Archive for the ‘Selling’ Category
Google Alerts Is Not Enough: Thinning of The Reactive Herd
There was a time back right after the invention of electricity but before the widespread use of motorized vehicles that vendors with crappy salespeople didn’t have to worry about customers talking to each other and sharing their poor service experiences.
Heads up – the world’s changed.
ERP VAR Hightower Inc Reportedly Closes For Undetermined Period of Time
A consultant who claims that one of his employee’s received a phone call from Hightower Inc reached out to me to say he had been told the support case they have pending with Skokie IL ERP consultants Hightower Inc. may take a little while to be resolved.
According to one of my 90 Minds members who spoke to their Hightower representative:
We had an open support case with them and got a call from our rep that they were shutting down
I have a message into Hightower executives. Calls today (3/20/12) to their phone line listed on the web site have gone unanswered. Update: As of 2:28 pm ET 3/20/12 the phone message is indicating that Hightower is experiencing a serious data interruption to voice and email.
The Most Shocking Thing I Learned At Today’s LinkedIn Session
Perhaps the most shocking revelation today at the LinkedIn group meeting was not the change happening at Sage but the answer to the question Sage’s Tom Miller asked about who had attended Firm of the Future.
Only a few hands went up. And this was in a room of about 50 of arguably Sage’s most active partners.
For those who’ve not been, Firm of the Future is two days of instruction with Ron Baker of VeraSage and Ed Kless of Sage. The course catalog describes the experience as:
This experience is dedicated to the possibility that a professional organization can be run more effectively when it becomes a knowledge firm rather than a service firm. Creating such an organization is hard work and not for everyone as it requires partners to think differently than they have in the past about what it is that they do.
The course is about shared knowledge you can use for building a business that bills for knowledge and results and not time. It’s about learning how to bill for value not hours. It’s about making more money. It works.
I attended the session back in May 2011. You can read my review.
Since the course I no longer bill hourly. The day I completed the course was the last time I have billed hourly.
If you are tired of the “race to the bottom line” that comes with billing hourly – you need this course. If you want to substantially increase your firm’s revenues – you need this course.
Sage Partners Gather To Discuss Change
A group of approximately 100 Sage partners (panelists pictured above left to right- Moira Goggin (Chismet Consulting – event co-organizer), Mary Abdian (Macabe Associates) , Doug Deane (DSD Business Systems) , John Hoyt (Hutchinson and Bloodgood), Bill Kizer (xKzero)) gathered today in Lake Forest California. The group was split about 50/50 with some consultants attending in person and others remotely (web ex) for an in-depth discussion of changes that have been rolled out to the Sage eco-system (margins, certifications, subscription pricing, partner compensation).
From Hide & Seek to LinkedIn Group Meeting
Kudos to Bill Kizer for arranging a LinkedIn group meeting for Sage Parters, Alumni and Employees which at last count showed 100 people RSVPing they would attend.
Bill persevered in creating this meeting despite the software publisher suggesting a game of channel hide and seek instead.
Don’t you love social media?
The event happens Thursday March 15, 2012 and features a panel discussion with some top VARs, prizes, sharing, vendor presentations, networking.
There’s still time to register -UPDATE: Event has occurred. Read our wrap up of this networking event – Sage Consultant LinkedIn Summit.
MAS90 LinkedIn Group Approaches 1,700 Members
Our LinkedIn forum devoted to the discussion of Sage ERP MAS90 and MAS200 is up to almost 2,000 members. The official count as of March 12, 2012. Based on the present growth we should cross the 2,000 mark approximately Mid-summer 2012.
Balanced Scorecard
Although a method to rate Sage partner performance has not fully been made public – here is my personal opinion of what the internal scorecard looks like.
It’s a simple two line checklist. Pick either #1 or #2. It will trump all other criteria.
- Sells acceptable number of new user deals
- Does not sell acceptable number of new user deals
In my opinion no other measurement matters.
Soldier on.
Can You Sell One Net New Name ERP Per Quarter?
Of the 22 consultants in my 90 Minds Consulting Group who replied to this survey – only one was confident that they could sell one net new name of on premises ERP software every quarter.
We’re in the process of finding out who that one sale per quarter person is so we can vote them off the island congratulate them.
Why I’ll Never Call Other Sage VARS To Warn Them Their Client Is Leaving
There’s an odd conventional wisdom in the world of consulting that say’s whenever you receive a phone call from an end user of accounting software who is using a competitor that you immediately pick up the phone and warn the competitor that “their customer is looking”.
I think this is called “playing nice”.
I’ve even had a partner in my state call a meeting of every other Sage partner within 30 miles to discuss the “rules of engagement” and how everyone should play nicely.
The problem, in my experience, is the favor is seldom returned.
VARS go through the motions of “playing nice”. It probably helps them sleep a little better. But but that “faux call” usually comes days or week(s) after they’ve begun to interact and service the customer.
When I do receive a call from a competitor – the tone is usually “hey we just filed the paperwork – aka Reseller of Record” — just wanted to let you know about it now that we know it’s too late for you to do anything about it.
Another Sage Partner Selects SugarCRM
This morning brings an announcement that Kentucky based Oasis Solutions have taken on the open sourced SugarCRM customer relationship management software.
According to Oasis:
SugarCRM eliminates some of the hurdles previously associated with implementing CRM software, says Annette Manias, President of Oasis Solutions Group. “Because it’s cloud-based, our customers will be up and running quickly — no new hardware, network configuration, or technology upgrades required. Not only does that eliminate the up-front capital costs of implementation, but the price point of SugarCRM itself is a perfect match for the customers we serve.”
Adoption of CRM software is all part of a growing trend, Manias observes. “The acceptance of and demand for CRM today is a lot like what we saw with ERP systems almost two decades ago. And like ERP, CRM software has become a more accessible and strategic tool for businesses that are proactive and looking to become more efficient and effective.”
The concern here is that Oasis Solutions is a prominent Sage partner (although they are not totally dedicated to Sage – also reselling Microsoft Dynamics and QuickBooks) following on with earlier defections to SugarCRM announced by other prominent Sage partners Faye Business Solutions and Blytheco.
