Brent's Social CRM Blog

Microsoft Study Shows Tech-Savvy SMBs Will Help Spur Economic Recovery

I've been digging into some great small business studies that have come out over the last several weeks. Network Solutions recently unveiled the small business study they did with the University of Maryland, and Intuit released the latest installment in their Future of Small Business study. Both of these studies are must reads if your serious about being in business for a while.

Another must read study comes from Microsoft with respect to the impact technology can have on the success of small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), and the impact technology-savvy SMBs can have on stimulating our economy. In fact SMB IT spend is growing at more than ten times the rate of worldwide IT spend, according to the report.

Most Demanded Productivity Tools (According to Microsoft Study)

I had a chance to speak with Ross Brown - Microsoft VP of Solution Partners & ISVs - about the report findings. Ross talks about the technology spending trends in the SMB community, the growing role of unified communications, and the increasing demand for mobile solutions and remote workers. Ross also touches on the growing interest in business intelligence and the ramifications it has on SMBs. And despite all the hype surrounding other areas of technology, he explains why the key technologies in 2009 are backup, IT consolidation and virtualization.

Key SMB Technologies in 2009

To hear the conversation with Ross click the player below, or download the mp3 file by clicking here.

Technorati : crm, microsoft, small business, unified communications
Del.icio.us : crm, microsoft, small business, unified communications

Network Solutions and the Small Business Success Index

I wrote my latest Amex OPEN Forum post last week. It focused on a few recent studies put out by Network Solutions and The Nielsen Company - I called it A Tale of Two Studies. I talk about how the Network Solutions study created the Small Business Success Index (see graphic below) which measures the health of the nation's small business sector, based on the sentiment of 1000 small business owners they surveyed. And these are real small businesses - 100 employees or less.

I recently had an opportunity to record a conversation for TFBS (Technology For Business Sake) with Network Solutions CEO Roy Dunbar to talk about the findings of the study, and their ramifications for small businesses in 2009 and beyond. The report is 30+ pages and is packed with so much information that I'm going to do more detailed review, which will include the findings of another SMB-focused study put out today by Microsoft. I received a briefing on that report by Eduardo Rosini, corporate vice president, Microsoft Worldwide Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners Group. I will also have Eduardo on TFBS to talk about the results of their study.

At a very high level, these reports show just how important the wise use of technology can positively impact small business. They also show that small business people are still a pretty positive group of folks, considering all that is going on right now. So check out my conversation with Roy by clicking the player below, or feel free to download the mp3 file,. And find out more about the study at http://www.growsmartbusiness.com.

Del.icio.us : crm, network solutions, small business
Technorati : crm, network solutions, small business

How Clint Eastwood, Rakim, Morris Day and Public Enemy Helped Me Land on Digg's Front Page

Who could've seen this coming - definitely not me. I was just trying to meet a deadline to get my monthly Inc. Technology column turned in the next morning. And quite honestly it sort of felt like I was mailing it in... well, you know what I mean. It was late at night and I was tired, so I really didn't think this was going to be all that great a read.

I guess I was wrong, because I found out that the article, Social Media - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Unexpected, ended up hitting Digg's front page garnering over 360 diggs. Now I've written a lot of stuff over the last five years, with certain articles causing a good number of folks to digg, stumble, mixx and bookmark. One of my posts was stumbled so hard that it literally moved me to the top of Google's search result for the term social crm. But nothing like this.

And this happened without my asking people to digg the article. I didn't use any "black hat" SEO tactics - mainly because I don't know any. And I didn't do extensive keyword or trend analysis to see what's hot. So why now... after five years? Why??? Especially since I was tired, pressed for time, and preoccupied with other stuff. Maybe the folks at Inc.com did something differently then they have over the past 12 months I've been writing for them. Could be, but all I can do is look at what I did - or didn't do - the night I wrote this particular article.

• I tweeted this, putting myself on notice:

I don't usually tweet random thoughts, but I was tired and knew I had to get this article done because I had other stuff to do the next morning. So I just had to put it out there, not for anyone else to see really, but for me to see. But with Twitter you usually get responses to what you put out there. And after telling a few folks that I will be up all night writing I got this reply from @prospertiygirl:

• I took @prosperitygirl's advice

This tweet got me to thinking about how I used to get amped up for big exams in college - by listening to certain songs right before taking a test. So I did just that and cranked up Eric B & Rakim's Follow the Leader and Public Enemy's Rebel Without a Pause. That's right, nothing like a little old school to get me ready for a long night. But there was one song that I pulled out when I really needed a big score - Morris Day's Color of Success:

• I gave myself a deadline

OK now that I was sufficiently pumped up, I knew that I only had a short amount of time to write something. So I gave myself a 2 hour deadline to get this done. This was good because it caused me to focus and not go fishing for stuff that was out of my area of focus. Fishing is ok if you've got time, but can get you in trouble if you don't.

