Thursday, September 2, 2010

THE HUNT FOR CRM (IV)

by Hank Trisler

WOW! When I started this thread, I had no idea how much interest there was in CRM. I'm delighted and amazed by the quantity and quality of the discussion.
The more I dig into this matter, the deeper is my confusion. Not only is there no clear winner for everyone, I can't even find a clear winner for me. I like some parts of nearly every program, but have yet to find one that meets all my criteria.

Today, I participated in a webinar celebrating the release of a nearly-all-new Sales Nexus, the brainchild of Craig Klein, one of the nicest and brightest guys you'll ever meet. This program is targeted on sales teams of from 5 to 5,000 seats. It competes quite ably with Salesforce.com, who has been the one to beat in the big CRM game. Teams need reports and forecasts and charts and graphs and other stuff that sole practitioners eschew. Sales Nexus provides these in abundance.

Today, they rolled out a new Email Marketing segment of their program that is a solid world-beater. You can set up a campaign to reach a targeted audience of, say, 5,000 warm bodies. It will send out your 5,000 emails (but who won't?) AND notify you when your email is actually opened, AND tell you when the body clicks on the link you so cleverly included. This indicates interest on the part of the body, who is then elevated to prospect and his/her name jumps up on your screen as someone you ought to be talking to. This means that sales critters spend their time talking to people who have at least a passing interest, as opposed to spending all day chasing their tails.

They charge you a flat rate per month depending on the number of users, but regardless of use. You can send 50,000 emails a month and it costs no more. If your people are silly enough not to want to use Sales Nexus, they can continue to use Outlook and it will interface one with the other. This means you don't have to pressure or coerce your people to use your hot new program.

The frosting on the cake is the Sales Mastery Institute, which is a collection point for videos, blogs, articles, webinars and tutorials on anything pertaining to sales. This can be an enormously valuable resource for any sales team and take a little of the load off the training department.

So here's the way I see it from where I sit this afternoon. If I were faced with the task of herding the aggregation of cats that is the typical sales force, I think I'd run for Sales Nexus. If I were me, as a single operator, trying to sell a product or service and seeking to build my personal brand and stand out from the madding crowd, I'd take a long look at Ace of Sales. I don't imagine you'll go very far wrong with either of them.

We don't have to stop talking about this just because I've finished my thread. I'll be delighted to pass along whatever you experience and let you know what I learn. Keep them cards and letters coming, sports fans.

4 comments:

  1. Enjoying reading your adventures Hank.

    I'd love you to come and take a look at our Social CRM system for small businesses at http://www.wecando.biz.

    A short video overview of what it does here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQVUYdk-a5s

    It's full CRM with integrated email marketing with full reporting. But we also have a Twitter Sales Leads tool which combs the 3500 tweets a second for people expressing a need for what you do and put all those leads together on a page where your sales conversation occur, ahead of you saving the best in your CRM system for tracking to a sale.

    Ping me on Twitter @wecandobiz and I'll fix a demo with you.

    Ian Hendry
    CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent article.

    I am an ex-user of GoldMine, Act, salesforce, and have tested Ace of Sales.

    I discovered Salesnexus about 4 months ago and feel it is head and shoulders superior to all of the above. It is a POWERFUL tool for sales automation, nurture marketing, and contact management all rolled into one. I would be happy to talk with anyone that is debating about which one to commit to.
    Scott Sklare 608 438 6371. scottsklare@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for your kind offer, Ian. I'll get to a look later today. Your program sounds fascinating.

    Scott, your observations will be very valuable to anyone getting the itch for CRM. I sure agree with you about the power of Sales Nexus. It is terrific.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CRM is essential for growing businesses, but it is important to carefully select your CRM partner. This blog article “Don’t Make a CRM Buying Mistake : 7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution” has advice on selecting a CRM solution. » Commence CRM Blog
    http://www.commence.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/20/dont-make-a-crm-buying-mistake-7-points-to-consider-before-selecting-your-crm-solution/

    ReplyDelete

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