Longbow Blog

Why predictive sales intelligence boosts sales results

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Companies can gain a definite strategic advantage with predictive sales intelligence. We will soon be integrating sales intelligence with SugarCRM. This is a powerful combination - the capability to take action on business intelligence results with sales and marketing automation. Click here for a superb blog post from Selling Power.

ibm adds resources to social business initiative

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Big Blue introduced a series of workshops and consulting offerings to help clients develop the skills, technical support and industry resources that will allow them to effectively adopt social networking capabilities. Click here

Facing the challenges of selecting CRM software

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

If you’re facing the challenges of selecting a customer relationrelationship management (CRM) software, this buyer’s guide will give you some valuable insights. It offers real life examples of what CRM vendors are doing to differentiate themselves from the competition through innovation. Areas covered are:Click her Click here to see this information.

Interesting information about Salesforce.com

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Click here for an Interesting article about Salesforce.com.

The Right Way to Implement Mobile CRM

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT

This report will help you understand diverse CRM users' roles, information needs, and daily tasks and then pinpoint the use cases where mobility solutions can drive practical business value. The report’s self-diagnostic tool helps identify your best opportunities for success and predicts the pitfalls to avoid. Written by William Band, VP and Principal CRM Analyst for Forrester Research. Cl;ick here for report.

SugarCRM has another record quarter

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT

SugarCRM has another record quarter! Click here

SUGAR CRM CONTINUES TO RECEIVE AMAZING COVERAGE

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT

SugarCRM continues to receive amazing, positive coverage in the press. The editorial in the link below makes very interesting reading and just came out in the UK following an interview with Clint Oram, Sugar's co-founder and CTO. Just as with the recent iTnews report attached, Sugar comes through as the market leader and strongly associated with tier-one brands. Here is snippet for the editorial.

Clint is quoted saying, “I think this is probably the most exciting times in history of CRM…. 1st generation SaaS [salesforce.com] has been all about lock-in, about giving customers no choice in terms of where their software runs and where their data resides... we’re 2nd generation, and 100% open. 2nd Generation SaaS really takes advantage of cloud computing.” Click here for full article.

SugarCRM wins cloud copmparison

Sat, 5 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Australia’s leading source of enterprise IT and telecoms news, just published ‘Which Clouds Play Nice‘, a 44-page technical study of the integration and extension options offered by the largest 20 software-as-a-service vendors serving the Australian enterprise market. Click here to see the report.

Some Solid Accolades for Sugar CRM

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Whether yours is a large enterprise with strict scalability and availability needs, or a small business with tight cash flow, deploying SugarCRM can help you grow by:

Organizing and sharing customer information
Analyzing, measuring and reporting on that information across your company
Collaborating with customers and employees

SugarCRM’s award-winning applications have been downloaded more than ten million times and currently serve over 850,000 end users in 80 languages. Over 8,000 customers have chosen SugarCRM's On-Site and Cloud Computing services over proprietary alternatives. SugarCRM has been recognized for its customer success and product innovation by CRM Magazine, InfoWorld, Customer Interaction Solutions and Intelligent Enterprise and received glowing reviews from many publications, including eWeek.

SugarCRM announces connectivity to constant contact

Sat, 8 Oct 2011 05:00:00 GMT

SugarCRM is now connected to Constant Contact. This integration combines Constant Contact's powerful email marketing program with SugarCRM's extensive CRM and sales and marketing automation functionality. Take a look here at a video describing this integration.

SugarCRM Wins 4 CRM Magazine Awards

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 05:00:00 GMT

We're proud to represent such a great product. SugarCRm helps us bring powerful CRM and sales and marketing solutions to clients at all levels.
Click here to read about 4 awards SugarCRM received recently from CRM Magazine

Goldmine integration with erp & accounting systems

Fri, 5 Aug 2011 05:00:00 GMT

CRM International is an authorized GoldMine CRM/SFA software reseller and we specialize in integration with GoldMine and many ERP and Accounting systems. We do this with our SalesRabbit SystemPlugin integration tool. The SystemPlugin tool currently integrates with Peachtree, MAS200 and QuickBooks. However, the tool’s versatility allows us to connect to virtually any system. Use an industry-specific ERP system? SalesRabbit can help there too. It offers out-of-the-box connectivity to four industry-specific ERP systems and can be readily integrated with other systems.

The benefits of integrating GoldMine with a back-end system are numerous. Target marketing projects can be easily created from sales history categories such as order date, monthly and annual volume and different product groups. All accessible customer/account related-data from the ERP/accounting system can be mapped over to GoldMine. A powerful use of sales history in GoldMine is triggering automated sales and marketing processes. This is high level marketing automation and results in our clients gaining a competitive edge.

sugarcrm partners with inside view

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

SugarCRM has partnered with "Inside View" to drive a very exciting social CRM program. www.insideview.com

Inside View provides information sources from within SugarCRM; sources such as, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and blogs - along with editorial sources such as Reuters and NetProspex. A key feature is being able to use this vast level of sales intelligence to create targeted lists to reach the right prospects at the right time. It even helps you reach prospects through your social network connections. Click here for more information and a live demo of Inside View.

As a SugarCRM partner, we’re looking forward to bringing this solution to clients and prospective clients. With SugarCRM’s robust sales and marketing automation, information from Inside View can be used as the basis for successful lead development, as well as existing customer development.

