The Incredible Power of an Elevator Speech

Posted by Commence on December 7, 2011 under Sales Training | Be the First to Comment

We’ve teamed up with the best sales people to bring you these insights into customer relationship management each month. Below is the latest Sales Management article from guest poster Dave Kahle, author and leading sales educator. Follow Dave’s latest Tweets at @davekahle.

By Dave Kahle

“Why should someone spend time with you?”  That was the question I asked the six sales people who were the subjects of an intense week-long training session.

The response?  Blank stares. Some uncomfortable fidgeting.  Nothing anywhere close to a coherent, persuasive response.

That experience made me realize the need for what I call a “value-added proposition,” and what many people refer to as an “elevator speech.”  It is a well-thought-out, meticulously prepared, and memorized set of ideas that ultimately answer the question above.  It should exist in several different versions:

1.  There should be a one-page (250 words or so) description of

*  who you are

*  what you do

*  why your customers and prospects should care.

2.  That should be reduced to a 30 word version that should be memorized by everyone who has contact with the customer.

3.  Finally, that should be further reduced to a four-to-eight word version that can accompany every communication, from web site advertising to face-to-face interactions.

Why this is important

“Five minutes or it’s free.”  That was the banner hanging over the fast food restaurant near my house.  I noticed it as I drove past one day.  Interesting.  In a mini-environment of intense competition (there must be a dozen fast-food options within a mile of this road) they chose to focus on one aspect of their offering – speed – and turn it into a “value-added proposition.”  In a world of other options for the customer, they chose to take their strength, turn it into a benefit for the customer, and boil that down to say to the customer, “Buy it from us.  We’ll guarantee quick service. “

It had its desired impact.  I noticed the banner, and decided to stop in for breakfast.  The waitress took my order, noted the time on the order pad, and handed me a stop watch!  I took up the challenge, clicked it on, and waited to see if they would perform.  The order arrived within five minutes.  I noticed the waitress look at her watch and note the delivery time on the order pad.

Let’s consider what we can learn from this experience.  First, the value-added proposition consolidates some of the strengths of the organization, and turns them into benefits for the customer base.  Then, it translates those benefits into a “proposition” which challenges the customer to become involved.  It reaches out into the world and says “Consider me.  Here’s why.”  It serves, then, as a proactive way to interest and attract potential customers.

Just as importantly, it helps refine who you are as an organization.  You will become who you tell people that you are.  For example, I suspect that the restaurant did not have a quantity of stop watches in their inventory prior to deciding to toss “Five minutes or it’s free” into the world.  I suspect that the order forms were modified to accommodate the claim, that the wait staff was trained in the processes to implement it, that some items came off the menu and others were added, and that there were some cooks who don’t work there any more because of their inability to be who the restaurant said they were.

Once you say that you provide “outstanding customer service,” or “the highest quality products” for example, you have to back that up.  You must become who you say you are, and actually do what you claim you do.

The value-added proposition, then, brings with it tremendous power to focus your image to your customer base and, at the same time, organize your internal operations to deliver what you say you will.

From the point of view of the sales force, the value-added proposition gives them a focal point — a place to hang their claim for uniqueness. But it also gives them a wedge into the doors of the prospect, and an appropriate topic of conversation with every contact.

That’s why the 30-word version should be memorized and practiced until it can be delivered accurately, fluently and persuasively.

How to do it

The creation of a value-added proposition can be much more significant than it may look at first glance.  Once you understand the power of this set of words to attract customers, equip sales people, and shape operations, you will realize that this can be a “bet the business on this” strategic initiative.

Get it wrong, and your organization’s very survival may be in jeopardy.  Get it right, and it can provide fuel for your growth for the foreseeable future.

So, it ought to be treated as a major strategic initiative in your organization, and given the allotment of resources that accompany such efforts.

Gather your best people for a brainstorming session.  Capture the output, and bring it to a more analytical group to refine.  Put it in the hands of your best communicators to create the three versions mentioned above.

