In the past few months I’ve looked in every nook and cranny of my business for ways to cut costs, especially the “hidden” costs that you don’t realize are adding up. Like inefficient use of time.

Turns out one of our big time sucks is sales quoting. Some of our services are straightforward and easy to quote…maybe take a minute or 2. But our really lucrative opportunities often take a couple of hours to research, price and “pretty up,” so the sales quote “look and feel” matches the value of our work.

In fact, it turns out we have been spending approximately $25 per sales estimate we create. I checked with some of my clients, and plugged in their numbers, and we got a range from $20 – $150. And as we all know, not every estimate turns into a sale. So this seemed like a great place for a re-think on cost savings.

I liked the solution I discovered so much, I decided to resell the quoting software to estimate-intensive, sales-driven organizations. Now instead of one-size-fits-all quotes going to my low-end and high-end opportunities, I can match the quote template to the project.

For example, the image on the top left is the “Celebrity Sales Quote” sales template. It puts your products’ images front and center, almost like a catalog, with complete product descriptions, part numbers, a catchy title–whatever info you have or want to show. But a Quick and Dirty Line Item Sales Estimate may be all you need if need to get something out fast and keep it simple. Finally, a third option is a formal Narrative Sales Proposal, which may be appropriate for responding to an RFP or other situations where the person presenting your products and services is not you. I did one like this years ago that was almost 50 pages. Today, I could create it once in my sales quoting software and use pieces and parts of it for any estimate, and it would only take me a matter of minutes.

On Tuesday, December 20, I’ll be holding a free 60-minute webinar demonstrating how a sales quoting system reduces the cost of calculating estimates and gives the competitive advantage of being first bidder to respond (because you’re so fast!)

Want to find out more? Register here. If you can’t make it live, I’ll be posting the recording here after the holidays.

I love sports and I’m a sucker for Cinderella stories so I was pretty excited to see that Butler made it all the way to the NCAA Basketball Championship final this week.  After all, if my beloved Gators couldn’t be there I was glad to see that my dad’s alma mater was represented.  Maybe I’m prejudiced, but it seemed to me that most of the country was rooting for Butler.  Most of us like to cheer for the underdog and since many folks had never even heard of Butler until the Final Four they were indeed the underdogs against #1 Ranked Duke.

 Like it or not, unless you’re working for one of the Fortune 500 companies you too are an underdog when it comes to your business.  It’s an uphill battle to get your name to stand out against the competition.  Compounding the problem is some scary information that I read years ago that still reverberates.  It takes an average of 12 touches to convert a prospect into a customer.  And, 50% of sales people give up after the first effort; 90% give up after the second.

Wow!  With the odds so highly stacked against us it’s tempting to wave the white flag and admit defeat.  But like Butler, or Jimmy Conners who came back from a 1-6, 1-6 deficit to win Wimbledon in 1987, you have to focus on what you can do and not on what the other guy is doing.

 Here’s a few coaching tips that apply to both sports and, more importantly, your business.

1.  Act like a hero.  Think of the frustrations you’ve had when contacting large companies (don’t get me started on Comcast!) and then do the opposite when interacting with your customers and prospects.
2. Out-distance your competition.  I always said that if the other guy only tries to reach someone twice, I’d try to reach them three times.  If it takes twelve attempts to win a new customer then make those twelve attempts.
3. Use the proper equipment.  I doubt that Conners could have won Wimbledon with a broken racquet or holes in his tennis shoes.  If you’re going to resort to e-marketing use an ESP (e-mail service provider) to track your results.  And by all means use an effective database tool to help you focus on the correct audience.
4. If you can’t be bigger, be smarter.  Was it me or did the Butler guys look a heck of a lot smaller than the Duke players?  The fact that they almost won gives testament to the believe that brains can conquer brawn. 
5. Don’t think meat, just pitch.  In case you didn’t catch it, that’s a reference to what Kevin Costner told Tim Robbins in the baseball classic, Bull Durham.  He was trying to get “Nuke” to stop over-thinking everything and trust his mentor.  Trust your coach or, if you don’t have one and you’re struggling, hire a great coach or consultant to help you out.  It works for major class athletes and it will work for you.

