Brent's Social CRM Blog

Intuit's Customer Manager: Meat & Potatoes for Traditional Small Businesses

A few weeks back I had an opportunity to speak with CRM Magazine's Lauren McKay for an article she wrote on Intuit's latest incarnation of Customer Manager. I wasn't the biggest fan of Intuit's original entry into CRM/contact management back around the 2003 timeframe, but I was still glad they recognized the need for small businesses to have a better handle on customer information.

In 2009 many small businesses still use Quickbooks, Excel, Outlook, mobile devices, filing cabinets (and in some cases all of the above) to keep up with customer information. And this makes it difficult to have a full picture of what's going on with a customer, to share information about customers with other employees serving them, and to quickly respond to - as well as proactively predict - changes in customer needs.

I really believe 2010 is the year "meat and potato" small businesses will really dig into CRM. The time is right. They are ready. And they are in need. Which is why I was really interested to talk with John Flora - Intuit Product Manager focused on Customer Manager. John discusses how the four million Quickbooks customers impacted what went into CM, how it will work with Quickbooks, and why it was important to make CM a SaaS application instead of an installed software app. He also talks about why they made CM accessible via mobile devices as part of the subscription price of $9.95/mo for up to 5 users.

To hear the conversation (roughly 15 minutes) use the player below, or click here to download the mp3:

FYI - Paul Greenberg (now known as the Leo Tolstoy of CRM) devoted a chapter of the latest edition of CRM at the Speed of Light to small business. And you can download a pdf of the chapter for FREE - no registration required - with this link. Paul was gracious enough to allow me to add my two cents in the chapter.

Technorati : customer manager, intuit, small business
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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
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50,000 More Reasons Why Intuit Gets The Hopes and Dreams of the Little Guy

My buddies over at Intuit, particularly the JumpUp.com team, are in the midst of helping one lucky entrepreneur realize their dream by providing them $50,000 in products and service to turn that dream into a real business. The reason I'm reiterating that Intuit "gets" small business has less to do about the cash than and more about the great example they're setting for small businesses with their use of social media to drive the contest.

The JumpUp team, with the help of a great set of expert judges - Anita Campbell, Ramon Ray and John Jantsch - chose 5 finalists from over 1,500 submissions to compete for the prize. Each finalist has a page with their essay discussing their entrepreneurial dream, a home made video, a short conversation with me, and a few other tidbits that help the JumpUp community members get to know each of them. And this is important because the community will decide who the eventual winner will be.

In fact the community is encouraged to be a major part of this whole thing. First off the votes are flying in faster than the JumpUp team had imagined. Lively conversations are sparking up all over by the comments being left on the individual finalist's pages. Not only are they commenting, but they are stumping for their favorite "candidate" by enlisting their colleagues to vote for their favorite. Intuit has made it easy for people to add badges to blogs and websites inviting people to vote for "my candidate". So if you have a Blogger or TypePad account, you can help you're candidate get votes with a couple of clicks. And if you have a big Facebook network, you can put it to work for your favorite with the same ease.

Through this contest that will eventually allow one contestant the ability to "just get started" with $50K, the other finalists have gained so much exposure it can't help but raise their profiles and possibly increase their chances to realize their dreams as well. And the community in general wins as they should begin to see the power of how social media can be used to create excitement for ideas that can reach a wide audience, in a very short amount of time. And this all can be done without breaking the bank.

And this is why Intuit really gets it. This contest will help way more than the lucky individual who wins the cash. It helps anyone who is looking to understand how the power of Web 2.0 tools and strategies can help them compete, thrive and survive. Way to go Intuit! This is just the kind of role model needed to help "Jump Start" the small business community into embracing social media.

One last thing. There are a few folks commenting on the choice of business ideas represented by the group of finalists. Some folks don't seem to be thrilled by what they perceive to be the lack of exciting, complex, or innovative ideas. All I can say to that is the lion share of all small businesses operating today are what most would consider to be "boring", "traditional" businesses. These are the same businesses people have used to create the majority of the new jobs our economy is fueled by. They also allow regular people to buy houses, raise families and be positive role models to others looking to have their own business.