Then, test it before you commit to it.  Put it in the hands of some sales people and gather their comments. Float it by some of your customers whose honest opinion you expect. Run it through the search engine optimization folks.

Refine it until you are ready to live with it.

Then, publish the short version in every conceivable place.  On business cards, letterhead, voice mail messages, web sites, email signatures, etc.

Bring the sales people in, require they memorize the 30-word version, and train them in persuasively presenting it.  Lots of role-play and practice here.   Do the same with anyone who has regular customer contact.

Finally, publish the one-page version.  Make it into a hard copy leave-behind for the sales force.  Publish it on your web site.  Hand it to every vendor.

Distribute it to everyone who has an interest.

Then, watch as it begins to flow into every aspect of your business, stimulating and shaping your growth.

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If you are interested in digging deeper into this subject, you may want to purchase, “How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime.”

If you are a subscriber to The Sales Resource Center ™ , consider Cluster CL-72: How to market your small business on-line, Cluster CL-46; Four part elevator speech, and Pod-47: How to make a more effective first call.

About the Author:

Dave Kahle is one of the world’s leading sales educators. He’s written nine books, presented in 47 states and seven countries, and has helped enrich tens of thousands of sales people and transform hundreds of sales organizations.  Sign up for his free weekly Ezine, and visit his blog.  For a limited time, receive $547 of free bonuses with the purchase of his latest book, How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime.

Copyright MMXI by Dave Kahle

All Rights Reserved.

Are You Paying Too Much For SalesForce.com?

Posted by Commence on January 28, 2011 under CEO Corner | 6 Comments to Read

Just over a decade ago Salesforce.com introduced Customer Relationship Management software (CRM), delivered over the Internet as a SaaS CRM service. Being the first to market provided them with the advantage of establishing a high price point for their offering and many companies seemed all too willing to pay for it, until now. What has changed over the past ten years is that there are now dozens of alternatives to Salesforce.com and several high quality trusted companies that offer similar functionality at a significantly lower cost.

Commence Corporation is one of these companies.  Commence has a rich history and has been providing on-premise CRM software to small enterprises and mid-size companies for more than two decades. In fact, Commence was the original developer of IBM Current, a desktop contact manager, and SuperSELL, IBM’s sales force automation offering. As such, Commence is no stranger to the CRM sector.  A few years ago the company expanded its product line by migrating its award winning desktop CRM software to the cloud.  Commence is one of the only companies that offers its customers the “freedom of choice” to deploy the software via the cloud or on premise.

Why Commence Makes Sense

One of the key CRM selection criteria that are driving customers to Commence CRM is that the company does not force you into a “pre-defined” box. Salesforce.com forces customers like you to select a specific product edition that locks you into a set of pre-defined features or limits the number of users you may have based on the price you paid. In fact, Commence does not have any restrictions of any kind.  The product is modular in design which means you can select the functionality you require today and add additional modules or users at any time without incurring a substantial price increase, just because you switched to a different “pre-defined” box or edition, or added additional people.

If you took a survey of companies that have selected CRM software, you will discover that many of them fell into the feature trap, where they ended up paying for more functionality than they end up using. This is because the vendor has forced them into buying a product edition with pre-set functionality as mentioned above.  This just doesn’t make sense.  To make matters worse, the majority of these companies are utilizing functionality that is standard in most quality CRM solutions like Commence, such as account and contact management, activity management, sales management, lead management, and Outlook and email integration.  Add those that also use it for marketing campaigns or mobile access and you have covered the lion share of the market.  Commence offers all of the above along with a help desk or customer support module, a document library, a project management application and integration with accounting systems like QuickBooks.

The point is this:  Trusted CRM providers like Commence have leveled the playing field and can provide similar functionality to products like Salesforce.com at a fraction of the cost.  If you’re an organization that requires a lot of users, the cost savings with Commence can be substantial.  If you are considering a CRM solution, take a few moments to evaluate Commence CRM. To learn more about Commence visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com or ask for a free CRM trial and experience Commence CRM for yourself.

