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Most of the time I've spent has been in dealing with these pressing questions from non-technical entrepreneurs and CEOs.  While business owners recognize the possibilities and need for technology today for their businesses, at some point, they just get frustrated with technology, and rightly so.  It's complicated, it often takes more time and expense than was ever expected and trying to use it can be daunting.

During a ten year hiatus from being a university professor, I've pulled together teams of developers, web designers and engineers - from whom I've learned a bit about what they knew, and a LOT about what they don't know.  Each of these Top 10 Tech Frustrations, all of which I've had myself have pushed me closer to find an answer, and to fund a "real" platform for entrepreneurs and business owners.  Entrepreneurs want to use technology to run their business, not only because it's smart, because it's the only way to survive and thrive as a business today.  So, after eight versions and lots of my own frustrations and expense, the 1to1Real platform and related families of cloud based solutions like 1to1Pharmacy, 1to1MD and 1to1IPM (Investment Portfolio Management) was born.

There are two types of entrepreneurs and business owners when it comes to technology.  First, there are those who want to run their business and use technology to become more profitable, more productive, get more customers and keep those they already have.  Secondly, are the people who get starry eyed about the possibility of technology and start down the "in-house, I can and will develop it myself, so I can sell it to the world" type.   The first type is realistic and they will eventually succeed.  The second, the “would-be technology developers" type usually spends tens of thousands (although I've seen a few spend well into the millions) and almost always fail.  Once again, "why?" seems an appropriate question.

Each of these Top 10 Frustrations is actually a complex software development, real world challenge that comes along with inventing software.  To some of these frustrations there are scientific answers and to others, only trial and error will give you the answer you need for your business.

For small and medium sized businesses the cost of failure is high, and likelihood that a home grown solution will yield success is low. It usually looks like this when we've gone in to a company: A pharmacy/ investment manager/ real estate company (choose a core business) finds a "programmer" who can build a database (the truth is anyone can build a database today).  The ideas flow, the system is laid out; the dream has begun.  The problem is tools like relational databases, web sites and code can look and function fine; but only to a point.  When the system gets a lot of users, data, needs for more functions, the code that was typically generated through these tools becomes what the software industry calls "spaghetti" - it gets all tangled up.  Why? Because there is a lot of it, all trying to do pieces and parts of something and then the programmer (business) asks it to do another thing. I've seen this happen time and again, because when it comes down to it, the business developing the solution is not a software engineering firm.

It has taken us a decade to invent, make errors, make changes and to find out how to avoid this technology tangle at any level of load.  When you see success in technology you give it a name:  Microsoft Outlook, Windows, Apple iPod/iTunes/iPhone, Google, Facebook...  When you consider the billions of transactions and processes each has to handle, you appreciate the sophistication.

So how can a pharmacy build a set of transactions that will integrate within a 1.5 trillion dollar health care system, in-house?  They can't, but I've seen them try! We worked on the Alberta Health Care system, at the time a $350 million project in the province.  We had a small role to come in and help "make it work" - because after $350mm spent, there was an 85% failure rate. We devised a solution that was called "elegant" by the lead engineers.  Why were we able to see the solution when they weren't?  We've never had big budgets to work with! We work with small businesses who had limited budgets and even more limited time, so we've learned to get from point A to Z as fast and as efficiently as possible.

All of these hold-ups and technology frustrations that cost money, time and drive business owners crazy are going to keep getting worse because technology and its use is getting more complex, not less.

So, for the businesses that want to use technology to be more efficient, and more profitable, we offer the Connected Market Coach program in conjunction with our 1to1Real solutions to get them from A to Z faster and more efficiently. The Connected Market Coach is a solution for entrepreneurs and business owners who love their business and want to do more of what they do best.  For those who wish to face their challenges by "figuring it out" and building it in-house, I wish you well.  It is a long road.  From Harvard to Wharton to MIT, studies show a 70% - 90% failure rate - "the road ahead" has already been paved with tough lessons learned.

