Blog

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

One of the most popular CRM solutions in the world will tell you to automate your sales force, ditch the software and get your reps selling instead of administrating.  Sounds good, right? Except for one small hitch… what if you’re the sales force? What if you don’t have reps, managers and executives to automate?

A small business with only a few sales people (or only a single sales person) probably isn’t so bogged down that adapting a traditional CRM solution that reduces paperwork and greases the information wheels will really do anything for them.   Most small businesses run lean – the sales department isn’t usually so disconnected from the logistics department that CRM solutions will make them more efficient – sales and logistics are probably sitting next to each other. They might even be the same person.

What a small business needs to do isn’t automate their non-existent sales force; they need to create something that functions as an automated sales force!  There are many things that someone in sales has to do every day:  nurture leads, send information, follow up on sales calls, and remind people of sales, promotions, deals… the list goes on. If a small business could automate those tasks, sending information, follow ups, and incentives automatically, the time consuming grunt work of selling would give them more of their time back. Time they could spend making deals.  A small business doesn’t need software or solutions, it needs a robot.

That’s where CRM and small businesses disconnect – traditional CRM can make those processes more efficient, but it doesn’t do them for you.

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.

This blog talks a lot about the Connected Market Space – a marketplace state we can get to when accurate and relevant information flows between all parties, enabling everyone to efficiently access to the information they want and need.  Today, we have created some of the capability to create the Connected Market Space with the way technology is evolving and how we use it.

However, we have also realized that not all markets or marketplace endeavors are so noble as to efficiently deliver accurate information to us.  Often, accurate information is the most difficult thing to acquire because there is too much information - mostly about things we don’t want or need to know to make our decisions.

That said, today, there are emerging filters for true voices and targeted, personalized information models emerging daily.  Things we can easily adopt and opt in and out of – these are the gateways to getting truly connected. Remember – you’re in the Connected Market Space if:

• Everyone knows more about each other
• Everyone trusts each other
• Everyone can carry on a conversation
• Everyone can complete a transaction safely
• Everyone has accurate information

In past couple of weeks, this blog has talked a lot about how CRM can go bad. If your business has a CRM system that focuses only on features, and not actually connecting you to your customers, you have bad CRM.  It’s likely wasting your time and money and failing to achieve its objectives.
So what is good CRM? We invented CRM3: a system that connects, completes and continues the relationships; handles requests, revisits and relates with customers; and manages, markets and messages for you. Why? CRM3 is a powerful tool for businesses to help them find their missing connections.
So ask yourself:

Do we have the three C’s covered?

• Are you connecting to your market on their terms, not yours?
• Are you completing a dialogue - real time and delivering information - on their terms, not yours?
• Are you continuing the relationship - real time, giving them service and products and answers - on their terms, not yours?

All three R's covered?

• Are you answering requests real time, whether you are talking or not - on their terms not yours?
• Are you revisiting clients after you've provided the requested information?
• Are you relating to their concerns, opportunities and needs - theirs, not yours?

And all three M's covered?

• Are you managing this process?
• Are you marketing that you have a process and using it?
• And are you measuring your effectiveness across all of your communications (advertising, adWords, web sites, real lead capture, customer and lead interactions, social networks and the good ol' sales force tools - telephones and email)?

If you can’t answer yes to all these questions, then you are not really in the game at all.  In order to join the Connected Market Space as it is today, you’ll need the right tools to manage your leads and turn them into loyal customers. That’s what we do at the Connected Market Space. Still want to know how? Ask us.

In today’s world there is almost no need for journalists, and no need for ink on paper.  This is not to say ink and paper will go away - they won't.  They are great comforts, like junk food, or mom's cooking.  No matter how bad it is for us, - there is something satisfying about a burger, a big fat piece of home-made chocolate cake.   We'll eat it, just in moderation.   And then we'll go exercise, or eat better for the rest of the week.

Today, the equivalent in information is the internet, allowing us to surpass ink and paper, and the old methods that controlled the flow of information.   Even if you run an ad in a beautiful magazine, or a place a newspaper announcement about a foreclosure of a real estate project, your information, and all it will touch, will end up with a web search.   Information "off-line", drives more presence on-line due to the "conversation marketing" of today.  This conversation is known as Twitter, Facebook, linked in and Blogging.   It’s the organic spread of information; person to person, through multiple channels – unrestricted and free.

