Enterprise Software Executive Blog

Southeastern Software Association - SaaS Discussion

Last night, I was honored to be a panelist for the Southeastern Software Association's discussion on Software as a Service.  The panel had several members from telecommunications and other areas of infrastructure.  It became clear that there are definitely some solutions that should be considered as SaaS solutions in almost all cases.  One solution that I found compelling was outsourced Exchange Servers managed by USA.net.  David Ramon, CEO and President, USA.net, explained that 97% of Exchange Servers are in-house applications.  Given the ability to map your email domain to a 3rd party who can effectively deliver higher SLA's at a lower cost, I am not sure why you wouldn't consider USA.net to manage your email servers.  On the other side of the equation, I discussed the pro's and con's of SaaS for enterprise applications.  In the CRM market, I suggested that each company really needs to evaluate their needs before deciding to deploy in a SaaS or On-Premise solution.  For very complex integrations with mission critical applications, SaaS has some challenges that companies like Salesforce.com do not want to openly discuss.  For example, if you have ten to fifteen backend systems with multiple customer records in each system, you will need a good process for data cleansing.  Typically, you will cleanse in a staging area prior to loading into your CRM solution.  Although this can be done prior to loading into a SaaS solution, you have already created the IT infrastructure to manage the cleansing process, so I would question your cost savings by outsourcing the application piece given all the other work on your end.  More importantly, if you have a lot of legacy integration points, you will be limited by most SaaS vendors to their proprietary API's.  That means that you will have several integration options based on the SaaS vendors chosen integration methods.  If you have new systems that are all web service enabled, then you are probably fine.  However, if you have some legacy systems that require more expensive methods like many mainframe applications, then you are going to require a significant amount of work to integrate.  Unfortunately, once you integrate and load your customer data into the SaaS application vendors system, you will begin to feel somewhat locked into that solution.  You better hope that they do not change pricing on you in the future because you will have no choice at that point.  So what is a better approach you ask?  Well, I am not suggesting that the above above is incorrect, however, I would suggest that you explore the more open solutions.  Obviously, I am a huge advocate of SugarCRM, but there are other solutions that provide open integration methods that will not create vendor lock-in.  I would suggest that you explore all your options and keep in mind integration, pricing, and long term flexibility when deciding on your CRM solution.  Don't just go for the latest fad which currently is SaaS.  Remember that SaaS is a deployment option, not a software solution....

TAG Southeastern Software Association Event: Panelist - David Gearhart, SugarCRM

TAG Southeastern Software Association "Software as a Service is on the Rise"

Promoting Sponsor: Technology Association of Georgia http://www.tagonline.org

This event will feature an informative and lively discussion led by our panel of technology providers of software applications available today which utilize a Software as a Service architecture. Based on industry trends, we have assembled our SaaS presentations into four groups: back-office apps (Navisite), messaging (USA.net), CRM (SugarCRM), and integration/end-user (Cbeyond).

Panelists

David Ramon, President and CEO, USA.net

David Ramon is USA.NET's President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the company's board of directors. He brings to the company more than 20 years of broad management and operations experience with both established and emerging companies. Previously Ramon co-founded Vaduz Partners, a private investment firm. From early 1997 to April 1998, he was President of the Coleman Outdoor Recreation Group, responsible for global research and development, operations, brand management, domestic sales and merchandising. Prior to joining Coleman, Ramon was President and Chief Operating Officer of New World Television, Inc., which was then sold to News Corp. in 1996. Before that, Ramon served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Gillett Holdings. Ramon earned a bachelor's of Business Administration degree in accounting from the University of Wisconsin . Ramon serves on University of Wisconsin 's School of Business Dean's Advisory Board.

David Gearhart, Regional Vice President, SugarCRM

David Gearhart leads sales for the Southeast US and Latin America for SugarCRM. David has spent more than twelve years selling and implementing CRM solutions across the world at various Fortune 1000 companies. Prior to SugarCRM, David was Senior Director of Sales & Marketing for Retaligent Solutions in Atlanta, GA. Before Retaligent, David was Worldwide Vice President of Sales for M-Factor, Inc. in San Mateo, CA. David spent over seven years at Epiphany where he worked in various sales and professional services management roles including Vice President of the West Region. David began his career as a management consultant for Ernst & Young, LLP.

