Front Office Box

Setting the Direction for CRM

stevensreeves — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:02:19 PST

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, in which case I should be pleased.

Strangely it doesn’t feel like that. Maybe I don’t really believe my interpretation of what we’ve seen? Maybe I’m just pissed off at my ideas being stolen? Maybe I’m disappointed at my own failure to exploit our vision?

But there should be no surprise. We’ve combined front line experience in sales and sales management with first hand experience of software design and implementation. We’ve set out to exploit technology. We’ve set out to lead with our ideas rather than our money (which we don’t have, anyway).

Of course others with less expertise will imitate what we do.

What makes me think we’re being imitated? Quite a few things, but here’s a selection of the most obvious.

* The other day I read some comment about a new CRM providing Tags for labelling contacts – like all the others. For the record we were the very first to use Tags in this way – it was a while ago now. We did notice one particular app come out with a similar approach. I put that down to a little insider dealing from one of our partners, but all the others doing the same thing had passed me by. So now it’s standard.

* Early this year an inbound marketing expert suggested we find some clear blue water and grab it for ourselves with lots of unique content. We chose Sales Process Management, and it’s worked pretty well. So well that last month one of the biggest CRM apps started promoting it’s “Sales Process Management” capabilities.

* And then there’s the latest. Right from the start our mantra has been software that just does, and stays out of the way. This is ours, and has been for four years. I can even tell you when and where Gareth coined the phrase. We’ve used it ever since. Last week there was a lot of fuss about another new CRM app, brand new. The strap line in it’s promotional pages is “software which works, and stays the heck out of your way”.

How long will it be before somebody comes out with pipeline management, with probabilities automatically calculated on completed milestones, and deals colour coded?

Well here’s fair notice to anybody tempted to try. I’LL SUE YOUR ASS!

This is mine. It’s the result of years experience, a great deal of imagination and an absolute commitment to making the software do the heavy lifting instead of the users.

Anybody who wants to imitate this idea will find buying the business a lot less expensive than the court case.

Selling New Ideas with Social Media

stevensreeves — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:04:33 PST

It seems to me the hardest thing to sell at any time is a new idea!

We have more than our fair share of these challenges. Happily social media provides a new platform on which we can get those ideas some air time. It still isn’t easy but it’s a heck of a lot easier than door knocking or working the phones.

Our main challenge at the moment is developing a business for a new science -worse – a new science in medicine. Health care is a sector which adopts new ideas at the pace glaciers melt. Those guys measure progress in decades.

Our technology uses Bayesian Artificial Neural Networks to anticipate something going wrong for brain injured patients during intensive care. Our leadership team is stacked with Phd’s, most of whom spend their days cutting bits out of people’s brains – seriously intelligent people. The research is funded by the EU under FP7 to the tune of $2 millions. In Europe alone their are 1 million patients suffering with problems we’re solving, each year. Estimates suggest in the USA there are 2 million.

Right minded people will think this is a slam dunk, but life is rarely that simple. It turns out nobody wants to know. The European business support agencies have the heads up their asses (guess that’s a common problem worldwide. Venture Capitalists are only interested in projects introduced by their mates. Medical device manufacturers have been so successful (on our money) in their cosy monopolies they’re only interested in their own ideas. Even the scientists are only interested in their reputations and the next grant application.

This is against a background of potentially saving the EU €5 billion in health care costs each year.

So what are we doing about it? We can’t ignore it – too many lives at risk and too much money to be made.

We’re working the web. Google Reader keeps us in touch with the news. We grab relevant bits and post in our blog. We grab names of the big company execs and will go after them through LinkedIn. We have an interim strategy which provides remote hosting of data and analysis tools for clinical researchers. We’re thinking about open sourcing our BANN technology, and even using it for contract research – discovering stuff in people’s data they can’t find on their own.

Web 2.0 is making all this possible. I can’t think of any other environment in which we could get ideas out there and engage all of those people interested in the same stuff.

So in this case social media is a fundamental element in our ability to get new ideas across.

Will it work? Jiggered if I know! But there has to be a chance. We adopted the same concepts(ish) with Front Office Box and now we have users in 30 countries around the world.

If you’re interested in knowing more about what we have and how we’re going about it you can find us at Avantrasara, and we’ll keep up a running commentary on how we’re doing here in this blog.

Please wish us luck. There’s maybe 5 million patients each year who’ll have better outcomes if we can make it work.

Whats the Best Way to Make Money on the Internet

stevensreeves — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:48:54 PST

I won’t be the only person who thinks this is an interesting question, and probably much more interesting than the stock answers all those MLM schemes come up with.

So, if like me, you believe 95% of those claiming to make millions are exaggerating you might enjoy this particular piece of research I discovered.