We live in a re-shaped information age.  It is a self-discovery market; things that we think about will lead us online.  Something we see in passing or hear in passing, on the web or off, will lead us to a discovery on the internet. If it is on our mind, we can now track down and find almost any information we want, and better yet, we all do this now as second nature.  Awareness of information is at the most raw level of our consciousness today.   Have you ever bought a car, or thought about buying a car, and noticed, all of a sudden, how many are on the road?   Did they produce more of that model car because you decided that was the one you were interested in?  Of course not.  Awareness took care of your recognition of the cars, their colors and numbers.  They were always there before.   The difference is you had entered the self-discovery paradigm - a place where you were completely oblivious to the existence of information, until it became relevant to you.   

The self-discovery paradigm and the conversation marketing of today have created a “word of mouth for the web” that redistributes power from the media titans and put it in the hands of the people.  This has not only begun to occur, it has accelerated as an unstoppable wave of human connections.  A paradigm shift of people who form the core of business understanding has occurred: intuitive entrepreneurs and business people who understand the new “word of mouth” system know they must have access to this rapid transmission of information because an information distribution shift has taken hold.

How can we manage ourselves in this new world?  How can we use that knowledge and power that we all have now so we might gain in this process?  How can we get connected, stay connected and enter our Connected Market Space? The Connected Market Space is a bubble of information, word of mouth and self discovery that inevitably will encircle our lives, our businesses and our brain waves. That is what being Connected means.  Being responsibly Connected – creating a space were accurate information flows between all parties informing all decisions - rests in our hands as individuals and organizations.

Today, the internet resembles a city suffering from "urban sprawl" - a sprawl that continues to clutter the view of searchers and surfers.  It is a traffic pattern that is gridlocked - blocking the reach for accurate and real information.  In the Connected Market Space companies and people will both create and contain the sprawl.  It is clear to me that we will see connections through communities that evolve into vertical sky-scrappers of technologically efficient structures, information and delivery systems within industry sectors.  The thirst for a single point of contact: one that can filter, report and provide true and accurate communication, information, and enable transactions, overcome the uncertainty, the crowds, the complexity of the "results" of this sprawl of information - will begin to provide trusted, connected communities.  It will be like a strong neighborhood, served by local businesses in a vertically connected global world.  My team and I believe every important decision that affects lives and livelihoods, deserves a Connected Market Space with an organic Triple Bottom Line for people, presence and profits on all sides of the transaction - the buyers, the sellers and the facilitators.

Read any white paper or marketing brochure for a CRM system and it will have an extensive list of features. Contact management? Check! Customer Tracking? Yup! Project Management? OK! Report generation? Got it! Email? Sure, why not! The list goes on and on.

However, what many people don’t understand when they’re looking for a CRM solution is that the features are irrelevant. The thing everyone should be looking at is how they want to turn their leads into connections, connected relationships that “manage” to turn into long term and valuable customers.  Show me a CRM that helps your customers relate to you, and you to them – surprise, that feature doesn’t exist in today’s CRM software.  It simply focuses on what the business does with leads.   Creating a connection isn’t just an “insiders” view, it’s external – it’s where your customers and potential customers are steering the ship.

The problem is many business get CRM systems that are not designed to facilitate communication based on the unique set of concerns, needs and what people are searching for or “social networking” about.  CRM is just a package of features designed to automate the “sales force” – which is great, if you’re all about pushing and making sales with a team of people.  But when you’re an entrepreneur, a small business, that has to depend on trust and connections that last with your customers, you need to really resonate with your market – in short, you need to be “connected” for REAL.   It’s not just about what you do inside your business, it’s about how you bring what you do with that unique quality to connect with the unique qualities of your customers and leads.