Including other panelists to be named.

Start Time: 6/27/2007 at 5:30 PM

End Time: 6/27/2007 at 8:00 PM

Where: Matrix Resources 115 Perimeter Center Place, NE Atlanta , GA 30346

Directions: Suite 250 Pricing: Free to TAG members. $20 for non-members

Est. # Attendees: 95 Event URL: http://www.tagonline.org Group Phone #: 404-817-3333

Event Contact: Laura Heinlein 404-817-3333 laura@tagonline.org

Jon Miller States that 80% of Your New Customers Think They Found You

Jon Miller's Marketo Blog has some great information regarding Lead Nuturing and Lead Generation.  If you are a Sales and Marketing Executive, I would suggest following the blog and starting a trial on Marketo.  Basically, Marketo helps you optimize your B2B lead generation efforts by optimizing your spend based on actual results and ROI.  John discusses the decision making process below:

According to MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08, 80% of decision makers who made a technology purchase believe that they found the vendor – as opposed to the vendor targeting them.

This is an amazing statistic that proves just how much the Internet has transformed B2B marketing. Nobody questions that the Internet transformed B2C industries, such as travel (Expedia), car buying (Edmunds), or house hunting (MLS and Zillow). I wouldn’t think of buying an airplane ticket or car or home without first doing my research online. It is clear that B2B buyers trained to search online for their personal purchases are now using the same strategies for their business purchases.

As a result, the B2B marketer’s job must change as well. Interruption-based techniques where the marketer searches for customers no longer work. What DOES work are techniques which smooth the process of customers searching for you. In other words, since the buyer controls their buying process, the B2B marketer’s job is to synchronize the company’s marketing (and to some extent sales) activities to the buyer’s process.

MarketingSherpa lists some tactics that are now critical to your marketing mix:

• SEO and pay per click management so prospects find you when they search
• White paper syndication on the third-party sites prospects use when researching
• PR, blogs, public speeches, awards – so your brand appears wherever prospects are reading
• Consistent brand awareness efforts so they’re aware of you when they make their short list
• Focus on client satisfaction to encourage referrals and word

To this list, I’d add landing page optimization so you have the best chance of converting prospects when they do find you.  I’d also add post-click lead management: if buyers are seeking you out, you’ve got to be able to follow-up with the promptly and accurately.

Download a PDF excerpt of MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide.

Sponsored by: Get a 30 Day Free Trial of Marketo’s Pay Per Click Software.

Do you find social networking tools effective for reaching executive decision makers?

Now that all sales and marketing executives have a wide variety of networking tools available, it is time to analyze them to understand whether or not they are appropriate for enterprise software sales.  There are obvious solutions like Spoke and Jigsaw that provide contact details in return for a fee or fewer leads in return for sharing your own details.  Unfortunately, the information published on these sites is often out of date, and this is even more the case when dealing with c-level contact details.  More restricted sites such as LinkedIn require a higher level of permission to contact people in the network.  The question is whether or not it is acceptable to leverage the network for lead generation.  On the one hand, it is a great way to access people who are otherwise difficult to access.  On the other hand, it will ruffle a few feathers in the network.  I think that LinkedIn and the other networkng tools need to be treated with the same amount of professionalism required with all referrals. 

David Gearhart's View on Prospecting

My previous post contained an article by Paul S. Goldner, "The Ten Commandments of Prospecting."  I will address each of Paul's "commandments" and provide my two cents on each item.