Our Connected Market Coach program is by qualification only for one simple reason: priority of your business objectives is the most important success factor.  If you'd like to visit us and discuss your goals and how you can use The Connected Market Space to automate, connect and transform your business - visit us at the Connected Market Coach and complete the application.

Here's to overcoming frustrations and the shortest path to connections for success.

Tim

In the very old days, business was simple files were on paper and if you wanted to ask your co-worker something, you’d physically walk over to their desk and pick their brain. If you needed to talk to a lot of people, you sent a memo.

Thankfully we’re a little more efficient now… right?

Or are we? If we want to talk we can pick up the phone. Or send an email. Or a text. Or ping them on the office’s instant messenger client.  Or send a Facebook message. You could even try holding a conversation over Twitter. The problem with communication today is that there are so many different ways to get someone’s attention; it starts to just turn into noise. There is always a beep, a ping, a message, email , advertisement or something waiting to be answered. How does a business cut through the clutter when they want to reach their customers and their markets?

The answer isn’t to just create more noise – the marketplace is crowded and there is already enough going on around us. The answer is to reach your market by giving them what they want – provide the information they need and they’ll get the message.

When you think about it, which are you more likely to look at: an email from your friend telling you about the plan’s for tonight’s movie, or your computer’s instant messenger client flashing to tell you that someone in accounting needs another tech support walk-though? Our brains are great at cutting down noise – we instinctively prioritize information we want, information we know is important.

If you’re experiencing a communication breakdown – think about what you’re trying to say. If you put out the kind of information that your market needs and wants, you’ll find a way to cut through the noise and clutter of modern life.  1to1Real can help you cut through that noise and speak directly to your market.

Ever gotten into a good natured argument with a friend about a fact neither of you are totally certain about? For example, are Baboons monkeys or apes? This simple question, completely unrelated to anything important became a hotly contested item of debate for one CMAEON staffer. She solved the problem the way so many people in her generation do – she checked Wikipedia. Victorious in her assertion that Baboons were monkeys, life went back to normal.

Situations like this probably happen millions of times a day, all around the world. Why?

Today, people are increasingly dependent on the Internet and sites like Wikipedia for instant information. If you have a question, you don’t ponder or go to the library – you Google it. Need to check some facts? Settle a bet? Want an opinion on a restaurant? Get an opinion from your peers? Internet. The quest for information isn’t a one way transaction where the consumer passively absorbs it from a book, a map or a newspaper anymore – it’s a conversation now.

“Can anyone recommend a good Italian restaurant for my big date?” “What’s the best route to get to the train station?” “Who is a good realtor?” Our conversations and quests for information drive us online to websites like Wikipedia, Yelp, Twitter and Facebook in a way that’s completely new and still evolving.

So what does this mean for businesses, and more importantly, what does this mean for a small business without the money to sink into Google adwords and expensive online marketing campaigns?  How can they be successful in this business climate? It means a successful business is able to tap into the conversations that are already happening online.

People constantly want information; therefore, if a business can join the conversation and respond to people with the specific information they want, that business is going to leave a positive impression. It’ll become a trusted brand. It’ll become the Wikipedia of a specific area of interest. It’ll be truly connected to its market and the needs of its customers. That’s the power of the Connected Market Space in the Age of Wikipedia.

Looking at the content of this email - the list of questions being asked and the choice of solutions being offered… it suddenly becomes easy to answer the question of what the Connected Market Space is, and what 1to1Real is.

All of the questions in that email are just about sales. It conveniently forgets that running a business is about sales, managing people, creating a good marketing message to get the leads and buyers for your sales staff (if you have a sales staff - many of us wear that hat too) and keeping track of the bottom line.

In the world of this email, once you've answered the question of the day you get to sort through a host of solutions that promise to solve your problem of the day.  But who has the time to evaluate dozens of software solutions and try to figure out what solution(s) might work for them?   It's a never ending circle - what problem, what solution, how much should you spend - will it work? Getting tangled up using a different technology solution for every one of your business “problems” is no solution at all.