 Let the games begin!

Are you a small business owner or manager who has implemented some type of contact management or CRM solution for your business?  If so – congratulations!  You have accomplished a major milestone, putting your business a step ahead of many of your competitors.  However, the journey to increased productivity and profits has only just begun.

A recurring theme that we run into time and again speaking with small business folks who have invested in sales automation is that there is typically a wide gulf between what the system offers and what the businesses exploit.

At this point, you may be saying, “Hey, that’s OK.  At least we’re doing something,  and I know we’re better off than not using it all.”  I’ll give you that.  Let me ask you this however:  In your personal finances, do you stick your savings in a savings account that returns six-tenths of a percent when you can open a CD paying 5% ?  Do you say: “That’s good enough, at least I saved something.”  If so, this article is not for you.  Otherwise, stay with me on this.

You have invested not only hard earned CASH but also time in your CRM, so no doubt you would like to recoup that initial investment as soon as possible AND earn bonus divedends.

What we find as the low hanging fruit in closing the gap in CRM profit yield is a terribly basic notion: training. 

I cannot begin to tell you how many times a new client has exclaimed: “I didn’t know I could do that!”.  Often this is someone who has been using their system for years. 

Think of that:
years of underperformance,
years of wasted time doing it the wrong way,
years of lost opportunities because you didn’t know your system would automatically track call and meeting dates if only used History instead of Notes…

What is the cost to your business for these ‘good enough’ practices? 

Returning to our example of the savings account vs. the CD: 
Let’s use $500 as this is a realistic investment for a simple do-it-yourself purchase and install for a small business  CRM solution for a single person. 
To keep it simple, we will say that both accounts compound annually. 
The savings account would bring you a whopping $3 the first year, and by the end of the fifth year you would have $515.18 in your account.  Good enough? 
In comparison, the CD would be worth $638.14 – 9 times the return!

Of course you realize that your real world investment in ongoing business operations, lost or realized sales, etc., is significantly larger and compounded by each additional member added to the equation.  Further, 20 or 30% gains – not a measly 5% –  in net results (time efficiencies, quicker sales cycle closes, faster lead response time, more leads handled per rep, etc.) when using CRM as an ‘enlightened’ (i.e. – trained) organization are not unrealistic.

So, time for honest self examination:

• Have you and/or your staff had training in the last 12 months?  Ever?
• Can you absolutely stand behind the statement that your organization is using CRM to the fullest for what you do?  75%?

 If your answer is no to either of these questions, than it’s time to let go of ‘good enough’ and get a right-sized professional training program on the calendar!

Otherwise, you got some ‘splainin’ to do. 

Remember – ‘good enough’ and status quo are not free, just leaks in the room you aren’t looking in.

M. Scott Schaffernoth
Senior Analyst
www.winnovative.com
blogger@winnovative.com
518.822.8860

It’s been a while since I created a blog article. Part of the reason is I’ve been traveling a lot and business is very good this year.  The other reason is I’ve been under the weather with this awful upper respiratory thing that is spreading across the country.  I was so distraught this week over the issues I had simply trying to find a doctor to see me that I said, in a Twitter update, that I wish I could write about the apathy seen in the medical profession in my business blog.

Julie Bestry, an amazing lady and Twitter goddess (@ProfOrganizer), saw my post and responded with this: “Sure you can…how apathy in business owners sends clients to their competition…and they DO have competition.  Doctors and the rest of the healthcare idustry still make a good starter anecdote. And good bedside manner = good customer care. You’ve got a whole metaphor!”

By George, she was right.  And that’s the theme of this blog – “How do you ensure you don’t suffer from business apathy.”

