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Add You - Never Give Up, Never Let Go-
Do you own a growing business that needs financing? If you are like most business owners, whenever your business needs money you head over to the bank. Unfortunately, as most small business owners soon find out, most banks do not lend money to businesses unless they have significant collateral and a history of successful operations. This presents quite a challenge for business owners.When banks are not an option, small business owners turn to what is known as the alternative financing funding market. Although the financing options discussed in this article fall under the alternative financing category, they are actually quite widely used and should be considered mainstream. Most major companies (including public companies) have used this
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to
If you have ever filled in a survey form that has arrived through your letter box you will know that they consist of a form with questions concerning various household products.They ask you to tick the boxes of the products you are most likely to use. This gives companies an insight into what products are the most popular in the market place.The internet has provided companies with a cheaper option for sending these surveys and they are willing to pay for your information.For some reason many people are wary of joining these programs although they do provide an excellent opportunity for busy moms and even the housebound as many online surveys take no more than fifteen minutes to complete.You have the option of complet
On a broad level, CRM focus relies heavily on executing a solid sales strategy through sales opportunity management, customer insight and behavior and marketing performance.
Some organizations use CRM’s to gather their prospects, nurture leads over time and respond to those prospects. Others use it to help them attract, convert, leverage and retain their customers... for as long as they can fulfill their needs.
The bottom line with CRM’s is this. While there are many CRM solutions on the market (a $5.7 Billion dollar industry – Source: Gartner Dataquest, June 2006), so many of them don’t really work and won’t work for your organization.
The fact is that using CRM as a strategy still means different things to different organizations and your wants and needs should be reflected in every aspect of your solution.
If you want marketing insight, then your system needs to be able to deliver automated emails, on a schedule. For the marketing professional, having a consistent and auto-pilot method to deliver 30 to 40 incremental “touches” per year is important. However, for the Sales Manager, the ability to predict the business with sales and pipeline metrics is their critical take-away.
Correct data gathering and recording is vital to any successful implementation. The old adage... “garbage in/garbage out” is such an important concept and the success of your strategy can be observed by how ‘real’ the information is that your people put into your system.
When deciding on which solution is right for you – consider your business rules and methodologies and use them to serve as your blueprint for how you want your system to work.
If the solution doesn’t match, don’t settle. There are vendors that can provide a custom solution for you using a proven platform. Because of their development platform, they can easily customize a system that meets your critical business needs, rapidly. A solid development platform allows them the flexibility to give you exactly what you want. Again, there is no need to settle.
Here are probably the five greatest benefits you can expect when you have the right CRM solution working for you and your organization:
1. Customer tracking in every interaction they have with your company, regardless of mode of communication. This allows you to better anticipate their needs and get a complete view of how prospects are coming to you and how they view you. This undeniably leads to: a. Improved sales rep/sales force productivity and effectiveness b. Improved access to customer profiles and information / analytical tools c. Allows each contact to really be an opportunity to sell. Each contact/prospect can have multiple levels of Opportunity tracking, from individual to company-wide and access to all stages of the sales timeline. d. Improved communication company-wide, specifically between sales, marketing and customer service people.
2. Helps you to identify buyer profiles giving you a benchmark of the type of customers you want to target and attract.
3. Drives ROI for both users and customers. Users have instant access to information. Buyers have a good experience with your organization because you ARE connected. You present a unified front. You have your act together. A good CRM will allow you to pool all of your critical data across many departments so that your message remains consistent at every delivery point.
4. Best practices can be leveraged. Marketing processes are automated. Results are gathered in real-time for instant, actionable information.
5. When a salesperson leaves – you are left with a complete database of intelligence. In the old days when a salesperson left, the knowledge of the customer went with them. Not any more.
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to
The Stage Glass or glass platen is the most commonly broken part on you Overhead Projector. I would like to share a few of the stories that I have had the pleasure of listening to when my customers call in looking to replace this part.Replacing your Overhead Projector Stage Glass is probably one of the easiest repair jobs that any end user of an Overhead Projector can perform. What is a Stage Glass? It is the glass platen where you lay your transparencies when projectors. The Stage Glass or Glass platen as some may refer to it, is one of the most commonly replaced parts on an Overhead Projector today.Now unfortunately it is easy to become confused on which Replacement Stage Glass your Overhead Projector may need as there is no st
If you want marketing insight, then your system needs to be able to deliver automated emails, on a schedule. For the marketing professional, having a consistent and auto-pilot method to deliver 30 to 40 incremental “touches” per year is important. However, for the Sales Manager, the ability to predict the business with sales and pipeline metrics is their critical take-away.
Correct data gathering and recording is vital to any successful implementation. The old adage... “garbage in/garbage out” is such an important concept and the success of your strategy can be observed by how ‘real’ the information is that your people put into your system.
When deciding on which solution is right for you – consider your business rules and methodologies and use them to serve as your blueprint for how you want your system to work.
If the solution doesn’t match, don’t settle. There are vendors that can provide a custom solution for you using a proven platform. Because of their development platform, they can easily customize a system that meets your critical business needs, rapidly. A solid development platform allows them the flexibility to give you exactly what you want. Again, there is no need to settle.
