PR Friend Press Releases

Fast, effective response to your customers’ needs is crucial in today’s highly competitive and information based economy. Millions of small and medium sized businesses still rely on very basic customer information solutions for this mission critical function.

This is the fourth and final installment in a series of 4 articles each one focusing on a key reason that basic contact management systems like ACT! and Outlook are keeping your business from reaching the heights of success you’re striving for. To see the complete compilation of 4 reasons ACT! and Outlook are holding your business back and what to do about, visit http://www.salesnexus.com/resources.php

Reason #4 that ACT! or Outlook or whatever technology you’ve tried are not working for you:

There’s virtually no support. So now we’re past whether the system is up and running properly. We’re talking about whether each individual can figure out how to do what they need to do, day in and day out? Who’s going to answer those questions every day? Is there a guru on your staff that can respond immediately to questions from your sales team about how to do this and that in your contact management system? If not, calling ACT! or Microsoft to find out is not something you want your sales team sitting through. So things stall. Business has to go on and the users go back to doing it the old fashioned way.

You need someone that’s in tune with your business, that knows how you work and responds on your time, not their own.

Tip #7 – you’re going to need someone to be your “go to guy”. This could be your in house administrative or IT person. You need to make sure they make a priority of responding to problems and questions from the rest of your staff. Whether it’s a staff member, your contract IT person or a vendor, take the time to bring them up to speed on what workflows are crucial for your people all day every day.

Remember, this does not need to be expensive or extremely time consuming. The toughest thing to do is to decide exactly what your people should do to capture, document and share vital information day in and day out.

If figuring that out is where you’re stuck, I recommend trying to do it with the resources you have at hand. There will be some trial and error. Best to work through that without spending a bunch of money.

Once you understand the steps involved in each employee’s key workflows, you may find that you can make your current technology work. If not, you’ll know exactly what capabilities you need to shop for.

That transition doesn’t have to be painful. Don’t look for the technology to create the process for you. You need to decide what processes will make you most competitive. Then find technology that automates them.

Getting your staff members on board and motivated to share information is the key. Be sure to check out my blog,  Sell, Sell, Sell! for plenty of tips and advice on getting the people part of contact management right.

How to Make the Competition Look Like Chumps Without Spending a Mint  – by Craig Klein

Fast, effective response to your customers’ needs is crucial in today’s highly competitive and information based economy. Millions of small and medium sized businesses still rely on very basic customer information solutions for this mission critical function.

This is the third installment in a series of 4 articles each one focusing on a key reason that basic contact management systems like ACT! and Outlook are keeping your business from reaching the heights of success you’re striving for. In subsequent releases, we’ll focus on 1 additional reason ACT! and Outlook are holding you back and provide simple and effective tips for breaking these barriers.

Reason #3 that ACT! or Outlook or whatever technology you’ve tried are not working for you:

It’s not instantly available to the right people at the right times in the right places.

Now you’re seeing huge price tags right? Well, your experience thus far with Outlook or ACT! has been almost worst case scenario. You’ve paid for contact management software and you’ve spend hours installing it and connecting things to servers and maybe even set up synchronization between users. If you’re trying to run a business at the same time, you’re just plain out of time. Making all this stuff work right is not easy.  Maybe you’ve got a top notch IT guy to handle it all but, he’s not cheap.

And then, after all the expense of getting it all set up, you turn it over to your sales team. This should not be a secret: Your sales reps are going to be all thumbs when it comes to adopting new technology. They are not sales reps because they love to sit and figure out software.

Tip #6 – It has to be “brain dead simple” to use the system and it has to work reliably. If the people get a little lazy and just don’t feel like putting the information in the contact management system sometimes, you are guaranteed to hear these excuses when you call them on it:

•  The system was down.
•  The sync didn’t work.
•  I tried but it crashed.
•  It was way too slow.
And so on…

Its technology and its new to your business so, there are going to be glitches. Whatever you choose as your technology mix, you’d better be able to keep it running so its up when your sales reps need it. If they have trouble getting it to work when they need it, you are turning a touch challenge into a expedition over Everest.

The bottom line is you need someone who can put keeping it working front and center all the time. If you’re going to use ACT! or Outlook or any other internally managed solution, you need someone on your staff that has the IT skills and the people skills to manage all this as a priority everyday.

Now, in today’s world, the system really has to be web based unless you’ve got some major league IT infrastructure already.  People work at the office, at home and on the road.  They need access to your contact management system in real time, from all these places.  So, if you want to run it internally, you’ve just ratcheted up the IT management costs another notch.

Take a look at this article written by a Charles Volz, an ACT! Certified Consultant, about the different options for getting ACT! available online.

To know more about SalesNexus online CRM, click here – http://www.salesnexus.com/

HOUSTON – Top Sales Experts founder and chairman, Jonathan Farrington interviewed SalesNexus founder, Craig Klein, for the premier edition of “Sales Hard Talk”.

Farrington and Klein discuss SalesNexus’ ground breaking “$2,500 Challenge” in which SalesNexus guarantees success with its online CRM within 90 days. (listen to the interview here).

“Small businesses have been burned by promises by software companies before.  At SalesNexus we’re committed to our customers’ success and our $2,500 Challenge backs that commitment up with hard cash.”, said Craig Klein, SalesNexus’ CEO.  “Online CRM and Contact Management software can propel a small business’ growth but, you need a partner that’s going to help you get it right.  We’re honored that Top Sales Experts and Jonathan Farrington included us in their exciting Sales Hard Talk series.”

SalesNexus has published the interview on its website for free listening by interested small businesses.  The interview is accompanied by details of the $2,500 Challenge and the SalesNexus online CRM solution.

Link to the interview here – http://www.salesnexus.com/sn2009micro/tse-interview.php