Salesforce.com leads vs contacts – mining social networks

One of my sales buddies made a professional commitment to use LinkedIn more actively as a tool to expand her network and generate leads.  She experimented with it the last few months to great success and wants to expand her community involvement.

She had been entering new LinkedIn connections as Contacts because of the diversity of connections she made, many of whom were not leads.  For example, she says her connections span prospective customers, prospective partners, competitors, referral sources, and other miscellaneous networking connections.

I counseled her to enter them all or most of them as Leads instead.  Here’s why...

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How to ensure an IT implementation success

A Michael Krigsman article, published in TechRepublic, caught my attention because of the rather observation that  68 percent of IT projects fail.  Holy moly that sent me bopping ‘round to IAG Consulting, the original source of that yucky stat.

Based on their research, IAG found that the most common source of failure is poor requirements definition processes.  Put another way, the 32% of the companies most likely to succeed when it comes to IT implementations are those that have engaged in strong requirements definition processes.

While I haven’t undertaken rigorous study of the subject as IAG seems to, it does back up what I’ve learned from personal experience in my own past solution implementations.  And it backs up a cornerstone belief of Intellicore Design Consulting.

To ensure that your company falls with the successful 32% relative to Salesforce.com solutions, check out our recent webinar on Tips for Successful Salesforce.com Implementations....

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Tips for Successful Salesforce.com Implementations

Intellicore Design Consulting launched a new Resources section for our community and we're pleased as punch to announce the release of a new webinar.

Check out Tips for Successful Salesforce.com Implementations and gain insights in how to manage change relative to your Salesforce solutions.  The webinar is focused towards business leaders with a need to manage the project implementation and ensure user adoption.

 

Secrets for actionable salesforce.com pipeline success

Just yesterday, I watched a webinar talking about the secrets of funnel management and what sales metrics will give you the best insight into your actual sales activity and potential.

Let’s talk about this because finding the best path for actionable success is always important and even more so in a tight economy.

Ken Rudin, founder and vp of market development of LucidEra, tells his clients that to increase sales and decrease the sales cycle, the secret is to focus on the deals your company (and its individual sales reps) are most likely to win based on historical data.  More specifically, what are the characteristics of the deals that your individual sales reps are best able to close (and it may vary across reps).

Let’s first look at some of the metrics that will help you determine the best actionable path and then at how Salesforce.com can help you get there...

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8 Salesforce.com marketing automation tips

Picture this.  Your company is small- to medium-sized with a marketing budget to match.  The economy is stinkaroo and your company big cheeses have told you to keep up the lead generation efforts – and even gen more leads – at the same or less budget.

One of the things I love about Salesforce.com is how readily you can automate your marketing efforts -- and you don't have to be big to do it.  Via Salesforce, you can:

  • Automate lead data entry and follow up.
  • Determine what activities are contributing to your pipeline.
  • Determine your marketing ROI.
  • Provide consistent branding and messaging for your sales teams.
  • Make your company look bigger.

Let’s talk about some marketing automation tips and best practices for lead management.  This is kind of a list day for me so here are quick hits...

 

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Using a CRM is like eating broccoli

Why did I choose that article title?  Because using a CRM is exactly like eating broccoli…It’s. Just. No. Fun.

I’ve tried.  I’ve really tried but there’s just no way to make entering leads, accounts, contacts and such be fun.  It. Just. Isn’t.

So there…I said it.  Me, a partner in a firm that specializes in implementing relationship management solutions a la Salesforce.com and whose very same company uses Salesforce as the backbone of our operations.

If there’s anyone who disagrees with me, shout out -- while the rest of us agree to my above sentiments.  There’s no doubt either, that the more “creative” folks in “creative” functions – like sales and marketing – will rebel against using them because of the discipline required to create new records and maintain activity histories.

And guess what?

Use your CRM anyway for the same reason you should eat broccoli.  CRMs are good for you and will help you keep your business <erm> well-greased...

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Salesforce.com solutions – Intellicore Design’s value-add

The cool thing about the world we live in today is an abundance of choices.  It’s just as true when deciding on an IT service provider to implement a Salesforce.com solution as it is for anything else.

That begs the question then of why you should select Intellicore Design Consulting as your solution provider for Salesforce.com solutions.  The answer?  Choose us because we aren’t IT service providers.

Huh?

We the folks at Intellicore Design Consulting are business strategy experts who translate business processes and programs into on-demand business solutions we implement.

For and foremost, though, we’re business strategy experts...

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