Estimating the future

Your personal future:
Making plans for your own future is enriching.
Without future and plans there is no hope, no dream, no value in life.

The Entrepreneur:
Writing a business plan for your startup or company is required and fruitful.

The CEO:
Estimating the forecast is needed for giving direction and steering the company.

The VP Sales:
Calculating the sales targets, based on extrapolations of the not yet finished year is subjective.

The Salesman:
Having to guess your own sales of next year is likely to be a waste of time as you could have been prospecting and selling.

Nobody can look into the future as we don’t have a crystal ball.
Why wasting all this time in forecasting?
And having meetings on these numbers?

Moreover:
Once the calculations done and agreed upon (at least from management side), these forecasted numbers will become your budget and the target that need to be achieved.

Remark: Don’t exceed on your budget to early in the year or your targets for next year will be much higher. Let management first calculate the budget for next year, then you achieve the target.

Hold on to the funnel based on your pipeline

The funnel or pipeline is the only guide there is for the future.
A funnel based on real projects with customer or leads.
A pipeline, that has been build upon qualified leads with the best estimation of value and chance to win.
No pipeline dream – but deals in the pipeline.
Keep your feet on the ground.
Real forecasts come from real people with real deals on hand.

You sales job is to aim to close the deals in your pipeline.
Forecasting is for C-level people.

Forecasting versus selling

Why do they all want you as Sales to have a crystal ball?
The crystal ball the C-level people in the company don’t have one neither.
It is just because they don’t know neither they ask you as you are nearer to the customer.

Thus they ask you to spend time on looking into the future for numbers they need to dream up.
Numbers you need to enter into a spreadsheet or CRM system.
Followed-up by meetings concerning these numbers, just to make sure you don’t under estimate.

All this is valuable time you could have used for calling leads, meeting with prospects and nurturing. customers. Thus the budget or targets cost a lot of money to define.

How much time do you need to spend on forecasting and budgeting?
How many times a year?
How much sales did you miss being occupied with non-productive matters for the CEO or VP Sales?

Microsoft attacking Apple advertising

Microsoft has dumped the career of Bill Gates in sitcoms and has changed to address Apple with their Mac advertising campaign: “I’m a PC – I’m a Mac”.
This campaign is very clear and to the point: no more clues and hints like the Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates sitcoms.

Microsoft addresses the advertising of Apple, where the PC has been “made into a stereo-type”, very directly with the same tagline “I’m a PC”, showing all kinds of people declaring they use the PC too.

These videos are clear enough to be understood by the public it is intended for.

Apple Mac is the wrong opponent

The Apple Mac still has a low market share of 10%(worldwide).
Microsoft addresses the wrong opponent, the wrong competitor.
People no longer care so much about their computer as long as it allows them to surf the Internet.
On-line applications have become more important than off-line.
Web services using a browser are becoming the most popular platform.

Web services instead of Microsoft: Office, Dynamics CRM, Financials,…

People use web services both at home and in businesses:
Consumers:
- Banking transactions: on-line (any bank)
- P2P Payments: online with Paypal
- Buying: online shopping with eBay
- Calling: on-line with Skype
- Writing: online with Google Apps
- Video: online with YouTube
- Finance planning: online with Mint

Businesses:
- Banking: online
- CRM: online
- Lead generation: online
- Web analytics: online
- Conference calls: online
- Webinars: online
- Office: online
- Project: online
- Invoicing: online
- Accounting: online
- ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning): mostly on a local server

So instead of attacking Apple, it might have been better to send out a positive message on how good Microsoft is into you enabling to use web services.
“Enabling web services for the people”
As this expresses your real use and goal.

Do you buy a Mac? a PC? Or a Linux notebook?

Who still cares?
No, you will just buy a device that gets you onto the Internet with the least hassle.
This can be a computer or a mobile device, as long as it delivers you the Internet for the web services you need.
Who cares about the operating system, as long as you get your service without a headache.

Browser wars

Whether you use a PC, a Mac or a Linux, they all deliver you the Internet through a browser.
The browser wars are much more important!
FireFox (52%), Internet Explorer(26%), Safari(10%), Opera, Chrome (according to ReadWriteWeb)

The Browser will be the new operating system independent from any operating system and nay hardware: computer or mobile device (smart phone – PDA).
This has already been made clear by Google Chrome, to be used for many reasons:
- To enable applications in your browser
- To collect data from you as Google is into advertising
- To eliminate Microsoft Operating system domination

The problems: browser and web services

Thus attacking Apple won’t matter, as the real problem are the browser and the web services.
It is probably a waste of time.