CRM Software – More Than Just Sales

Posted by Commence on November 17, 2010 under CEO Corner | 4 Comments to Read

When people think about CRM software, they often think only about sales and that is understandable because without sales you don’t have a business.  But Customer Relationship Management is more than just about sales.  It’s about making a commitment to improving how you market, sell and provide service to your customers.  Smart companies have moved past the days of contact managers and sales tools that were focused on improving internal communication and operations. They are instead focused on two specific areas, marketing and customer retention.

Photo owned by Intersection Consulting (cc)

Building brand recognition and lead generation at one time required a marketing mix of magazine advertisements, article placements, internet advertising, banner ads, public relations, joining industry specific trade groups, and more.  But things have changed and social networking also referred to as viral marketing mixed with search engine optimization, site linking, data mining and bulk e-mail campaigns have become today’s standard for building awareness and attracting new customers.  Mature CRM solutions incorporate marketing software programs and tools to automate many of these processes.  While many small to mid-size firms seem to overlook this critical component of CRM, it is the one area that can have the greatest impact for getting an edge over your competition.

Leading edge companies are also paying close attention to customer retention.  This may be because the cost of attaining new customers is significantly greater than retaining the ones your have.  Smart companies are looking to improve the customer’s buying experience and maximize the lifetime value of their business relationships by providing world class customer service before, during and after the sale.  Many are using CRM software to ensure that everyone within the organization has immediate access to the customer profile including what they purchased, when they purchased, the sales representative responsible for the sale, how the delivery went and if the customer is pleased with the product and the buying experience. This is the type of personalized service that drives customer loyalty.

If you are looking to move past the traditional contact management and sales forecasting stage for your business, this narrows down the selection of top rated quality CRM products and companies.  Commence Corporation has been helping small to mid-size businesses become more effective sales and service organizations.  The company’s award winning software provides the foundation for building brand awareness through automated marketing and lead generation programs while improving sales execution and customer service.  Experienced professionals offer the guidance, coaching, and CRM Best Practices that ensure that Commence customers realize the maximum value from the CRM software features.

Customers Share Thoughts on Future Product Releases

Posted by Commence on October 11, 2010 under Commence News, Customer Success | Read the First Comment

For the past two decades Commence Corporation has worked diligently to ensure that our customers have the opportunity to periodically evaluate our company, our product and our service and submit their opinions, recommendations and suggestions directly to Commence Corporation’s management.  These recommendations have served to fuel the growth of our business and the high customer satisfaction rate enjoyed by our customers.  Outlined below are the results of the company’s most recent survey.

The Survey Says:

Question 1   How long have you been using Commence?

• 31% 1-3 years
• 53% more than 5 to 10 years
• 16% more than 10 years

Question 2  What is the principal industry of your company?

More than 27 industries were represented.

Question 3  Which Commence product do you use?

• 78% Designer Edition CRM Toolkit
• 16% Desktop CRM Application Suite
• 6% Commence OnDemand (New Cloud based CRM offering)

Question 4  What is your primary use of the product?

Evenly split among the choices:
Contact & account management, sales, marketing, customer service

Question 5  How important is Commence to your business?

• 79% Mission Critical
• 19% Important
• 2% Not that important

Question 6  How satisfied are you with the product you are using?

• 74% Very satisfied
• 19% Satisfied
• 7% Not satisfied

Question 7  What do you find is the greatest strength of the product?

• 61% Flexibility
• 39% Reliability

Question 8  How likely are you to recommend Commence to a colleague?

• 84.5% Likely

Question 9  How would you rate Commence Corporation’s ability to keep pace with current technology?

• 69% Very satisfied
• 13% Not satisfied
• 18% Don’t think about it

Question 10  How would you rate the level of functionality incorporated in the product you are using?

