Brent's CRM Blog

If it's Thursday It Must Be Charlotte

I'm still alive and kicking. I've just been on the road the last couple of weeks. And this week was the first time I've flown on three consecutive days. And each flight was actually ahead of schedule! I can't make this stuff up.

Anyways I left Sage Insights early (missing out on hearing Lou Holtz and Frank Caliendo) to make it down to Black Enterprise's Entrepreneurs Conference in Charlotte, NC.

I have been light on the posts lately but that will be changing once I get back... LOTS of stuff to get to! In the meantime please feel free to check out a few articles I wrote for other sites:

SmallBizTrends.com - Social CRM: Not Your Father's Customer Relationship Management

Inc.com - Assembling the Perfect Content-Creating PC

Technorati : small business, social crm
Del.icio.us : small business, social crm

AT&T Teaching Small Business Selling

I'm back from my West Coast tour. Well I've been back for a while, but being out for a week really sets you back when it comes to email. Anyways, on with the show...

I am impressed with something AT&T is doing. The first impressive thing they're doing is sending a group college hires through a specific kind of sales training aimed specifically at serving the small business space. It's a five month long program that's part of the AT&T College Hire Sales Center. Another impressive thing is who AT&T put in charge of this effort - my friend Theresa Spralling. Theresa is a veteran of the telecom industry and brings so much experience and passion to this effort it can't help but be successful. And as impressive as Theresa is, the most impressive part of all of this are the new hires. I know this because I participated in one of the program events to talk to the group about what's important to small business people when they're buying technology. There were also two AT&T sales executives sharing their experiences "carrying the bag". And the new hires were attentive, curious, inquisitive and very interested in understanding how they can provide value to their future prospects.

Teaching new hires how to understand and value the challenges facing small business is a very smart move. Traditional sales training "ain't gonna" cut it when you're looking to sell to us little guys. And treating us all the same "ain't gonna" cut it either. So it's good to see AT&T teaching these folks right from the start about what small businesses need. And as a customer (because of my iPhone), I'm hopeful that this will make a positive difference.

Technorati : at&t, small business, technology
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5 CRM Pitfalls to Avoid - The Webinar

While I'm out west visiting a few of my favorite companies and people, I'll take about an hour or so tomorrow (Wednesday April 30th) to participate in a webinar for the great folks at InsideCRM. It's part of a series sponsored by Microsoft CRM Online. I'll be going over 5 CRM Pitfalls you'll want to avoid when you jump into implementing customer relationship management.

The webinar starts at 1pm ET/ 10am PT . Click on the image below to check it out:

I'll have more on my trip later.

Technorati : crm, inside crm, webinar
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CRM Playaz Preview - CRM Is Not Dead

Last week was something else in the CRM world. Salesforce for Google Apps, the interesting response from Zoho as the announced their new Zoho CRM Enterprise product (will have something on that later) and Microsoft coming out with CRM Online. I know the official announcement hit today but I found out about it last week. One of the other announcements that may have been overlooked by the masses was Infusion Software name change to InfusionSoft. And along with the name change, InfusionSoft now is positioning themselves as an eMarketing tools provider. And they also came out with a new marketing slogan.... CRM is Dead.

I like the products InfusionSoft put out. I liked the products when the company was still called Infusion Software. I like the people even more than the products they create. And I really like their passion for small business that was on display when I had the opportunity to speak at the Infusion user conference last month. But I have to say that the whole CRM is Dead thing sort of sounds like a ripoff of Salesforce.com's Software is Dead campaign.

We all know that CRM has not been as successful as it should be. But it's been getting closer because the products are easier to use, more accessible, more affordable and faster to get up and running with. But the biggest reason why CRM is doing better is that people finally see that it's not about technology. It's always been about people (customers, employees, partners, mgmt, etc.), but technology was the most obvious scapegoat. And as CRM seeps more and more into the business culture of companies, and the technology moves into its proper place (the background), CRM will grow in acceptance and success.

Now I'll be the first to say the term CRM is dated and comes with a checkered past. But it's a term that entered rehab and has made it back from the brink. And people seem to understand the basics of CRM - finding, catching and keeping good customers. Marketing, whether there's an "e" on the front or not, is definitely a huge part of the CRM equation. And, truth be told, marketing automation has typically been the weak link in CRM suites, particularly at the small business product levels. So I applaud InfusionSoft for creating a compelling suite of tools that include a robust marketing automation component. Along with other components like affiliate tracking and ecommerce capabilities, InfusionSoft has made good contributions to helping CRM live on. That's why it's a bit confusing to hear them pronounce it's dead.

My buddy Paul Greenberg had an even stronger take on this which you can read on his blog. InfusionSoft's CEO Clate Mask has a good response in the comments section you should check out as well. And as we get closer to breaking out The CRM Playaz show, here's a clip of Paul and I discussing InfusionSoft's move on my show:

Technorati : crm, crm playaz, emarketing, infusionsoft, paul greenberg, small business
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Checking Out BLOG IT from Six Apart

Don't mind me, but I am trying out this new Facebook application from the folks at Six Apart called BLOG IT. So this blog post is actually being written from within Facebook, but will be published on my blog. Additionally, it should update both Facebook status, as well as create a tweet on my Twitter account to let people know I'm blogging from within Facebook.

