It has been said that a man who promotes his competitors on his own site is a man who soon will find another line of work. I have always believed, and made it the policy of VanillaSoft, that getting people into the right product is more important than selling your product to the wrong person. For my older readers, you will recall that Santa did the same in the classic film, “Miracle on 34^th Street.” Macy’s became famous for sending people to their archrival, Gimbals. If it is good enough for Santa…

The truth is that no one product can satisfy the needs of everyone. From time to time I find a new product or service that I like to write about and recommend. Don’t get me wrong. If you need lead management, I want you to look at VanillaSoft first. However, if you are looking to manage prospects and contacts without letting anything slip through the cracks, and you want to do it through traditional e-mail, than I think you should take a look at Contactually.

Simple and smart, Contactually automatically prioritizes your email contacts and helps you reconnect with the most important people at the right time. When they see a high-priority contact start to slip off your radar, they will send you a quick reminder to follow up. 

Beyond taking action with contacts in your network, Contactually also gathers and adds information from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (along with 20+ other social networks) to each person in your address book. You can easily find the latest updates on everyone in your network, and share it with other folks on your team.

Contactually is a great solution for anyone who sends a lot of emails, particularly people in sales, business development, or professional services (like consulting or financial management. Contactually works with any IMAP email account – including Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo, and AOL.  

So, if you have been looking to better manage your e-mail, contacts and opportunities, plug a few holes of lost opportunities, and are not ready for traditional CRM or lead management software, then Contactually may be worth the look.  To grab a free trial of Contactually visit them at  www.contactually.com/beta

 It is that time of the year again when we all set our goals for next year. We pour over this year’s numbers looking for the trends, the openings for growth, where we fell short and so on. We drive a flag into 2011 and declare success or stick a fork in it and say it is done. Many of the wins were in our control and many of the losses were well out of our control. Or, that is the story we peddle to ourselves. All we know is that next year needs to be better. We need more. We want success. The nagging question placed at our feet is defining success. 

“I have chosen the path less traveled when it comes to defining success.” Read the rest of this entry »

Lauren Carlson, CRM Market Analyst over at Marketing Automation Software Guide, shared a post and video link that I think clearly outlined and clarified some of the confusion around lead management and demand generation. As a provider of Lead Management Software, we see it all of the time.

Lauren shared that “demand generation” and “lead management” are two terms that are well known but are often times confused and thought to be the same thing. Lauren posted a great two-part whiteboard session with Carlos Hidalgo, CEO of Annuitas Group and Executive Director of the Marketing Automation Institute.

In the video, Carlos defines both terms and explains how companies should view them not as separate entities, but a dual proposition. I like the simple but elegant explanation Carlos gives.

I encourage you to take a look.  Vist Lauren’s Blog here to watch the video.

Best,

Ken

Have you ever stood behind your outbound sales people and really paid attention after they complete a sales call? It can be quite the learning experience. Whether they are the high-paid closers or the entry level prospectors, many, if not most, will kill quite a bit of time before saddling up and making the next call. As a sales manager or business owner, this loss of productivity can be the difference between OK performance or harnessing a high-powered sales team. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometime we simply do not take the time to say thanks. We all may think it, or, from a business prospective, create a campaign to show it, but, I am talking about truly being reflective and feeling it. As you know, I usually write about software, lead management and business. Now that the holiday season is upon us, I wanted to take this opportunity to give my thanksgiving openly and honestly in a public forum. I have so much to be thankful for I can’t possibly scratch the surface. Read the rest of this entry »

 Not so many years ago, we would click on a few icons, wait for a report to generate, review the report and feel pretty good about the control and speed we had over our data, salespeople and results. Well friends, in a world of instant gratification, reports seem like yesterday’s news. Today, we want live streaming stats, and we demand that our sales software provides them.

If your Lead Management, Telemarketing, Prospecting or Inside Sales Software can’t tell you instantly and at a glance exactly what is going on with your leads Read the rest of this entry »

I was chatting with my good friend Dan McDade over at PointClear about how some businesses select not to outsource their sales lead generation and prospect development even when they are struggling with it internally and missing their sales goals.  It got me really thinking about how I see the value proposition of when to outsource and when to go at it alone. 

 If I may be so bold as to paraphrase a line from Master Card, here is what I have to say about outsourcing in general: “Building your own internal campaigns for lead gen and doing a decent job without losing focus on your core business- fair enough. Pulling the trigger and letting the big dogs run while you focus on your core competencies and winning the day on both sides of the ball- priceless.” Read the rest of this entry »

I must admit, when I heard Steve died, I think I was like many people. We were somewhat expecting it, and not necessarily shocked by the news. Like many of you, I watched the coverage and it made me reflect on the many contributions Steve and Apple have made in terms of form, design and marketing. But, with all of the coverage, I did not necessarily feel that connected to the event. Or, at least not until I read the following Facebook post the next morning. It read:

“Game changer to Electronics

Life changer for the Future

We will miss the man that lets us

do what seemed out of our grasp”

  Read the rest of this entry »

I get quite a few questions about the value of auto dialing and whether or not it can really increase the productivity of a sales person who works by phone. Most managers who have never tried a form of auto dialing are skeptical, and they should be. There are so many amazing claims in the market built around dialing that it makes it hard to get to the truth. I have seen wild claims: 400% increases promised, triple your sales, never go 10 seconds without a live conversation and so on. Most are just that: claims.  But before we throw out the baby with the bath water, let’s take a look at reasonable claims. Read the rest of this entry »

VanillaSoft remains the leading software platform driving phone sales. Thank goodness right? If we had listened to the pundits we would have pulled the plug years ago. Selling by phone is dead they yelled. We heard it all. No one uses the phone anymore;  people can’t be reached. If you reach them they do not want to be bothered. Read the rest of this entry »