• 96% Very good meets our requirements
• 4% Does not meet our requirements

Question 11  What improvements would you like to see in a future release of the product? (Respondents could check several options)

• 51% Better integration with third party applications
• 43% Better documentation
• 37% Enhanced mobile capabilities
• 33% Remote access to data
• 30% More programming features
• 23% Make product easier to use

Question 12  Do you have a service agreement with Commence?

• 41% Yes
• 59% No, we do everything ourselves

Question 13  How would you rate the quality of service received?

• 64% Excellent
• 27% Very good
• 9% Fair

Question 14  How would you rate the value of the annual software maintenance program that provides updates and enhancements to the product(s)?

• 68% Very good value
• 22% Good value
• 2% Fair – program is too expensive

Question 15  How would you rate the level of communication the company provides?

• 62% Very good, we get all the information we need
• 32% Fair, would like to see more communication from Commence
• 6% Poor, the company does not communicate enough

Question 16  How would you rate your overall experience with Commence Corporation?

• 73% Very good, the company has an excellent product and service organization
• 19% Good – the experience has been good
• 8% Fair   – our experience is not what we had expected.

Question 17  Commence is evaluating some enhanced services for our customers. How would you rank each of the items below based on the importance to your business? (Respondents could select several options)

• # 1 — Searchable knowledgebase 53%
• # 2 — Internet forum 34%
• # 3 — Technical support blog 30%
• # 4 — Self help videos 26%
• # 5 — Quarterly webinars 17%
• # 6 — Social networking 6%

Question 18  Commence now offers a hosting service for managing the Commence database in our datacenter and a cloud based CRM solution, Commence On-Demand. How likely are you to consider moving to one of these offerings in the future?

• 21% Very likely – I would like to learn more
• 61% Not likely we are happy with the on-premise system
• 18% All ready using your hosted service

NOTE:   Responses containing personal information about your company, your name, your role  and if we may contact you have been removed from the results page.

Customers Find Good Value In Commence CRM

Posted by Commence on August 23, 2010 under Customer Success | 6 Comments to Read

Getting an early start in the CRM software industry may have helped Salesforce.com to become a leader in the Hosted CRM space, but another CRM solution provider is making a statement of their own, paving the way for some intense competition in the small to mid-size business sector. 

Better known for its on premise desktop CRM software, Commence Corporation has been providing contact management, sales force automation and marketing campaign management solutions to small and mid-size companies for more than two decades.  The company introduced a web-based hosted version of their popular CRM software and is gaining notoriety.   With an outstanding track record for performance, reliability and world-class customer service Commence is a strong competitor and becoming a favorite among smaller businesses looking for a flexible hosted CRM solution with productivity tools that are easy to use.

“Commence web CRM has an impressive and unique user interface that makes the product very easy to use and navigate” says Gary Sanders of OK! Magazine.  “The product’s Home Page or Dashboard is completely customizable by individual or job function.  This allows each user to create a dashboard to the way they work.  The value here is that you can place the functions you use most right on the home page, such as today’s calendar and activities, e-mail, sales opportunities, leads, reminders and even an interactive sales funnel.  We hadn’t seen this in any other CRM solution.  This flexibility enables people to conduct 90% of their daily activities without ever leaving the Home Page and has really improved productivity.” 

Commence Home Page

Karen Deneau, Director of Marketing with Center for Film Studies, needed CRM software that her staff would feel comfortable with.   “When selecting a CRM solution, you worry about utilization, but we were confident that our staff would adapt well to Commence CRM and they have.   We also liked that Commence is modular in design, which allowed us to select only the functionality we required. We weren’t forced to purchase a package with a dozen features we would never use.  Commence’s strength clearly lies in its ease of use.  Within two weeks we had marketing campaigns out the door and leads captured from our web site were integrated directly into the Commence CRM system.  The staff at Commence was also extremely helpful in ensuring that we quickly realized value from their solution.”