• I stuck with what I knew and was interested in

One thing that helps is that I do a lot of reading on what's going on in CRM, social media, SaaS and other things I'm interested in. And luckily for me just as I was getting going a commercial for Clint Eastwood's new movie Grand Torino came on the tv. Clint Eastwood is one of my favorite actors, with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly being one of my favorite movies. And just like that I started thinking about some of my recent experiences with social media - some were very good, others were very bad, and then there was a very ugly episode that was still on my mind. So I decided to just pull from the things the make laugh, make me mad and make me interested, which made it easier for me to write under my deadline.

• I didn't try to do too much with it

Because I didn't have much time, I didn't have a chance to try to make the article all things to all people. It was written with a certain audience in mind - folks who were trying to get on board with social media. It wasn't written to make me out to be some sort of social media expert (because I'm not one - see Chris Brogan for that), just to help those interested in the subject pick up a few things.

• I got lucky

I think it might something to do with me writing it on January 15th (Martin Luther King Jr's birthday). And maybe it had something to do with it being published on January 20th (Inauguration Day). Or maybe it was a slow day on Digg's site.

Whatever the case, it happened and it was kind of cool. Now do I think the next time I write something under the same circumstances I'll be able to hit Digg again by doing the above? Nope. But it did make me take a look back at some things that actually may help me improve my writing some. And anything that improves the quality of the content I create can only be a good thing. Plus it also got me back to listening to Morris Day...which I'm listening to right now, by the way...after watching a little Clint.

Technorati : digg.com, inc.com, social media
Del.icio.us : digg.com, inc.com, social media

Entelluit, Intullium...Either Way Intuit Buying Entellium's Assets Makes Sense

The Entellium saga continues... and every time I think I'm out they pull me back in! OK I actually like being pulled back in by the folks at CRM magazine, which just put out an interesting article discussing the possibility of Intuit (among others) buying up Entellium's assets. And if this happens we all know the Entellium "brand" will go the way of the do-do bird - Rest In Pieces...

Anyways I was one of two folks interviewed by CRM Mag's Lauren McKay. The other person being my friend and SMB super analyst Laurie McCabe of AMI Partners (yup I got that right - Lauren McKay and Laurie McCabe). As I said in the piece, I think this could be a good thing if Intuit takes Entellium's interface and functionality and seamlessly tie it together with Quickbooks. Whatever else that went horribly wrong over there, Entellium's product, and its focus on small business, were pretty good. And this will fill the obvious chink in Inuit's armor that is CRM/contact management. So if this deal does come through, maybe this will bring a positive end to a very negative story, especially for Entellium's loyal customers and employees.

Check the article out to get the full scoop.

Technorati : , destinationcrm.com, entellium, intuit
Del.icio.us : , destinationcrm.com, entellium, intuit

Trading Places: Starring Entellium and Landslide Technologies (Not Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd)

As I sit here on chilling out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in the ATL - watching SEC football and working on my Social CRM whitepaper - I got thrown off track by a tweet from CRM magazine managing editor Josh Weinberger. It pointed to his blog post about serious problems going on with Entellium, an on-demand provider of CRM. In short, ceo and founder Paul Johnston just rolled out along with other key executives. And they just laid off their sales and marketing staff, according to this article in the Seattle Times. Apparently they ran out of money.

What's interesting is that Entellium is (or should i start using "was") well respected in the industry in terms of its products. In fact they were listed among the market leaders in CRM magazine's 2008 Market Awards in the sales force automation category. I was one of the industry watchers giving their take in this area. So I'll just quote myself from the article in terms of what I said about Entellium:

"Entellium is a very innovative company willing to do things differently, being more suitable to smaller sales forces".

CRM guru Denis Pombriant was also quoted in the article, offering up this prophetic statement:

"The impression I get from their marketing is that they are trying to be the low-cost leader in an already low-cost market".