Here’s what started me down this path.  I don’t visit the doctor often because I usually don’t need to.  That’s not a bad thing except when you really need one. Over the last five years, four doctors I have seen have either left the medical profession or moved away.  Ok, that’s cool, but the offices should still have my records, right? Wrong.  I spent over 5 hours calling around to various doctor offices, including, first off, the office named as my primary care physician.  They couldn’t find my records.  We’re sorry, they say, but since your original doctor has left, you are a new patient and we’re not scheduling new patients until May.  This is March – I could be dead by May.  No amount of cajoling on my part convinced the less-than-pleasant receptionists to help me out.  After four phone calls with equal results, I was near tears, which is not something I normally do, and decided to visit the Urgent Care facility.

I really didn’t want to go this route.  The price of medical insurance is high for a lot of reasons, but one is because they have to cover the people who have to spend more money going to emergency rooms or urgent care facilities for exactly the same reason I ended up in one.

Continuing on with this  saga,  I enter the Urgent Care offices and the receptionist there treated me with even more disdain than the people I chatted with earlier via phone. Is there a school for “how to be completely apathetic and non-caring in 5 easy lessons.”  Is this happening because doctors feel they are indispensable and we have no choice but to take this kind of apathetic abuse.

This led me to the idea of what would happen to businesses today if they  responded in kind.  Take this hypothetical example.  “Hello, I am a new client in the area and I’ve interested in your services.  May I come in today”…. “No, we’re sorry, we are not seeing new clients for at least a month.  Please call back then.”  How long do you think that business would be alive and viable if that was the way they operated.

If the receptionist in your office reacts the same as the ones I dealt with today, what will the rest of the experience be with your company?  Probably the same.  If the bedside manner of the company – whether it’s the person greeting the clients or answering the phone or your sales team – does not reflect the true image of your company, then you are lost before you  even start.

Companies spend a lot of money on sales and marketing, drip campaigns, email blitzes, etc.  But, if the result of all that external work ends up at the desk of the I-don’t-care-about-you receptionist or on the phone with a sales person suffering from a similar disorder, you have just wasted a lot of money.  Before investing in all that effort, you need to make sure your home front is in good working order.  Are your employees motivated?  Are they empowered to give quality service?  Are they rewarded if they do? Do you, as the business owner, project the kind of attitude you want represented throughout your organization?  Is your bedside manner equal to what you would expect from a doctor you visit?  Think about it.  Step outside of your space and imagine what it would be like to be sitting in front of you.  Would you like what you see and hear.   Try to imagine walking up to your office for the first time.  Does it invite people to return?  If the only way people reach you is via phone, the same thing applies.  Do they get a real person or an auto caller with 15 steps before you realize you can hit zero and by-pass the “helpful” choices which in reality cause many people to hang up before even talking to a human.

Julie was right.  This did turn out to be a good topic for a business blog.  The message is this – make sure your company bedside manner keeps the clients returning.  Then, give them a lollipop and send them on their way, happy and satisfied with the results.

I love my tennis buddies even if they are a bit technically challenged.  Take away their AOL accounts and they’d never be able to access e-mail; to them a browser is someone who’s not yet ready to make a purchase.  I found it quite interesting that lately many of them were switching cell phone carriers because they just “had to have” an I-Phone.  I know they’ll never use the device for anything other than the most basic features yet they were willing to pay the price for an I-Phone.

I began to wonder what prompted this I-Phone fixation by my friends.  The answer is quite simple – it pays to advertise.  After all, the harder “they” sell the more likely we are to buy. 

All too often CRM shoppers succumb to the same sales tactics that got my friends to buy I-Phones.  They’re told that one solution is “better” or “easier” than another when in reality most solutions offer pretty much the same standard set of features. 