I was caught in the technology tangle years ago with my businesses. I thought to myself, "isn't technology supposed to help me?  Why do I find myself doing more work at night trying to keep up with data entry, than I did before when all I had was paper?" I had found plenty of “tools” that needed me to do more data entry just to keep up.  They didn't help me answer the questions (like those in the email) for my market, my prospects, or even my staff when I was busy wearing one of my many hats. They solved one problem and created others in their wake.  Once I used a solution to improve my email marketing, I was left with too many contacts that I wasn’t responding to well enough to...  So, I need another "tool" to fix that problem… I was caught in a trap – a never ending spiral – the technology tangle.

However, when I realized I was caught, I noticed that everyone else was too. So, I set out to do something about it.  I imagined software – an actual solution - that would do some of the work for my business, instead of making more work for me.  I wanted something that once I set it up and said "go" - it would take the load off of me and my business and my staff, something that would connect me to my market and my customers. I’ve worked with hundreds of companies and thousands of staff over the last 10 years, and they’ve all had the same problems:

1) Wearing multiple hats

2) Getting your story to the market in a crowded marketplace

3) Keeping the message going out

4) Keeping the leads and business coming in

5) Using technology to manage the process

1to1Real is the solution to all of these problems. It’s the Connected Market Technology I imagined. 1to1Real is a process engine; it’s a robot - a sales, management, and messaging engine – it’s an automated marketing machine. It’s THE solution that actually connects you to your market and your customers, actually saves you time and actually does the work for you.

So, here it is - the week I turned 50.  I didn't think it would take a decade of my life to create!  It’s been a huge investment to create 1to1Real and deliver the Connected Market Space to people.  I can't say I've always loved the journey.  However, I can say I've always been fascinated about the possibility of a solution.

Creating 1to1Real took the CMAEON team tens of thousands of hours of work, all while working with real companies who had tenacity and faith along the way to share the dream having of solutions that actually worked for them.  These loyal customers helped us forge and invent and pushed us to think out of the box.  They helped us create 1to1Real - the next generation’s model for creating market connections, managing business processes, messaging, marketing and measuring how current and potential customers work with organizations.  I am grateful for every hour, all the input and even the toughest of challenges - I look forward to all the ways 1to1Real will help with the entrepreneurial success and struggle.

I had a great birthday party this weekend, with many generous and wonderful friends.  Coming toward this day, my insightful wife asked me, "what are the top quotes that have shaped your life?"   I thought about that question for just a moment.  It was easy to answer because, every decade I had inspiration from a discovered and cherished statement that struck me and carried me along - like a blast of wind filling my sails to catch a flowing tide, a philosophy always seemed to arise at the perfect time in life to send me onward.

Therefore, this is a wonderful week for me to finally deliver a version of 1to1Real that has an automated sign up. Now any business owner, manager, entrepreneur, sole proprietor – anyone, can use 1to1Real connect their inspiration, their dreams, their vision, their products and their services to their market. No matter what is on your list of your questions for your company, I believe 1to1Real can help. I've seen it help so many, for so long so I couldn't be more excited to share this next journey with you, with 1to1Real and our related product categories for specific industries.

Enjoy, and try 1to1Real - tell us what you think!  We are relying on you to tell us how you use it. Help us invent the next decade for small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs.

I think we can all agree the future is in the hands of those of us who venture to run our companies with our teams. The recent failures of big enterprise has shown us that the road ahead lies in the connections we forge at the real level of entrepreneurship - the businesses that employ, deliver and drive the Connected Market Place and the economics the big guys just can't seem to understand.

Thank you to all for all your lessons and support - I look forward to what the next decade will bring as I sail from 50 to new challenges on new, changing seas.

"Life is short,

decades come and go,

But lessons and love last for all eternity."

Tim

PS - If you care to have a copy, here are my Top 5 Lessons. You're free to enjoy.

I spent the weekend helping my daughter move into her first apartment and get ready for this year at university.  We visited IKEA to furnish the place.  From the parking lot to the playground inside the store, the entire place was packed.

