance that the best way to achieve what we want – be it a sale, a promotion or a concession – is to be receptive to the other party – i.e. empathy. The book insists that taking a more ‘natural’ stance is actually the better way to succeed. Goulston believes by listening, and listening even more deeply, could one get through to the angry customer, narcissistic co-worker or dissatisfied employee. He goes on to insist that the social media does us a disservice by emphasizing quantity over quality. According to the book, the best way to listen is to listen without an agenda. This would be the purest form of listening. Oddly enough, he does have a Facebook account!

Just Listen To Buy The Book

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Bright-sided To Buy The Book

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Relating To The Seller

 Marketing, Selling  Add Comments »
Oct 262009
 

Among the common criteria usually prescribed for achieving sale success, ‘rapport’ and ‘relating’ are two that are often cited.
The idea is that we buy from those we like or share experiences or traits with. This idea is not revolutionary. We seek the safety of the known and avoid dark places.

A new Canadian study for the Journal Of Consumer research, however, takes the study one step further and offers even stronger evidence in this regard. The study claims that, what it terms, “incidental” traits help persuade a consumer to make a purchase. These motivating factors include extraneous factors like shared names, shared birthdays and hometowns.
The sales process is irrational after all.

Journal Of Consumer Research

This actually reminded me of my Whistler trip where the facilities’ employees – lifts, counter staff and the like – wore tags depicting their name and country of origin. I now know that many Australians and Japanese work at Whistler.
What the study highlighted makes me think. By deduction, the opposite can be true as well. Could the information that the workers at Whistler are Japanese and Australian be detrimental to my purchasing decisions?
It is possibly a double-edged sword.

What does this idea say about the desire of many buyers to have a ‘trusted advisor’? Trust is a function of time and experience. Could relating to a seller be a stronger factor in situations involving smaller purchases? Very possible.
And could being a ‘trusted advisor’ or ‘relating’ also be a double-edged sword in that the relationship requires a higher level of service and knowledge?
After all, one would expect a higher quality of engagement from the ‘trusted advisor’ or someone one has a rapport with than from any seller. The relationship has a lot longer to drop.

Workload Stress And Promotion

 Management, Marketing  13 Comments »
May 182009
 

Many studies and surveys correlate handling pressure and a crushing workload with being seen as responsible and effectiveness. Such studies probably over-emphasize the impact of hard work and dedication and diplomatically minimize talk of office politics and the politics of the corporate jungle. Nevertheless, there is no denying how managing one’s workload is conducive to being seen as efficient not to mention maintaining one’s sanity. Ironically, as corporations lay off people they expect the remaining employees to cover for those that were let go.

In fact, to move up in a corporate structure one must be seen as cool, calm, collected and in control. Nothing says ready for promotion than underutilized and not busy enough!

This is why it helps to be efficient.

  1. Place calls early. Busy people are more likely to pick up the telephone or respond between 8:00 to 9:00. Moreover, an early message is more likely to get returned on the same day.
  2. Multi-tasking is your enemy. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Place the telephone on ‘ Do Not Disturb’ and uncheck the notification alert on the email program.
  3. Report more not less. Delivering more does not signal that you need a bigger workload; rather it tells your manager and company that they do not need to look over your shoulder.
  4. Never, lose your cool. It is imperative that you show grace under pressure and never melt under a deadline.
  5. Most importantly, be organized. Take time upfront to develop a rational yet simple filing system whether in a drawer or on the computer. You never know when a graphic may come in handy once again.

These tips help one finish the job without sweat and make it home in time for dinner.

The path to promotion or potential advancement is hardly a mystery then if the political end is taken care of. Aside from efficiency and control, company executives are expected to:

  • Be educated. A Masters degree is better than a Bachelor’s is better than a Diploma, which is better than a high school degree.
  • Maintain a professional image including personal hygiene and quality attire.
  • Have a more diverse background. Being at the same company in the same country for 15 years means you are stuck.
  • Sneak in some operations responsibility, duties or a job into the business or technical mix of things.
  • Work or communicate with other offices or emphasize it should you be well-travelled.

10 Strategies For Selling And Operating In A Recession

 Marketing, Selling  2 Comments »
May 172009
 

1.    Consider Hosted Services, Outsourcing or Cooperation/Collaboration with another service provider in lieu of acquiring new products or adding new services. This way it is possible to offer an immediate service as part of the larger offering and broader service without committing time and capital resource. Obtain an SLA (Service level Agreement) from your provider that ensures your good name is intact with your customer.

2.    Offer two-tier pricing: higher rate is for immediate service and the lower means delayed gratification and priced for the recession. Say you normally charge $175/hour for service. Regular 3-day response can be $125/hour, while the immediate or same-day service is priced at $250/hour.

3.    Use ‘down-time’ to motivate and train employees. Human resource is more important than lip service. Whether it is offering your staff courses, training or coaching now is the time. Make your sales team part of an implementation or service call and the services team part of the sales strategy. Teach everyone how to act in an industry-specific or market segmented way. Can these groups articulate an ROI (Return On Investment)?

4.    Analyse your expenditure and revenue sources. Do some customers/vendors/partners cost you more than they bring in? Now is the time to discover them and ditch them. Be brave about it.

5.    Be Japanese not American! Do not sacrifice short-term revenue for profitability by thinking long-term. Now is not the time for a fire sale. Companies shoot themselves in the foot and are setting themselves up for both a loss now and sustained low margins in the future. Remember: it is the net margin that counts and pays the bills not the revenue coming in.

6.    This is not the time to stand still. Hire the best talent and obtain the best products and services at a bargain. The best talent and acquisition is available now for cheap and probably leads to a higher income than 2% return on bonds in the bank. Buy now and you get a bargain. It sounds simple, but this requires thinking that is confident and against human nature.