And the best way to make money on the Internet is?

Teach People How to Make Money on the Internet

Actually this is the proper quote:

“My former brother-in-law taught me that information products about making money online are more profitable than selling regular products. He’s an eBay mogul who earns thousands of dollars teaching people how to drop-ship products on eBay. The business of teaching others how to drop-ship is more profitable than actually drop-shipping.”

And the rest of the post is a reasonable discussion of ways small amounts of revenue can be driven by web sites. You can find it at The Long Tail of Online Profitability

Emergence of “Less than Free” as a Radical Price

stevensreeves — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:30:59 PST

Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley has a number of articles discussing the concept of free as a disruptive price. In Google Redefines Disruption with the “less than free” business model he explains in some detail how the company will change the market for in car navigation (and other stuff) by providing software to device manufacturers for free AND sharing subsequent Ad revenues with them.

Bill confirms the validity of our own thinking for Front Office Box which we’ve described in a number of articles about the future of internet enabled business.

The full article is well worth the read, but here’s a selection of quotes.

“I like to think of myself as an aficionado of business disruption. After all, as a venture capitalist it is imperative to understand ways in which a smaller private company can gain the upper hand on a large incumbent. One of the most successful ways to do this is to change the rules of the game in such a way that the incumbent would need to abandon or destroy its core business in order to lay chase to your strategy.”

“As we noted in our take on the free business model, “if a disruptive competitor can offer a product or service similar to yours for ‘free,’ and if they can make enough money to keep the lights on, then you likely have a problem.”

“Another perhaps even more important factor is that when a product is completely free, consumer expectations are low and consumer patience is high. Customers seem to really like free as a price point. I suspect they will love “less than free.”

Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0 (techcrunch.com)

Smarter Healthcare – Possibilities with technologies

stevensreeves — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:29:03 PST

Posted via web from Avantrasara

Sales Qualification in Pipeline Management

stevensreeves — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:43:43 PST

Sales Pipeline Management can make a big difference to a small business’s bottom line, but it has to be the right pipeline management. So what is the right pipeline management?

Lots of people talk about it, but not many really understand the subject. Based on ways popular software works they’ll think it’s about sales forecasting.

Sales guys guess at a value, close date and %probability, putting these into a spreadsheet to calculate the forecast. Accountants add these up across offices, but nobody believes the reports. The whole idea is a futile exercise with bean-counters wasting time in a pretence of management control.

Most small businesses won’t use the technique, probably rightly, because it doesn’t tell them anything. It’s a big company concept for big company reporting up the line.

But they should use a proper pipeline management process – something that helps them “manage” their way to more sales, with more predictability, and at lower cost of sale.

The emphasis needs to be on the word “management”. Forecasts coming out of pipeline management should be a side benefit. The real win comes from planning how the sale will progress from first call to cash, and managing it through that process – Plan what needs to be done, Act in accordance with the Plan, and Review progress, changing the plan if necessary.

Every business has a first call to cash process. They do use a Scope, Qualify, Propose, Close method in some form.

That’s all proper pipeline management is really – the way we do business, written down, planned and reviewed.

But the simple act of writing it down, planning it for individual sales opportunities and reviewing both the process and individual plans focuses the manager on doing the right things at the right time.

Here’s a video demonstrating one approach to pipeline management. In this case we’re using Continuous Qualification to keep us focused on the right things, so the right things will happen

Every time we check off a milestone the weighted %probability of the deal goes up by 10%.

Professionals Never Sell On Price

stevensreeves — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:19:37 PDT

Selling on price is a fools game, because the only time people buy on price is when they don’t care about what they’re buying.

If that’s counter intuitive stop and think about it for a minute. Think about the way you buy stuff. What are your priorities, how do you choose, how many times do you pay more than the minimum?

Why do you buy the way you do?

The only time I buy on price alone is when it’s something I have no interest in. When it comes to stuff I care about, it’s value that drives my choice.

How do I define that value? That’s a very good question.

There are all sorts of answers, but the main influence is the way the sales guy explains it to me.

The professional sales guy will take a little time to understand how much I know and how much I care.

He/she will then start to test my sensitivity to price with some alternatives, explaining the upsides, and the down.

Having figured out my price range they’ll then target the upper end and explain all the extra value I’ll get for just a little extra spend.

All the while I’m making the decision – it’s my choice and there’s no pressure.

Focusing on value enables the sales guy to coach me to the right decision – a decision whereby she gets the highest price I’m prepared to pay, and I get the most value she’s prepared to concede.

Amateurs who try to sell me based on price just find they get more competition. When price is the only thing that matters, driving it down becomes a fun exercise – because I don’t want to buy anyway.