And it does seem that that Entellium, who originally considered Salesforce.com (the winner in the sales force automation category) as their main competition, may have noticed the emergence of the small business segment and tried to focus their sights on that market. But, as Denis noted above, trying to be a leader in a low-cost market means competing against the likes of Zoho - not Salesforce.com. And while Entellium's pricing is favorable when compared to the bigger players in the space, Zoho lets the first three users in a company use their CRM service for free, with the additional users having only to pay $12/user/mo. And there are many other low cost providers out there that make it much more inexpensive to jump into CRM.

What's interesting about this is who CRM mag identified as this year's one to watch in this category - Landslide Technologies. I've had the pleasure of speaking with Landslide ceo Ravi Imam on a few occasions and I've been thoroughly impressed with him and his company's obsession with making the sales rep's life better. Rob Bois, research director for AMR Research, was quoted as saying, "Landslide is targeting one of the biggest problems with sales software - user adoption". I couldn't agree more. And they're doing this with a great mix of web 2.0 functionality alongside good old-fashioned customer service - like the VIP assistant service that allows sales reps to phone in updates that the assistant enters into into the system on their behalf.

So this year Entellium was viewed as a leader and Landslide was "one to watch". It's not a stretch to see a reversal of fortune here. Landslide looks like it will be a serious player in SFA which could potentially take the top spot some day. Entellium, on the other hand, looks like the one to watch.... for all the wrong reasons.

Ok back to football... I mean writing.

Technorati : crm, entellium, landslide, sales force automation
Del.icio.us : crm, entellium, landslide, sales force automation

CRM Magazine 2008 Market Awards - Small Business Suite Vendors

The fine folks at CRM magazine put out there annual CRM market awards issue this month. It's always a must read if you have even the slightest interest in what's going on in the industry. I was asked to share my opinions with respect to the vendors providing products to small businesses. I also threw my two cents into the sales force automation tools/vendors discussion.

Before I touch on that, I wanted to say a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Paul Greenberg, for being named one of CRM magazine's 2008 Influential Leaders. Anyone who knows anything about CRM knows how richly deserved this honor is. Not only did the folks at CRM mag get it right, they gave Paul a new nickname to go along with all the others (The Dean of CRM, The Godfather of CRM, The Walt Whitman of CRM, etc.). Now Paul will forever be known as The Herald of CRM - I like it - and I know Paul does as well. Congrats Paul!

I'd also like to say congratulations to Adventnet (parent company of Zoho) CEO Sridhar Vembu and Microsoft's Brad Wilson for joining Paul as 2008 Influential Leaders. I've had the pleasure of having both of these gentlemen on my show and they were both great:

• Sridhar Vembu on Technology For Business Sake - Social CRM, Zoho and Blogs.com
• Brad Wilson on Technology For Business Sake - Microsoft on Small Business and CRM Online

Small Business Suite CRM (Click here to see the CRM magazine article)

Vendors cited as leaders in the small business segment included Netsuite, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM and Zoho - but the winner in this category was Maximizer Software. Two things stand out right away for me. The fact that Zoho is listed here among the established names in the industry says a great deal about them. There are so many good crm providers, more well known than Zoho, that aren't on this list. But I believe Zoho and its laser-like focus on providing solid CRM products to the smallest of small business warrants them being on this list. And the way they are going they may end up leading the pack at some point.

Second thing that jumped out to me is Maximizer taking the top spot. I predict this will be the last year that a winner in the small business category will not be a SaaS offering. As I said in the article, Maximizer offers a ton of stuff for small businesses. But the lack of SaaS offering would have made it hard for me to make them the winner. I really believe SaaS has made it possible for even the smallest of companies to use CRM, and not to offer it in this form limits the number of companies who can benefit from Maximizer's great product. I look forward to Maximizer's on-demand offering when it becomes available.

The small business suite review also named a few "ones to watch", which included Sage Software's ACT! and Netbooks. These two do deserve watching. Additionally I throw in a few others to watch:

• InfusionSoft - These guys, despite their claims earlier this year that CRM is dead, have a great SaaS offering that combine traditional CRM functionality with deep marketing automation tools, ecommerce functionality, email marketing capabilities and affiliate tracking. And they do this at a price point that small businesses can actually afford.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - I don't know how you can't keep an eye on what Microsoft does here. But the strange thing is I'm not hearing as much about CRM Online as I expected to when it went live back in April. The price point is right, and the integration with Outlook is seamless. But again it's kind of weird that it didn't even make the list of ones to watch.