Here are probably the five greatest benefits you can expect when you have the right CRM solution working for you and your organization:
1. Customer tracking in every interaction they have with your company, regardless of mode of communication. This allows you to better anticipate their needs and get a complete view of how prospects are coming to you and how they view you. This undeniably leads to: a. Improved sales rep/sales force productivity and effectiveness b. Improved access to customer profiles and information / analytical tools c. Allows each contact to really be an opportunity to sell. Each contact/prospect can have multiple levels of Opportunity tracking, from individual to company-wide and access to all stages of the sales timeline. d. Improved communication company-wide, specifically between sales, marketing and customer service people.
2. Helps you to identify buyer profiles giving you a benchmark of the type of customers you want to target and attract.
3. Drives ROI for both users and customers. Users have instant access to information. Buyers have a good experience with your organization because you ARE connected. You present a unified front. You have your act together. A good CRM will allow you to pool all of your critical data across many departments so that your message remains consistent at every delivery point.
4. Best practices can be leveraged. Marketing processes are automated. Results are gathered in real-time for instant, actionable information.
5. When a salesperson leaves – you are left with a complete database of intelligence. In the old days when a salesperson left, the knowledge of the customer went with them. Not any more.
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to
Each day in the news we see more and more people are living into their centurion years. It used to be real news when someone lived to be over 100 years old and yet it is now becoming more and more common. With lifelong longevity on the rise many people who are now 30 and 40 years old will most likely all live into their hundreds.As people living longer they will need to work longer in order to enjoy retirement without running out of money. It is therefore necessary to stop the mandatory retirement age of 60 at most jobs and extend it for those who wish to extend it. It may also be necessary that we raise the retirement age from 60 years old to 70 years old. Of course those who are near retirement now will not appreciate this but it is s
Here are probably the five greatest benefits you can expect when you have the right CRM solution working for you and your organization:
1. Customer tracking in every interaction they have with your company, regardless of mode of communication. This allows you to better anticipate their needs and get a complete view of how prospects are coming to you and how they view you. This undeniably leads to: a. Improved sales rep/sales force productivity and effectiveness b. Improved access to customer profiles and information / analytical tools c. Allows each contact to really be an opportunity to sell. Each contact/prospect can have multiple levels of Opportunity tracking, from individual to company-wide and access to all stages of the sales timeline. d. Improved communication company-wide, specifically between sales, marketing and customer service people.
2. Helps you to identify buyer profiles giving you a benchmark of the type of customers you want to target and attract.
3. Drives ROI for both users and customers. Users have instant access to information. Buyers have a good experience with your organization because you ARE connected. You present a unified front. You have your act together. A good CRM will allow you to pool all of your critical data across many departments so that your message remains consistent at every delivery point.
4. Best practices can be leveraged. Marketing processes are automated. Results are gathered in real-time for instant, actionable information.
5. When a salesperson leaves – you are left with a complete database of intelligence. In the old days when a salesperson left, the knowledge of the customer went with them. Not any more.
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to
Business processes are similar to a river flowing in a natural direction and carrying information from point A to point B. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is one of the techniques used in Lean Six Sigma for identifying areas of waste that need to be avoided in both manufacturing as well as office business processes. Aside from identifying areas of waste, VSM also helps in streamlining business processes for achieving higher productivity. VSM is based on scientifically proven methods, making it necessary for organization to employ profession Six Sigma consultants (VSM specialists) during the implementation stage.The Initial ProcessImplementing VSM is a long drawn process where the first step involves mapping the current flow of material
2. Helps you to identify buyer profiles giving you a benchmark of the type of customers you want to target and attract.
3. Drives ROI for both users and customers. Users have instant access to information. Buyers have a good experience with your organization because you ARE connected. You present a unified front. You have your act together. A good CRM will allow you to pool all of your critical data across many departments so that your message remains consistent at every delivery point.
4. Best practices can be leveraged. Marketing processes are automated. Results are gathered in real-time for instant, actionable information.
5. When a salesperson leaves – you are left with a complete database of intelligence. In the old days when a salesperson left, the knowledge of the customer went with them. Not any more.
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to
It would seem that some salespeople would rather protect their ego than help a customer and make a sale.Todays customers can make purchases without ever seeing a human - if they choose to do business that way.To truly succeed in the future, sales professionals will be well served by knowing how to handle customers, and all their concerns and complaints.If not, more than ever before that customer may simply go elsewhere.So how would you deal with a disgruntled customer, who has a complaint about your product, or the service they received?Allow me to tell you about an experience I had with a multimedia organisation. I wrote an article about it to demonstrate a point and the article found itself in the
When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:
1. Lead, Contact and Account Management
2. Multiple levels of access based on authority
3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management
4. Competitive Intelligence
5. Marketing Intelligence
6. Automated Email Marketing
7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking
8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliation, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,
9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools
10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to track.
The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to bring the solution in-house or allow them to host it for you. While there are many benefits to a licensed, in-house solution... a hosted solution should not be quickly dismissed. It’s mission critical to do the proper planning and due-diligence to ensure that your IT department is up for the task. If they’re not completely ready and able to handle the additional responsibilities – you may be looking at a disaster in the making. On the other hand – if the vendor has the proper qualifications and security protocols in place... why not leave the IT stuff to the experts and let them host it for you? In many cases, the initial burden of hosting costs is easily outweighed by not having to manage your system (time and resources) and preventing a potential disaster down the road.
Your CRM vendor should be secure enough to manage and ensure the integrity of your data at all times. Your CRM vendor should be flexible enough to give you the exact system that you want. Customization should be their forte.
George Ritacco
Copyright © 2006 George Ritacco (All Rights Reserved)
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