Brent's CRM Blog

2008 Small Business Tech Trends, and Unified Communications

I mentioned earlier this week that I would be participating in a round-table discussion on what small business types should be aware of in 2008 when in comes to technology. Below is a link to the podcast on SMB Trends Radio. I had a great time talking with Anita Campbell, Ramon Ray and Steve Rucinski. We covered a lot of ground in this fast paced conversation, so you may want to check it out when you have some time.

http://www.smbtrendwire.com/2007/12/20/the-technology-you-need-in-2008-and-the-stuff-to-avoid/

I also wanted to pass along a link to my latest "Tech Talk" internet television show on The Profitability Channel site. I was glad to have Microsoft's Jim Haigh on with me to talk about unified communications, and what its impact will be on small businesses. WARNING: I'm still getting used to the "television thing" so you'll see me trying to work a powerpoint slide deck while trying to listen to Jim, and also listening to the production crew talking to me in my ear piece. So that glazed donut look I have from time to time is me trying to think of good questions to ask after not hearing as much of an answer from Jim, and also trying to give the appropriate hand signal to the team to let them know I need help working the slide-turner......Oh well, that's show biz. Anyway check this out if you dare. You'll be asked for your name and email address, but I promise you won't be getting spammed. We're just trying to get an accurate count of who's watching this stuff.

http://www.profitabilitychannel.com/program_detail.php?ep=1773

Feedback is definitely appreciated. Even if it hurts...

Technorati : microsoft, small business trends, technology, unified communications

Hanging with the Small Business Gurus: How Did I Get Included In This - Part One

I am really excited about this one. Tomorrow (Tuesday December 18th) at 4pm ET I have the honor of participating in a cool conversation on The Technology You NEED in 2008. The topic it is great, but what really makes this one to check out is the OTHER folks involved in this - the gurus mentioned in the title. Non other than Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends, and Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com. These two have been to of the most respected names in the small business community for years, so anything they have to say should absolutely be listened to... as you also take copious notes. I say this from personal experience.

So if you're available feel free to check this out. I believe there will also be an opportunity to ask us questions.....ok as them questions. So here's the link again if you have some time at 4pm ET Tuesday December 18th to join us:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smallbiztrends/2007/12/18/The-Technology-You-NEED-in-2008-and-the-stuff-to-avoid

For those who can't make it I'll post a link to the recording.

Technorati : anita campbell, ramon ray, smb trends

Just What The World Needed....Me on Internet TV

Well trying to pass myself off as a "web 2.0" guy will be moving to all new level starting next month as I will be hosting a new internet television show on www.iBusinessChannel.com. It will be a 30 minute program with the current working title of Tech Talk which (what a shock, me talking about technology

To get a sense of how this will look I can point you to the show I just hosted on the network as a trial run called Cover Story. I interviewed Tom Vass, author of the Predicting Technology, an interesting new book about how technology impacts regional economic markets. I had to break out the micro and macroeconomic books from the days of yore to try to understand some of the things in Tom's book and to be able to ask a few intelligent questions. I guess things worked out well as Tom gave my interviewing skills a passing grade. You can check me out doing my impersonation of Tavis Smiley at the link below.

Cover Story - http://www.OnTheRibbon.com/videoplayer.php?ep=1632

So now you've been warned...

Technorati : economic theory, predicting technology, small business, tom vass

Latest Tech 5 Segment - 5 Ways to Pass The Google Test

Below is the clip from my latest "Tech 5" segment on the Internet TV talk show Aileen on the GO!. I do a take off from an article I wrote for my Black Enterprise online column discussing five easy ways to increase your GQ (Google Quotient) and pass the Google Test.

Technorati : google quotient, google test, slideshare.net, typepad
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The Top 100 Small Business Podcasts

Anita Campbell and her folks over at SmallBizTrends.com have put together a great list of the top 100 small business podcast sites. To wade through the thousands of podcasts out there and come up with such a high quality list had to take a lot of work. Great job Anita! And thanks for including Technology For Business Sake in the list!!!

Technorati : podcasts, small business, smallbiztrends.com, technology for business sake
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January '07 CRM On Demand Traffic Rankings

Well, I'm still trying to figure exactly what I want to do with this going forward, but I didn't want a month to go by without taking a look at what's going on with the on demand vendor's traffic rankings. As you will see I added a column showing the December traffic ranking numbers from a competitor of Alexa called Compete.com. First things first.....roll the disclaimers.....

"Not that this is any official way of ranking the on-demand CRM providers but I was sort of curious to see the Alexa (and now Compete.com) rankings of some of the players."

