Power of 3 Consulting Blog

I’ve gotten lazy. And tired. Yes, I know from years of experience that training is likely the number one way for my clients to get the most return on investment (ROI) on their software implementation project costs. Yet it is the first thing that gets slashed from the budget, or dramatically cut, to save money. And I have been letting it happen.

Our goal with clients & projects, lately, has been to at least have *some* training survive the cash-crunch-budget-squeeze. And I have run out of ways to respond to the question, “Can’t we just have you train one person and then s/he will train the rest of us?” “Yeah, um, sure, I mean, not really. At least not in the same way…” The real answer to that question? “No. Your people are not CRM trainers. It’s not what they do for a living. It is our job and one we happen to be very good at, and, I promise you, it will be the best money you can spend with us.”

So I was sitting with my new favorite client, Nano-Tex, and the training topic came up. I suggested a half-day on-site with a two-hour online follow up session a couple of weeks later. They scowled. I braced myself for the fight over training. Imagine my surprise when they said, “That’s not enough time. Our people really need to get comfortable with this software, because we are going to expect them to really use it.”

What? Did they just ask me for MORE training? OMG! Yes, they did. Thanks to their insight and desire for the success of their CRM project, they asked for MORE training. We then had a highly productive and thoughtful conversation about the amount of training, what needed to be covered in each session, the length of sessions and location of training (on-site vs. on-line).

What we finalized was 2 half day, on-site training sessions, back-to-back over two days. They flew their sales reps into their corporate office, and at the end of day one, we gave them some homework assignments to complete before the training the next morning. Day two we reviewed the homework and explored more of their ACT! software functionality. Next we have 4 hours of on-line training with the end users scheduled, and 2 more hours of training just for the management team on running reports and queries so that they can start to use the information in their ACT! database to more effectively manage their business. Have I mentioned how much I like these people?

As I left their offices after the second day of on-site training, I felt great. I could really see the lights going off for their sales people on how to best use their new database. And I am looking forward to the on-line sessions we have scheduled, because I know that they are really using the database, so they’ll have lots of questions for me.

Since the training, we have traded several e-mails about the project, and from their side, they told me that they realized from a previous (failed) Salesforce.com implementation three important things:

1. You only get out of an application what you put into it.
2. Sales people typically reflect their management’s interest & commitment level to these initiatives.
3. The training was the key to overcoming an historical anti-CRM bias in their organization.

I just got an e-mail from Bob, their Sales SVP: “Stacy – everyone feels optimistic and excited about rolling out ACT!, you were terrific!” That e-mail made my day. Because that’s what we want to hear from every one of our clients – that their people are “optimistic and excited.” Really, it doesn’t get better than that for a CRM consultant.

So I have a renewed energy around training, thanks to Nano-Tex, and will be holding the line firm when folks try to cut training from the implementation budget. Or I will at least be more vocal about letting them know why that’s not the best plan.

OK, coffee adventures, Part Deux. Back to Barefoot Coffee in San Jose Monday night with our band of coffee aficionados and foodies. This time to be schooled in latte art by Marie. So why am I, a CRM consultant, writing about coffee, again? I think it’s because these little field trips are shaking up my business brain, and being around these folks at Barefoot who are beyond passionate about coffee, is such a buzz. Get it? Buzz, coffee, caffeine, buzz??? I am so funny.

So latte art is pretty cool, and like a lot things in my life, I had been trying to teach it to myself by reading the internets and practicing at home. Guess what? I had it all WRONG! So when I put myself, for just a few  minutes,  in the very patient, knowledgeable and supremely capable hands of Marie, I made a heart! OK, maybe it looks diseased, but it’s a heart!  Really, if you squint at the pic and tilt your head to the left, there, don’t you see it?

My latte heART

Marie's latte heART...something to aspire to.

So where is the CRM tie-in, you might be wondering… me too. No, just kidding. Here it is – in the past 2 weeks I have talked to at least 5 prospects, and not one of them have ever received formal, custom training on their CRM application. Not one. No surprise, they are calling a consultant because they just aren’t getting what they had hoped for out of their CRM system. So they start by asking me about custom reports, custom database fields, custom integration with a back-end system, etc. And I can’t help but wonder, if they just set aside some time (and money) how much more they could be getting out of their current system, just the way it is, with some training.

The two biggest tips on getting the most ROI (return on investment) out of your CRM application are:

1. Have a road map going into the implementation, so that you have a clear picture of where you are going, what success will look like once you get there and what return you are expecting.
2. Invest in training. Not online, self-paced, generic training, but training with a professional who can customize the training session(s) to your road map. (See # 1)

I promise you, just a few hours with a qualified CRM trainer, like me, and I’ll have you making hearts out of your contact data. OK, not really, but I had to go for the latte art tie-in. Here’s what you will get – a much deeper knowledge of the very powerful tool you probably already own, and how to make that knowledge work for you and your business. Next week’s coffee adventure: cupping. No, really. Stay tuned.

This past Monday night I had a fantastic evening with four great friends. We are all coffee aficionados and confirmed foodies. One of us is actually in the coffee biz, but I would dare say that the enthusiasm of the rest of the group matched or exceeded hers.