I’ve only been to IKEA a few times, but I’ve always been fascinated about the concept and how IKEA connects with their customers, anywhere in the world.  I was in the IKEA in Montreal this weekend; however, I’ve seen IKEA not only across Canada and the US, but in Europe as well.  Why do I see IKEA in all the places I seem to go?  Because you can’t help but see an IKEA - they are connected to the high traffic areas of their markets.  They are always ready  for customers (this weekend with back to school you could see students and boxes all around the student areas of Montreal), so it’s no wonder IKEA’s owners are some of the most wealthy in the world.

How does every IKEA work – and why is it such an “off-line” great example of The Connected Market Space?

First, each and every IKEA is connected by location.   Always off of a busy highway, you can’t help but see the place.  From Montreal to Malaysia, it’s always the same connection to traffic.  The volume of eyes from the highway racing by knows exactly what IKEA looks like and where they are located.

Inside, they're always bustling.  Directly in front of me were stairs up to the showroom.  We found the beds and bathrooms and all manners of home furnishings in between.  Cool, cheap, and organized so we could easily grab our slip and jot down what we needed.  The “shopping” experience was good (I’m not a shopper by nature) because IKEA tracked us right where we needed to go and we set about discovering whatever was on our minds, “bookmarking” it along the way (rack and bin number noted).

Down the stairs, into the back end warehouse – we became our own warehouse staff.    All IKEA warehouses are the same. Searching for the inventory I wanted was easy and IKEA had just saved a ton by having us act on our own to pick and pack products onto our cart.

Finally checkout: self serve tills lined the isle, but we weren’t on our own. For the few items that were too large, there was help to move those larger boxes after we had scanned and paid for the items.

How IKEA has connected with their market is by having the right prices, great looking stuff and a flow that allows their customers to self serve and save money.  IKEA is a perfect example of a connected market space.  It’s easy to see how IKEA connected their warehouse, with a brilliant visibility and showroom strategy, with the internal track of how customers flow through the store to find what they need.

It’s not so easy to do this on the internet though. Your warehouse is the back end data of your website, and your showroom is your web presence. The track your customers follow through involves virtual images and communications rather than a colourful line.

That said… what if you could build a presence on the web that allowed your market to connect?  Imagine that customers that pass by on a highway notice your presence, so they can stop by when they need what you have to offer.  They're served automatically – by just visiting your store.  They can do whatever they want to themselves and they can even check out on their own, or ask for help.   What if you gave your market exactly what they needed to find from your inventory in the back end: access to your data that represents your “warehouse floor”?

What the web is striving to be a connected market space.  All you have to do is look at IKEA.  If you can replicate that experience, your customers will be happily carting away your products or services – happily building them for exactly what they needed in their lives.

My daughter’s apartment is all set up, and I’ve said good bye.  I won’t see her for months.  I’ll miss her as she sits in her new kitchen on the new bar stools I put together.

Building IKEA.   Somehow it makes me still feel closer – feel connected.

It’s great to get back to blogging after being “disconnected” for 10 days.  I want to thank Kathleen for keeping information flowing on the blog and the 1to1REAL and PedBot Team for their work at staying connected while I was unwinding.

There are times to be connected and times to be disconnected. We should all know this (a great thing to teach our kids too. I am teaching my daughters moderation in technology).  I thought a lot about that as I had turned off my email, iPhone, iPad & laptop – I was “off the grid”.  I played checkers with the kids and was amazed as my 9 year old started challenging me in chess – the real kind on a board with wooden pieces (not the iPad version)!

But what happens with your company when you’re turned off ?

That’s the challenge of staying connected…  Just because you’re off (which I highly recommend to rejuvenate and stay creative and energized – BTW), does not mean the rest of the world is – in fact they most likely aren’t.  Who is minding your store when you’re away?  How do you deal with a global economy or time zone economics?  I’m an early riser: 5am most days.  But, even at that I like to have time away from the phone and email, but by 6 the East Coast is buzzing and fully perked up on Starbucks.  The REAL world always connected, and you can’t be connected all the time … or can you be?