A simple search on the Internet will provide you with hundreds of CRM solutions.  So how do you narrow the field?  Here are a few of my suggestions:

• Look for software with a proven track record; after all, there’s safety in numbers.  A large user install base means that the company has been able to keep lots of people happy – and stayed current with the latest advancements in technology.
• Avoid start ups.  Period.  Sure, they can promise you the moon but might lack the financing to stay solvent.   Where will you – and your database – be if the company goes belly up?
• Look for a variety of technical support options.  If you love to DIY you’ll want a large searchable knowledge base.  Look for books and online training videos from third-party vendors; those vendors will only create materials if there are enough folks out there to buy them.  Are there independent consultants available to help you and, if so, at what price?
• Understand the pricing structure before you sign on the dotted line.  Are you paying a one-time, monthly or annual fee?  Does the pricing include all of the software’s functionality or do you have to pay extra for adding additional features?  Will you be hit with an additional charge as your database grows?
• There is no such thing as a free lunch –avoid free software unless you have a very high tolerance for buggy software and advertising sidebars.
• A good CRM solution should be fairly effortless.  For example, if you want to send out a lot of letters make sure you can accomplish that task quickly and easily.  Have your sales person concentrate on the features that are the most important to you not the bells and whistles that you’ll never use.
• A good CRM solution should be easy to customize.  The goal is to help you become more efficient, organized and profitable.  Don’t be forced into changing your existing successful businesses practices to accommodate your software; a good CRM solution should be flexible. 

Hopefully these hints will prevent you from making a costly mistake both in terms of time and money.  And remember, if you’re one of those folks who avoid doing your due diligence, I have some prime Florida swamp land you might be interested in!

Karen Fredricks
blog@techbenders.com
www.techbenders.com

I tend to reflect on the past year each December and to look forward to an
even better next year (that way, I’m free to relax on December 31).  What
went well, this year and where I can improve my business practice next year.
Since I use ACT! 2010 software to manage my relationships, calendar and
activities,  I think of ways to better use the software. 

Here’s my “top ten” for next year (starting today!):

1. Clean out my old contacts. I have over 4200 names in my database, many
   are no longer valid.  I use $120 Duplicate Record Removal Software to merge
   the duplicates.
2. Clean out my unused Groups. Groups have a life of their own – I should
   delete the ones I don’t use.
3. Stay in touch with the people you do business with by sending newsletters
   on a regular basis.  I do
4. Clean the antiques out of my task list. There are tasks from over a year
   ago that I’ll never get to.
5. Stop rolling over my calls, to-dos and meetings (I don’t currently
   roll-over activities, and neither should you!).
6. Call one day ahead of time to confirm all my appointments (Not really an
   “ACT!” thing, but I’m going to do it anyway).
7. When someone hands me a business card, I will write a few words on the
   card to remind me about this person (How many times have you looked at a
   card and not remembered who the person is, or where you met?).
8. I will put every business card I have in ACT! (Why leave it to mold on my
   desk?)
9. When I make an unscheduled call I will ALWAYS record it in ACT!  (And
   schedule a follow-up.)
10. When I clear an activity I will ALWAYS schedule a follow up call.

Does you have any tips they’d like to share?

As a Customer Relationship Management Consultant who provides software solutions using ACT!, Sage CRM and SalesLogix, I compete with Salesforce.com.  While I think their solution can be a good fit for company’s with limited capital, those that lack a network infrastructure or IT support or have disparate workers, what I find disappointing is they disparage the competition rather than focusing on their strengths.  I have heard many of the negative and/or erroneous statements they make from prospects as well as read the competitive emails they send to prospects.  Call me old school, but that’s not the way I sell. 

So how and why does ACT! 2010 software compete with Salesforce.com?

Pricing
First let’s look at the Salesforce.com editions that compete with ACT!

Contact Manager Edition – priced at $9 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 2 users. Provides contact and lead management, and integration with Outlook / Google Mail. 
Group Edition – priced at $35 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 5 users. Provides same capabilities as Contact Manager plus opportunity management, Google Ad Words integration and basic case
management.
Professional Edition – Priced at $65 per person per month. No limit on the number users. Similar capabilities to Group Edition plus extended marketing and customer service capabilities, as well as analytical dashboards.

