Month: January 2004

Lets take a few minutes and be thankful we didn’t work for these people or companies:

Business 2.0 – 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

I’ve been helping someone source a material that we use. He isn’t a customer, but the material was hard to find. I found out who our vendor was and passed it along. What a nice guy I am.

So this engineer calls me back and asks if I have the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for this material. Turns out the supplier of this material ‘only gives MSDS sheets to customers.’

How can he evaluate the material’s suitability if he can’t get an MSDS? How will he become a customer? So I’m the one who ends up making the sale for them. They don’t deserve it. Maybe I should find him a different vendor, too!

When I went to the Google Dance in the last few months, it was like I was sitting on the side, watching all the nerds dance with the pretty girls. The music was ‘Florida-update’, and I didn’t know how to dance with it, anyway.

As of this morning, I am standing about where I was before the Florida-update. Yipee! Apparently this update is called Austin. Its got a familiar beat. Thank god, after a big AdWords bill for January.

Taking a quick look at the SERPs (search engine results pages), I see that this dance either isn’t over, or has other surprises that aren’t affecting me. I do notice that plural search terms are less likely to affect results. We’ll see how things stand when the dance is over.

Someone asked me this morning about what email newsletter software to use. Here is my reply:

Check to see if your web-host includes ‘mailman’ software. I haven’t used it, but I here it is a good tool. My host has ‘majordomo’ which is older and much harder to use.

There are a lot of web services out there, but most cost money or have advertising. For a small, infrequent list, they aren’t worth it.

Most important is to have a plan and schedule for your newsletter. Also a consistent format.

I could make some tenuous connection between Martin Luther King Jr. and marketing, but, it isn’t necessary. He really was a great salesperson, though.

Humor me and take a look at pictures of MLK and others in the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March in 1965. Be sure to click on ‘more photos’ at the bottom. I really enjoyed these seeing these photos when I visited Montgomery last year. The exhibit at the Alabama Archives tells the complete story so well.

“Injustice anywhere hurts justice everywhere.” – MLK Jr.

Today I will talk to a sales rep from Saleforce.com. But before I do, I read the article: Hosted CRM: A Great Debate or Much Ado About Nothing? (thanks to CRM Mastery.) At the very least, it will help temper my excitement for the benefits of an online CRM package.

However, much of what the article warns about ASP software doesn’t apply to me, which is probably why I felt I could look at Salesforce. The one lingering argument about cost over time should be worth discussing. Yes, over the years an ASP software will cost more, at $70 a month per user, versus $30 a year for maintenance for Goldmine.

But I should also factor in the savings in IT support and my time in supporting in-house software. This is especially true if we deploy to all our sales reps. Some of them have a hard time cutting-and-pasting. I don’t want to have to walk them thru a software upgrade or other fix.

Tired of waiting for Outlook to open? I was surprised how long it took to open on my new 2.8G XP box.

Turns out that the “Enable Instant Messaging” function in Outlook was the slow down. Go to: Tools/Options/Other to turn it off.

[Insert Microsoft rant here.] Ahh, that feels better.

Here are the news stories I am working on:

1. I am reopening evaluation of CRM software we’re really going to do it this year!). I am adding one potential vendor to my list…salesforce.com. I filled out a form at their website yesterday and haven’t heard anything yet. I am very interested in going to ‘ASP’ instead of client-server software.
2. I’ve been given the book Meaningful Marketing to read. It is a good book worth discussing. The lead author, Doug Hall, is from Brain Brew Radio, an NPR show that my local station doesn’t carry.
3. I’ve enlisted SEO blogger Serge Thibodeau from Rank for $ales to do a review of a site that is ranking high despite the devastating ravages of Google’s hilltop/florida algorithm change.
   

4. Over the years, business.com sales reps have been good at touching base with me, since I am using the PPC advertising. I recently sent them some detailed questions about how their listings are done. I have my concerns that I am paying for clicks that others are not.

I just got off the phone with a new potential client who was on our website. I promised him an email with a price quote ‘shortly’. And he asked what my name was. Not just because he wanted to hold me accountable for a promise to send a quote, but because we had started a relationship.

I always feel flattered when new prospects ask for my name or extension number. Of course, now that I am flattered, I am willing to help him in any way I can. Turns the tables on the conventional wisdom about salespeople and customers, doesn’t it? How do people react to your staff when the call your company? Are they starting or building on a relationship?

Some digging turned up the entire article about blogging and b2blog.com at the Grand Rapids Press. The title in the paper was different than is on the web: Confessions of a blogger.

“The purpose is to let me express myself,” said Jung, 36. “I feel comfortable expressing myself in writing. I have this thought, and the only way I can make it concrete is by putting it into writing, having that invisible person to talk to. It becomes your soap box.

“At the very least, it allows me to express my thoughts and observations, whether anybody’s listening or not.”