So I applaud Intuit and their panel of judges for standing up for "the entrepreneur next door"! Now go check out all the finalists...and VOTE!

Technorati : entrepreneurship, intuit, jumpup.com, just start

Barnes & Ignoble - Another Tragic Case of Customer Relationship Mis-management

'Tis the season.....yadda yadda yadda..... Ok well it's time to break out the wallet more than I do any time of the year. But I can't stand shopping. That's why the people on my gift list get cash or gift certificates....of the online variety. In fact the only stores I really like going to are bookstores, and typically that means Borders and/or Barnes and Noble. And Christmas time I may go a little more than usual.

So I guess you can gather from the above paragraph that I like to read. A number of people must know that because on my recent trip to Silicon Valley doing some meet and greets with companies like (in alphabetical order):

• Adobe (nice location in downtown San Jose)
• Cisco (awesome media production studios)
• Intel (nice museum by the way)
• Intuit (great campus)
• PB Wiki (conveniently located minutes from the SF airport)
• Six Apart (the perfect location two blocks from the last stop on the Caltrain in SF)

I was given two interesting books to read. Diane Davidson, Webex Community Leader, gave me a copy of Why Buy the Cow by Webex co-founder Subrah Iyar. And when I stopped by Intuit Scott Wilder, GM of their small business online communities, gave me a copy of his new book Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today's Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders. And yes once I read these books I'll be writing my take on them. But if that isn't enough a new bud of mine at Microsoft, Jeremy Epstein, sent me the classic Elements of Style by E.B. White. So yes, the word is out.... I like books. But I digress....boy did I digress...

So anyway let me get to the reason for the post - the tale from the dark side that is Barnes and Ignoble. So I went to B&I over the holiday weekend and looked around, and ended up picking up a Newsweek magazine. I go to the counter an plunk down my money. The cashier asks me if I had a B&N membership, and I replied the same way I have for the last two years..."Have you guys made membership free like Borders has?" And of course she said no, so I was willing to leave it at that. But the cashier had a bit of a 'tude (probably because she gets that question a lot) and tacked on "well ours is better than theirs anyway". And because I didn't feel like a return to high school and getting into a ridiculous debate, I just paid for the magazine and left.

I buy the occasional item at B&I because they sometimes have a discounted item I can't get from Borders. But I am loyal to Borders because I can be a member of their program for free, which entitles me to more discount offers than I can take advantage of. And I went there today because they just sent me a coupon for 40% off any book of my choice. And chances are I'll be getting more of those offers in the weeks to come...which makes the Borders program a lot better to me than B&I. Because I like not having to pay a fee AND give up my personal information, in order to receive some decent discount offers. But I guess my opinion doesn't count. I'm just the customer. But maybe someone should tell B&I what Sam Walton used to say about customers - The customer has all the answers....because they have all the money. They'd be wise to listen to Sam, he did know a thing or two about business.

Technorati : barnes and noble, borders, crm
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Me, Myself and My Avatar

I am honored to be included in a national promotion the folks at Intuit have going on to get the word out about their social networking site for entrepreneurs called JumpUp.com. If you get a chance I would definitely check out the site.

Intuit is serious about helping entrepreneurs, and to prove it they're running a contest that will give one lucky would-be entrepreneur $50,000 in cash and services ($40K in cash!) to put their entrepreneurial dream in play. To learn more about it and how to enter the contest just go to www.IWillJustStart.com.

As part of the promotion they are going to cities like Boston, Chicago, NY, Seattle and a few others (but not the ATL unfortunately) to meet and greet those looking to "Just Start". If you do get a chance to attend any of these events you may see me and my avatar there. For those of you not able to make it, check this out:

A big thanks goes out to Kira Wampler over at JumpUp! And thanks to the folks at Oddcast, the makers of SitePal, for making my avatar. I get a lot of good comments about it.

Technorati : avatars, intuit, jumpup.com, sitepal