Today BrainSell is honoring cupid with a romantically themed CRM webinar! Oh I know what you’re thinking, and it is possible.
CRM adoption is often the death of an implimentation. The system is ready to go, all customized to your liking, and no one uses it. Today at 1:30 pm EST, we’ll go over some ways to make sales people use the darn program.
Some tactical ways to encourage CRM adoption…
Give them fun tools to make selling easier! Social media tools within CRM can give sales people instant connections with prospects. Help them sell!
Make the CRM layout EASY and digestible. If it’s easy to use, they will use it!
Have a weekly opportunities meeting where you go over opps with sales people IN the CRM. If the opp isn’t in CRM, it doesn’t look good.
By: Jim Ward, president and CEO of BrainSell Technologies
One of Inbound Marketing’s primary tenants is to provide relevant non selling information. The reason is simple and if you think about the way you buy today and specifically how Gen Y and Gen X buy products and services, their approach has shifted to research and peer recommendations. This approach has been a result of our connected age via the Internet, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social outlets.
Frankly, beyond the clear benefits of Inbound Marketing that generate real leads for companies committed to inbound strategies, it’s refreshing to be able to provide information that helps prospects and clients of ours find the right product or service that fits their exact needs.
Funny, I was listening to a local radio broadcast, Prime Car Chat, hosted by Prime Motor Group President, David Rosenberg. David talked about their “no haggle pricing” and their “no bicker sticker” and he described the transition of his sales staff from heavily incented based on commissions that were paid on profit margins (sales price – cost) and how the “no haggle” approach changed the profile of folks selling cars. They went from being 80% sales 20% product knowledge people working 80 hours a week to make enough from their sales incentives to folks who can work a regular work week (say 40 hours) and they are now 80% product knowledge 20% sales. And the pricing strategy further gives the buyer the power to identify the best car versus the dealer trying to sell the most profitable car.
What is Inbound Marketing doing to sales? The same. Inbound Marketing strategies are turning the sales organizations on their heads. In fact, I dare say Inbound Marketing may help to bring down the historical divide between sales and marketing.
At BrainSell, we’re far more focused on product knowledge and consultative expertise that actually works to help clients achieve results they expect. It’s one thing to talk about delivering results it’s another to fully build your organization around giving away real and relevant information then turn your sales staff into into business analysts. It’s a fundamental shift. It’s good for both the seller and the buyer.
For those who only take the process half way and use Inbound Marketing, yet maintain traditional hard-sell tactics, let the chips fall where they may. Gen Y and X’ers will quickly see through that veil. Boomers too!
The result is an experience, for both seller and buyer , that’s less stressfull and more fulfilling than the traditional role of sales and buying. Long live Inbound Marketing.
Inbound Marketing: A non-traditional way to marketing to prospects through providing valuable content and thus becoming a trusted advisor.
We transformed our business two years ago with Inbound Marketing and we want to spread the love! There is an entire conference on Inbound Marketing now, and if you’re into it as much as we are, you should go.
BrainSell was at the Inbound Marketing summit last fall in Boston, and we loved it so much that we’re doing IMS this February in the Big Apple too!
This year, they’ve done things a little differently. The conference will be broken out into topics, Inbound Marketing, Mobile Content, Content Automation, and Convergence.
Speakers include Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Tim Hayden and more. The Pulse Network puts on the show, and this year, they invited us into their studio to shoot some video on BrainSell’s obsession with Inbound Marketing. Check out the videos below.
About the Author: Ron Buchanan is a BrainSell Sr. Technical Engineer. He’s a certified Sage SalesLogix master developer and has recently been thrust into the world of SugarCRM. Ron recently attended a SugarCRM code sprint. This is his take on Sugar as a company and platform.
SugarCRM is OPEN!
To me, one of the biggest differentiating factors between SugarCRM or say SalesForce or NetSuite is that it is an OPEN architecture. So OPEN , that the product managers of SugarCRM invite over 50 developers from around the world to participate in what they call the SugarCRM CodeSprint. There are three CodeSprints planned already during the first 6 months of 2012 ( in Belgium, the US and the UK).
In the last session I attended, the theme was “The First 30!” A sprint to improve the perception of SugarCRM in the first 30 minutes a user touches the product and the first 30 days the user tries the product. The goal… to create features than can enhance the user experience.
During the CodeSprint and the opening session, the partner sponsor and developers create lists, lists and more lists. These lists are of the good, the bad and the ugly. Features within the product that are lacking functionality, features that need improvement or features that enhance the product. The numerous list items are boiled down to an actionable project list.