We made a pilgrimage to Barefoot Coffee in San Jose, where they offer free coffee “workshops” Monday evenings. Jared was our barista expert and instructor for the evening and the class was how to pull a great shot of espresso. There were a lot of shots pulled, and thank goodness, it was all decaf. (Hey, it was 7 pm on a Monday night; no way I could drink that much full-test coffee and have ANY hope of sleeping.) Here’s the interesting thing – every shot tasted different. Same coffee, same grinder, same machine, same water – different tastes every time. Even two shots pulled by Jared tasted differently.

After the class...

So what does that have to do with ACT! or CRM? Why is Stacy writing about coffee? Well, I love coffee, and hanging out with the folks at Barefoot was so fun because these people are Passionate with a capital P about good coffee. I mean, really good coffee. And being around people who are passionate about what they do is just so cool.

But I got to thinking about why each shot tasted differently, even though many of the variables were the same. One big variable – people. Who was pulling the shot? Kyra muscled the tamping down seriously hard, Carol tried to get the coffee spread evenly in the filter (where is the coffee level please?), Joyce tried the knocking technique (don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, lol), John stopped the shot short, pulling a ristretto (real thing, who knew?).

That got me thinking about our customers and how two different customers can take the same CRM product and have such different results. One customer can dive in, embrace the technology, merge it into their business process and then reap the rewards of the investment in time and money. While another customer might go through the same motions – requirements, customization, implementation, training – but they never really get the bang for the buck.   Their CRM tool is more of a hindrance than a help.

And as I thought about all those different shots on Monday night, it hit me. They all tasted different but none of them tasted really bad. Not even the over-pull that Jared showed us as an example. And here is where I think the difference lies – commitment. The five of us gave up personal time, on a Monday night no less, to drive 85 miles, round-trip, to spend an hour with Jared learning about pulling espresso shots. Remember, only one of us is in the coffee biz.

If you can truly make a commitment to embrace CRM for your business, and then follow through with the necessary steps to make CRM really work FOR your people, then it will. But don’t just buy some software, have your IT people install it and expect to get any appreciable ROI. Really getting the most from your investment means careful and thoughtful planning, allocating appropriate resources and then following through. Honestly, if you’re not really committed to a CRM solution, you are probably better off using your cobbled-together solution of Outlook/Excel for contact management. If you are ready and want some help with the process, we would love to chat with you. We are Passionate with a capital P about helping our customers really leverage CRM. I know, we are also Geeks with a capital G…

As for coffee, here is what I am now saving for -a Dalla Corte Mini Espresso Machine and a Baratza Vario Grinder. Because, although I still love my Superautomatic, the quality of the coffee is just average, at best. And I am defintely committed to getting the best coffee I can reasonably afford at home. It might take a while to get there, but I have a goal. Next Monday, Latte Art at Barefoot. Big fun!

Microsoft Excel. Oh, how I love thee. I love the endless geeky ways that I can analyze data to my heart’s content. Pivot tables anyone? But I’ll tell you my dirty little secret about Excel… I just about start cheering when I am talking with folks about how they are currently managing their contacts or sales pipeline and they say “Excel”. Why does my heart beat just a little faster? Is it because I love working over their data in Excel? Nope. It’s because these are the types of people that have the most to gain from implementing a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution like ACT! or Microsoft CRM. And those are just the sorts of people I love to work with.

Excel is a great tool, but it is really limited. With a CRM solution like ACT!, you get so much more. First, you have that all-important central repository of leads, prospects, customers, vendors and even competitors. Second, you have an integrated calendar that links activities, appointments and follow-ups to your contacts. Third, you can track and view all the history and interaction with your contacts and you can view that information on the individual contact level, or the account level or even a project level. That includes all the e-mails sent & received from Outlook, and you can live your e-mail life in Outlook and ACT! will still note your e-mail activity on the contact’s history tab. Fourth, you can use ACT! to track your deals in your pipeline. Fifth, you can setup e-marketing campaigns and track your lead/prospect/customer interest and response to those campaigns on the history tab. There’s more, a lot more, but those are the biggies. But here is the cool thing, the feature that makes my geeky Excel-loving side just dance a jig - you can still export most of your data to Excel, often with one easy click, giving you the ability to continue your data slicing & dicing.

Let’s take managing the sales pipeline, for example. You can have an Excel list of your current deals, but updating that list and keeping it current is time-consuming and, over time, can become unwieldy. If instead you use ACT!, and you track your deals using Sales Opportunities, then you can view your deals on the Contact and/or Company view, or you can view a list of all your deals.

And hey, while we are on the topic, I did a guest blog for Sage on the latest cool features of Sales Opportunities in ACT! 2010, the latest version of ACT! – check it out here.

Back to ACT! & Excel – so you have all your sales opportunity data in ACT!, and you want to send an Excel report to someone in your company, but you first want to work with the data in Excel. No problem, just follow these easy steps:

1. Click View | Opportunities from the pull-down menus.
2. Filter this list view to show the data you want to play with in Excel. Maybe you only want Open opportunities, or just the deals that are set to close in the next month, or deals that are over a particular dollar figure. Hmmmm, I think I smell a future blog post on filtering list views…
3. Customize the list view to add whatever opportunity data you want to see. For instance, I always add Days Open and Probability of Closure to the opportunity list view. Hey, there’s another blog post topic, customizing list views.
4. Now click Tools | Export to Excel and voila, all you data is in an Excel spreadsheet. But wait, there’s more. Notice the other tabs at the bottom of the Excel worksheet – ACT! very kindly builds a pivot table which you can use as a starting point to begin some really slick data analysis. Pivot tables, blog post topic #3!

ACT Export to Excel