Brent's CRM Blog

Talking SaaS wth Tien Tzuo

For an upcoming show on Technology For Business Sake, I recently had an interesting conversation with Tien Tzuo, ceo of Zuora - an on-demand billing and subscription service. I'm checking out the service and will do a post on my thoughts shortly. In the meantime you may want to check out what the folks at Techcrunch had to say about Zuora.

Before heading to Zuora at the end of last year, Tien was Salesforce.com's chief strategy officer. Having spent nine years at Salesforce.com, and now heading up another SaaS company, Tien definitely knows the SaaS industry and what it takes to be successful with the business model. If you're looking to build a successful SaaS business check out a few good minutes with Tien explaining what you'll need to put in place:

I'll post the link to the full conversation when it's up. You'll want to hear what Marc Benioff had to say to Tien about his moving to Zuora.

Technorati : saas, salesforce.com, tien tzuo, webex, zuora
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Four Good Minutes with David Meerman Scott

I'm working on a new site called FourGoodMinutes.com. I'm basically going through all the cool conversations I've had over the past 19 months on my show and taking four (or five) minute slices I think may be of interest to small business folks out there. Until I get that site set up I'll be throwing some of these "good minutes" up here.

I recently had a really interesting conversation with David Meerman Scott, author of the best selling New Rules of Marketing and PR. If you haven't read it you should at least check out the free e-book he put out. I've been asked a number of times lately about the effectiveness of creating e-books as a marketing tool. If you're curious about this, listen to how David's free e-book led to him getting signed with a literary agent in 20 minutes, a book deal with Wiley Publishing and a very successful speaking business. You'll definitely want to find out how why he had one million reasons to give away the New Rules of PR e-book:

David drops a whole lot more knowledge in the full conversation. You can check it out over at the show site by clicking here.

Technorati : david meerman scott, marketing, pr, web 2.0
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Don't Sleep on Zoho

Don't sleep... a term I don't think I've used since the 80s, but it did seem to fit. If you're not already familiar with Zoho than please do yourself a favor and get familiar with them. And while I tell y'all (yes I'm in the south) not too sleep on these guys, I have done just that for way too long. Thanks to Zolis Erdos of the Enterprise Irregulars and his great post for motivating me to finally do this.

In some people's eyes (not mine), Zoho is considered to be a poor man's Google, with respect to all the free (or close to free) apps they have created over the last few years. Which is why I've been meaning to post on what these guys are doing for small businesses for a long time, especially after I had an opportunity to talk with their Evangelist Raju Vegesna last month for my show to discuss their new enterprise edition of the CRM service. Then I meant to post on hearing about the new functionality in Zoho Sheets that allows you to run Excel-like functions such as macros and pivot tables. And then they made it easy for users of Google and Yahoo! services to use their ids to try Zoho apps.

Now the single sign-on thing may not seem like much, but it shows you just how much Zoho GETS small business and our needs for simplicity. Zoho already has a dizzying array of quality apps aimed squarely at SMBs. Many of these services are free of charge (Writer, Notebook, Sheets, etc.) with others at a very affordable rate for even the smallest of businesses. And they keep churning these apps out - in fact by the time I'm done with this post they'll probably have another app out the door. This alone makes Zoho important in the small businerss world. But what I like is that they are willing to find ways to make their services work the way we need them to, and not try and force us to fit their needs. That's why the single sign-on piece is helpful, and smart. We all have Google and Yahoo! accounts, so why not allow us to use these logins instead of making us add yet another username and password that we'll have to keep track of. Zoho gets that we don't live in a vacuum, and that there are other companies that are providing good services that we may just want to continue using. They don't seem bent on ruling the world, but on making the world a better place for small business types.

I applaud Zoho for their approach to small business. They put out products that real small businesses can use. They make them work the way we need them to. They make them work with products from other companies we depend on. They may not have every bell and whistle others have, but they cover the basics. And they do it in a way that makes easy for even the smallest companies to jump into. Plus they're on the lookout to provide more stuff for us all the time.