How Top Salespeople are using social Media

Tue, 5 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

I'd like to point you to a great article by Matt Heinz - "How Top Salespeople Are Using Social Media". CRM/and sales and marketing automation software works extremely well to help implement and monitor this tremendous strategic focus. Click here to get to Matt's article.

Cloud Changing how the SMB works

Sun, 3 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

The cloud is rapidly changing how the smb works. Sales and marketing depts utiliizing CRM and marketing automation are the biggest applications.
Click here to see an excellent blog post on this topic from CIO Insight.

Inbound Marketing Coming On Fast.

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

As many businesses keep working with traditional outbound sales and marketing strategies to find new customers, they need to take a step back and find out if it’s really working! They need to start measuring the return of the “old” tried and true tactics such as outbound cold calls, telemarketing from prospect lists, email blasts and trade shows. Most will find out that success rates are really down.

Prospects block out these tactics with tools such as caller ID, spam filtering and voice mail-to name a few. Cold calling in an office building in any city is now almost nonexistent! Sales people need to get by security-and they’re not getting by unless they have an appointment. Let’s face it-prospective customers look at these traditional outbound marketing tactics as an intrusion.

They want you to stop trying to find them!! They want to find you when they’re ready!!

Although outbound marketing won’t go away totally, inbound marketing is making rapid inroads. Search engines, blogs and social media put companies in a position to be found. When this happens, the prospect takes the initiative and they become a “qualified” prospect. Just ask a sales person about the value of a qualified prospect, and the high rate of conversion to a new customer. Better yet-ask them how many telemarketing calls it takes and at what cost.

SEO (search engine optimization) strategies truly enhance inbound marketing, helping dealers get found by search engines, social media sites and blogs that results in more leads. And it costs substantially lower than outbound marketing such as call centers or cold calling. In some markets the cost of an outside sales call is $150.00! Dealers really need to look at their outbound/Inbound marketing combination.

At Longbow Consulting Group we’re excited about how our GoldMine/SalesRabbit solution as well as SugarCRM adds another whole dimension to inbound marketing by helping clients “take action” on those incoming leads.

Each solution creates a contact record from the web, assigns it to a campaign and begins the sales process through automated workflow. Typical workflow can include an automated email response and a task assigned to a sales person for follow up. This is sales and marketing automation that includes dashboard graphics and metrics that dealers use to measure campaign effectiveness.

Customer Penetration Issues?

Tue, 31 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Are you an office products dealer having customer penetration issues? If so, you're not alone!!

SalesRabbit was designed to address this issue directly with powerful sales force automation. Sales person customer coverage isn't enough to maximize customer penetration. Ongoing customer "touches" are needed - touches that consistently let existing customers know your breadth of product; steering them to B, C, & D products that not only drive volume but increased margin as well. SalesRabbit helps dealers identify customers who are not buying up to potential, and then implements automated sales and marketing processes through the new GoldMine 9.0-a key piece of the salesRabbit osftware suite. Automated processes represent a series of automated events that include email templates along with scheduled sales person tasks.

MEET YOUR VIRTUAL SALES ASSISTANT

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT

See the latest article b y Neil Saviano on page 29 in the Februay issue of "Independent Dealer" Ezine.

The article is titled, "Sales People - "Meet Your Virtual Sales Assistant"

http://www.idealercentral.com/ckfindercontent/Files//Archives/id_feb11.pdf

Successful Implementation

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT

We just had a very successful SalesRabbit implementation at Reliant Business Products in Houston. We expect the Reliant team to truly harness the sales force automation power of Salesrabbit, and reach some new and exciting levels of sales and marketing. The sales team was ready for this new tool, and their performance during the training bore this out. Sales and marketing management-Wayne Bartkowiak and Dick Keller, are providing exceptional leadership.

Excellent video on the social media revolution

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Click here to see Erik Qualman's excellent video depicting the Social Media revolution.

Social CRM seminar by Neil Saviano

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Please see the u-stream of Neil Saviano's recent seminar on Social CRM at The Amoury Company in Nassau in the Bahamas. The Amoury Company is a CRM client of ours as well as an agent marketing CRM with us in the Bahamas. Please click here:

social crm - the next level of CRM

Sat, 9 Oct 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Read a feature article on social CRM by Neil Saviano in the October issue of Independent Dealer ezine.

Click here and go to page 37 of Independent Dealer..

traditional crm joins with social crm

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Traditional CRM is quickly being augmented with social CRM. This is will quickly evolve into a prime CRM strategy for companies of all sizes. We are committed to implementing this strategic process with our current and future clients. GoldMine version 9.0 receives RSS feeds and links to all social media sites. Click here to learn more about GoldMine 9.0.

The power of tradional CRM and sales force automation is enhanced significantly when integrated with information from customer's social media, as well as with information from customer-to-customer social media conversations.

Click here for an excellent article by Brent Leary on traditional CRM vs. social CRM.

CRM: IT'S NOT A TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:00:00 GMT

CRM: It’s Not a Technology Solution!

By Neil Saviano

The many benefits companies can gain from a CRM project begin with the ability to gather, store, process and use customer and prospect information most effectively. Historically, this information-driven model is almost always put in place to address the following three key strategic areas and perpetual company pain points:

• New customer/Client acquisition
• Current customer/Client penetration
• Current customer/Client retention

However, from the beginning it’s important for companies to recognize one fundamental point about CRM to help assure a successful implementation: CRM is not a technology solution—it’s a process solution.