Within TWO DAYS, with the developers working almost 24×7, they immerge from their sessions with fully operational enhancements to be included in the next general release of the product.
So why the excitement? It’s my opinion that no other CRM provider is doing this in a manner that SugarCRM is developing. And because the other CRM systems are not built on Open Architecture, the feature functionality availability will never come at the speed of SugarCRM!
The next SugarCRM CodeSprint session theme is “Spring Cleaning”… I can’t wait to see what develops!!
Lucky number three! BrainSell welcomes Source Business Systems to the family. This is the third Colorado acquisition in January for Boston-based BrainSell. Source Business Systems still stays in tact, but BrainSell will take over their Sage Accpac customer base.
“This acquisition will give us an opportunity to not only provide our clients with an even broader level of sales and support for ERP software products and services, but expands our ability to offer CRM and other business management software products and services,” said Jim Brummett, president of Source Business Systems.
Source customers will benefit from BrainSell’s slew of Accpac engineer and also other expertise and product offerings.
“Providing our customers with a greater depth of knowledge of ERP, CRM and marketing automation solutions is our main objective in this acquisition,” said BrainSell President and CEO, Jim Ward. “We are extremely enthused to work with Jim Brummett in Colorado Springs to add value to all of his clients as well as build on his experience within the business management software market. In addition, I’m focused on strategic geographic locations to service clients throughout the United States as we work toward continued growth providing business technology to the SMB market.”
BrainSell is please to announce their acquisition of The CRM Connection, the second Colorado acquisition that BrainSell has made this month. The CRM Connection (www.thecrmconnection.com) joins BrainSell with a plethora of CRM expertise, including ACT!, SalesLogix and SugarCRM. We’re super excited to welcome The CRM Connection into the BrainSell family!
“We are very excited to have joined the BrainSell Technologies team,” said The CRM Connection’s Managing Partner John Kaufman. “Our clients and alliance partners will all benefit from the additional resources and software solutions they provide.”
Current CRM Connection customers will continue to receive the same caliber of support from their existing contacts. However, customers will also benefit from BrainSell’s extensive team of Sage ACT!, Sage SalesLogix and SugarCRM engineers, as well as ERP and marketing experts if they choose to increase sales with cutting edge technology like Marketing Automation and integrated ERP.
“This is a win-win acquisition,” said BrainSell President and CEO, Jim Ward. “BrainSell brings onboard a top reseller of Sage ACT!. Heck, they ended 2011 as ACT!’s 11th largest selling reseller in the U.S. They also have SalesLogix expertise, which is a fantastic added resource to our top SalesLogix team. On top of that, The CRM Connection recently added SugarCRM into their portfolio, which brings perfect synergies to BrainSell’s portfolio and helps our rapidly growing SugarCRM practice keep up with demand. Put that together with our two acquisitions of ERP partners this past month in Colorado and we have a fantastic western region team.”
The CRM Connection is based out of Denver, Colorado, but they also have offices in Michigan and New York.
BrainSell is pleased to announce its acquisition of AccSoft Associates, a Denver-based Sage Software business partner focused on Accpac ERP sales, customizations and service.
This is the first of three Colorado acquisitions that BrainSell has made in the past month. BrainSell continues to grow from product diversification and strategic acquisitions, which BrainSell has made five of in the past three years.
“BrainSell has an acquisition strategy that’s providing geographic locations within the United States,” said BrainSell President and CEO Jim Ward. “What’s old is new! Where many companies have gone virtual, we’re working to provide local expertise across the U.S. We are extremely enthused to work with the AccSoft team as they bring immense experience and a strong skill set in Accpac ERP and will help us to grow the western region.”
Current AccSoft customers will continue to receive the same caliber of support from AccSoft proprietors Pat Smith and Andrea Appleby and the AccSoft technical team. Customers will also benefit from BrainSell’s extensive team of Accpac engineers, as well as CRM and marketing experts if they choose to increase sales with customer relationship management tools.
“The acquisition will give us an opportunity to provide our customers with an even greater level of sales and support for Sage products,” said Andrea Appleby of AccSoft. “By joining BrainSell, we’ll also be providing in-depth business solutions, like social business strategy and inbound marketing services. We’ll be able to go beyond providing accounting software and help our clients to impact sales and cost efficiencies.”
Follow us on Facebook
Join us on Linkedln