Brent's CRM Blog

For the MYBF Columbus Attendees

Thanks to all who caught me at the Moving Your Business Forward conference this morning in Columbus. As promised here are a few links to some articles, a few blog entries and some online demos that may be of interest to you. Thanks again!

• Microsoft Study on impact of technology on minority and women-owned businesses
• Atlanta Tribune - CRM: What is it?
• Atlanta Tribune - Is Silence Golden?
• The Network Journal - Managing Customer Relations
• The Network Journal - Community Relations: 21st Century tools
• GoDekalb.com - Using On-demand services to grow your small business
• GoDekalb.com - How Booker T Washington (and blogging) Helped Me Win Business
• CRM Magazine - The State of CRM in Minority Business
• CRM Magazine - The New CRM: Community Relationship Management
• Brent's Blog - Why RSS will be more important than email to small businesses
• Brent's Blog - What I found when I Googled myself
• Brent's Blog - GAAP for small business: Google-as-a-Platform
• Brent's Blog - Small Biz should dial "M" for CRM success
• Brent's Blog - Power to the Pod People
• BlackBerry webcast series for small business

Online Demos

• Using Microsoft CRM within Microsoft Outlook - www.crm2.org/Biztech/MicrosoftCRM.htm
• Integrating CRM with eCommerce with NetSuite CRM+ - www.crm2.org/Biztech/netsuite.htm
• Integrating CRM with your website using Salesforce.com - www.crm2.org/Biztech/WebLeadsLa b.htm
• Opportunities management using Oracle OnDemand - www.crm2.org/Biztech/opportunities.htm
• Accessing ACT! data from the BlackBerry - www.crm-essentials.com/handheld .htm
• Salesforce.com and the BlackBerry - www.crm-essentials.com/sfdc_scenario.htm

And here are the slides to the presentation:

Enjoy and thanks again!!!

Technorati : ACT!, crm, customer relationship management, digital divide, google, small business, smb
Del.icio.us : ACT!, crm, customer relationship management, digital divide, google, small business, smb

Moving Your Business Forward in 2007

Just want to send a note of thanks to all the folks who attended the technology session I participated in for the Moving Your Business Forward conference held last week at Atlanta Technical College. It was really cool that so many people attended the session that we had to turn some folks away. I was part of a great panel which included Yvonne Bryant Johnson of Bryant and Associates, Andrew Hebert of Cingular Wireless and Dexter Sealy, co-founder and CTO of CardScan. The panel was moderated by my good friend Theresa Spralling of Lucent Technologies. It was really cool to have such an interested, engaged audience full of small business owners really trying to figure out how they can begin using the tools and technologies available to help them compete. For those interested here are the slides from my presentation.

The Return of DJ Brenton C to the Airways

Back in the stone ages when dinosaurs roamed the earth and cavemen were still on their quest for fire (You remember the '80s, don't you?), I was starting my college career at the University of Delaware. At the time the school radio station was WXDR and they didn't have a show catering to it's growing black student population....we made up about 2%. Anyway I was apart of the first group of disc jockeys that made up the show we called After Hours which aired weekdays from Midnight - 3AM, which made it almost impossible to make those 8AM classes freshman have to take. Anyway all of us involved had to come up with DJ names for the show. Get a load of these gems:

• The Smooth Operator (This guy liked Sade so much he played that song every show he did for two years)
• Melo J (he thought Mellow J was corny, but Melo was OK I guess)
• Iced - T (not to be confused with Ice-T. At the time this caused quite the controversy across campus)
• Mike Magic
• DJ Chuckie C (he put a lot of thought into this. Guess what his first name is...)
• DJ Dave (he spent as much time thinking his name up as Chuckie C)
• DJ Brenton C (My full name is Brenton Craig Leary....need I say more?)

On my show I mixed and scratched all sorts of hip-hop (think Public Enemy, EPMD, BDP, Eric B & Rakim...) and house music (think Jackmaster Farley, Chip E., Ten City, Fast Eddie, Adeva...). I even went so far as to put my own rap production together, featuring me rapping, mixing and scratching over T La Rock's song Breakdown....which was fitting because that's what my rap career did right out of the gate. Needless to say I have not attempted that since then, and haven't been in a radio studio since graduating in 1989. But today at 3PM ET I am making my return to the airwaves, but don't worry, there's no need to hide the women and children. Dwight Hunter of Exodus to Financial Freedom, a new BusinessRadio1160.com talk radio station program, has invited me to come in and talk about the importance for small businesses to begin using technology to help drive businesses. We'll also be touching on topics like customer relationship management, whether there is still a digital divide, and the impact of technology on economic development. Those outside of the ATL who want to listen in, please feel free to check it out over the web at BusinessRadio1160.com. I'll have a link to the recorded program when it is available for those who have stuff to do.