Context Led Selling in the Front Office

stevensreeves — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:19:07 PDT

Not long ago we described the new opportunities for businesses to lead their sales with Inbound Marketing. In Content Led Selling in My Front Office we explained our own thinking, as it’s developed over the last several months.

As is quite often the case we’d understood but not properly described the reason it works.

Just a couple of days ago we came across Why Content is No Longer King. As usual the guys at Copyblogger do a fantastic job of explaining things.

Larry Brooks sums it up with:

Context as strategy

Effective context doesn’t happen by accident. We need to consciously create it.

Context comes from the writer’s clarity about her goals, juxtaposed against the expectations and tolerances of the audience.

In the context of content marketing, first we deliver valuable content, free and clear. As a gift. As a solution. As narrative bricks and mortar. And in doing so we earn the reader’s trust.

Once we’re trusted, we are now able to expand on our own agenda. We get to talk more about the intended outcome of the piece. That outcome might be a sale, a subscription, or even conversion to a new idea.

In a blog, we set out to deliver value. In an ad, we pitch solutions and overcome objections. In fiction, we infuse scenes with anticipation and emotion.

And in each case, when we understand the context we’re working in, we achieve our goal.

And so, too, does the reader. Because their context isn’t what you’re selling, but what they’re seeking to take away from what you’ve written.

Long live the new king.

Inbound Marketing Is For You (chrisbrogan.com)

Top Sales Performers Help People Buy

stevensreeves — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:46:22 PDT

Do you remember the days when sales trainers told us never to ask the prospect a question he could answer with “No”?

To be fair it was a while ago, but there are still neanderthals out there promoting the idea. There are lots of similar concepts, all based on a sales guy’s ability (and amorality) to persuade prospects to do something they otherwise wouldn’t.

Experience has taught me this is very bad advice. It harks back to the days when sales guys were smart and fast talking, and customers were dumb. But sales guys were never that smart, and customers certainly aren’t dumb anymore. Pushing people to buy stuff which won’t work for them is hard work, results in a high level of returns and claims for credit notes, and worst of all makes enemies. For every duped customer there are a hundred who’ll find out about the con. And in this way the sales guy is quickly history, back to pumping gas.

On the other hand the sales guy who contributes his/her specialist knowledge to help make sure the customer buys the right thing wins easy business, at the best prices, and gets a constant stream of referrals from happy clients. The buy/sell processes is no longer a battle of wills – it’s a collaboration between business people with a common objective. Selling is fun and forecasting a whole lot easier.

Earning the right to be the customer’s coach isn’t easy. Buyers have learned over centuries to be suspicious of sales people. The secret to winning trust and confidence is expertise and honesty. Building that expertise and honesty takes a lot of work, researching facts, understanding competitors strategies and weaknesses, knowing case studies. But anybody can do it.

When we really know what we’re talking about we can coach the customer through options, explaining likely outcomes, upsides and downsides, benefits and risks. The customer makes her own, informed decision. She won’t often buy from a sales guy when her coach is guiding her.

This advice gets to be even more valid when the owner/manager is doing the selling. The business owner knows better than anybody how his business works, what it can do, and what it can’t, what the competition can do and what it can’t.

Business owners who tell customers “No, because it won’t work and I want you as a happy customer, not a critic” are half way to the bank.

Qualifying Sales By Coaching

stevensreeves — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:57:44 PDT

The Sales Professional who really knows his trade evolves into a coach – helping the client to buy in the best way and get the best result.

Like most of the stuff you’ll find in this blog this concept is counter intuitive, counter cultural – it doesn’t make sense! After all there’s so much B/S talked about confident, assertive selling – all that macho nonsense about cold calling, total confidence, pushy, off putting bravado most “sales coaches” come out with. If there is a single best reason for not buying, let alone reading, that crap it’s this.

I always try to walk in my customer’s shoes.

Being quite a reticent intellectual type of guy bravado never sits that well with me. I always like to sell the way I’d like to be sold to. I don’t want to be bullied. I don’t want bluster. I don’t want B/S. I just want to know the best way to get what I want. Sales people who take the trouble to find out what I know, understand what I want, and show they have the skills to help me get it don’t have to ask for the order.

When I’m buying I’m looking for a coach. Somebody who knows more about the subject than I do and can help me reduce the risk in my purchase. And my guess is you feel pretty much the same way.

Here’s where the qualification comes in. Not all buyers are like me. Some like to think they know more than I do and that becomes a risk factor for my sales process. Can I get the customer wanting my coaching? If the answer’s yes we’re good to go. If it’s no – well maybe there are other deals where I can invest my time with a better chance of ROI.

Successful selling isn’t about macho. It’s about return on investment.