Email: A Lonely Medium for Communication

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Back in November 2011, Mark Zuckerberg announced: “Email is dead.” While to me, that sounds a little harsh, I certainly agree with the root of his sentiment as it pertains to internal email communication in the workplace. If the goal is for employees to communicate with each other in an efficient manner, email is clearly not the right medium. Consider how email works: After receiving a series of messages you click each one individually to read it. You then determine if it is the most up to date message in the thread. From there, you can either take action on the email or click out of it and forget it. The afterlife of an email is either in the trash or in your inbox for only your eyes to see. Herein lies the problem with email – it is cumbersome and overwhelming. For this reason, our company made the choice to ban all internal emails. About six months ago, we decided we would only use Salesforce.com Chatter for virtual internal communication, and we haven’t looked back. Continue reading Email: A Lonely Medium for Communication…

Upping the Game: Unlocking Business Benefits Through Ticketing System Integration with Salesforce.com

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Through interactions with a number of sports franchise prospects and clients over the past few years, it dawned on us that many of these organizations rely largely on ticketing platforms to manage their “fan experience”. More surprising, however, is how many of these organizations have seemingly accepted the notion of being boxed in by the limitations of their legacy ticketing platforms, unable to effectively extend beyond the standard sets of features and functionality which have remained largely unchanged for years. Continue reading Upping the Game: Unlocking Business Benefits…

CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 7 & 8

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Good Afternoon! I trust you have digested last week’s posts and are ready to wrap up with the final two insights today.

Insight 7: Don’t Underestimate the Influence of Middle Management

A lot of focus on CRM success over the years has been placed on “executive sponsorship”. I don’t disagree that it can be extremely valuable to have a person with a “CXO” title espousing the benefits of CRM within an organization, however, when it comes to CRM success I believe strongly that middle management is where it is at. Think “Manager”, “Director” and even “VP” as critical titles. In all sincerity, if your regional sales managers rely on note cards and weekly verbal check-ins to manage relationships and pipelines and have no intention of holding their direct reports accountable, then don’t waste your money on buying a CRM. Wait until they leave your organization and then reevaluate your options. Continue reading CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 7 & 8…

CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 5 & 6

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Hopefully by now, you have gained some valuable insight around starting the CRM journey at your company. I am excited to share our firm’s knowledge and experiences with you, but I realize it may be a lot to digest at one time. I encourage you to leave comments in response to this or other posts in the “CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project” series. OK, let’s move on to my fifth insight…

Insight 5: Beware of Self-Implementations, Quick Start Programs, and New Hire Gurus

I’d like to make an analogy. Let’s say you decided to buy a new high-quality suit that you anticipate lasting through a few years of frequent use. You make a trip over to Barneys to spend $1500 on your new threads. It looks great, however, you need to get it tailored. You decide that because you have splurged on a high-quality suite you will save some money by having your local dry cleaner make the adjustments. Your suit comes back a couple weeks later and they have butchered (no pun intended) your expensive buy. Continue reading CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 5 & 6…

CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 3 & 4

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Good morning! Today’s two insights focus on some key discussions you should have when kicking off your CRM project. The topics include “Carefully Balance Out Company vs. End User Benefits” and “Whiteboard Out Key Processes”.

Insight 3: Carefully Balance Out Company vs. End User Benefits

My firm is often asked to engage with prospective clients who are feeling the effects of a failed or under-performing CRM deployment. Interestingly, I would argue that with a MAJORITY of CRM deployments where the value of the investment is being challenged, you will find an imbalance between benefits for the company vs. benefits for the end users. Continue reading CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 3 & 4…

CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 1 & 2

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Welcome back! As promised, I will take you through my first two insights including “Evaluate Intelligently” and “Establish Strategic and Tactical Goals BEFORE Discussing Features & Functionality”.

Insight 1: Evaluate Intelligently

My firm is a well-established Salesforce.com partner and I admire the fact that Salesforce allows prospective clients to sign up for a 30-day trial. The trial concept shows that Salesforce.com is confident (as it should be) that it’s product is best-in-class and that after you give it a try you will elect to convert into a paying customer. Continue reading CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project: Insights 1 & 2…

CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project

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Inaugural Post Introduction

A few months ago my colleagues and I huddled in our “Zen” creative room (complete with an Apple Think Different poster of Pablo Picasso) and decided that it was time to finally launch the long-awaited and highly anticipated “V2 Blog”. Prior to that meeting, we had been talking for months (OK, maybe a couple years) about the value of engaging in conversation with prospects, clients, partners and the general business community via a blog. Continue reading CRM – It’s a Journey, NOT Just a Project…

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