ACT by Sage 2010 – Priced at $199 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $59 per person.   Limited to 10 users.  Has same features as the Premium and Corporate editions except for the following licenses or features:  no ACT! for Web license, Dashboard views by team, enhanced remote synchronization services, activity reports by user,  secured contacts, notes, history and opportunities and no field level,  group and company record security.
ACT by Sage 2010 Premium – Priced at $369 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person.   Generally limited to 30 users.  Has same features as the  Corporate editions except for the lack of ACT! for Web licenses.
ACT by Sage 2010 Corporate - The SQL Express edition is priced at $399 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person and is generally limited to 30 users.   The SQL Server 2008 edition is priced at $479 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $164 per person and is scalable to 100′s of users.  The Corporate edition is our most scalable solution.

Feature Comparison

1. ACT! provides considerable ease-of-use advantages over Salesforce.com when it comes to accomplishing simple tasks such as:

• Lookups
• Searches
• Working with groups
• Mail merges
• Personalization
• Contextual right-clicks
• Pick lists and data quality
• Duplicate checking
• Offline

1. Salesforce.com costs 2.5 times more than ACT! after 3 years  1
2. Despite what they say, software must be installed on your computer to use Salesforce.com with Microsoft Word or Outlook
3. Sending a letter in Salesforce.com takes 17 clicks – in ACT! 2010 it’s a 2 click process
4. Salesforce.com Professional offers limited email broadcasting – only 500 per day per user. With ACT! E-Marketing, you can send up to 100,000 per day 2
5. ACT! offers complete full online and offline access to data
6. ACT! can be installed on a PC, Network, Web, Terminal and/or Citrix Server for whatever type of access you prefer
7. Recent Keystroke Level Modeling (KLM)* testing carried out under lab conditions has revealed that it takes 37% longer on average to complete a range of common user tasks in Salesforce.com compared to ACT! 2010
   REMEMBER:  Usability drives user adoption and ultimately determines the overall success of a CRM project
8. Contact Manager Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 2 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No dashboards, email marketing, list management or opportunity management
9. Group Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 5 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No email marketing or list management
   •  Significant upgrade cost to add a 6th user or more since you have to upgrade to the Professional Edition.  Essentially, you’ll go from $35 per user per month to the $65.00 per user per month—that’s an 86% increase.  
10. Professional Edition Weaknesses
    •  Significant higher Total Cost of Ownership over the lifetime of the system
    •  Offline access is significant extra cost.
    •  Storage allocation is very low for the price

Salesforce.com Gotcha’s
According to research conducted by Sage Software, storage allocations are very storage is extremely expensive ($3000 per additional GB of storage space) and is not available as an option in the Contact Manager Editions.
Offline access is not available in lower editions and is only available at a significant extra cost in the Professional Edition.
The Master Subscription Agreement with Salesforce.com controls customer data access – that’s your data they’re holding!

Here are some other observations:

1. Without express, prior approval from a senior Salesforce.com executive, all subscriptions must be paid in advance for a minimum of 1 year generally, and the average contract term is now 2 or 3 years.
2. They reserve the right to modify its fees and charges and introduce new charges at any time.
3. Companies are deemed to have accepted Salesforce.com’s terms and conditions when they click on the ‘I agree’ button during sign up to a trial subscription.
4. Your contract is automatically renew for the same period again unless the customer expressly notifies Salesforce.com of its intention to discontinue the service.
5. If a you don’t cancel in time, it will be liable for the full cost of the renewed contract.
6. Salesforce.com subscriptions number cannot be reduced in number until the expiry of the contract period.
7. Salesforce.com reserves the right to block a customer’s access to their data in the event of a commercial dispute. 
8. Outside of any dispute, it is generally difficult to get customer data out of Salesforce.com in any meaningful format unless you have the Professional or Enterprise Editions.
9. Apart from the very largest organizations, Salesforce.com customers do not benefit from any service level agreement in relation to the availability of their application. They have no recourse in the event of service outages.

