Category: Uncategorized

How early 90s!

I just got a 19 page fax. And not one I requested either. It is a survey for “buyers guide” for a trade publication I have only passing interest in. Pages 4 to 18 is a list of products that I’m supposed to go thru and check which ones we offer. Most are just different chemical compounds which I don’t even offer. Then I suppose they want me to fax back all 19 pages?? And someone there is supposed to read the 8 point type that’s been faxed twice?

I know it can be hard to get support to apply technology for a project, but it is painful getting the fax. I can only imagine what the coordinator of this project will feel when she gets hundreds of these back.

An interesting read

Mark Joyner is someone I’ve been interested in, but maybe a little sceptical of, too. He is a great copy-writer, and here is a good one to read. You’ll learn more about cloned babies and marketing at the same time!

MindControlMarketing.Com Letters

Goldmine demo

We had the local “platinum” reseller for Goldmine in yesterday to discuss our needs and demo the software. An overall positive experience. He will set me up with a “thin-client” so I can test out the software on his server–pretty nice!

He made me realize that I haven’t got an official response from SalesLogix yet. Its getting to be a while. I’m a forgiving person, but if you are selling sales tools, I expect first-class service. So far, SaleLogix has a hole to dig out of.

A recommendation

I read this book last year and was just recommending it at Heal Your Church Website, and thought I should recommend it here. A perfect balance of the nitty gritty issues without getting technical.

The Art & Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen

Another survey???

What is it with CRM people and forms? And forms that don’t link into their own CRM software, no less. I got another one today from the Goldmine dealer I mentioned in the previous post. Apparently Goldmine did let them know to contact me, so the felf compelled to send me their own form. There weren’t many questions, but why do they need to be asked, and in this manner? Having trouble starting a conversation? The other Goldmine/Saleslogix guy I talked to asked similar questions. Here are today’s two questions:

Your three biggest sales and marketing pains (e.g. qualify leads faster, obtain more new leads, provide timely inquiry response, nurture current leads/relationships, reduce time to prepare quotes, forecast sales better, improve team selling processes, analyze our markets and territories, develop a practical marketing plan, etc.).

Does our closure rate on trade show leads exceed our market share percentage?

What is our closure rate on proposals to qualified prospects?

Our customer retention rate is?

What are the first questions you want to ask your customer? How do you want them asked? What impression do you want to make? Should I trust CRM “consultants” who don’t ask themselves these questions?

Tracking CRM suppliers

The sales machines for CRM software is truly amazing in its complexity. After filling out a lengthy form in Word and emailing it to Goldmine, ten days later I get this reply:

In case you don’t have this information already, you can contact our local partner XX at 555-1212. They can assist you with any questions etc.

So why did I fill out the survey form? Wouldn’t it be better to forward the form to the local partner and have them contact me?

After three emails with the CRM consultant in New Jersey asking me to call him (and not bother with the form he originally sent), I did. We had a good conversation…he got answers he wanted, I did as well. Turns out he is following up from an inquiry two years ago by one of our field sales people.

Thanks Jim

I had known about TinyURL, having seen others use it, but I never thought about using it to solve a problem with a link that is too long in my website. Seems the example they use is a MapQuest link, too!

TinyURL.com – where tiny is better!

Enter a long URL to make tiny:

MapQuest is much better

Straight-forward linking instructions, no pop-ups! The linking instructions help you strip out other server commands out of the link you would normally see in your browser.

They, and everyone else except maps-on-us, show our location down the street, but at least I can get people to our small industrial drive.

Every company needs a map to their offices, right?

Wanted to post about Jakob Nielsen’s complaint about URLs being longer than 75 characters. I was going to tell my tale about having to hunt for a web-based map that I need to link to so people can find our company. Let me start there. When upgrading the site, I wanted to ensure the map link was up-to-date (I think it was wrong due to server changes by the mapping service). But the new URL wouldn’t be accepted by FrontPage because it was over 255 characters! I haven’t tried that link in Dreamweaver, but I may have to.

My elegant solution was to link to another mapping service MapsOnUs, which had a short URL for the map page I generated. But in checking this morning, I find that the URL includes a user code, that it won’t let everyone use. My cookie for this user code must have expired because now I found that I get dumped on a generic “enter address here” form. Crap!

As I study their poor website, I find that as a business, I have to subscribe to fancy mapping services starting at 2K a year, or pretend that I am a non-commercial site, in which I can link to their site. No middle ground.

And the MapsOnUs site really sucks, too. The “business svcs” link on their home page drops you to a PDF file. Their linking instructions are long and complicated. And to top it all off their “contact us” page gives text directions to their offices, but no link to a map!

Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 (Alertbox Dec. 2002)

Please read the whole list, but here is my pet peeve. I’ll address #9 in another post.

7. Infrequently Asked Questions in FAQ

Too many websites have FAQs that list questions the company wished users would ask. No good. FAQs have a simplistic information design that does not scale well. They must be reserved for frequently asked questions, since that’s the only thing that makes a FAQ a useful website feature. Infrequently asked questions undermine users’ trust in the website and damage their understanding of its navigation.