Key Differentiators

Commence’s modular design provides the flexibility to start with basic CRM functionality such as Account and Contact Management, E-Mail integration and Sales Pipeline Management, then add additional features such as Quoting, Marketing Campaign Management and Project Management when you’re ready.  Integration to disparate systems can be achieved via an Application Programming Interface or API, and Commence CRM supports the majority of popular Mobile devices.

Another key differentiator of Commence CRM is the product’s lead qualification and sales reporting capability. The leads module includes an automated business process that scores leads based on pre-defined criteria, then color codes them based on how well defined they are.  This capability is unique to Commence CRM, and ensures that your sales team is working on the most qualified opportunities and not chasing tire kickers. 

Lead Scoring Screen

Reporting

The reporting engine offers three levels of data analysis.  A set of pre-defined reports for sales management, marketing and customer support can be viewed with a single click and modified just as easily.  A built in report writer allows you to create customer reports against any field in the database, including custom fields.  Lastly, Commence CRM includes a pre-built set of graphical and analytical reports for all sales activity, marketing, lead generation and customer support.

Reports

Commence offers the freedom of choice to deploy CRM software on premise or as a hosted web based solution and offers a level of functionality traditionally only provided by enterprise level solutions. Commence products are distributed around the world in more than 22 countries and 35 different industries.  The company’s track record for providing high quality reliable products and outstanding customer service make it a solid choice for growing businesses.

About the Author:  Jim Smith is the founder and managing partner of YCHANGE INTERNATIONAL,  a management consultancy specializing in helping small to mid-size businesses expand or execute a turnaround strategy.  Jim is a commissioner for the Housing Authority of Portland, Oregon and serves as a member of the newly formed economic cabinet of Portland. Jim is a motivational speaker and trainer and lectures on Customer Relationship Management in the areas of sales, marketing, business and leadership.  He is an avid blogger on www.ychange.com/ychangeblog.

Is Your SMB’s Marketing Strategy Product Centric or Customer Centric and Why Should You Care?

Posted by Commence on March 16, 2010 under CEO Corner | Be the First to Comment

Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) can deliver customer value by being product centric, i.e. providing product leadership, or by being customer centric or customer intimate. In the former instance, the SMB tries to continually improve the products and services they provide to their customers. In the latter instance the SMB strives to understand their “favorite” customer, anticipate future customer requirements, and to respond to those needs.

Product Centric Strategy

To pursue a strategy of product leadership or product centricity involves delivering customer value through leading edge products and services.  This entails a continuous stream of new products and services, and creatively adapting to new and changing market conditions while constantly pursuing new solutions on behalf of clients and customers.

To do this effectively, the business needs to be very research and development centered and extremely knowledgeable about the products and services currently being developed and considered in the market place. Sales & Marketing needs to be closely tied to customers in order to teach them new approaches and solutions to their problems. This also requires the ability to direct customers into avenues they hadn’t entertained on their own about the use of new products and services.

Larger companies can execute this strategy more effectively than SMBs, because they have the resources to devote to research and development and also have larger sales, marketing and support organizations that are able to stay in touch with their customers.  The company’s personnel often act as advisors and consultants to their customers assuming the role of fitting their product to the customer’s needs.

Customer Centric Strategy

Customer intimacy or customer centricity entails precisely segmenting and targeting markets, acquiring detailed customer knowledge, developing an operational flexibility that allows for immediate response to customer needs, and securing customer loyalty. The value added component of this strategy is to attain intimate knowledge of the customer’s requirements or pain points and outlining a specific solution to address those requirements.

This strategy demands a very active marketing, sales and customer service department geared to relationship selling.  In fact, these departments drive the SMB’s business and are the company’s primary interface to prospects and the customer base.  As such, they need to continually solicit customer information, sort it, analyze it, and use to define a consistent message for all who interact with the customer.