Check out the conversation (approx. 15 minutes) I recently had with Raju on the impact of Microsoft CRM Online on small business adoption of CRM, what Zoho CRM Enterprise has to offer, and how Zoho's business culture differs from Salesforce.com.

Technorati : google, microsoft, small business, zoho
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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
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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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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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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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Infusion's Guarantee to Double Your Sales in 90 Days

Now that I have grieved sufficiently over my tragic pick of Georgetown to win this year's Final Four, I can get back to business. Wait a minute....Tito, pass the tissue....Jermaine stop teasing. Ok, I'm ready.

The folks over at Infusion Software have a pretty interesting contest going on. It's based on the ebook recently authored by there ceo Clate Mask - a good guy with one of the cooler names in the industry. The title of the free ebook is The EDGE of SUCCESS: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales. It's a book about how Infusion faced the problems, issues and challenges on their way to growing the company. And I suspect the challenges they encountered are very similar to issues faced by many people as they try to get off the ground and build successful, profitable businesses. Clate keeps it plain and simple, which makes it easy to read and understand the principles Infusion developed for growing their business. This is one you'll want to check out as it gets right to the heart of what you can do to increase your chances of small business success in the Internet era.

Even if you don't read the ebook, you should check out the contest, because Infusion is going to supply one lucky company with the chance to double their sales in 90 days. They will provide the winner with the use of their CRM/eMarketing solution for a full year. This is a good deal as the Infusion application is a powerful solution for small businesses. But what really makes this attractive is the assistance Infusion is pledging. The winner will receive support and have access to Infusion's entire marketing team during that time. Now that's incredibly important. I know there are still a lot of people who think CRM is all about software, but it's about people, and people need guidance and assistance when going down the CRM path. Think about it, would anyone in their right minds hand over the keys to a Porsche 911 to a kid who just got his (or her) driver's permit? The Porsche is a fabulous car, but in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to drive, the only thing it will do is accelerate (and elevate) the inevitable disaster. So the value of the reward is greatly enhanced with the assistance that goes along with the application.

To learn more about the contest go to http://www.theedgeofsuccess.com/index.php. All the guidelines are there and you have until April 4th to submit your information. As for the claim that Infusion can double your sales in 90 days, I'll leave that up to the winner to tell us. But I'll be interested to find out.

Technorati : crm, emarketing, infusion software, marketing automation
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Infusiastic About Small Business

It's been a few days since the last post, but I have a good reason....ok an excuse. I spent most of the past week in Scottsdale, Az attending Infusion Software's third annual user conference. I was there in dual roles you could say, because in addition to checking the scene out from a pseudo-analyst perspective, I was also one of the guest speakers for the event. And I was in awesome company with the following powerhouses "grabbing the mic" to dispense some serious knowledge, passion and fun:

• Michael Gerber - Author of the E-Myth book series and founder of the Dreaming Room
• Pat Sullivan - Creator of ACT! and SalesLogix, and founder of Jigsaw Health
• John Jantsch - Author and creator of Duct Tape Marketing
• Ramon Ray - Technology Evangelist and editor of SmallBizTechnology.com

Being in the company of these folks was really a special treat for me because they are all great guys that I have learned a great deal from either through reading their books, following their blogs, or using their software. But what was great for me is that every last one of them has been a guest on my show, and with the exception of my good buddy Ramon, I had never met any of them before. And all I can say is that they were as great in person as they were on the radio.

Impressions of Infusion - The Employees, The Partners, The Customers...The Community

I had the opportunity to speak with a Infusion's ceo Clate Mask a few months back when I was just getting familiar with the company. about a month later I spoke with Infusion founder Scott Martineau and marketing vp Dave Lee. I remember enjoying talking to them about small business and the needs real small businesses have for CRM. And that's what I remember most about those initial conversations, a sincere interest in small business.....not sMBs (lower case "s" intentionally used to emphasize most companies passion for M's and not true S's). And because I liked what I heard, as well as what I saw during a short demo of the product, I invited Dave Lee to be on the show to have a conversation about small business crm. We had a pretty lively discussion you can check out using this link.