I think you can update as many as twelve of your accounts from other social sites by using BLOG IT. This is pretty interesting. I see this as pretty nice for doing short posts that you want to get out quickly to a number of your social outlets, especially if you have multiple blogs you want to update with the same post. And the blogs can be on non-Six Apart platforms, like Blogger, WordPress and others.

It's not a full blown editor, so if there are any speliing errors here it couldn't be helped... no spell checker. So for important posts you'll probably have to stick with what you've got. But this is pretty cool stuff all in all. A nice way to shoot out some short posts to several outlets.

Tales in Blogger Relationship Management - GoogleForce is in Full Effect

Kingsley Joseph over at Salesforce.com sent out an email this morning with links to a special blogger's page with information on the new Salesforce for Google Apps product that integrates features of Google Apps with features of SFDC. Now anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I've been predicting GoogleForce for since late 2006, and then again when I was interviewed for CRM magazine at the end of last year. So I'm not going to dwell on the obvious - on how I think this combination makes entirely too much sense. I am planning to do check out the integrations this week, but in the mean time you may want to check out the following video that comes from the blogger's resource page:

I'll do a post on what I actually think of the integration lather this week. But this is another great lesson in BRM (Blogger Relationship Management). Here are a few of the key points:

• Setting up the special blogger's page with links to important information
• Emailing us with the heads up of the announcement
• including the movies in there
• offering to answer any questions we may have
• suggesting tags if we were to blog about the news
• recommendations for twittering and live blogging the webcast taking place this this afternoon

Coming off the heals of the second blogger call by Oracle last week, this is another sign that CRM vendors understand the value of communicating to the bloggers there customers and prospects check out.

Speaking of Oracle, maybe the rumor that they may buy Salesforce is just that, and that I may still have a shot at being right about GoogleForce.

Technorati : crm, google, productivity tools, salesforce
Del.icio.us : crm, google, productivity tools, salesforce

Who Should Be The Country's First Blog Czar?

Tim Berry, founder of business plan software company Palo Alto Software and avid blogger, posted an interesting article over at SmallBizTrends.com questioning if powerblogging could really kill us. I added my 2 cents with the following comment:

Brent Leary Says:
April 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Cool post Tim. I'd hate to think we're all putting our lives at risk doing this. I think we need to get the AMA to do a study on the health risks associated with the affects of powerblogging. Maybe have congress hold congressional hearings and call some of the leading bloggers to testify. I might even suggest the next president create a new cabinet post - The Blog Czar or possibly the Blogger General - to look out for us.

Who would make a good Blog Czar? Up for the job Tim?

Anita Campbell seems to like the term Blog Czar, while Tim favored the term Blogger General. I think Tim may be a fan of C. Everett Koop or something.....just kidding Tim. Having made both names up I like them both, so if a cabinet level position were to be added to represent the interest of us bloggers, what should that person be called? Better yet, who should it be??? Who knows, if the first CRM president is elected in November this cabinet position may just actually get created.

I figure this person has to understand blogging and bloggers, be able to stand up for our rights in the face of potential congressional hearings, and have to look decent in a uniform... that is if we go with the term Blogger General. That's asking for a whole lot. I need help on this one.

Anyways thanks Tim for coming up with this one. Tim also had some interesting things to say about blogging when he was on Technology For Business Sake a few months back. Check it out below:

Technorati : anita campbell, blogger relationship management, blogging, tim berry
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Barack and the Audacity of CRM

You gotta love Google alerts. I'm assuming most of you have them set up on your name, company name and keywords you're interested in. How else would I have known that I would be included in an article about how Barack Obama could make the history books if he becomes our next president. And no, not because he's black, but because he could become the nation's first CRM president according to CRM Buyer's Ericka Morphy. We've all heard about how well run his campaign is, and that may have something to do with how his organization is using RightNow Technology's applications to reach out and engage people. Check this article out if you get a chance.

Where do I fit in to all this? Ericka included a blurb from my blog entry on The CRM Playaz at the bottom of the Obama piece. Hmmm, maybe the first CRM president would make a good guest for the show. Then again, given the still-tarnished image CRM has with some businesses he may not want to run on that platform.

Technorati : barack obama, crm, crm playaz, rightnow technoogies
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Introverted Socialism

For someone as introverted as I am by nature, it's cool to be able to use social tools to really connect with people in ways I know I wouldn't have done using the more conventional methods. I guess that was on my mind when I wrote my regular online columns for Inc.com and BlackEnteprise.com:

• Inc.com - Social Media For Business Sake

• BlackEnterprise.com - Four Social Acts Business People Need to Commit

I've "met" some incredible people over the past few years because of these tools, and my life (personal as well as professional) has been truly enriched for it. Sometimes it's good to take a step back and see just how much of an impact this stuff really does have on us. But then again, this all begins and ends with people - the technology just gives us the ability to really understand each other if we choose to do so.

OK, I just got through watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, which always puts me in a weird mood...

Technorati : blackenterprise.com, inc.com, small business, social media
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BusinessWeek Got Me On this One

If you saw the picture below with the caption Reluctant Revolutionary, who would you guess it was?

If you said Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, you would have been wrong like me. It's fed chief Ben Bernanke. So I've got to give it up to B-Week on that one as they totally pulled that one off.

Technorati : BusinessWeek, ben bernanke, lenin, recession, revolution
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