One of the ways to capture, manage and share this vital customer information is through the use of Customer Relationship Management software (CRM).  Large organizations have been using CRM solutions for some time to automate and streamline the interaction between the company and the customer. The utilization however is mostly to gather contact management information about the customer and to use that information to drive and fine-tune the sales cycle.  The objective is to find creative ways to sell additional products and services to the customer by convincing the customer that there is a fit between their requirements and the products or service the sales representatives is selling.

While this is fine, in order to execute a customer centric strategy you need a CRM solution that is designed for customer collaboration. The CRM software must solicit not only geographic customer data, but also demographic data to help build a detailed picture of the “favorite” customer makeup.  In addition, the sales, customer service and any other personnel with customer contact need to be trained to solicit and collect psychographic and behavioral data that help define how and why the customer buys.

Social Networking

The rapid expansion and utilization of social networking can provide essential customer centric information for sales and marketing organizations.  Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are being used by today’s businesses to communicate and interact with similar organizations. These conversations provide valuable insight into customer buying patterns, likes and dislikes and behavioral data. Best of all, you don’t have to be an enterprise company to access social media sites, capture and analyze information and produce a marketing message that fits the customer’s pain points and buying habits. What is important is that the SMB selects the right CRM platform which will enable them to directly link to these sites, capture the information and utilize it to gain a competitive edge.

Commence Corporation, a leading provider of cloud computing based CRM software, is taking a leadership position in this area and understands that the future of customer relationship management will be driven based on the collaboration and partnership with customers.  Commence is busy restructuring the data points that their system collects to include the needed demographic and psychographics data that CRM systems do not capture today.  Commence is also working to seamlessly interface the product with social media applications so that it can collect and analyze all of the different streams of customer conversations that are currently on the web, then use this information for targeting effective marketing campaigns.

Having the right business strategy in today’s challenging economy is critical for success.  A sound customer centric strategy gives you the ability to craft a company wide marketing message that is used by all to communicate your value not only to your current customer base, but also to those prospects that your sales team can readily qualify and close. To do this effectively, you need to select a CRM software provider that offers a platform that can support the customer collaboration that will need into take place in the future.

About the author: Larry Caretsky is the president of Commence Corporation, a leading provider of CRM software which can be deployed in a web-based, cloud-computing environment or on premise. Caretsky is considered an expert in Customer Relationship Management and has written numerous white papers on the subject, which may be accessed via the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Redefining Customer Relationship In CRM

Posted by Commence on March 8, 2010 under CEO Corner | Read the First Comment

As small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) struggle to survive in this economic climate, they are placing a major emphasis on increasing sales. Whether through finding new customers or attempting to increase the volume of purchases by the existing customer base, the attention is on getting the sales organization to be more productive.  SMBs, in spite of tough economic times, are investing in technology to enhance the productivity of the sales force and for the most part are implementing Customer Relationship Management tools to make this happen. While this is decidedly a step in the right direction, there may be additional ways to increase sales productivity.  This article examines a more effective way of utilizing CRM software to increase customer acquisition and revenue growth.

The Role of Technology

The last several years have brought a radical change in the relationship between the customer and business as a whole.  More and more customers are collaborating with businesses and technology is playing a key role in this new collaboration. An increasing percentage of interaction with customers is coming by way of social networks and online communities.  These interactions include suggestions for product improvement, requests for help, information requests and even customers assisting their counterparts directly.  These customer conversations are driving the need for the business to respond in a timely fashion and to also convince potential customers of their ability to adequately address their needs.

This is driving executives to focus more attention on discovering the “favorite” customer or target market and crafting a marketing message that resonates with that target market.  To do this effectively, the business needs to gather and analyze all of the relevant customer data points,  In addition to demographic and geographic data, the business needs to understand why customers are buying their products or services and more importantly, what specific language the “favorite” customer is using to describe the buying experience.

The Changing Customer Role

This calls for the establishment of a close collaborative effort between the business and the customer base.  Sales and any other part of the organization that is in direct contact with the customer needs to listen closely to the conversation in order to hear what the customer is saying.  The data gathered needs to be analyzed so that not only does the business then understand which customers comprise the target market, but also how those customers think and how they communicate.

