Sage is offering a Switch and Save program, ending December 31, 2010.
* 60% off your Sage CRM Solution when switching from an eligible competitive product (from list below).
* 5% off maintenance and support for the first 2 years of product ownership.
* Receive a credit toward data conversion services from your current product to a new Sage CRM Solution.
The below products are included in the switch plan.
BrainSell has once again earned Sage’s distinguished Million Dollar Club award.
The Sage Partner Advantage Award Series is a prestigious awards program that recognizes top partner performances. Partners are rewarded for their diligence in representing Sage and consistently going above and beyond to achieve excellence throughout the year.
BrainSell exceeded $1 million in annual sales of Sage products and services – earning the prestigious Million Dollar Club award. BrainSell has been in the Million Dollar Club and Sage President’s Circle for numerous years in it’s 15 year history.
Purchasing and implimenting a CRM system can be a daunting task. Sometimes you can buy directly from the software vendor and other times you can buy through a Value Added Reseller (VAR). BrainSell President Jim Ward addressed the topic of who to buy from as a guest blogger on the Sales Opperation Blog this week.
Jim focused on the pros and cons of buying direct and buying from a VAR. Here are some of his points in short… to read the entire post, visit Marci Reynolds’ Sales Opperation Blog.
Definitions:
Direct Sales: A direct sales model for a CRM software vendor means the vendor employs their own sales force and you do business directly with the vendor.
Value Added Reseller (VAR): When buying through a VAR you’re buying through a company certified to resell the vendor’s software. VARs offer additional services such as training, development, consulting and implementation to add “value” (the “V” in VAR) to the sale.
Guest blog by Seth Ellertson, Director of Sales East for Sage CRM
As Sage is rapidly approaching the advent of our new and exciting cloud offering for SalesLogix CRM, we’re tasked with advising our partners on how to appropriately motivate and compensating their sales people in this new world. While there is no question our partner and customers are anxiously awaiting our new offer, I can’t help but think that this changes the game for sales compensation. The old days were easy – you gave a sales representative a quota for license sales and paid them against achievement. It was really that easy. The only real question was how much to make their quota and how much to pay them, but of course that could be solved pretty easily by some revenue and cost modeling done by accounting people much smarter in the ways of finance than myself. Sales people had a license revenue target that they achieved by securing upfront software license purchases.
The SASS and Cloud offerings require a bit more thought, although according to Joel York in his March 2010 article SaaS Sales Compensation Made Easy, “The ONLY difference between SaaS sales compensation and sales compensation for software or other products is that you should pay based on the “LIFETIME VALUE of THE DEAL” instead of the unit price of the product. Unfortunately, It didn’t appear that simple from the rest of his article. Joel actually goes on to talk about present values of annuity’s and other financial calculations that I just simply couldn’t focus enough of my attention deficit mind around in my most boring college classes. (Trust me there is a reason I’m in sales) Joel then goes to provide the following formula – SaaS Subscription LTV=RR = RR (1-a)/(1=i) + RR ……… ok, I can’t find the symbols on the key board for the rest of it. Needless to say that’s where Joel lost me.
So I started to think about all of the reasons that a re-occurring model was different from a traditional sales model and the questions surrounding the differences - Should a sales representatative be paid upfront despite the company receiving payments in monthly or quarterly increments? Do you pay on total contract value or reoccurring revenue? If you pay on reoccurring revenue how to you motivate someone to secure a multi-year contract. What if a customer cancels their contract? As I’m researching options, one thing continues to come to my mind –COMPENSATION DRIVES MOTIVATION.
As we’ve rolled out dozens of different sales models over the years the only real question that sales people have is – what exactly do I need to do to make exactly how much money. So what does that mean for a small business owner or a VP of sales looking to change a compensation model… well its simple I think (although I’m clearly not as financially educated as Joel) - First make sure the plan is easy to understand and calculate, remember us sales people like thinks simple. Second make sure that you align compensation with corporate goals. If your corporate goal is to acquire 100 new customers this year, then base a sales representative on customer acquisition. If your goal is to secure 5 million or 500 million in annual re-occurring revenue, then base them on those targets. The only real thing to be careful about according to Joel (yes, I really did read his whole article, it was quite insightful) is to make sure that you choose a time frame for the reoccurring target like monthly, quarterly and yearly and stick with that timeframe, as changing it periodically has serious impact.
So at the end of the day figure out a reoccurring revenue target by doing some projections and modeling and pay your people for achieving those targets. Couldn’t be easier… after all sales people aren’t compensated for managing cash flow they are compensated for closing deals.
I found a great quote in a pdf presentation I found on sales compensation -
“Most of the time was spent discussing our business plans and objectives and worrying less about paying too much or too little” Steve Balk, VP Sales, Dataflux
Steve, I don’t know who you are, but I like your style. I couldn’t agree with you more, although I selfishly favor paying salespeople too much. Lets figure out how to achieve our business objectives and if we overpay our salespeople a bit in the first year because we achieved those objectives – who cares, let’s just go sell!
As I look around I’ve noticed competitors selling their businesses, closing their doors or simply getting small. It’s not just my competition, it’s the business world around us. Whether you’re starting a business or want to build your business in this economy, here’s 7 simple ideas to consider.
1. Acquire: Growth through aqcuisition could be your key to future growth. Find businesses within your industry that are distressed or tired. Or stretch a bit and add a business that has synergy with your core business. But don’t wander too far from your core business. Look for a business that adds to your cross-sell initiative since new customers are hard to find in a tough economy.
2. Inbound Marketing: Invest wisely in marketing. Although traditional marketing still has it’s place, use your spare time or consider getting your marketing folks onboard with Inbound Marketing initiatives. Become a thought leader within your industry. Use the web to get found by your buyers. Today, people want to buy rather than being sold too. Using Inbound Marketing (blogs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more) help your potential buyers find your company when they are ready to purchase. Inbound marketing creates credibility with your buying audience and it’s cost effective! It’s also timely since people who find you are already in the buying /sales cycle. Read the book Inbound Marketing. It’s full of ah-hah moments that will get you rolling with new marketing strategies. Check your web site grade against your competition with this free tool; website grader. Here’s a shout out to our friends at Hubspot for a great product too!
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.
Hubspot founder Dharmesh Shah related outbound marketing to killing kittens at our Accelerator event last month. We don’t like doing it, but it’s necessary sometimes. Depending on your business, you may be able to use inbound marketing so much that you’re running an animal shelter. Others aren’t so lucky.
BrainSell still finds outbound marketing valuable. It’s a way to engage customers who aren’t buzzing on social media sites all day. With the right pitch and implementation, outbound marketing can work.
A method we favor is still email marketing. However, you have to be careful! Getting blacklisted is easier than you think. Using an automated email program can build consistency, leads and follow-through. You can also integrate these programs into CRM systems so the correspondence doesn’t get lost.
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!”
However, you have to be careful! Getting blacklisted is easier than you think. Using an automated email program can build consistency, leads and follow-through. You can also integrate these programs into CRM systems so the correspondence doesn’t get lost.
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