About your business and marketing

Big companies get it wrong
As it has been always before: the Big leading companies with big money overlook the real problem.
Maybe their marketers no longer speak to the people or business owners.
Probably they loose contact with their users.
They address the wrong problems at the wrong moment.

Small to medium companies better get it right
In your small or medium sized company you cannot make such mistakes as it will be felt in the bottom line fast, because of the high advertising costs.

The advantage you have over the big companies is that you are nearer to your customer or even part of the community of smaller and medium sized businesses.
Knowing your problems is in many cases knowing their problems and pains.
Moreover you should be aware of the threats for your business.

Try to define your opponent or your biggest threat in order to have your answers ready whenever your customer or the potential customer starts asking questions.

If you dare you can address the threat directly with advertising.
Just be sure to pick the right threat, as advertising costs money and your audience of buyers and potential buyers need to understand it and recognize the situation or problem you are addressing.

More Microsoft videos on the same theme

Two more videos from this series found by TechCrunch

And it just keeps going on: maybe less is more.

Who cares about the operating system as we all use web services?
The functions and features of the web service for a certain price are more important to you.
The integration or data exchange of the different web services is a bigger issue.

Commission vs fixed fee

Almost anywhere in the world in any business sales reps work on a base salary and a commission on the sales they are bringing in. Fair deal.

Online advertising services, like Google AdSense, are also on a “No cure – No pay” basis.

If the CEO or VP Marketing does himself the PR, his efforts will get him benefits indirectly as more leads wil become more sales, which translates into a bigger bonus at the end of the year or higher company valuation.

However PR agencies still seem to be in the pre-Internet era with their fee structure.
Public Relationship agencies work on a fixed fee or a fee according to the efforts made (numbers of hours worked).
This compensation method has no relation to the revenue their efforts are generating.

All the risk is for the hiring company, all the benefit is for the PR agency without surprises.
The only risk they have is not being hired for the next term.

No cure – No pay for PR?

Why can’t a PR agency be paid a minimum basic fee for covering the running expenses and a commission in relation to the number of leads or the value of leads they are generating?
Split by: 20 % fix and 80% variable.
Using a “No cure – No pay” model for PR agencies, then they can prove how effective they are.

Splitting the risk

The risk in the “No cure – No pay” compensation is split between the hiring company and the PR agency:
- The risk for the hiring company: the PR agency can mess up or waste time: still pays a minimal fee.
- The risk for the PR agency: they invest time and effort but miss to generate leads, as they fail to address the market or potential customers.

Most salesmen in the world accept the “No cure – No pay” compensation, where they take the big risk of getting a paid minimum wage. Why wouldn’t PR agencies agree upon this risk-based compensation?

Change of business model for PR brings complexity

Changing the business model requires to define the metrics for the compensation.
These metrics are completely under control of the hiring company. Requiring the PR agency to trust the hiring company.
Moreover: the origin of each lead and the lead value would become under discussion.
Thus defining an acceptable compensation method will be difficult.

One metric could be the number of visitors on the website each month. However traffic is not representative for the number of leads and not really related to revenue.

Another metric could be the number of company visitors on the website of a B2B company, as one can define the origin of the lead and relate it to the PR agency’s efforts.
However bounce visits would drive up the invoice, but wouldn’t bring any leads.

A possible better metric could be the number of qualified leads that can be related to the PR agency’s efforts. This are leads that are good enough to be followed up in the CRM.
Qualified leads have a value for the company, thus they won’t waste an cheat upon these.

Conclusion

It is clear that any results-driven compensation model would increase the complexity of both measuring the performance and the billing, thus increasing discussions.

Are there any PR agencies that:
- Dare to work with a basic fee and a “No cure – No pay” commission?
- Have engineered a feasible and acceptable pricing structure?

Kathy Sierra (programming instructor and game developer) states on Twitter:
Buzz: getting users/potential users excited about YOU.
Sustainable: getting them excited about THEMSELVES (what your product/svc enables)

The trailer is better than the film: generating the desire

The trailer is better than the actual film (Funnelholic).
They spoil you with the spoilers of the movie, just in order to get you talking. In order to generate the desire to go and watch the movie.
The movie marketing has become more important than the movie production itself, as they need to convince you to buy a ticket to get into the theatre.

Goal is to get viral

This is what we all experience all too often:
A lot of buzz is created in the newspapers and magazines, on the Internet or during small talk amongst friends.
This is a great viral campaign as it spreads and grows without additional input or costs from you.