In essence, implementation of a CRM project is far closer to the implementation of a strategic marketing plan than it is to any technology upgrade or introduction. And as with any strategic marketing plan, the project needs to begin with a clear set of objectives and a realistic appreciation of the sales and marketing and customer service processes needed to reach them.

Overall project objectives are built around the three key strategic areas listed above, but there also needs to be lower level objectives that identify the plan’s various activities and the sales and marketing programs and tactics needed for success.

The CRM software program chosen by a company must have the capacity to manage the plethora of information collected, as well as the capacity to store and monitor sales and marketing activities.

Additionally, the software program chosen should transcend typical CRM functionality and include full sales force automation. This additional level gives companies the capacity to take action on information and drive sales and marketing programs with functionality that includes:

• Automated sales and marketing processes and campaigns
• Market segmentation from filtering of information that results in unlimited levels of target marketing
• E-mail marketing
• Dashboard reporting

The planning portion of a successful CRM implementation is a crucial element. Though discovery will identify the strategic objectives listed above, planning must begin with answers to the following key questions:

• Who will be using the CRM software?
• Does the software include effective reporting?
• How seamless will adoption be?
• How will training be conducted?
• What will be the level of post-training support?

The following key considerations are important in addressing the planning questions listed above, and will help to assure maximum CRM project ROI:

All customer-facing personnel should be CRM software users. This not only includes inside and outside sales, but also customer service. Since maximum use of information has been identified as a key CRM benefit, sales and customer service have the most customer and prospect contact and are best positioned to get needed information easily and on an ongoing basis. It may also make sense to include other departments in the user pool as well. Accounting personnel, for example, often use CRM to manage information and contacts for receivables collection.

Detailed reporting is a key element of CRM software functionality. It’s crucial that sales and marketing activities tied to overall process, campaigns and overall objectives be monitored. Reports have historically been paper-driven. Newer, state of the art CRM software offers dashboards so that management is able to access graphical and analytical presentations of sales and marketing activities. They are able to drill this information down and extrapolate information that helps them keep sales and marketing people on course.

Seamless adoption of CRM software by potential users is very important. It is a responsibility of management to prepare users for the transition. Preparation is especially important for adoption by sales people mired in cumbersome paper-driven processes. It’s essential that management prepare these traditionalists by stressing the benefits of smoother organization and enhanced efficiencies to be gained that will result in increased income. Customer service personnel should be an easy sell. Historically, they do not have easy access to information to help service customers faster or exploit additional sales opportunities within the existing customer base.

Onsite training is essential for the first phase of implementation. Subsequent follow up training can be effectively conducted online and/or by phone, but it’s important in the initial implementation phase that trainers experience onsite the cultural aspects of a company and its personnel. This assists in adapting the training to the company and its people and helps trainers leverage any observed nuances that can correlate to successful training and faster project ROI. It’s also important for companies to choose a CRM vendor whose training is not based solely on technology, but approached from a process perspective. Every mouse click and key stroke taught must relate to effective use in the sales and marketing and customer service processes. CRM vendors who approach this phase from primarily a technology perspective often have sub-par implementations and lower ROI for the company.

Post-training support is vital, both for software training as well as technical support. Historically, six-months of post-training support helps to solidify and reinforce key areas of training. Technical support is relevant with on-premise, server-based implementations versus web-based cloud implementations. In fact, companies will need to decide on which environment they prefer—on-premise or “in the cloud.” Each has their place. Historically, on-premise solutions are less expensive long term and offer the security of the information being at the company location. Cloud solutions require no technical infrastructure at the company site and no need for technical support.

In summary, companies looking to implement a CRM project must remember to take a non-technology approach and approach CRM from a process perspective that incorporates the program into their overall strategic marketing plan. This approach will help assure maximum ROI, both short and long term.

S.P. ABC Show very successful for SalesRabbit

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:00:00 GMT

We're very pleased with the turnout at our booth at the S.P. Richards ABC Show last month in Miami. Dealers were able to see our latest SalesRabbit release that ruly combines full sales force automation with business intelligence. Dealers were particularly impressed with how SalesRabbit can take action on information from industry back end systems. SalesRabbit's latest release brings invoice history into the powerful new GoldMine 9.0 and converts it to target marketing campaigns. Dealers were also impressed with how easily SalesRabbit can trigger automated sales and marketing processes. GoldMine 9.0's new dashboards functionality was also shown.

We Are Now Offering E-Mail Hosting

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Are you looking for a new option for e-mail hosting? If you are, you’re likely missing the following features:

• Advanced spam protection
• Direct whitelisting from GoldMine (preventing spam protection false positives)
• Anti-virus protection
• Online spam statistics
• 10 GB storage space
• Web-mail access
• Web-admin access
• SMTP access
• Alternate port configurations
• Ad-free!

As part of our ongoing services to current and prospective clients, we are now offering these features with our e-Mail hosting solution.
Please call us for pricing at 978-750-6882. Or sales@crminternational.com

GoldMine Premium Edition 9.0 is Here!!

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 05:00:00 GMT

GoldMine Premium Edition 9.0, the latest release to the award winning GoldMine CRM Solutions product line, is here!!

A Customer Relationship Management solution should provide you real-time access to your customer facing team’s processes, as well as an easy, quick view into the state of your client interactions. Static reports and analysis in the past were acceptable, but with today’s constant changing business landscape and the ever growing need for information, instant views into your data is vital for you to make those important day to day decisions. With GMPE 9.0, you can do just that!