There are a few others, like 37 Signals' Highrise and BatchBlue' Batch Book among others I'm keeping an eye one as well. And everyday I get introduced to others to keep an eye on. So the market for small business CRM is in GREAT shape. Plenty of options for every size company. It makes me think my prediction at that 2008 was The Year small businesses embraced CRM was right on the money!

One prediction for next year - I believe next year Google will be represented on this list, meaning I think they will jump into CRM probably by acquiring somebody. But don't be excited, I predicted this two years ago and it still hasn't come through.

I'll share my take on the sales force automation tools a little later.

Technorati : act!, crm, infusionsoft, maximizer, sage, salesforce.com, small business, zoho
Del.icio.us : act!, crm, infusionsoft, maximizer, sage, salesforce.com, small business, zoho

Socrates, Galileo, Voltaire, The Three Stooges, and Other Giants in Social Media History

I can't believe I went a whole week without blogging here. But I did push out my latest post over at Inc.com on Twittering your way to better business relationships. And I did roll out a few TFBS shows featuring Generation Blend author Rob Salkowitz, StartupNation co-founder Rich Sloan and Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler. So is that enough excuses for you? Yeah I didn't think so...

Anyways it's another weekend, so we'll return the the crm stuff shortly - and this time I mean it! But in the meantime, being a huge history buff, I started thinking about folks in history whom I would have liked to have read their blog, listen to their podcast, or check out their YouTube video. When you think about it, how much easier would it have been if Paul Revere was on Twitter and could have just tweeted out "The British Are Coming!". How much faster would the news have gotten out than by him riding horseback? Better yet what if William Dawes, the other guy warning folks, had been on Twitter. He could have left the midnight ride to Paul and he could be the guy getting all the credit, instead of being relegated to historical obscurity. Well, at least he has Wikipedia keeping his name out there.

There are way to many folks who throughout history I would definitely subscribed to their feeds, but here are a few that represent the many:

• Khufu - The Egyptian Pharaoh supposedly responsible for building the Great Pyramid at Giza. Man some YouTube videos showing how they built that thing would be great, mainly so I don't have to hear about how aliens from outer-space came down on a weekend and did this. This goes for Stonehenge to now that I think about it.
• Queen Hapshetsut - the only female to rule Egypt as a male Pharaoh - 3,500 years ago! Rulers following her tried to wipe images of her existence out completely, but they couldn't do it. Could you imagine the blog posts she could put out there. Plus she could have included a picture of the Sphinx with the nose in tact so we could see what it looked like.
• Moses - Now I hear he wasn't that great a public speaker so we'll fore-go the podcast and videos, but he could have set up a Facebook page for the Ten Commandments
• Socrates - This is one guy you'd definitely need to podcast, since he didn't write anything. I'd go with a videocast as it would be cool to see him in action debating folks in a twebinar or something. I'd send in a "don't drink the hemlock" tweet though.
• Aristotle - Forget about all the books he wrote. Quite honestly I'm not so sure he wrote all that himself. What I'm interested in is the daily lessons with Alexander the Great. Now sign me up for those tweets - Went over World Domination 101 today with @AtheG. He really seemed to enjoy this a little too much... I wonder what @plato would have done with this kid.
• Apostle Paul - If ever someone could have taken advantage of social networking, Paul was the guy - that and air transportation. You know how many countries he visited? Man he definitely could used Facebook and MySpace to reach the masses.
• St. Augustine - After reading The Confession, you know his blog would have been a must read
• Machiavelli - Just imagine a podcast series from this guy.
• Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, Botticelli, etc. - One word, FlickR
• Nostradamus - Oh now you know there will be some great conversations going on in the comment section of his blog. And just imagine getting a tweet from this guy.
• Galileo - Yeah the telescope is cool, and using math and science to prove Copernicus was right is big, but this guy went up against a pope...for a while. what was that like? His tweets would not have been for all to see.
• Voltaire - This guy had a wicked sense of humor. Sign me up for the blog and the podcast.
• Mozart - He'd have an unbelievable playlist on imeem - just made up of his stuff
• Napoleon - Do I even have to say why? I didn't think so.
• David Walker - A name not familiar to most, but after reading The Appeal I'd love to actually hear this guy, along with Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Martin Delaney, etc.
• Orson Welles - I know he wrote, produced, directed and acted in movies, but I think we only got to see one of his movies the way he intended it to be - Citizen Kane. After that the movie execs would never let him do things completely his way. With the cheap technology and distribution channels available now I think he would have had a field day. Him and Oscar Micheaux.
• The Stooges - Hey I need to laugh, and everybody I know with a Y chromosome diggs the Stooges. Just think how cool it would have been if they had a Ustream channel where we could text-in ways Moe could mutilate Larry and Curly. And to actually get a text message response Shemp explaining what it felt like to get slapped by Moe. Man I'd pay to see them practice that stuff, and to see outtakes of the carnage they put on each other.