In conclusion:

ACT! is easy to use and provides a simple pricing structure so there are no nasty surprises down the line. Before signing up with Salesforce.com, know what you’re committing to and get it in writing.  ACT! customers benefit from a low total cost of ownership with most paying the equivalent of between $20 and $30 per user per month over the lifetime of the solution.  I am happy to speak with you about how CRM and specifically ACT! can help your business.  Just click here to contact me.

1  Comparison based on 20 users of ACT! 2010 Corporate with annual ACT! Platinum Care software maintenance with $3,000 of implementation services versus Salesforce.com Professional edition as of 8/26/2009.

2  ACT! E-Marketing powered by Swiftpage is a monthly subscription service.  I am a Swiftpage Gold Drip Marketing consultant and help businesses turn their ACT! database in to a money making machine with this software solution.  Monthly pricing is available for review by clicking here.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/5280768]

CompanionLink will sync ACT! data with your iPhone using the USB cable that came with your device.  This requires Outlook and iTunes installed on the PC.

iTunes and Outlook

All iPhone devices come with iTunes, which has the capability to sync Outlook contacts and calendar with iPhone.  It does this when you dock the iPhone with your PC using a USB cable.

ACT! to iPhone, via Outlook and iTunes

CompanionLink adds ACT! to this process.  It will sync ACT! data via Outlook/iTunes to the iPhone.  Simply dock your iPhone, hit the “Sync” button in CompanionLink, and watch your data synchronize.

Here are 2 ways to sync ACT! data to your iPhone:

1. Sync using CompanionLink’s wireless sync service
2. Sync using Google and Google Sync

ACT! to iPhone sync using CompanionLink’s wireless sync service

For $9.95/month, you can use CompanionLink’s wireless sync service to sync data two-ways between ACT! and iPhone.  Sync ACT! contacts, calendar activities, to-dos, opportunities, notes and histories with iPhone.

Contacts and their associated notes and histories sync to the built-in address book on the iPhone.  Calendar activities, to-dos, and opportunities sync to an iPhone app (available for free from iTunes) called iClink.  The iClink app adds a custom calendar and tasks/to-do list with enhanced business features such as linked contacts and priorities.

You’ll need CompanionLink Professional installed on your PC, and iClink on your iPhone.  CompanionLink does not host your ACT! data; they simply mediate the transfer of data.

Total one-time cost: $99.95
Monthly service charge: $9.95

More info here.

ACT! to iPhone sync using Google and Google Sync

You can use a Google account and the free Google Sync service to sync ACT! data to iPhone.  CompanionLink will sync ACT! data to your Google account. Then, you can set up the Google Sync service to sync your Google data to the built-in address book and calendar on your iPhone, over-the-air.

Contacts, calendar activities, notes and histories sync to the iPhone and are  editable on the device.

You’ll need either CompanionLink Express or CompanionLink Professional installed on your PC.  The Professional version has everything the Express version has, plus the Auto Synchronization feature which lets you set a timer to automatically sync ACT! with Google in the background.

Google will host your data.  That’s required for Google Sync to work.  If this is a security issue for you or your client, use CompanionLink’s wireless sync service.

Total one-time cost: $49.95 (Express) or $99.95 (Professional)

More info here.

Subtitled:  Search, Search Search

In an earlier post I mentioned that I use hundreds of folders to organize all of my e-mail messages.  I should mention that I also use ACT!’s contact management capabilities to file most of my client-related email messages.

However, the point of this message is search.  Outlook’s built-in search is no-good.  So I use X1 (www.x1.com).  With this tool, purchased by yahoo a couple of years ago (and like the google desktop search gadget) you get full-text indexing of all the contents (every single word) in all e-mail messages, spreadsheets, documents and most databases for near-instantaneous retrieval.

Try a desktop search tool, you’ll like it.