The thing is… if customers really wanted an automated sales force, or pushy sales people, they would just buy right from a web site, or publish their phone number for every CRM to capture, auto dial and have Joe Schmooze on the other end “sell them”.   Leads and customers don’t want that approach any more.  They want to have a connection they can trust, questions they can search about and conversations they can have in social networks that help other people answer their questions.  If you’re not connecting your company like this, you’re not connecting with your market or your customers.  Automating your sales force, powering them (or yourself) with more features and tools can do more damage than good.  And it can be costly to buy that “feature rich” horsepower.

A successful connected business knows it’s their core processes that generate new business and sales.  They use that in a way that they can build trust and relationships with their discerning leads and new prospects.  And they bring their unique abilities and voice of their company and team into the market – in a way their leads and customers can relate to them.

If a CRM sales brochure says that automation and tools for you or your sales force are the keys to growing your business – run away!  You can automate the data, you can automate processes, and you can automate reports; but to truly connect and grow your business, keep your customers, it’s the voice, the connected relationship, that wins the trust and then the sale.

The idea is “high tech – high touch” – most CRM systems nail the high tech, but have no way to handle the high touch your company needs to connect in your market ahead of the competition.

That’s why we invented CRM3 –Management, Market (message) and Measure – or:

1.   Manage your processes – know what makes your company unique, successful and expand on that
2.   Message WITH, not AT your customers
3.   Measure the effectiveness and satisfaction of those interactions (are your emails opening, are your links clicked, are your lists growing, and are your sales growing up upsales rising?) – are you responding 1 to 1 with REAL information rather than a SPAM news letter that you “think” will be interesting to your customers?  You should be able to do that with your technology.

If a business is focusing on automating their sales force, they’re not focusing on their customers.  They are focusing inside, instead of outside – where all the new business is.   Engaging your prospects and customers in a conversation is just like having a personal conversation.  Talking at them will get your company about as far as telling your teen age daughter not to see her boyfriend (take it from me, it just doesn’t work).    When you start listening to your customers and seeking to understand their needs, you’ve connected in the market.

A one dimensional CRM solution, that focuses solely on features and high tech solutions will never help a business win in today’s market that is connected, interactive and networked; customers self discover, communicate and create their own information – so start listening before you sell.  You’ll be amazed at what you hear to drive the decisions of which company customers will buy from.   You need tools to communicate and connect properly – to give your prospects and customers the information they want.

Don’t settle for CRM, follow the Connected Relationship: Market, Manage, Message CRM3 process. You’ll leverage your business’ unique assets, beyond a sales force, and grow like never before in your Connected Market Space.

Everyone today knows that CRM solutions save money and make moving information between employees, customer and clients much easier. Between 1999 and 2005, it seemed everyone was jumping on the CRM bandwagon – and with good reason – who doesn’t want to streamline their data capture and make more money?

However, more than 10 years into CRM, some interesting statistics start to emerge:

• "55% - 75% of all CRM installs failed to achieve results or even go live..." (source: HBR 2001)
• "70% of large scale CRM projects - costing more than $50mm do not achieve objectives ..." (source: Gartners Study, 2005)
• "One in every 5 users reported CRM not only failed to deliver profitable growth ... but damaged long-standing customer relationships" (source: J- Banis Annual Survey, 2001)

Is this really true? A member of the CMAEON staff shared a story with me about CRM software. She had just started with a large, well established natural resources company, which was using Peoplesoft to manage its mandatory safety training. One of the first things she had to do was learn how to use the system:
“So, when you take your first aid classes, you’ll have to enter your records into Peoplestupid.”
“People… stupid?”
“Well, it’s called PeopleSoft, but it doesn’t work very well.”

What happened? How did a piece of software designed to make processes better end up with such a bad reputation internally. With CRM, it’s really a question of intentions: people are not managed, and neither are customers. What you should be managing are your processes.

In other words, YOUR business processes that build YOUR relationships should talk YOUR talk and walk YOUR walk. If your CRM is only focused on features that capture information, ignoring what you do with it, the technology you use, or what your employees and clients like, chances are it’s not going to work for you.  When a company implements a CRM system, it should work with the company, not change the company to work with the CRM system. If the focus is adapting the system to how you walk, and how you talk, then you can start streamlining processes to you can do MORE of the RIGHT stuff better.