Vendor	Jan-07	Dec-06	1 Mnth Chg	% Change	3 Mnth % Change	12/06 Compete.com
Salesforce	1,493	1,306	187	-14.32%	-20.79%	7,203
NetSuite	6,785	6,798	13	0.19%	-3.56%	3,842
Rightnow	57,835	49,738	8,097	-16.28%	-32.79%	19,515
Salesboom	81,207	69,144	12,063	-17.45%	-83.38%	973,603
FreeCRM	100,150	89,256	10,894	-12.21%	-37.14%	n/a
Leadmaster	135,341	146,627	11,286	7.70%	-24.05%	n/a
SageCRM	159,874	171,901	12,027	7.00%	13.52%	n/a
Entellium	162,805	148,790	14,015	-9.42%	-32.90%	256,884
Oracle OnDemand	221,472	186,717	34,755	-18.61%	-68.63%	287,384

Man I'm glad I did take a look at this. Taking a look at just the Alexa data, SageCRM followed up last month's strong move upward with another good month. So it looks like they have some real momentum going for them. Leadmaster had a nice month as well. It's actually sort of nice to see these upward moves, just so we have some contrast to the continual down slide of Oracle OnDemand. I've been doing these monthly rankings for about seven months now and Oracle OnDemand is the only one of the vendors above that has never had a monthly gain in their traffic ranking. In fact the first post Oracle had a rather respectable ranking of 64,798. Just from a relativity standpoint, comparing Oracle to itself, this drop is really unbelievable. But taken in context of a group with all others have gone up and down during the course of seven months, it wouldn't make sense that Oracle is looked in some unique way, unless Alexa has something personal against Larry. But after looking at these numbers, I may have to look into that possibility.

The real interesting thing here is the Compete.com column, in particular the fact that NetSuite leapfrogs Salesforce in their rankings. Salesboom's extremely high ranking may be a factor of them just hitting Compete.com's radar screen, as the smaller players on the list (FreeCRM and LeadMaster) don't even have a ranking. I'm also thinking that SageCRM hasn't been out long enough to get a ranking. But again, look who's bringing up the rear of the vendors who've been around the longest in the on demand space.....Oracle OnDemand. We'll see what we find next month as we'll have some more Compete.com data to work with. One thing I like about Compete is the results pages really look great.

Here's a chart from Compete.com's site that compares how they gather data to Alexa:

	Compete	Alexa
Unique Visitor Estimates	Yes	No
Site Rankings	Yes	Yes
Active Monthly Panel Size	2,000,000+	Unpublished
Normalization Methodology	Multi-dimensional scaling (Age, Income, Gender, Location)	Raw counts (Not normalized)
Sources	ISPs	Alexa Toolbar Users
	Compete Toolbar Users
	Opt-In Panels
	Application Providers
Geographic Focus	U.S.	International
Reporting Timeframe	Monthly	Daily

Until next time.......

Technorati : CRM, alexa, compete.com, sage, salesforce.com
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Seth Godin, Read/Write Web , Alexa and Me

Ironically, just yesterday my buddy Paul Greenberg sent me a link to this article on Read/Write Web that analyzes Seth Godin's (another guy on our show wish list) Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List. I guess I'm not alone in this.....

Technorati : alexa, web 2.0
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CRM Prediction for 2007: Google

Earlier this week a lot of buzz was created by an article discussing how Google could challenge Digg by sprucing up Google Reader and buying one of those social networking sites to pair it up with.  Some even suggested Google just go ahead and buy Digg.  It does make sense and would keep in line with Google's actions, considering it's recent acquisitions Jotspot (wiki software), Writely (word processing), Urchin (web analytics) and of course YouTube.  So I can definitely see them doing something that could threaten Digg.  But that ground has been covered.

Google has made so many moves that are encouraging small businesses to look their way that I think they need to make a move in an area where small businesses are investing heavily to grow their businesses....CRM (what a shocker that I would come up with this).  Think about it, according to Forrester, companies with less than 100 employees will account for roughly a third of all CRM spending in 2007.  And it really looks like the guys that many small businesses have turned to for CRM in the past, Salesforce.com and NetSuite, are looking to fry bigger fish in the medium-size/enterprise market.  Plus there are a number of companies that are putting together some really nice on-demand offerings that would cover the basic needs of smaller companies at very low prices ($10-20 per user per month).  One interesting example is ZohoCRM, which lets the first three people in a company use the service for free, with each additional person costing you only $12/month.  Another one is SalesNOW, which is built to run off the BlackBerry device and costs about $20/month per user.  These and many more services is allowing small businesses to get in the game.

That's why to me it would make sense for Google to buy one of these types of companies and incorporate into the other services they are providing.  It would be kind of cool to see how Google Reader (DIGG) + Google CRM + Google Apps for Domains + Google AdWords + Google Checkout + Google Web Analytics could be a total solution for small businesses to build their online presence and tie lead generation, lead qualification, opportunity management and other functions together in a nice little bow.  And with the integration with QuickBooks, you'd even be able to track all the financial stuff more seamlessly.  And if they did this before Microsoft rolls out CRM Live they can even still a little thunder from that most anticipated release.