New GoldMine Premium Edition 9.0 features are developed to help you better manage your business information needs with a complete set of visual dashboards across all CRM functionality. GMPE 9.0 has pre-built dashboard parts for marketing automation, sales force automation and customer service business processes, and, clients have the ability to configure their own dashboard parts that match their specific CRM procedures. GMPE 9.0 also supports robust integration into the worlds most commonly used activity and email management tool, Microsoft Outlook. Now, GoldMine users can visually analyze the state of their business for better decision making in addition to improved client relationship tracking and user productivity.
GoldMine Premium Edition supports all your sales, marketing and customer service business needs through powerful customer relationship management.features, including relationship management, marketing automation, sales force automation, and customer service and support administration.
Find out more about GMPE 9.0 by downloading the GoldMine Premium Edition 9.0 Product Brochure. http://www.frontrange.com/common/Files/Downloads/Product_Literature/SMRM_Literature/FRS_GMPE_SolutionsOverview_NA_EN.pdf

Call us for a demo at 978-750-6882 or sales@crmboston.com

SalesRabbit Now Connects to QuickBooks

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:00:00 GMT

The ever-expanding versatility of SalesRabbit now includes GoldMine CRM/Sales Force Automation connectivity to the popular QuickBooks business accounting software. QuickBooks information coming over to GoldMine includes:

• Summary data, such as: Sales, hits, average order amounts. Summary data can be viewed in the following periods: YTD, LY, LYTD, Trailing 12 months.
• Sales Orders (as Invoices/Completed Sales)
• Sales Receipts (as Invoices/Completed Sales)
• Purchase Orders (as Invoices/Completed Sales)
• Invoices (as Invoices/Completed Sales)
• Credit Memos (as Completed Sales w/negative amounts)
• Estimates. Estimates can be set as a forecasted sale.
• Customer list
• Vendor list.
• A/R Information- includes the following balances: Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91+.

QuickBooks’ users can take action on their accounting metrics within GoldMine with automated sales and marketing processes, as well as unlimited target marketing campaigns. Email marketing plays a significant role in these strategic programs. Of course, GoldMine’s powerful activity and contact management is included. The soon to be released version 9.0 will introduce unlimited dashboards for valuable analytics.

Dealers using QuickBooks can contact Longbow Consulting Group for a demonstration at 800-782-1534, or at sales@longbowcg.com.

salesrabbit adds serialized inventory

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:00:00 GMT

     We are excited to announce another enhancement to SalesRabbit. DDMS Serialized Inventory users can now use their information within GoldMine CRM and Sales Force Automation.
     The enhancement includes equipment information and related service contract information – down to the level of meter readings. Being able to work with this information in GoldMine gives users a more complete picture of a customer and helps them perform valuable business analytics. They are able to see related sales person customer activity and overall performance levels as well.
     The marketing potential of this information within GoldMine’s Sales Force Automation is immense. Built in queries give users information such as: A list of equipment in the field by age, service Contract expirations and much more. Queries are converted to groups for subsequent e-mail marketing and/or automated sales processes and campaigns. It’s all part of SalesRabbit’s dominant benefit – “taking action on your information”.
     Of course, Serialized dealers will also have full access to SalesRabbit’s full office products business intelligence functionality.
     We invite dealers to call us to schedule a demonstration. We will be contacting dealers as well.

Prevent Customer Service Issues From Falling Through The Cracks

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Do your serious customer service issues ever fall through the cracks?

SalesRabbit's GoldMine 8.5 (and soon to be 9.0) addresses this problem quickly!! An issue is automatically detected and GoldMine's new Customer Service/Case Manager takes over.
Here's what happens:

*An issue is created in the case manager and assigned to a key customer service person.
*Pertinent information is automatically inserted and the issue is on the way to resolution.

Learn more about GoldMine's customer service/case manager at: http://www.frontrange.com/common/Files/Downloads/Product_Literature/SMRM_Literature/CRM_WhitePaper_WhytoBuyGMPE_NA_EN.pdf

SalesRabbit Just Keeps Getting Better

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT

SalesRabbit Just Keeps Getting Better!
We are excited to announce the release of the powerful and ultra sophisticated GoldMine Premium Edition 9.0. This release brings our SalesRabbit software suite to an entirely new level. See the complete entry at: http://longbowcg.com/home/articles/articlebody.asp?id=68

Using CRM/SFA for Prospecting

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Using CRM/SFA for prospecting.

A feature article by Longbow Consulting Group President, Neil Saviano, featured in S.P. Richards On Point magazine.
http://www.sprichards.com/OnPoint/OnPointQ12010.pdf

"How Well Do We Know Our Customers"?

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Longbow Consulting Group President, Neil Saviano, approaches this subject in the "Independent Dealer" Ezine.
Go to: http://www.idealercentral.com/Archives/id_feb10.pdf Page 32.

An Exciting Dealer Opportunity

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Become an agent for our CRM International Division. www.crminternational.com

What is the CRM Agent Program?The need for CRM in the SMB market place is very very high and projections for growth are outstanding. As in the office products industry, every industry is facing the growth and globalization of competition, and their products and services becoming a commodity.
The target SMB market for CRM is what makes up a typical office product dealer's customer base! Our agency program, through you, could introduce this solution to your customers - an opportunity to help them compete more successfully and grow their business.

How will the CRM Agent Program benefit my Company?
The CRM Agent Program will help to differentiate your Company by bringing an added perception of you as a company that can help offer solutions beyond those offered by your core business, along with generating extra revenue with very little effort.

What's Expected of my Company to participate in the CRM Agent Program?
This agency program is not intended to turn you into CRM resellers, trainers or consultants that would take time away from your core business. It is a lead generation program that will leverage the power of our strong CRM International model and at the same time offer lead-generation revenue. We will provide you with marketing materials to help inform and educate your customers.

How to get started?Contact us for a presentation! This could be a great way for you to earn some substantial bottom line revenue without a lot of effort! Part of the presentation will be to show you the promotional program we have put together around e-mail marketing. 880-782-1534

CRM Deployment: Users Can't Set Timetable

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

With most enterprise applications, the executive champions and the user community are typically measured and have manageable expectations. Think accounting. With CRM, it isn't necessarily so. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9146000/CRM_Deployment_Users_Can_t_Set_Timetable

The Rise Of The "Searchmercial"

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

We live in a world where the company name Google becomes a verb if you need to find someone, a business, or information. If we don’t know something, we “Google it”. This concept was alien to most of us 5-10 years ago, and now it is standard operating procedure for consumers and businesses alike. Companies are constantly trying to figure out how they can use search engines like Google to their highest advantage. With the rise of YouTube and more advanced searching capabilities, Internet searches are involving video more than ever, and now is the best time to get your message across with a professional “searchmercial” video.

See this entire blog entry at: http://www.skillmanvideogroup.com/wordpress/inside-svg-blog

For Daring GoldMine Users!!

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Hey you daring GoldMine users!!

Ever wanted to add merge fields in an Email template that were not available in the insert drop down menu? You can easily do this by manually typing the field name in between << >> for example: By typing <<&key1>> - you would get the DDMS number <<&key4>> - you would get the salesman # For user defined fields below the tabs you will need to add contact2-> before the field name like this: <<&contact2->usrname>> So as long as you know how to find the actual field name you can add any field to merge in an email template.

Managing Information with Technology

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Gathering, processing and using customer information with varied technologies is, and will continue to be, a dominant contributor in maintaining company profitability and growth. A company's benchmark in their overall effectiveness in managing and using technology-based customer information should come from the answers to the following questions:

• How much do we know about what are customers are buying and not buying from us, and how they are buying?
• How much do we know about our customer demographics that influence buying?
• How do we use the information we have to implement effective and ongoing sales and marketing programs?
• How do we gather and use information that helps us to monitor our activities, namely the information management and sales and marketing processes being driven by sales and customer service?

     The answers to these questions strongly relate to a company’s use of the technologies currently available. Many industry back-end legacy systems obviously compile customer buying history, but technology is needed to relate this history to areas such as the level of current customer penetration and retention. These metrics are critical, as penetration and retention directly determines profitability on a customer-by-customer basis – both short and long term. Sales and marketing analytical tools are available to help dealers and their salespeople look at each customer and the level of penetration and retention on a one-to-one basis.
     Technology is also needed to help companies develop benchmarks such as, customer profiles and how it relates to the level of penetration and retention needed to assure customer sales growth and profitability. CRM and Sales Force Automation software provides a place to put this information for easy access and retrieval for sales and marketing campaigns as well as usage by CSR’s in their every day customer-facing activities. In essence it answers the question: The information is there – now how do we act on it to drive business and profits? Some examples of information compnies work with includes: customer size (as it relates to overall potential), various office equipment, furniture styles and colors, special product and printing needs, competitors, levels of contact, etc.
     The Sales Force Automation components of popular CRM software technology provide the functionality to efficiently and effectively “act on” this information. Customer classifications that identify, as an example, levels of customer penetration can be grouped together to form a target segment for a campaign. The campaign can be efficiently and effectively automated and contain a series of strategic calls, visits, e-mails and other promotional efforts.
     Managing information that goes beyond buying history and business potential also plays a key role in customer development; this relates to business demographics and other customer - centric information. Beyond some of the information listed above, some other examples are: type of vertical industry, location and number of locations, customer personal issues and any other customer information that is worth remembering, and used for semi-automated and automated campaigns along with individual customer targeting. This is the kind of information that helps companies make a value-added difference with a customer in a volatile marketplace. Products and services that address specific customer needs within their vertical and make it easier for them to do business with a dealer, and do business overall, can go a long way in building and sustaining relationships
      The use of information and technology isn’t limited to working with just customers. Prospecting programs and their success are tied to the efficiencies and consistencies that technology provides. Prospect information, as an example, is used to create prospect classifications using some of the demographic customer-centric information related above. Some examples of classifications are: Type (hot-cold, etc), contact frequency, status (interested/not interested), etc. This is another example of the use of CRM and Sales Force Automation software and the capacity to target and touch as the situation dictates.
     There is a strong need for companies to also have systems in place to monitor the information-centric activities and campaigns to assure that the work is being done. Reporting and push reporting (automatic reports sent to management and reps) programs to identify that the activities are taking place according to plan are available. Coded reports can show types of activities such as follow ups, cold calls, interested and not-interested, appointment/presentations. CSR issues resolved, etc. As in any company program that involves people working within a strategy and with systems, accountability is a must to assure staying on course. CRM software provides a place for activities and all of the related notes for each activity that can be accessed quickly. Calendaring is also included to show future activities and the information tied to each one. Each kind of activity is automatically posted to a report.
     There is no doubt that the proliferation of competition places a strong need for companies to have the capacity to gather store and use customer and prospect information in a way that is going to give them a decided competitive advantage. This entails making sure that the correct technology is in place. It means looking at the technology environment holistically beyond the back-end legacy system. Making sure the synergies are there with sales and marketing analytical software and CRM and Sales Force Automation software. Most importantly, it’s mandatory that personnel use this information and processes in place to monitor this usage. Technology and information are assuredly the way for dealers to emulate the processes and strategies of their major and bigger competitors. It can be labeled “the great equalizer”!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A sales and marketing veteran with more than 30 years’ experience, Neil Saviano is president of CRM International www.crminternational.com , a sales and marketing organization that focuses on helping clients combine proven sales and marketing techniques and strategies with state-of-the-art CRM and Sales Force Automation solutions. He can be reached by phone at 800-782-1534 or by e-mail at neil@crminternational.com.

Dealers: Take Action On Your Information

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Office Products Dealers: Are you taking action on your information gathered from various sources? See this important article at:
http://www.longbowcg.com/home/articles/articlebody.asp?id=63

GoldMine In The Cloud

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

"GoldMine In The Cloud"

"In The Cloud" has become the phrase that describes hosted CRM programs. Thus far hosted CRM has eluded GoldMine users; that is
until now. Longbow now offers hosted GoldMine for clients! No longer do prospective users have to give up GoldMine's powerful sales
force automation and settle for less functionality with traditional hosted systems.

Why generating More Leads Isn't The Answer to Greater sales Revenue

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Today’s economy is tough, with buyers holding onto cash and taking more time to make purchasing decisions. This naturally creates anxiety in businesses that are trying to sell products and services. Most often, their response is to populate the pipeline with more leads in the hope that some will turn into sales. After all, this approach seems logical, since more leads equal more opportunities, right?

Unfortunately, the opposite often turns out to be true. Flooding sales reps with more leads — especially low-quality ones — can actually make the problem worse.
Go to: http://www.insidecrm.com/features/generating-leads-sales-revenue-061609/

Time For a New Perspective On Sales Training?

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

     Since most conventional industry sales training focuses heavily on new customer acquisition, it’s not surprising that a key measure of success, both for new and experienced dealer sales people, is generally how many accounts they can open in a set period of time.
Unfortunately, the traditional emphasis on customer acquisition usually means that customer penetration—“harvesting” existing customers to their full sales potential and driving higher margin business—typically gets less attention, even though most sales and marketing experts agree that it requires five times more effort to open a new customer than it does to sell more to existing customers.
     Since most industry sales compensation plans are based on margin, it would seem to make sense for most sales training—both for in-house programs and for those offered externally by wholesalers or buying groups—to place a stronger emphasis on customer development. A training shift, however, needs to come from companies themselves for that to happen.
     Effective sales training needs to highlight the tactics and skills required to penetrate customers deeper and reach marketing plan objectives. One way to identify those skills is by examining the work habits of successful sales people.
     Star sales performers are primarily excellent business people. They run their sales job as a business, with a sound business/marketing plan that serves as a microcosm of their company’s business plan and defines a course of action to produce their share of their company’s business objectives.
     If reaching marketing plan objectives at both the company and individual sales person level is part of a sales training program, another key area must be emphasized. This area is sales intelligence.
     Business intelligence is simply all of the customer sales history that resides in a dealer’s back end software system. Using this intelligence strategically provides both companies and their sales people with the information needed to identify opportunities to drive customers to buy a wider range of products and subsequently increase margins. At the sales person level this process is directly tied to higher compensation.
     Sales training programs need to focus on using business intelligence, and business intelligence software. Business intelligence software transcends the use of customer information provided by traditional back end systems and gives sales people and companies the ability to track customer buying patterns at unprecedented levels.
     In conjunction with using business intelligence, sales people and companies also need to be taught to place greater emphasis on understanding higher levels of customer needs and behaviors.
     This business intelligence comes from information gathered at the customer level instead of the back end system, for example, gaining a deeper understanding of a customer’s office processes, workflow and special product applications.
     This strategic focus goes beyond traditional areas of needs, such as delivery requirements or reduced back orders. Instead, it focuses on identifying opportunities for deeper customer penetration and higher margins.
     As sales people and companies are taught the expanded use of customer intelligence and information, penetration can be greatly enhanced by subsequent sales and marketing campaigns. For example, customer intelligence might reveal a certain group of customers have stopped buying a particular product or product category, suggesting the need for a focused marketing campaign to regain that lost business. Or, analysis of a customer’s business processes may uncover a previously unexploited need for audiovisual products or similar items.
     Campaigns are simply strategic sales and marketing actions that evolve from placing customers into categories or classifications. In the customer categories listed above, examples of campaigns could be a planned series of faxes, e-mails and customer calls or visits.
     Conventional sales force automation/customer relationship management (CRM) software packages have functions that can help a dealer not only gather and store sales intelligence and information, but automate campaigns as well.

Our New Solutions Partner Brings Video to CRM

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce our latest solutions partner, Skillman Video Group. We developed this partnership to work in conjunction with our CRM and sales force automation (SFA) solutions. The synergy with CRM and SFA with effective Internet Marketing for businesses of all sizes is growing rapidly. Today’s economy requires taking advertising out of the so called “box” and creating something truly effective that can produce results. The new and unique attracts attention, and using video advertising on the web, and embedding video into CRM and SFA processes, can effectively help a business truly stand out from its competitors. The award winning producers at Skillman Video Group will work with our new and existing clients to create effective video advertising campaigns in conjunction with their CRM and SFA programs. Video can truly bring a business to life! See more about Skillman Video Group at www.skillmanvideogroup.com

New SalesRabbit Synergy With Wholesaler Email Marketing Programs

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

We're excited to announce that SalesRabbit has synergy with both the United eDeals and the S.P. Richards Engage email marketing programs. Target market groups created by SalesRabbit are easily uploaded to these two applications. SInce SalesRabbit now brings in back-end information at the invoice level, targets by product usage can be uploaded and attached to relevant flyers.

SalesRabbit Webinars

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

We will soon be announcing a series of SalesRabbit webinars. Office products dealers across the country will be receving an invitation to sign up. SalesRabbit is the only industry full sales force automation solution that integrates with business intelligence. GoldMine 8.5 is the driving CRM/SFA. We will showing GoldMine's very robust Customer Service Center module. See an overview at: http://www.frontrange.com/goldmine-premium.aspx

Telephone Sales and CRM Technology

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Telephone sales and CRM technology-a powerul combination.

http://www.longbowcg.com/home/articles/articlebody.asp?id=40

True Mobile Internet Making a Difference

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This is a signifcant article on mobil internet by Bengt Nordstrom in CRM Daily. http://www.crm-daily.com/story.xhtml?story_id=112009BE27K0

INFORMATION = CUSTOMER PENETRATION

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Customer penetration is critical for gaining customer-by-customer profitability as well as overall company-wide profitability. Penetration means customers buying a wider range of products that relate to higher margins. Gathering, processing and using customer information is critical to maximizing customer penetration and higher margins. CRM and sales force automation software, connected to industry back-end systems, provides the resource to gather and process unlimited amounts of information and transfer it to targeted sales and marketing campaigns. Our SalesRabbit suite features GoldMine 8.5 Premium Edition CRM/SFA software http://www.frontrange.com/goldmine-premium.aspx

COPIER DEALERS: Do you dread hearing this?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

"If only you were here a month ago-we just closed on a new copier!!"

CRM and sales force automation technology significantly lessens the incidence of this scenario. This technology helps to manage prospects within a prospecting cycle based on their degree of readiness to change equipment - or their place in the 'itch cycle." Market segmentation features of SFA software helps classify and group prospects based on their place in the cycle; promotional materials (mostly email flyers) and/or timed calls to see what's going on can be automatically triggered. Experienced copier dealers and reps know that timeliness is critical in prospecting; this technology helps to create the timeliness and cuts down on hearing the "dreaded statement!!"

Email Marketing: Content Not That Different!

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Email marketing is no different in content then hard copy marketing (newspaper, flyers, direct mailings). The difference is the vehicle of delivery and the ability to drive the customer to areas which give you the ability for further marketing opportunities. With traditional or hard copy marketing the message is forefront when the customers looks at the ad, the same must be true for email marketing or "e-marketing." The customer must see the ad without having to click to open or download it.

CRM Helps Drive Successful Call Center

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Capital Office Products in Daytona Beach, FL, has found a cost effective way to acquire, manage and grow a large volume of customers cost effectively. Three years ago they started a call center. According to Tom O'Hanlon, call center sales manager, they initially began the program as a way to maintain and grow existing customers. Three years later new customer acquisition has grown to be the largest side.

"In the beginning", said O'Hanlon, "we just intended to offer a higher level of support to existing customers - someone to call them-keep in touch and maintain them and grow the business. It all just evolved to new customer acquisition". O'Hanlon went on to say, "As we saw the competitive environment get more volatile and we asked our 'maintenance' reps to be come more proactive in growing business, new customer acquisition was a natural progression".

Three years and a lot of hard work later, Capital Office Products now has 12 new customer acquisition reps and 7 account maintenance reps. Combined they cover 3500 customers with each maintenance rep covering between 400-600 customers.

As a key to their success, O'Hanlon went on to say, "When an inside rep acquires a new customer they keep it for a 90 day period of initial growth. Once we feel we have an established level of business the new customer is turned over to a maintenance rep to penetrate and grow the customer ongoing". O'Hanlon was quick to point out, however, that the rep that got the customer still checks in once in a while and helps maintain the relationship from both ends. In essence Capital has an inside version of the traditional "Hunter-Farmer" program!

GoldMine CRM and sales Force Automation software plays a vital role in Capital's call center. Having all of the customer information on once screen when contacting a customer helps the rep to strategically structure their call. They have notes from past activity that helps to sustain the relationship, and information to use to grow the business; they also have direct connectivity to from DDMS to GoldMine, giving invaluable sales history that greatly enhances the customer penetration process. Said O'Hanlon, "Our reps know where they have been, where they are, and where they want to go with a customer at all times".
"GoldMine helps greatly with new customer acquisition as well", O'Hanlon related. "We can track a prospect in the prospecting cycle; the reps always know what the next step is and what needs to be done strategically to 'get their share'. O'Hanlon is big on 'numbers' or 'playing the numbers game'. "We make sure the reps know 'the law of large numbers' - the ratios needed - and how all this can correlate to income for them. We want them to be the master of their own destiny".

Capital leverages GoldMine's capacity for assisting with the promotional effort. There are ongoing campaigns with targeted faxing and html e-mailing. These are targeted efforts to customer and prospect segments established in GoldMine as well as to the entire database. And each rep also has the autonomy to instantly e-mail or fax promotions during the call process. Capital takes advantage of every tool their technology gives them.

The call center has resulted in considerable growth for Capital and they continue to grow, even in these trying times. Capital is first-call United Stationers and a member of Tri-Mega.

Exciting SalesRabbit SystemPlugIn release for office products dealers

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 19:51:00 GMT

Our Longbow Consulting Group division has just released an exciting version of our SalesRabbit SystemPlugIn for DDMS dealer users. Along with summary sales data, we are now bringing invoice history into the new GoldMine 8.5 from DDMS. Not only can users work with invoice history from within GoldMine CRM software, they can build targeted groups from this information! This results in very robust target marketing-at the product level. The groups can quickly be exported from GoldMine to the United eDeals program or to constant Contact for the S.P. Richards Engage program.

This is powerful targeted e-mail marketing! The new SalesRabbit SystemPlugIn release will soon be ready for SSI dealers. Britannia dealers will be able to connect in the first quarter of 2010. Our new SalesRabbit Dashboard and Reporting Service will be ready soon-adding business intelligence to this total solution.

See all SalesRabbit information at:
http://www.longbowcg.com/home/products/product_salesrabbit.asp

Manage Sales People with CRM Software

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Are you using CRM software to truly measure sales person performance? The vast reporting capabilities, including dashboard graphics and analytics, can tell a story about salesperson activity that can lead to significant sales person growth- both personally and professionally. Not to mention an increase in salesperson ROI for the company overall. The number of activities are certainly a metric that needs to be monitored, but more importantly the ratios between activities that lead to achieving the metrics the company sets forth are likely the most important consideration. As an example: If market planning has determined that historically four proposals lead to one sale and three presentations lead to one proposal and ten prospecting calls lead to one presentation-there is a valid basis for measurement. CRM software can track and report on these activities, and provide both sales management and sales people the tools to measure actual results against projected, and the basis for making any needed changes to stay on course.

Dealer Profile: J&E's Office City

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

J&E Office City, located in Metropolitan St. Louis, has an enviable base of business; 70-80% of their business comes from 70-80% of their customers.

It wasn’t always that way, according to J&E President, Jerry Gibbs. “About 10 years ago we decided to take charge of where our business was coming from”, said Gibbs. “We knew that being in such a large metropolitan area and the competitive environment that comes with it; we needed to spread our business around. We didn’t want to be vulnerable with fewer accounts making up a large percent of our business”

A significant part of the solution for J&E was to make an investment in GoldMine CRM and Sales Force Automaton software. “We needed a system” said Gibbs, “A system that would help us to manage customer sales history and customer information, and at the same time give us the capability to touch more customers and prospects with automated campaigns and other ongoing promotional programs. Not only could we sell more to existing customers but we had a program in place to increase our customer base.”

Along with the addition of technology and more progressive and automated marketing, J&E assigned 20% of its commercial customers to its two (and long time) customer service people, Donna and Sherrie. Though they didn’t fit a typical sales person profile, they knew the customers and they knew the products. “GoldMine gave them a system, a process, to manage the customers and keep in touch with them at the most opportune time”, said Gibbs. “It’s like it became their virtual sales assistant. The combination of using sales history information from within GoldMine and scheduled touches, gave us significant customer penetration – we’ve tripled business from these accounts!”

When Matt Gibbs decided to join his father a few years ago, he was fresh out of college and immersed in technology. Jerry wanted Matt to focus on new customer development and they leveraged GoldMine’s sales force automation features to help drive some prospecting programs. The automated follow up provided by GoldMine helps prospects in the pipeline from not falling through the cracks and has improved closing ratios. “I was into technology while in school so I was very comfortable when I joined Dad and realized I convert this knowledge into growing business and making money”, said Matt.

All in all, the addition of technology to their sales and marketing programs has made a difference at J&E. “I couldn’t do without it”, said Jerry. “We even use it to help manage special orders; they just don’t fall through the cracks the way they used to.” In summary, Jerry attributes technology to playing a major role in their key areas of concentration: customer penetration, new customer development and customer reactivation. The end result has been a steady 8-10% growth, every year.

CRM Vs. Sales Force Automation

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Did you purchase CRM software and thought you were getting Sales Force Automation (SFA) with it? It's easy to make that mistake! Though most CRM software programs certainly helps to build and maintain customer relationships through managing contact and information, a missing piece may be the ability to automate sales and marketing processes. Process is an integral part of any sales and marketing program, and quite often day-to-day administrative tasks as well as "putting out fires" can take typical sales people away from the repetitive tasks necessary to prospect for new customers and penetrate existing customers. One key feature of SFA is the ability to automate these repetitive tasks-acting as a virtual sales assistant. Another major feature of SFA is the capability of filtering information at high levels of granularity in order to employ very robust target marketing. With most SFA programs targeted groups can very quickly attach to strategic tactics such as email marketing. As competition becomes more global and more intense, and profit margins decrease, SFA becomes an integral tool in staying ahead of all of this and helps to maintain ROI for both sales people and the company overall.