Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Complicated

David Grenda, Founder, Grenda Computer Consulting

In my work as a software developer, I use the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 product. The product offers over 288,000 objects and features you can integrate into a software package you are writing. My clients use a myriad of software systems, server systems, and databases that they depend on to run their businesses. In typical fashion, the software makers can’t sit still and each new generation of software brings with it a big batch of new features and changes.

It’s the lament of the computer industry that everything is getting so complicated the average end-user is becoming hesitant to use new products because they just finished the learning curve for the product they are using now. We’ve seen the problems with Vista, the operating system intended to simplify and streamline. Think of the software you use. What percentage of the capabilities do you actually use? The average is 15%. 25% if you are considered a power user.

Where I’m going with this is that you have to do a couple of things to mitigate the situation. First, make sure your people are at least trained at a minimum level to feel comfortable with the software you use. Second, don’t skip upgrades on software. Going from version 2.0 to 6.0 in one jump will likely give you heartburn.

There are a lot of online resources to help you with thee training. Visit Microsoft.com to check them out.

If you would like further guidance in considering the options, feel free to drop me an email at david@grenda.com.

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Using Social Media to Increase Sales

Pat Mason, Simple Sales

The following three-step process will help you decide how to use social technologies to increase sales. Selling today is less about the “buyer/seller” relationship, and more about connections in your broader community such as your staff, suppliers, clients, and so on.

Before you start, ask yourself:

1. Who is in my community?

2. Can they participate online?

3. Are resources available to create and support my community over the long term?

If you can answer yes to these questions you are ready to begin. The process has three steps.

Step 1:

Define your community into two categories.

Core - members you need to survive

a. You

b. Staff

c. Customers

d. Suppliers

e. ?

New - members you need to thrive

a. New customers

b. Specialized resources/experts

c. Critics/product reviews/press

d. ?

Step 2:

Define how each member gives/gets value from each other today, and how they could give/get value once connected via the internet.

You may want to start with Core members, and add New later. To keep things simple, I have only considered Core clients for now.

My Community

Step 3:

Now think about your goals. Sales strategies support organizational goals so think about yours; new customer, new products, or what?

For this example let’s say you sell software, have 300 clients and your goal is to increase professional services fees.

Look back a the My Community table. Is it consistent with your overall goals? Have you included people that generate professional service fees? If not, add them and look at how they interact with other members of your community. How could they exchange value to make you money?

Here are some suggestions I would make

1. Connect consultants to customers - Engourage consultants to blob about projects, problems, and solutions. Client will be quick to call if they spot ideas that could work for them.

2. Connect customers to each other - Encourage cilents to share stories, guest post, and comment.

3. Connect yourself - Play a central role. Maintain the blog and make sure everyone is participating. Combe the content for ideas on how to increase professional service revenue. Is there a solution to a problem you can standardize, is a customer expanding, have you asked happy clients for referrals and so on.

Sales 2.0 can be daunting. If you don’t have time to do a comprehensive strategy, tackle it in bite size pieces. Keep it simple, use standard tools and remember that you can always adjust course along the way.

Patrick Mason is the principal and owner of Simple Sales, a venture that is all about making sales and sales consulting better. Way better. Simple Sales looks to improve our clients’ sales results quickly, effectively and in lasting and meaningful ways. We do this by drawing on our experience in sales, sales methodology, and where appropriate the focused application of technology to capture opportunities and solve problems.

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