This has been a dilemma I have faced throughout my career.  I’m the key spokesperson, entrepreneur and visionary; I’m the guy that drives our Connected Market Space and 1to1REAL, who connected to industries and customer and sells products at CMAEON.  This is why I decided to build 1to1REAL in the first place.

I realized a decade ago that the world was going to be more informed and more on than ever before.  In order to speak to my customers and our market, I would need a system to keep up.  Unfortunately, in order to assemble those systems:  email marketing and responses, CRM, web sites, social networking, AdWord advertising, data and list building, new lead acquisition… and then filter through all of that information to our customers, I became overwhelmed.  I was already working 15 hour plus days – how could I keep up?

That was when I first started thinking about this Technology Tangle we weave for ourselves.  Where does productivity start and where does it fail?  That was the beginning of 1to1REAL. New staff was not the answer.  Then, not only did I have a training issue, I had added overhead, which can kill any business.  Spending money to chase new revenues with additional staff, while taking the hit on time for training and money – that is every small business’ dilemma.

I reviewed CRM and contact management software. They were a piece of the puzzle, but unfortunately beyond the big learning curve of all of the features, they just didn’t do any real work for me.  I still had to have fingers on the keyboards constantly to make these tools work (a fact that most sales people, CEOs and Entrepreneurs despise).  I found once I learned a system, I had to keep it up to date for it to be useful – taking up even more time.

The promise of technology was not a promise at all. It had become a difficult path.  And so, 1to1REAL was born with a “robot” to take some of the tasks off of my hands and stay connected while I was either completely disconnected, or focused on exactly what I do best to make my business successful.  That is why, after nearly eleven years in business I still don’t have, or need, a huge sales force to run a substantial company and business.  1to1REAL, through all of its versions, was really about how to extend the vision and talent I had personally and help leverage those into my business so it could sell itself.

Today every company of any size is trying to do more with less.   With small companies that has always been the case – it’s just tougher in a tight market.  I felt that if technology were a solution, it had to be affordable, effective and actually DO work automatically once I set it up.  Today we talk to over a million people regularly.  We serve thousands of users.  We bring new installs and users in daily.  Yet, I’ve been able to keep the staff count and overhead low – and still answer my own phone and do the work I love to do – working with entrepreneurs and businesses to improve their connections and build their connected markets.  It works for me every day – and I’ve seen it grow every other business that has adopted this use of technology and market connections.

I had to create an automated marketing, sales and customer relationship team – so 1to1REAL was designed to do just that.  Because today, whether I’m on holiday, or on the phone, with an important key customer, or thinking about how to build a better business – the world is always on – with 1to1REAL we are always open for business.  Answering what our PedBot Auto Drive can answer – and jumping in when it is the perfect time for a personal conversation to sell and close a new account.

Great to be connected agian – thanks to everyone for staying connected and for the comments and questions ….

Tim

Google makes a big show of their informal motto, “don’t be evil” and we believe them. Google after all, makes a lot of money on search but then uses it to give away fabulous services like Gmail, Wave, Google Docs, Youtube, etc, etc.

Google makes a big show of their informal motto, “don’t be evil” and we believe them. Google after all, makes a lot of money on search but then uses it to give away fabulous services like Gmail, Wave, Google Docs, Youtube, etc, etc.

However, there is a little more than altruism involved. Each time you use a service like Gmail, and every time you visit a website with Google Analytics or Adwords on it, you’re giving information to Google. Why? They need your information for their algorithms - the same ones they use to drive their search and Pay-Per-Click Adwords. Is this evil? Maybe not, but you are paying for these services – one way or another.

Keep in mind what Google actually sells is clicks and awareness of options, that their machines (both algorithm and paid for click money machines) decide we should know about. Google connects people to the filtered information and then sends them away. This process is the big money maker for Google - tens of thousands of "optimizers" make sure Google sends the top front page searches to the businesses that pay a lot for that placement.