When the service launches or becomes available, everybody is thrilled to experience it.
However quickly the interest drops, as the service or product might be OK or the offering is good enough, but it doesn’t get the users excited about themselves. They have to be taking part themselves in the success.

Like the iPhone 3G: from buzz to deception

The iPhone 3G promised a lot and generated excitement when announced, but didn’t deliver or failed on many features. It even generated user anger and class-action lawsuits.

The buzz due to the dream

It is like children staring at toys and dreaming about what they could do with these toys or the respect they could get form others by owning these toys.
Then when they finally get them as present, they initially are enthusiastic, but then find out nobody else cares about these toys.
Soon the interest drops.

People buy cars, in many occasions not just to drive from A to B, but to express something bout themselves, make them interesting.
If the car doesn’t make them important, the excitement disappears.
If the great car is succeeded by another model or make, the interest is gone from his social group.
Car makers sell more than just the car. They almost sell you a different life (style).

Beyond lead generation

If your lead generation gets a lot of buzz and generates high expectations, if you cannot deliver of fulfill these high expectations, the success will not be sustainable.

The best is having a product or service that enhances the capabilities of the buyer or user.
Your solutions have to leverage or extend the capabilities of the user to such a point he becomes excited about himself. About what he is achieving thanks to your product or solution.
Then the excitement will spread to others too as they see the benefit or the increase in status of the buyer.

Status, capabilities or achievements

Every product or service needs to increase the owners’ status, capabilities or achievements.
This is what people want to get from products and services.
The actual features or benefits are somewhat less important.

One hit wonder or sustainable?

Is your product or solution a buzz generator or does it generate excitement about themselves?
This makes a big difference in the long run.

In this world of abundance of video and messages, it becomes hard to stand out from the crowd, even in B2B.

Get noticed: speak English with French accent

In order to getting noticed and remembered, Cartes & IDentification 2008 event, uses a Frenchman speaking English with the typical French accent:

In the French version the man speaks his mother tongue: French.
Thus less chance to get noticed as it is not entertaining.

Same effect with a German speaking English?

Would this have worked using a German speaking English?
Probably not.
There is a difference in perception between French and Germans.
Somehow the French get away with it – since ages.
Why? Culture?

Daring video addressing banks

This is a rather daring video as it addresses a serious industry: smart cards, payments and identification. Markets that are mainly related to financial institutions.
Not exactly people that are in for a laugh.
And going viral in the financial institution world is not yet done.

Informative video

Still the video tells much about the conference:
- Location is France: as the speaker clearly is a Frenchman.
- The sharp intro sound makes it edgy and points to the high tech side of the event.
- Dynamic: using several takes, the speed of the message is high.
- The speaker addresses the viewer very directly.
- Although the speaker is funny, the tone is serious business.
- French people do speak English now. That’s a big change!

Call to action is included

And they didn’t forget the call to action at the end:
“Click on zhe button to immediately receive zhe badge.”
Yes the entry is free after registering on-line.

Different kind of video on Cartes’ website

By the way: the video on Cartes’ website is less likely to be remembered despite the rock-pop music, as it:
- Consists of just images.
- No performance.
- No emotion.
Thus one company can present quite differently in their videos for the same event.

So how will you announce your B2B conference or event the next time?

Over the weekend, we have upgraded the live application based upon the remarks and suggestions of the companies using LEADSExplorer in Beta.
This wasn’t a week-end job though but an end to this chapter of improvements we have been making since we started getting feedback from the first bunch of Beta’s about 3 months ago.

To all the Beta-testers who provided us with bug reports, suggestions and insights:
THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT
You have no idea how valuable this is to us and how much you are helping shape LEADSExplorer.

Now, down to business, what has changed?

Improvements

The main improvements are:
- Menu tabs sequence: grouping by activity: discovering visiting companies vs selling to companies
- DISCOVER module:
   Visits by company has been added additionally to Visits by visitor.
   Solving the long url problem for solving layout problems.
   Search also possible by local country besides the worldwide search.
   Improving linking a visitor with an IP address outside the company IP range to this company.
   Additional help information added.

- SALESTractor CRM module:
   Start page with selections instead of a fixed list overview of the visiting companies;
   Overview of emails with the company.
- Name change of CRM IDENTIFY into SALESTractor.
- New feature: collecting/capturing incoming and outgoing emails.
   This solution provides several methods for centralizing all email communications by company in SALESTractor.
- Additional help information added.