Technorati : black business, digital divide, minority business, small business
Del.icio.us : black business, digital divide, minority business, small business

The SMB's Most Trusted Advisor: Their SEM/SEO Advisor

Canadian-based SMB segment advisory firm Warrilow puts out a weekly newsletter. Their latest included some really interesting information from a recent Marketing Sherpa study that found sole practitioners surveyed are allocating 58% of the marketing budget for search engine marketing, compared to larger enterprises who will spend only 7% of the marketing budget this way. Now of course many small businesses have marketing budgets that don't even hit four digits...and some don't hit three digits for that matter...so even a 7% allocation by larger companies will dwarf the total dollars spent by smaller shops. But it's the fact that small businesses are gravitating towards SEM that's important. Once again thank the Internet for leveling the playing field and making it possible for smaller businesses to reach wider audiences, as most SMBs can't afford to buy television air space or print ad space to reach the masses. With the growing dependence on the Internet to drive business, it looks like their will be an ever growing dependence on knowledgeable and trustworthy SEM/SEO advisors.

Technorati : crm, sem, seo, smb

Why RSS will Overtake Email In Importance To SMBs

Small business folks have an identity problem....they don't have one, at least not enough of one. The last stat I remember hearing says the average small business has about a 7% rate of brand awareness. So basically only seven out of every 100 potential customers who are looking for the services they supply has a clue of who they are. That ain't good. So in order to reach that other 93% SMBs have turned to email marketing. And why not? It's cheap, relatively easy to put together, real easy to execute and extremely easy to track its effectiveness. And therein lies the problem. It's so easy and cheap that everybody and their mother (i use this cliche but really have no idea of where it came from and why for that matter) sends it, filling up in-boxes to the point of insanity. And as you're looking at your in-box, you'll probably agree that most of it is unsolicited, junk or unsolicited junk. Studies show estimates that up to 75% of email is perceived by recipients as one of those three categories, leaving them overwhelmed and with a sense of helplessness. Present company included, as I delete at least 40 unsolicited emails daily. No doubt many of these are from small businesses trying to sell me something when I'm not ready to buy, or attend a workshop/seminar/webinar/networking mixer/fill-in-the-blank I'm not interested in attending. Why else would email response rates be so low?

Although it sounds like it, I haven't come to bury email. It's still serves as one of the best ways to interact with folks you have existing relationships with. And because it is so cheap and easy to execute, there will always be a place for it in attempts to build new business relationships. But the fact of the matter is you're message probably isn't hitting the target. At least not enough of it. That's why it's really important to understand how Really Simple Syndication (RSS) can help move beyond that 7% brand awareness number.

Instead of trying to put together a lengthy definition of RSS I would suggest checking out the definition at Wikipedia.. I think it's easier to understand it this way. I'm taking back control of my in-box as much as possible. I, like many other folks, am trying my best to cut down the current flow of stuff into my in-box. I'm opting out of everything except only the very few newsletters I really depend on. And luckily many of the sites I look to for information I can get delivered to me another way. I am always in Google, Yahoo! and MSN searching for stuff, so instead of using the basic homepages of these three, I've set up my own customized home pages - My Google, My Yahoo! and My MSN. With these special homepages I can subscribe to information from my favorite sources and have them configured as a part of my customized home page. This is perfect as I get to choose what information gets displayed. It's easy to add and remove without going through a lot of hassle. Services like TypePad and Blogger make it really easy to get into blogging.  And just like any other piece of content, I can have my latest blog entries as part of my homepage. Look at all the different ways my blog shows up in the different search engine homepages:

Microsoft has come out with a new free newsreader (codename MAX) that really makes my blog articles look nice when they are subscribed to as well as being able to subscribe to newsfeeds in the next version of Outlook - Outlook 2007:

So I only have to use my TypePad account to create a blog entry and because of RSS, it can automatically show up in all these different formats without any extra work. It can also be syndicated to web pages. I really only need to focus on the content of the blog because the technnology makes it so easy to use and maintain it. The search engines will make my content available for those searching for the kind of information I provide and allow them to easily consume it in the way the wish to receive it. So I'm not force-feeding it to people who really aren't interested in reading it just because I have their email address and I think they'll like it. I have over six thousand email addresses, of which I actually know less than a hundred of those people. I don't think they'd like to read my stuff, I'm HOPING they will, knowing darn well 97% probably won't give it a second thought because other things are more important to them at the moment the email is received. But with RSS, I can easily make my content available for all who is searching for it, which should increase that 7% at least somewhat higher. And that should help in the all important search for new prospects and customers.....maybe even more than the ever popular, and even more annoying, email message.

Technorati : crm, customer relationship management, microsoft max, my google, my msn, my yahoo!, rss, small business

What I Found When I Googled Myself

I'm back from an extended vacation from the blogosphere. Anyway I like to keep up with what the web has to say about me so I google my name every few days. It's a good practice to follow as you can best believe anytime you meet someone socially or professionally they are googling you to see if you're legit.  And believe me when I tell you that people have lost business by what was (or was not) found in search results.  As an aside, if you are a small business owner and your name and bio aren't listed on your corporate website, you're making a big mistake.  On most small business the second most popular page on the site is the "About Us" page.  Basically YOU ARE YOUR BUSINESS...and not having your experience somewhere on the site is bad.  Plus how does it look when you meet someone at a networking event and they do a search on your name and your own site doesn't even show up?  But I digress..... 

I wasn't surprised to see 1,200 links returned, but something else I found this time was really interesting. I knew Google was smart but this is getting ridiculous. Typically when I google "brent leary" I don't see any sponsored links at the top or on the right column. But check out the image below to see what I got back this time (click on the image to see the full image):

What gets me about this is that just from my name the featured sponsored link at the top is promoting the Destination CRM 2006 conference. Now I know the fine folks at CRM Magazine didn't bid on my name so they capture all the thousands of daily searchers who plug in "brent leary". Outside of my mother, I'm the only person doing that. I'm guessing that because there is quite a bit of links to CRM articles I've written, CRM speaking engagements, the CRM award I received with my partner Michael Thomas, from CRM magazine, etc., Google figured that it would be nice to folks bidding on CRM-related search terms and pop some sponsored links up for them. What really got me was the sponsored link on the right (circled in red) with the title of "Michael Thomas". That got first of all because Google recognized that many of the links with "brent leary" also tend to have "Michael Thomas" in there somewhere and thought it was a good bet for the folks bidding on "Michael Thomas" to show up here. I know Michael Thomas is a common name but no one wants to bid .10 cents on "Brent Leary"???

Anyway it just goes to show how sophisticated Google's search algorithms are and their ability to mine the mountainous piles of data they have at their disposal to deliver potential business to their AdWords customers. Or it all could be just a mistake, since I just re-googled myself and no sponsored links came up at all!

Research In Motion Webcast Series: CRM for Small Business

I mentioned a few posts ago that Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the addictive BlackBerry devices, hired CRM Essentials to develop a three part webcast focused on helping their customers and prospects get a better understanding of how CRM could positively impact their businesses, and also how mobility can positively impact the CRM initiatives. That series is now posted on the RIM resource website. I really believe mobility is key to CRM success and should be a "must have" instead of a "nice to have" at this point.

Business 2.0 Magazine Article: Re-stating the Obvious

Last week Business 2.0 magazine had an article about how software vendors are falling all over themselves trying to stake a claim in the small business segment. Not to toot my own horn (that much), but I and probably a million other folks were blogging about this a lot last year. The article does include some new stats from Forrester that reaffirms why the big boys are focusing on SMBs. Those companies with fewer than 1,000 employees are expected to spend $575 billion on software of all kinds this year, and this market is expected to grow 12 percent by the end of 2006. Large companies, by contrast, will only spend $500 billion on software - and the market is "flat" with 3 percent annual growth. More affirmation came earlier this year from NetSuite with their agreement to let CompUSA resell their on-demand CRM and ERP software aimed at SMBs. NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson is quoted in the article saying the smaller businesses are "the last great business application market." For more entertaining thoughts from Nelson check out what he had to say about Microsoft's entry into the on-demand space.