So, you can buy into the “Google Game” – an expensive game that's more like a fishing game at a carnival, and you might get clicks and you might not – it’s not really a game you can win. You want those people who search to connect to you, but Google doesn’t care if they do or not. Think about how many bounces, un-followed up leads and would-be conversations are just dropped… Yet businesses pay for this all day, every day, 24/7 – and Google makes a lot of money from this.

So how can you actually catch fish instead of just paying to cast your hook in Google’s pond? The first step in winning the “Google Game” is to start a conversation. Don’t let those leads bounce. Engage, talk and make a dialogue with potential leads. Why? Because that is how social networks, followers, and conversation marketing work – nurturing those leads into clients, one person at a time.

Sure Google is a tool, but it’s not a solution – a solution needs to do more for you. It needs to want you to succeed. Google doesn’t care if you win their game or not – the longer you play, the more money they make.

If a business considers its entire market (i.e., the unique values it business brings to a transaction that earns and keeps customers) – it quickly become apparent they have to go beyond CRM and the sales force, and start thinking long term.

By definition, the sales force sells and then leaves - until there is something else to sell. For example, they sell razors and leave the production of the razor blades, the customer service, and razor blade user support to the rest of the team. Every business knows that the repeated value of the razor blade is what creates long term prosperity for the firm - the lifetime value of the customer and the firm – they want people to keep buying your razor blades. This means creating a connection with customers that isn't just a sales based relationship. Creating a connection with a market deeper than selling, is going beyond managing leads – it actually creates qualified sales leads. How? Slowly, surely, and over time as companies and customers connect and build a relationship.

People actually want to connect. People search, use social networks, save and sort information, speak, select and stick only if they go through the entire cycle themselves – we call this the "self discovery" market. Google is a very helpful tool for people to connect – it helps people sort information through search and PPC ads, and save information with bookmarks, social spaces, email, and other information management systems.

However, not everyone is searching and saving at the exact time they want to purchase something. This is where a typical sales cycle starts to fall apart. Sales people and the companies they work for don’t want, or more likely can’t afford to wait for a year to get a sale or commission.  The problem (especially in a “buyers market”) then becomes, if a business can’t get a buyer at the exact time the leads are searching the lead is worthless, contact is lost, and the company moves on. Not a good strategy for building a business or a solid set of connections.  A potential customer might want to buy a house next year, after they get married, but it doesn’t mean they’re not going to start looking for information on loans, mortgages and markets now.

Therefore, a business has a need for a consistent process of market participation and conversation marketing.  A successful business will want to provide information for as long as it takes for the leads to mature. When a business does this, it's building a deeper connection and creating that qualified group of connections in a market space. However, would it be too time consuming to provide that level of service to every customer that comes in the door with a vague request for information? Not necessarily.

What businesses need for is a marketing robot. Robots are not pushy and they are not emotional, they are informative and repetitive.  They can handle high volumes of people, can watch and learn and understand new things and create the right "space" for buyers and sellers without leaving the connection behind because the timing is wrong.  Robots can help create a conversation that can be revisited at any time. No sales force, marketing team or single person can do that - no matter how good they are - nor will they if they are compensated like most sales people - in commission. Effectively, this is how search engines started and still exist; however, a search engine is a one way cycle and is manipulated through "optimization" and a code set that decides what is relevant.

For a successful connection, humans should decide what is relevant to them, and then find that information.  Nobody ever feels like Google helps them make an informed decision – it just gives them information they specifically requested and leaves them to make the decisions themselves.

This is why conversation marketing and social networking is taking off so rapidly.  People trust and talk to other people.  People start by searching, but then they start narrowing down what they were thinking about and begin asking real people.  In short, they make a connection and follow it through.   In reality there is nothing about Google that makes anyone stick, other than sheer size of the search market. Once a lead comes through Google, a business still has to start that conversation!