SALESTractor CRM

The reason for changing the CRM to SALESTractor is for better expressing the driving (tractor) features:
- Contact management
- Lead qualification
- Events of Contact history
- Internet data mining of companies and contacts
- Collecting emails by company
- Matching contacts with visitors
- Automatic matching of email addresses from emails with visitors
- Activity chart by company
- Aggregated visit data by company
- Detailed visit information for every visitor of the company

SALESTractor tag line
These are all features that will help pulling forward your sales.
Tractor also points to the pull-marketing LEADSExplorer embraces.
There for we have the tag line that makes the link between lead generation, nurturing and sales drive by these information technology tools:
“Seed your leads, nurture your prospects and customers, and harvest your sales”

LEADSExplorer tag line
In order to state the difference with the complete solution:
“Discover website visitors by company name, qualify as leads using website data, convert leads into customers”

DISCOVER is the website visitor discovery by company name with all the possible visit and Internet data for qualifying your visiting company as lead. If qualified the company gets saved into the CRM.

SALESTractor is the CRM where the action of selling takes place.
Here their visits and your communications with the company are monitored and you can follow-up their reactions for nurturing and closing the sales.

The DISCOVER package will be available separately as an entry solution.

Next?

Our aim is to communicate new updates and news on availability for the web service soon.

Now that you have retired, it seems you are looking for a new career, as we can see you in these $300mio advertising video series from Microsoft:
The shoe shop:

Although you show affection for shoes, there is no role available as the shoe salesman Al Bundy, because there is no remake or continuation of “Married with children” planned. (Although Peggy would love you for your money).

Remark the similarities with the shoe shop of Al Bundy in “Married with children”:
- Both shoe shops are in a mall
- Both shoe shops walls have the same horizontal wooden planks
- Both shoe shops have a grey carpet
- The shoe salesman is completely ignored by the customers – just like Al Bundy (Microsoft cares about you?)

New family: (the second installment)

This one is about a family that is almost as strange as the Bundy’s, for instance:
- The remarks of the old grandma
- The strange conversations at night in the hallway
- The importance of the plastic giraffe.

To be shown in the rest of world? No!
In this series of advertising sitcom type videos, the issues addressed are probably typical and recognizable for Americans; however they aren’t appealing and relating to an audience outside the US.
Moreover the language and the words used spoken are hard to understand for foreigners as the articulation is bad.
So how can these expensive sitcoms be shown in other parts of the world?

The supporting actor Seinfeld is hardly known in the rest of the world.
Ed O’Neill, well known as Al Bundy, is probably more recognized than Seinfeld and way funnier.

Pointless ads
Even the Americans seem to find these sitcom advertisements pointless and utterly pointless. About nothing.
Seinfeld had a “show about nothing” before! So he sold the idea again to Bill Gates? (The Emperor’s new clothes?)

Just retire quietly
Thus M. Bill Gates please go retire quietly and forget about getting famous in a sitcom.
You can’t have everything and beware of your share holders.

Engage consumers and spark conversation

Microsoft has invested heavily in these series with Bill Gates and Seinfeld for probably multiple good reasons for them, unclear reasons for many people.

Maybe the message behind the ad series is to make clear that Microsoft is a people company and cares about people and how people connect as suggested by Kiltak or to “Engage consumers and spark conversation”

The business problem of Microsoft: upgrades only

There is no more market share to conquer.
Microsoft can only sell upgrades to the current users.
They have to convince you to upgrade to Vista.
Will you upgrade to Vista after viewing these videos?
Will you trust Microsoft more after the sitcoms?

Customers will know that the actor Seinfeld got $10mio for his acting (appearance).
This $10mio or the $300mio, needs to be paid by many upgrades at $156 (Vista Home Premium upgrade). Many upgrades. And they all will run slower afterwards.

Al Bundy and the computer – that nobody uses

This is from another era when MS-DOS was ruling.
However is it about how Al Bundy as a consumer is engaged and sparks the conversation in his way (with the speaking computer):

Watch it until the end when he slams the computer with a hammer and is satisfied as he says: “Now I’m truly King!”.

CRM Report

Go-To-Market Strategies has published “The State of CRM: Benchmarks and Product Guide (2008)“. The 19 page document can be downloaded here.

They have asked their subscribers:
-What CRM software they were using, what modules and how it works with other software.
- Inquired about user adoption, inter-departmental use, key benchmarks and best practices.

Although the title states “Product guide” only 2 products are mentioned in the report: SalesForce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which is a bit limited as there are many CRM’s available.