So you heard it hear first.  Google will get into the small business CRM space in 2007.  You can bet your life on it!  Just don't expect me to do the same.

December 2006 On Demand CRM Alexa Rankings

Hello and welcome to the holiday edition of the rankings! I know it's been a while in between posts for me here. I'm not a total slacker. I've been working hard on getting our radio show ("Technology For Business $ake" for those not in the know) website up and running. I've also been posting on the show blog so you may also want to check out the stuff there. I'm in the process of trying to figure my blogging strategy for next year and how to divvy up the stuff I write because I plan on blogging in both places. And I definitely will continue to the "the Rankings" here as it is by far the most read series of entries for the blog. The single most popular entry remains my book review on the Postsecret book by Frank Warren.

This is the last ranking of the year, and next year I will be beefing up the rankings with new indicators and expanding the list of services providers as their some small vendors making some noise that deserve to be included. But let's get to the latest check....But first let's roll the disclaimer:

"Not that this is any official way of ranking the on-demand CRM providers but I was sort of curious to see the Alexa rankings of some of the players."

Here's a list of a few of the big name on-demand providers, and some you may not be aware of, and their Alexa ratings for today and what they were three months ago (click image to see graph):

Some thoughts........

Salesforce.com keeps moving right along with a small drop in their traffic rankings. Nothing alarming here at all, in fact they just keep distancing themselves from the pack. All I can say is more companies need to look at how their strategy of adding customers through community building and using Web 2.0 techniques and technologies. I've already applauded them for their blogging strategies, but they are also ahead of the game in terms of integrating social sites into their strategies. All you need to do is check out www.slideshare.net (the YouTube or Flickr of presentation sharing). You will be able to find most if not all of the presentations from Dreamforce loaded on this site...and people are viewing the presentations like crazy. So do you think that may drive a few folks to www.salesforce.com? Just another way Salesforce is lapping the field. You have to wonder when the field will get tired of being left behind and Inherit The Web...2.0.

RightNow and Salesboom have been trading places over the last few months and this month is no different, with RightNow jumping back in front of Salesboom. What's different this time around is the huge drop Salesboom had this month in their ranking. I was looking to see if there was anything that would point to reasons for this dramatic drop but didn't find anything. If someone does come across anything please let me know.

One big bright spot this month is SageCRM.com with almost an 8% increase in their rankings, moving them ahead of Oracle. That increase also made their three month rank change next to nothing, which is really incredible when you think of the ground they lost the prior two months. Was there a "blue light special" or something? Maybe more people are understanding where SageCRM fits into the product offerings? I tend to believe it was the posting of my ACT!/BlackBerry demo on the Sage site that did it (go down to August 24th posting! OK probably not...Congrats goes to them. We'll see if they can build on that momentum next month.

And then there's Oracle. What can you say about them. Another huge monthly loss in their ranking, landing them in last place. Three month loss in rankings of more than 56%. You have to think that churn may be a prime reason for some of this. Also I don't know if they are getting their message out to the SMB community, who are really jumping into CRM. They really need to re-think their approach to this market, as their are a number of vendors with interesting product mixes and lower price points that will make it hard to compete. Not to mention the "no software" guys sitting in the catbird seat.

So there you have it. Since I've been doing this for six months I will be posting a six month look at this, and boy you will see some real eye openers in the traffic patterns.

Technorati : ACT!, CRM, Salesforce.com, crm, customer relationship management, on demand, saas, salesforce.com
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Tips from the Entrepreneur.com Email Marketing Coach

I've been a little preoccupied getting our radio program, Technology for Business Sake, off the ground. But I'll be getting back into the swing of things shortly. And one way to do so is to share a couple of quick tips Gail Goodman, Constant Contact CEO and Entrepreneur.com's Email Marketing Coach, gave our listeners when we interviewed her a few days ago. For those who aren't aware, Constant Contact is probably the most popular email marketing service with the small business crowd. And chances are you probably received an email from one of the 80,000 businesses who uses them to execute their campaigns. So you may want to take a minute (longest clip is actually ninety-two seconds) to listen to Gail if you're not satisfied with your email marketing results. Just click on the "MyPod" below to hear Gail's take on:

• Even though many businesses are using email marketing for lead generation, it is best used on your current customers, not on folks who don't know you.
• Before you get blacklisted, which is easy to do apparently, check out Gail's tips for staying on the safe and narrow path. Listen below:
• Although Microsoft Outlook is great for 1-to1 and small group email management it's not really meant for executing large email campaigns
• Create email campaigns for people on the go as roughly half of all emails are read on mobile devices like the BlackBerry.

If you want to hear more of the interview with Gail you can check out the show recording at the Technology For Business Sake website - www.businesstechnologyradio.com.

Technorati : email marketing, small business, smb
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