That is where a robot can help for a clever business.  When people search and don’t get information or a meaningful connection, they will search again. So if a business can catch those searchers the first time, providing information to real people and in answering questions, it will be associated with the most valuable information about its market, and it will start to have engaged conversations with searchers.
That is unbeatable - if a business can get in the conversation, and staring helping to drive the conversation, it becomes a focal point, and more and more people will join in. Real people.   Interested people.  People that are buyers.  A robot helps because it grows and is patiently waiting and capturing and responding.  It doesn't lose interest or "move on" like a salesperson will.  It will cultivate and till the fields of prospects and create conversations and referrals and a community of people interested in a product or service.  

There are hundreds of millions of people on the internet.  A business only needs a few hundred or a few thousand of those people to decide that it is the expert, and the destination for solid, real useful information to be wildly successful, highly ranked on Google, and drive more success from natural brand advocates and community members than it ever could from PPC advertising or paid search.

So how can a business create its robot? How can it start generating real conversations and connections?
Contact us. We can help.

Imagine a business where a lead comes in, is entered into the CRM system and then… just sits there.

This lead, let’s call her Ms. Smith, didn’t come in through traditional channels, so she was routed through an employee who didn’t really know how to use the CRM system;  the wrong ranking was assigned to Ms. Smith, so nobody knew she was a hot lead, ready to buy, and worst yet, no salesperson was assigned. Long story short, Ms. Smith sat there, unattended until she phoned back again. Is this an unlikely nightmare situation? You may be thinking to yourself unattended leads… in my system? It’s more likely than you think.

For a successful marketing or sales enterprise the focus shouldn’t just be on getting leads and entering into the CRM system. If that’s all a company focuses on, it will end up with a lot of cases like Ms. Smith. Proper lead management should be iQ3:

Quantity: exposure, volume of leads, and then;

Quality: making sure you know what they want, so you can talk about a product or program that is of interest to them, and then;

Qualified: leads that can and want to write a check for the product, service, solution, etc, etc that they are looking for.

However, once a company gets iQ3 leads, they can’t just sit there like Ms. Smith. They need to be managed, and there must be a process in place. CMAEON developed the patented Biped® Process to help our clients not only acquire leads, but connect to them, engage with them in a targeted conversation, covert them, and then measure how effective the whole process was.

Marketing and sales can be hard, time consuming and confusing. Adding more layers of data entry and systems that only do half the job won’t help any company become successful. What does help  a business bring in revenue is the ability to streamline the process  - a checklist that automatically helps them complete the steps required to turn a great lead into an even better sale. The Biped® Process is that checklist and process.
Interested? Let’s talk.

Photo: Alan Cleaver, Flickr

We have learned that getting people to "know about each other" is a difficult and full time job, and this is most likely the most difficult product to deliver for any business, no matter what size.  "Knowing" about each other involves many stakeholders - marketers, business people, sales people, and financial people and, of course, interested and qualified searchers that become buyers.

We have learned that not all businesses will make good business decisions, or are willing to follow a process, to stay in business.  These have been the toughest lessons, because these businesses are looking for an EZ process, and have nearly always failed.

We have learned that many people in the business world, inside many giant companies, have given up.  . We have seen firms that have provided their staff Just Ordinary Boring Stuff to do …those people have been dissatisfied and so have lost all enthusiasm for their contribution.  They are, needless to say, dis-connected in their work - perhaps only connected to a paycheck.  

We have learned that companies can grow their business - and outgrow their capital and capability to fund new opportunities.  This is not a sustainable model.  The challenge remains, how, when we are committed to innovation and change - and improving our revenue and business models to reach broader markets, can we evolve as entrepreneurs, rather than crush our dream under the weight of reality?   The key is being Connected to the measures of success.

We have learned in the toughest of times, when the world compromised the core mission of providing open information, innovation and connections with the best, most innovative business information technology in the world, our world failed.  We saw relationships with businesses crumble; consumers stop consuming, jobs lost, banking systems broken, homes lost, countries bankrupt.  When the world lost its connection its corporate soul, our culture, our way of doing business simply stopped.  We are now learning how to pick up our tools and start again.

As humans, in general, we are not afraid of change, in fact we embrace it.  Today is our time more than ever.  And that is sustainable - because change is always a renewable resource that can be relied upon - change is a mandate in the world.