Commandment I: Make an Appointment with Yourself for One Hour Each Day to Prospect
Although this is one of the most difficult points made by Paul, it is critical to allocate time for prospecting.  If you are in a high transaction environment, this may not be realistic.  However, you should try to plan prospecting into your calendar each week starting the prior week when you are scheduling appointments.  I like to create Outlook Appointments in my calendar which specify the date/time that I will either email or call prospects.  Before prospecting, you should always take the time to properly define your target market. If you do this, you will only call the best prospects in the market. If you only call the best prospects in the market, every call will be a quality call since we will only call those prospects who are most likely to buy large quantities of our product or service. Make as many calls as possible during the hour. Since every call is a quality call, more is always preferred to less.

Commandment II: Make as Many Calls as Possible
I take a different view on prospecting when it comes to quantity vs. quality.  If you are in enterprise sales, quality is much more important than quantity.  Think about it, would you rather prospect 100 random people inside target organizations or have a slightly higher response rate with less targets at the exec level.  I fall on the side of spending more time researching each prospect to increase the odds of a meeting with the exec sponsor of my target accounts. 

Commandment III: Make Your Calls Brief
Yes, yes, and yes.  In most cases, my follow-up call is requesting a time to have a call.  Since you are typically reaching the admin if you are calling on executives, it doesn't make sense to sell to them.  Even if you do reach the exec, make sure to first propose a call time, and they will tell you if they have time now...obviously, ask them if they have time now before assuming that they do not.

Commandment IV: Be Prepared with a List of Names Before You Call
To take it one step further, I would suggest always having several lists of names at your finger tips.  Whenever I run across a news article or publication with a list of prospects, I email it to myself with a specific subject line so that I can quickly reference it later for prospecting.  In addition, I would imagine that you have access to Hoovers, ID Exec, or your CRM database with leads.  Make sure to have a saved report with names ready for calling at all times!

Commandment V: Work Without Interruption
This goes back to scheduling prospecting time on your calendar and marking it as busy/unavailable.

Commandment VI: Consider Prospecting During Off-Peak Hours When Conventional Prospecting Times Don't Work
I generally hear from most executives that they answer their own phone from 7am - 8am.  In many cases this is true, but I am not always in the prospecting frame of mind at 7am.  If you are, great, you'll be more successful calling before 8am.  However, I get in my prospecting zone at 5pm on the dot.  I find that a lot of the email traffic and inbound calls slow at 5pm, and I also find many exec's to again answer their own phone at that time.  So, this is the perfect time for me to get in calls/emails/direct mail work.

Commandment VII: Vary Your Call Times
Great advice, but it is very difficult for me to prospect in the middle of the day due to other work.  However, I do typically make 5 - 10 follow-ups during the day for higher probability leads from prospecting that get added to my CRM system as tasks for follow-up.  I actually do not view this as prospecting once I promote them to an actual lead in my SugarCRM application.

Commandment VIII: Be Organized
With so many possibilities out there, you must use a CRM tool.  If you are an independent sales person, you are probably not reading this blog on enterprise sales.  However, if you are, look into open source solutions from SugarCRM and others as one user can do a lot for very little in cost.  If you are an enterprise sales exec, you must have a CRM system so I am not going to suggest one here.  However, I can't tell you how many software sales reps I see who fail to use the technology they sell to make them more effective.  Trust me, it may take a few extra minutes the first week, but the benefits of the process and automation long term will help you exceed your numbers.

Commandment IX: See the End Before You Begin
Same point as one of the first few points. I agree.  Your one goal in prospecting is to either schedule a call or get a face to face meeting.  Full stop.  Nothing else.  Your fallback position is a referral to someone in the organization that owns this area.  Period.

Commandment X: Don't Stop
"Persistence is one of the key virtues in selling success. I have often read that most sales are made after the fifth call and most sales people quit after the first."   -- > I actually find that it takes 3 calls or 4 emails to get a response.  After that, they are probably not interested.  However, to take it a step further than Paul, I have found that I often hear back 30 - 60 days after prospecting.  So, when planning your campaigns, realize that your efforts today are building leads for next quarter in most cases.  Don't get frustrated and quit as you will be hurting yourself in the long term.  Be patient, stick with it for 3 months, and then report back with your comments.  For ideas on what to do when prospecting, read my past blog on "Selling to VITO".