Main problems and issues:

- It is hard to get staff USE the CRM system
- Data accuracy is an issue … garbage in, garbage out
- Only a few of the inquired people are truly recognizing the value of CRM

Key findings:

- Most CRM systems are mainly used for Contact Management (The electronic Rolodex)
- Adoption of the CRM is still pitiful, given the investment.
   At best 60% have almost everyone using the system for sales; 47% for marketing; and 40% for customer service.
- Less than 50% feel as though they were able to get real time information from their CRM.
- Only 30% are using their CRM for forecasting and only 60% are using it for pipeline management.
- There are so many choices of CRM now available that no one system truly dominates
   Though salesforce.com does come out on top as 24% top choice.
- Only 52% follow CRM best practices
   (data clean-up, disaster recovery, integration with sales model, and real-time metrics).
- Not one single CRM system dominates.
- 37% has only 1 to 5 users – 45% has 20 users or more – thus most systems are being used in small sales teams.

Conclusion:

CRM solutions:
- Have room for improvement
- Need to grow further than being contact management
- Should engage all of the employees in marketing and sales
- Need to adapt to the changing environment of marketing and sales: the Internet and new communication methods

Read: Why CRM fail?.

Do you use the CRM of your company? If not why?
Do you too just use the contact management? Why not more functions?

Are you happy with your Rolodex?
Then stick with it.
But don’t complain if:
- You can’t write enough on the business cards.
- You can’t take it with you
- It is cumbersome to write all the contact details on
- Keeping the data up-to-date is painful
- Copy/paste doesn’t exist
- Writing on the cards without taking them out hurts
- You need to trim some business cards to fit into the Rolodex
- You can no longer read what you have written 2 years ago
- You need several on your desk

However if the IT system or the Internet breaks down, you keep on working!

Do you want an electronic version?
Use Microsoft Exchange Contacts on your desktop that your company has paid for.
But don’t complain when a virus misuses your contacts and don’t forget to take back-ups.

Do you want a simple yet effective CRM?
Get one of the web based CRM systems that you can access anywhere.
But don’t complain about the limited yet sufficient functionalities and the difficulty to integrate with other applications.

Do you want a big complex software system that requires training?
Use one of the big established CRM solutions if you can pay for and your company has the right reasons to use it: like call centre integration.
But don’t complain if you can’t use it effectively, get lost in the many features and the consultants seem to stick forever.

Do you want a mailing system?
Buy one or get it as a web service as offered by many vendors and use it independently from your CRM.
But figure out first where to get all the required contacts and addresses.
And don’t complain on the massive number of mails you need to send in order to get one reply of a possible lead instead of the many tire kickers.

Do you want an email tracking system for your emailing campaigns?
Get it as a service then your IT department doesn’t need to be involved.
But figure out first where to get all the required contacts and addresses for your mailings.
And don’t complain on the massive number of emails you need to send in order to get visitors on your landing page that still need to find the rest of your website interesting.

Do you want to enhance your lead generation and cold calling?
Use a web service that reveals your website visitors by company name, allowing you to qualify these as raw leads (or not interesting) by the pages visited and the nature of the company.
But don’t complain if you need to upload the company data in batch to your CRM and thus have no real time info for tracking your leads and customers in your CRM.

Do you want to improve your lead generation, cold calling, nurturing of leads and customers and sell more?
Get a web service that reveals your website visitors by company name (using IP address), allowing you to qualify these as raw leads (or not interesting) by the pages visited and the business of the company.
Follow these leads up in the seamless integrated CRM that is being feed continuously with visiting data from the company to be used for lead and customer nurturing and selling more as you know exactly at any moment about the behavior of the employees of the potential customer on your website.

Get LEADSExplorer with the bonus of getting your emails organized in the CRM.
But don’t complain you didn’t have this before.

Today 10 September at CERN the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been made. The goal is to try to recreate the “Big Bang”.
If this news hasn’t reached you, then you have probably seen the picture on Google.

Even if their main goal isn’t achieved or successful, CERN has changed the world by creating the Internet.

In March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a proposal for information management for transferring information over the Internet by using hypertext, this would enable collaboration in the high energy physics community.

The goal was to have a single information network to help CERN physicists share all the computer-stored information at the laboratory. Hypertext would enable users to browse easily between texts on web pages using links.
In order to make the WorldWideWeb – as it was called in 1990 – usable Berners-Lee created a browser-editor using his NeXT personal computer (Steve Jobs).
CERN had the first web server ever.

Thus even if the biggest and most expensive ($6Billion) laboratory experiment even fails completely; CERN has already changed the world where we live in: the Internet – a Big Bang.

The first goal was exchange of information for collaboration.
Today the Internet has many more purposes for both personal and business life.

Rapping on the Large Hadron Collider:

More seriously:

Will CERN change your life again? Will the LHC have the same impact as the Internet? Only time will tell