This effectively achieves two goals.  First, it allows the sales force to be immensely more productive by getting them to concentrate on that part of the general marketplace that has these pre-qualified prospects that have the same profile as the “favorite” customer. Secondly, it gives the marketing side of the business the ability to script a marketing message that resonates with the customer since it uses the information gleaned from the customer and can be written in a language that the customer understands.

Even more importantly, with more customers using online communities and social networks, it is essential that the key phrases that the business uses are the same as the key phrases that the customer uses in their posts on Facebook and LinkedIn or in their tweets on Twitter.  It also allows the business to search engine optimize its web site because the language and the keywords used are the ones the favorite customers are accustomed to.

So now, the business has a marketing message that resonates with the customer.  The sales force has a sales pitch that is geared towards solving the customer pain and is in a language the customer understands.  The customer feels that the business is listening and hearing them and prospects not only find the business, but when engaged by the sales force are easier to bring to a close.

Can current CRM systems play in this arena?

Most current CRM systems are very effective at helping the sales force automate the sales process and manage the sales cycle.  The way they do this is by collecting customer and prospect data that the sales force uses to manage sales campaigns, schedule sales calls and keep the sales cycle moving along.  To meet the new paradigm of target marketing that requires collaboration with our customers, these CRM systems need new functionality.

Commence Corporation is taking a leadership position in this area and understands that the future of customer relationship management will be centered on the collaboration and partnership with customers.  Commence is busy restructuring the data points that their system collects to include the needed demographic and psychographics data that CRM system do not capture today.  Commence is also looking closely at interfacing the product with social media applications so that it can collect and analyze all of the different streams of customer conversations that are currently on the web, then use this information to targeting effective marketing campaigns.

As a result of the economic downturn, many SMBs are struggling to justify the capital outlay to upgrade or implement a new CRM system because of cost and business uncertainty.  To survive in today’s economy, you need to implement a CRM software solution, but you need to do it for the right reasons.  Don’t implement a CRM solution to simply automate the sales process.  Growing your business will require the ability to capture, manage and share vital customer information from several data sources and then use the information to gain a competitive edge.  Select a CRM software provider that offers a platform that can support the customer collaboration that will need to take place in the future.

About the author: Larry Caretsky is the president of Commence Corporation, a leading provider of CRM software, which can be deployed in a web-based, cloud-computing environment or on premise. Caretsky is considered an expert in Customer Relationship Management and has written numerous white papers on the subject, which may be accessed via the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Welcome to the Commence Corporation Blog

Posted by Commence on September 18, 2009 under CEO Corner | Read the First Comment

Dear Customers, Press, Prospects & Partners,

I am delighted to invite you to follow Commence Corporation on Twitter and on our new Commence Blog. More and more businesses and individuals are relying on social networking to convey and receive information quickly and simply. Commence’s new social networking presence via blog postings and “tweets” will enable us to enhance our communication and build closer relationships with customers. Whether it’s the latest news on our flexible suite of award-winning CRM products or news in the sales and customer service industries, Commence looks to educate and inform our customers.

Commence’s Twitter followers were the first to know about our new drip marketing functionality. The newest version of Commence OnDemand, a flexible, Web-based hosted CRM solution, now enables marketing teams to automate, and schedule the delivery of text-based or HTML-based e-mail marketing campaigns. Commence understands that companies are being challenged to do more with less. Commence OnDemand’s breadth of functionality – such as our new drip marketing capabilities – makes it the ideal solution for small to medium-sized businesses that want to have one system that manages CRM, sales and marketing. By following us on Twitter or at our blog, you’ll be among the first to learn about product enhancements and industry news.

Larry Caretsky, Chief Executive Officer

Image Credit: by Tstilz source Wikimedia license Public Domain from acobox.com