So has anything really changed since last year? Are vendors making significant inroads grabbing significant market share? I don't know but if I were to guess I would say not enough to brag about. It's extremely difficult for companies who are used to going after big dollar sales deals with larger enterprises to switch gears to the lower dollars-per-sales deals at the SMBs. Particularly when it probably means more work is involved per deal with less to make. I like what NetSuite has done, and companies with huge partner channels like Microsoft and Sage can leverage strong relationships certified partners have with smaller businesses to sell product (As a disclosure, Microsoft hired my company earlier this year to develop a series of webcasts aimed at helping their system builder partners understand the opportunity they have to cross-sell Microsoft CRM to their SBS2003 Server customers. Microsoft Partners can use this link to the OEM Partner site to check out the webcasts under the Getting Started section ). So it's probably too early to tell how successful vendor efforts have been.

Where can I get my $3,387.24?

I was doing a little research on linkbaiting thanks to a comment made by Mark Patsy on the Power to the Pod People post. I found Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities blog that had a cool entry which actually puts a dollar value on your blog. Dane bases his valuation formula on the link valuation research of Tristan Louis after AOL bought blog network Weblogs Inc. In short, each link to your blog is valued somewhere between $500 and $1000.

So according to Dane's valuation tool which uses the Technorati API, my blog is valued at $3,387.24. Now I was actually thinking more like $1.95 because I really haven't been linked to much at all as of yet, so I was pleasantly surprised. But take a look at the valuations of some of the most popular sites that I like:

• Engadget - $14,498,516.28
• Postsecret - $6,845,612.04
• ZD Net - $5,228,204.94

Now these are extremely popular sites, but take a look at a few other blogs I check out frequently that are not quite as well known but have loyal followings:

• Anil Dash's blog - $519,376.80
• Mashable - $464,051.88
• Forrester analyst Charlene Li's blog - $134,925.06

So after seeing these numbers I figured the CRM vendor blogs (those that actually have them) would have decent values associated to them. Here's what I found:

• Salesforce.com's CRM Success blog - $3,387.24
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team blog - $10,726.26
• Oracle Blogs - $0.00
• Entellium CEO Paul Johnston's blog - $0.00
• SAP Executive Blogs - $0.00

Yup...pretty surprising isn't it? My first thought was that my blog was as valuable as Salesforce.com's....cool for me, but not for SFDC. Now I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking for vendor blogs so this is probably not an exhaustive list for sure, but it shouldn't be that hard to find blogs for the biggest players in the space. Since linking is the main basis for the blog valuation tool, it goes without saying that the vendor blogs aren't getting much love so to speak. I guess some people might feel that corporate blogs may be more sales than information driven. To be sure you will see a lot of sales-like stuff there. But the Salesforce and Microsoft blogs do have good solid information about best practice for using their applications. But in general these blogs are just too hard to find. And the SAP executive blogs actually ask you to register before you can view them. When's the last time you had to register to view a blog?

It's time for CRM vendors to create more perceived value with their blogs, and for most of them to actually create blogs in the first place. It's pretty obvious that blogging is here to stay.

PayPal Gets Big Assist From Google

I was just checking out July's categorized top ten search list that was put together by Hitwise, one the leader's in online competitive intelligence. In the automotive manufacturing category the big three of Japan (Toyota, Honda and Nissan in that order) lead the way....but that was before the "Ask Dr. Z." campaign really took off. And yes I happen to like Dr. Z, especially the commercial where he does a header with the soccer ball. Six of the top ten medical/pharmaceutical category searches centered around anti-depressants (lexapro, cymbalta and zoloft among others). Some of the other leaders in that category center around appetite suppressants and that old favorite viagra. The top search term in the internet advertising category was "work from home", with a whopping 20% of internet ad searches....man do people hate life in cubicles and commuting. In the blog and personal web site category it was all about Xanga, of which I had never heard of before viewing this site. But it had the top three spots in this category - xanga, xanga.com and www.xanga.com.

As a guy who's getting more and more into SEM/SEO I find this stuff pretty interesting. But what really caught my attention was the IT/internet category. Paypal not only had the top spot with 4.35% of the total searches, it had four of the top ten searches - paypal, paypal.com, www.paypal.com and pay pal. So with Google owning 50% of the search market, there's a lot of folks getting to Paypal from the new evil empire. So maybe eBay didn't have to ban Google Checkout from their payment options after all. Well I guess only time will tell on that one. We'll see what Hitwise will have to say next month.