Just think of how history would have been shaped if these kinds of folks had access to what we have now. It kind of makes you think what people in the future are going to think of us?

Technorati : history, social media, what if
Del.icio.us : history, social media, what if

Ginger Conlon, Twitter and Social CRM - There's No Going Back Now!

A few weeks back I was happy to get a notification that Ginger Conlon he begun following me on Twitter. And if Ginger were following you on Twitter you'd be happy too! For one, she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, if you're fortunate enough meet her. And being the editor-in-chief of 1to1 Media, she's also one of the leading voices in CRM. Basically, when Ginger Conlon writes...people read.

Now, when Ginger Conlon tweets... people will read... all 140 characters. That's because she's entered the TwitterDome! She fought it for a while, but now she's all-in. In fact Ginger shared her new experiences with Twitter recently over at the 1to1 blog. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Ginger C. on Twitter is just another sign - make that a BIG sign - that CRM is definitely going Social. You know I'm liking this!

Speaking of Ginger, she was part of a great trio of CRM experts that joined us last year on Technology For Business Sake. So check out Ginger, CRM magazine's Marshall Lager, and AMR's Rob Bois from last year's state of CRM conversation. Hey guys...it's time to do it again. You game???

Technorati : 1to1, ginger conlon, social crm, twitter
Del.icio.us : 1to1, ginger conlon, social crm, twitter

Twitter - A Tragic Case of FRM: Follower Relationship Mis-management

I really wasn't planning on writing about Twitter right now, but that's what I get for making proclamations about what is and isn't social CRM. As many who have entered the TwitterDome already know, many of us lost a large portion of our followers on Twitter. At first I just thought people wised up and decided they had better things to do than to read my tweets. But it goes way beyond me losing half of my "followers" - side note: I hate the term followers. I get pictures of Jim Jones, David Koresh and other Svengali-like figures popping up in my head. I mean, do you know how long it took me before I felt comfortable about drinking kool-aid again?

Anyways, Twitter needs to make sure this kind of thing never happens again. They were already catching flack for the outages. Salesforce.com had outage problems but that didn't derail them.  But that will be nothing compared to data losses. People have spent a great deal of time and effort to tweet their way to having thousands of "followers". So to have upwards of half of them to disappear over night is unbelievably bad. With alternatives like Indenti.ca and FriendFeed coming on strong with more functionality, the main advantages Twitter has is millions of users and thousands of third party apps. If Twitter continues losing "followers", they might end up losing users. That's not what social CRM is about.

Technorati : frm, social crm, tragedy, twitter
Del.icio.us : frm, social crm, tragedy, twitter

Good Comments Can Lead to Great Conversations

This one is short and sweet. Sometimes what seems to be a small thing can turn into something pretty big. Unfortunately what seems to be a small thing can also turn into something that's overlooked.

A good comment can be as effective as a blog post, YouTube video, podcast, webinar, twebinar, or any other kind of content. That's right I said it - a comment is just as much a piece of web content as all the other kinds you can think of. So don't overlook the power of commenting. A good comment can lead to a good conversation, which could lead to some good collaborative experiences, which in turn can lead to some pretty cool relationships - business and/or otherwise.

This post was inspired by Zane Safrit. Zane posted the most flattering comment I've ever received on any of my blog posts. He left it on one of my guest posts on SmallBizTrends on committing audacious online acts. I hope Zane doesn't mind me lifting the quote for you to see it here:

An outstanding post. I share the sentiment of Sanjay, the first commenter. I read blogs all day long. And not many posts make me smile, bring a little bubble of happiness in me, are well-written, focused and…(drumroll) offer useful advice I can pursue today.

And, as a bonus, you wove in politics without being partisan, music without being elitist/obscure, and you touched on your own expertise w/o distracting from the greater message. Well-done.

And thanks!

Now how cool is that? With a few words, Zane made me feel great - absolutely awesome! And I've never spoken with Zane before in my life. But I hope to change that in the near future. See how a comment can lead to a conversation?

Anyways, short and sweet, just like I promised... just like a good comment.

Del.icio.us : blogging, commenting, content, social crm
Technorati : blogging, commenting, content, social crm