So I was hoping that my initial conversations would be a good lead in to meeting the folks at the conference. It was. Now of course I expected everyone from management on down to be on the best behavior, but I never got the sense from any of the Infusion folks I met that they were anything but sincere about their passion for their customers. There were over 160 folks attending the event, and it seemed that every Infusion employee knew every Infusion customer. Not saying that's literally the case, but it appeared that way because of the interaction I was checking out. And I really cannot remember any negative comments coming from the user community, or the partner community for that matter. Which was really interesting as I went around speaking to folks and asked on a number of occasions what their impressions of the company were. In fact I'd have to say the Infusion customers were a pretty happy bunch, looking to learn more about how to use the product to automate as much of the marketing process as they possibly can. I emphasize asking about customer impressions of the company, and not the product.

Speaking of the product, I can't really because I haven't been hands-on with it as of yet. I do plan on "laying hands" at some point in the near future, but wanted to view the product vicariously through the experiences of the customers at the conference. And although the crew of guest speakers were very well received and did a great job, the true stars of the conference were the customers Infusion brought on board to showcase how they were using the software to automate drip marketing campaigns, execute email marketing, even handling event registration activities. Probably the highlight of the conference, from a user perspective, was a presentation by power user Darcy Juarez of Dentist Profits detailing how she created and implemented an automated multi-step, multi-direction drip marketing campaign with Infusion.

The interaction between the users was also really interesting to see, as many times they would participate during session Q&A's to offer up their tips and tricks for doing things with the software. But the most interesting development to me was, of course, in the area of social crm. At one point during a live demo led by Scott Martineau, a customer in the audience said that the demo is great but it would be even better if users could access this kind of demo online. The Infusions folks said they could absolutely do that. But then another user jumped up and asked if any user could create a "tip" video for the Infusion user "community", which drew a round of applause from the audience. Hmm....do you think Infusion will look into doing this???

All in all I was very impressed with the conference. Impressed with the commitment Infusion has to REAL small businesses, as their customer base is made up mostly of companies with fewer than 25 employees. Impressed with the growing number of certified consultants I spoke with solid experience in delivering service to small businesses. And I'm especially impressed with the customers I spoke with who understand the importance of leveraging the web to generate leads and automate the marketing process as much as possible. These folks understand that automation will allow them the time to build valuable long lasting relationships with great customers. I sincerely hope that, as Infusion grows, it remembers this event and how their users participated. If they can grow and keep the spirit of helping REAL small businesses alive, they can be a leader in the space.

So thanks to Infusion for letting me participate. And a special thanks for the warm welcome to the conference attendees, and for not laughing at me when Ramon made me do the cabbage patch during the evening reception. You all were the the ABSOLUTE LAST PEOPLE EVER TO SEE ME DO THAT....EVER!

Technorati : crm, infusion software, marketing automation
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Conspiracy Theory Redux - I Like Mike...Arrington

As a short follow-up to the post on how Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison, with the rumor of Oracle interested in buying Salesforce.com, are trying to ruin my predictions of 2008 being the year small businesses fully embrace CRM, and that Google will buy Salesforce.com. No need to go over old ground, but I did first post that GoogleForce prediction back at the end of 2006.

Anyway just when I was thinking these predictions were totally off base, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch wrote a post on Microsoft's Innovator's Dilemma which included these two sentences:

"In the middle of this sits Salesforce, the king of software on demand. At some point Google or Microsoft will make a serious move to acquire them, and at that point the other will respond with a counter. "

Now it goes without saying that I agree with Arrington's take on this, as it would make sense for either Microsoft or Google to be interested in Salesforce.com. But with Microsoft engaging in what appears to be a hostile takeover attempt of Yahoo!, and getting ready to roll out it's long awaited Live CRM service, I still have to go with GoogleForce. Mainly because I'd still be able to call 2008 the year of small business CRM. So I like that one more than the Oracle-Salesforce combo. If for no other reason than the name....OraForce....that's just too close to orifice for my liking.

Technorati : crm, google, microsoft, salesforce.com