7.    Solution selling in a recession does not mean denying the recession. There can be a powerful argument for recognizing the recession – especially when combined with the above notion that now is the cheaper and smarter time to buy. Do not deny that everyone is caught in hard times. The economy is real, tangible and a shared pain for you and your customer. Instead, explore how you product can help lessen the impact of a recession on your customer.
o    Could your Business Intelligence software tell your customer how much exposure they have to a downturn and indeed how much they need to cut (when the economy is on the upswing they can turn the software back to measuring transaction costs or the profitability of advertising, etc.)?
o    Are you in the banking business? Can your service tell customers how much liquidity they need to maintain in order to weather a global recession? The downturn can and must be your friend.
o    Could your manufacturing process tell them firms which configurations need to be produced less of and what the market will demand more of?

8.    Focus on the industries that are better weathering the storm or even profiting by it. Country Clubs might be in trouble, but Tim Hortons sure isn’t. Discrete manufacturing is in trouble, but auctioneers are not. There is a recession in New York City, but did you know that Nebraska has a 4.6% unemployment rate, thank-you very much (New York is 7.8% as of March, 2009).
o    Click here for statistics: http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=state&seasonal=u

9.    Revisit old leads, old customers for more opportunities and when all else fails, generate good will and future business by showing even better customer service now and add to your personal touch. Take advantage of your competition’s turmoil and their lay-offs, which are lowering their service levels.

Remember that it is less costly (some say by 50%) to tap your existing clients than to acquire new ones. Sell more often, sell more dollars on average and collect faster from your existing clients. Can your customer base support a direct referral program that compensates them upon your completing a business transaction with a company they referred?

10.    Don’t be a living self-fulfilling prophecy. Remain active and on the job! Less business requires more work and activity – not less!

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers is quoted as saying, “companies break away during downturns.” Think about it. He guided Cisco during the 2001 meltdown and the Great Recession.

 

*Things That Need To Go Away: Buying High And Selling Low. It Is For Lemmings.

 

Not Competing On Price

 Articles, Marketing  Add Comments »
Jul 062008
 

Hands up anyone out there who isn’t tired of competing on price. Why is it that everyone insists they do not compete on price, but ends up wheeling and dealing, bargaining, being haggled and giving a discount? Vendors are sick of it, customers know they can get away with asking for less and spend precious time playing the game instead of tending to what they really should be doing and resellers routinely hit up their product’s publishers for rebates.

It is a vicious circle. No one admits they are part of the problem either.

What is a poor seller to do? Differentiate yourself with both substance and marketing.

The difficult part first. Knowing yourself leads to knowing your value proposition, which in turn leads to figuring out what you do better than everyone else (if you honestly cannot answer that question then you are in trouble). Now put some substance behind it. Stop compensating your sales department for short-term goals. Incorporate customer satisfaction and long-term revenue into the remuneration package. Make sure everyone at the company is aware of your value proposition, your differentiated value proposition and is consistently educated in that field. Can your salespersons, consultants, implementers and customer service team explain what specific industry or business result you specialize in and can they hold an in-depth discussion about it with your customers?

For instance, if you have accidentally or consciously decided you are after the public sector business, can your entire team speak to the requirements of the levels of government you serve? Do they understand who is who, what the language of government is and what results governments demand?

The simpler part is the marketing. Does your website, collateral and discussions focus on your differentiator? Your website has to target your core competence with the appropriate business requirements and testimonials. Does the company’s brochures lay claim to your specialty instead of talking about the company’s history and management and who knows what else? Does your channel carry the knowledge around with it? Focus on branding your focus and who you are and make sure you walk the talk.

The implication? You are ready to walk away from non-core business and no one can beat your knowledge of the domain. That is value that for which the customer can safely pay more.

It is only now that your company can confidently stay away from discounted business and the price concessions that have become so prevalent. You are not commodity and you should be priced accordingly.

Identifying And Marketing To Your Best Customers

 Articles, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling More  2 Comments »
May 202007
 

Marketing, in recent years, has morphed into a jumbled exercise of costly practices with next to no identifiable result or return on investment. Marketing departments spend lavish amounts on ‘analysts’ and far-flung exhibits and seminars during which untargeted masses float by uninteresting vendors. Gaining new customers should be a more targeted exercise. Step one, find out who your current ones are and keep them.

More customers should mean better profit, better income and job security. That much is obvious, but do you have a method to identify them? It all starts with information.

Gather and go over data for the past two years on all your sales. A longer record may be needed for higher dollar value sales that would limit the quantity of transactions, while a shorter time span might be considered for smaller ticket sales.
Identify the customers’ industry or vertical and map it to their NAICS* (which is replacing SIC), employee count, location/geography, revenue or even their age and gender if appropriate and available. Note all commonalities. Use a public or paid private database to find more customers of similar demographics. http://www.accoona.com is one example. Company websites and government records will also help.

If using software then do not forget to leave space (in CRM, spreadsheets, PIM, etc.) for notes about their particular likes and dislikes and significant milestones so you can input the information into your a calendar for reference. This idea is more valid the bigger the transaction size. Use your reminders to dispatch a call or a card. This is the customer retention side of your effort.

Always ask for referrals from your current customers. They typically know their industry and have contacts therein.

Focus your efforts and pursue business where you have been successful in the past. This approach also allows you to conduct reference selling. It is less difficult and more fruitful to do targeted work than casting a wide and expensive net. Make your existing company data work for you. Never mind the expensive booth, at the expensive conference that modern marketing types prefer. You know better if you are on a budget.

*NAICS is used by business and government to classify and measure economic activity in Canada, Mexico and United States.

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