In the world seemingly on a rudderless course steered by automated ‘personalized’ marketing; we are inundated with the latest and greatest sales behavior predictions using social media, networking, blogging, video platforms… a digital cornucopia of the ‘it’ factors pointed at customers that will buy.

Beware of sales behavior predictions.

Some of the statistical data is downright poor and maybe that’s because simple statistics rely too much on buying habits under a limited number of situations, markets or conditions that bear little resemblance to what you sell. Few experts are willing to debunk these easy and simple hypothetic links e.g. a social network platform that works for selling Pepsi may have little relativity for selling houses.

Yet many a marketing guru would have your company totally revamp its selling process based on these statistics; worse yet with relatively ‘green fielding’ methodologies in lieu of tried and true methods.

Social Media Sales Stats: Does this mean the end of Wal-Mart?

Even when demographic and econometric modeling is added, a statistic hypothesis of a certain sales behavior doesn’t necessarily mean anything. For example, Twitter touts 200 million users. Even with such screaming growth, does this new wave of internet marketing spell the end to Wal-Mart? Hardly, for many solid reasons, not the least is new internet platforms are a figurative drop in the bucket. The 176 million living and breathing customers that visit Wal-Mart stores weekly and ‘stay’ awhile and ‘buy’ vastly outnumber Twitter and MySpace.

Stats tell you what customers aren’t buying.

Car crashes killed 34,000 people in 2009 and in 2008 there were six million accidents, about a one in five chance it will be your time. No one could possibly sell cars based on these statistics alone. Car manufacturers avoid the poor statistics and replaced them with items that do not change the statistical facts: zero interest loans, free this and more that. They have used poor stats to their benefit: ignore what customers aren’t buying.

Great stats can fail to sell.

Airlines can statistically prove air travel is many times safer than traveling by car. However, many a travel plan is based on a perceived and intense decision not to fly for safety reasons. As infinitesimal as the risk may be, the buying decision for air travel is not based on favorable safety statistics. So airlines ignore statistics that won’t sell: a hugely favorable safety statistic is something they can’t sell because many passengers aren’t buying it.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner
Maximize your statistical edge: “Sell a ‘Trend”

Even with exposure to the unlimited ‘customers’ on the net, selling a trend is possibly the only edge over blanket numerical statistics. What makes a trend is selling to good markets and ignoring weak markets, niches or products with proven methods and options that accentuate your edge.

At MosaicCRM we rely on tried and true statistics, particularly in the two vital areas of activities and sales opportunities.

• Market Analytics show aging, margin, unit volumes and revenue distribution is a single step
• Track Stalled Opportunities as an indicator of competition, sales programs and sales cycles
• Identify Customer Buying Cycles to minimize the selling cycle and maximize personnel deployment

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Protocols for Measuring and Optimizing Activity Results

Helping organizations and their users achieve their activity objectives is the hallmark of MosaicCRM. Our business processes offer a unique and important approach to measuring activity ‘results’.  This differentiation is particularity valuable when it comes to Account Retention and Acquisition: our activity protocols are vital to optimize activity effectiveness and success.

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8 Ideas For Sweeter Sales.

Forest Gump said it best: ‘Life’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.’ Sales results often share the same fate. Here are a few ideas that might help you chose the best chocolates!

• A big part of any sales function is continuous and rapid prospect qualification. The key measurement is whether or not they are going to buy. This differs from what they want to do, as compared to what they can do.
• Focus on what you have to offer, and not just what you are selling.
• Continually expand your product applications to new markets and/or customers. This minimizes your reliance on fragile markets or domineering customers.
• Focus your creative energies on strategies that promote consistent wins. By doing so, you will lessen your natural tendency to fall back on the blasé behaviors that just can’t produce the long-term consistency you need.
• If your pipeline seems to be managing you, then manage your prospects much earlier in the sales cycle. Two aspects of managing prospects are rating them as a company and the value of their opportunities. If either doesn’t fit your business, move on.
• Once you have your customer’s attention, keep it focused only on them.
• