SugarCRM announced it has extended the capabilities of its mobile apps, deepened its relationship with IBM, and acquired iExtensions CRM.
SugarCRM has extended the capabilities of its social customer relationship management (CRM) software through new integration with applications from a bevy of industry heavyweights — including expansion of the company’s partnership with IBM, as well as SugarCRM’s acquisition of iExtensions CRM from iEnterprises, adding BlackBerry and Droid Mobile applications to its list of offerings. The announcements were made during the annual SugarCon conference last week.
President and CEO Jim Ward was interviewed about Sugar’s newest developments.
BrainSell was given the MVP and 2x 2010 awards at SugarCon 2011, for going above and beyond Sugar’s expectations and more than doubling their business in 2010. Read about it here.
To know more about Sugar’s latest developments and read the entire interview with Jim Ward, click here!
This is my first blog. I’m sure you will be able to tell this if you continue reading.
I am a consultantaccountantbusiness man – old school kind of guy. I get the idea of using emails and postcards and phone calls to generate business. But this new age stuff – blogs, Facebook and Twitter – I’m not too sure about.
However, my new boss, Jim, says this is the way of the future. Something about in-bound vs. out-bound marketing mumbo jumbo. Plus, Jim has hired this twenty-something Blog Queen that we have to “communicate” with for bringing in new business (only kidding, she is a great gal – or can I still say gal?).
So I am going to get with the program and try to come up with ideas or thoughts or bring up things that I think would be of interest to business people and see what happens. Over time I will become good at it. I am sure of this because I believe in hard work and commitment to a task. Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, maintains that anyone who expects to become world-class at anything had better plan on doing it.
And what is “it?”
Expense reports are a pain. After a long trip, the last thing you want to do is sit in front of a spreadsheet and unfold stashed receipts from pockets, wallets and briefcases. Acumatica, a cloud-based ERP system we adore, has a snazzy iPhone interface.
Now you can start expense reports before they get out of control. Enter the expenses from your phone as they happen and lose the spreadsheet for good!
I’ve recently discovered the beauty of bit.ly, a simple URL shortener. URL shorteners are good for many things, but especially for Twitter. When you’re limited to 140 characters, you can’t waste them on a long URL. When you shorten with bit.ly, it keeps track of your moves. Create a free user login and you can track how many hits your shortened URL gets and from which source.
Bit.ly makes you rethink Twitter. Why does one tweet get your URL 25 clicks and another gets ignored completely?
Tips for tweet clicks…
Keep it short
Get sexy! I know you just read that, use some catchy words.
Get creative too! Say things in that appeal to a wide audience.
Don’t get too specific, that’s the beauty of having a bit.ly URL for people to follow, they can get the details there
I’m supplimenting my google analytics obsesion with Bit.ly now. Use your tweets to see what grabs peoples attention. It works!!!
Ross Jones, VP of Sales Engineering at BrainSell, lectured at Harvard University’s Extension School of Management last month. Jones has been feature as a guest lecturer for three years at Harvard.
Jones’ lecture, The Need for CRM, is part of the graduate course, MGMT 6060 Customer Relationship Management. The course, led by Paul Olean, teaches how to develop a successful customer relationship management (CRM) program.
Jones’ two hour presentation addressed why CRM is needed in business, the benefits and implementation tactics. Jones also discussed why social media is now an invaluable facet of CRM.
“Social media can no longer be ignored,” said Jones. “Using social media as a means of inbound marketing is a very cost-effective way of increasing sales. CRM can handle all the extra data that is a product of social media. It’s a win-win.”
Jones has been a VP with BrainSell for eight years and is an expert on CRM implementation and service.
For more information on Harvard University’s graduate management program, visit the extension Website.
BrainSell CEO Jim Ward will go to great lengths for service excellence. A pesky air conditioning unit has left the office in temperature control distress; this hot box is 76 degrees and climbing! New Englanders like us don’t do well in that sort of climate, and neither do our servers.
Jim takes matters into his own hands…
Just another example of BrainSell’s commitment to excellence in all fields.
The event takes place this Tuesday, March 23rd. This has been one of the most exciting and dynamic events I’ve ever been involved in. We’re very lucky to have great presenters who are focused on delivering “remarkable content”. From Dharmesh Shah, co-author of Inbound Marketing, Umberto Milletti, CEO of Inside View, Mitch Lieberman, VP of Strategic Solutions at SugarCRM, Martin Schneider, Director of Marketing at SugarCRM and Chip Meyers, Sales Operations Manager at Insource Performance Solutions who pulls the whole story together as Inbound Marketeer and user of technology that allows his sales staff to take advantage of qualified prospects that his Inbound Marketing efforts identify.
What’s been so remarkable is that we have 190 sign ups. Which reinforces the power of Inbound Marketing. The bulk of those who’ve signed up for the event have done so by Inbound Marketing efforts through Social media.
In preparation for the event for those who have signed up, pick up Dharmesh’s book, Inbound Marketing. He’ll be signing books post event. What you’re going to find is genuine and authentic information. I fully expect attendees to walk out with information they can use.
The countdown is on – 5 days until our big social media event at the Woburn Hilton. Close to 200 people are signed up already and we’re setting our goals high. 300 sign ups! Almost all of the sign ups have come from social media. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
We needed to step things up in the final sprint. So one of our fine colleagues from SugarCRM, @mjayliebs, suggested running a Twitter contest. After a little research, I found that short and easy is the best way to get traction with a contest.
@brainsell hyped about http://bit.ly/brainsellevent and giving away $100 in GC today! RT this to be eligible to win 1 of 4 $25 GCs
That’s it! Re-tweet our message about re-tweeting and you can win one of 4 $25 gift cards. To where? Who cares! It only takes one click for a chance at free money, I’m down. Are you? Starbucks anyone?
It was a cold rainy day when I went to my favorite cigar shop (my occasional vice) and got to chatting with another patron enjoying a rainy day cigar. Just so happens this fellow owned a few Domino’s pizza franchises. We got to talking about business and technology. He was quite enthused with a technology that allowed him to take time to relax outside of his demanding business.
I never really thought about the issues “the pizza man” faced in order to make sure his locations run a peak performance. Things like on time deliveries to clients, employees giving away too many freebies also known as theft, pizza waiting for delivery and so much more.
While we sat talking he received a few text messages that he explained we automated alerts. For example, if there was a pattern of pizza’s waiting too long for delivery (thus a hungry and annoyed customer) he receive a text that included pertinent information like the manager on duty and average time pizza waiting to get to a driver. Turns out that this technology is monitoring conditions in their franchise software. Any condition that exceeds store standards causes an alert in the form of a text. As a owner of mulitple stores and managing many people, “the pizza man” was able to monitor mutiple locations all while not being onsite. The result, proactive management. Better customer service. Theft reduction. And more.
Although my clients are not retail shops typically, we have found that this type of Virtual Business Managemet to be just as important. Take a Vice Presidnet of Sales for example and her need for alerts. What conditions cause poor sales perfomance? Lack of lead follow up? Large deals with lack of activity? Why wait till you receive historical reports (e.g. Proft & Loss, Sales reports, Win/Loss reports, etc). Why not monitor these conditions and receive your own alert proactively so you can re-write history.
Solutions like Vineyard Software’s KnowledgeSync provide the ability to monitor cross platform databases. As an example KnowledgeSync can monitor your CRM database and your ERP data for conditions and send appropriate texts, emails and reports automatically. For small and mid sized business who work hard to keep costs down yet need very proactive management for peak performance Virtual Business Management is a must have. We’ve developed a number of Business Alerts for Virtual Business Management. Many are free. So, if the “pizza man can, so can you!”
We all know how important communication is in any relationship, be it personal, professional, or business. However it cannot be over stated how important in business that we use proactive communication, though it seems I state the obvious – I find the rule of proactively communicating to be under used.
First, how do I define proactive communication? Simply stated, communicating before or immediately after being asked by your client for information relating to a sale, project or any “ping” you receive by the client. Your relationship with your client’s can only grow if you communicate openly and often.
Proactive communication is somewhat of a instinctive reaction. One has to sense if your client needs more information than you’ve provided. Remember, because your intentions are good and the information sits in your head doesn’t mean that the client may not need to hear what may seem to be the simplest of details.
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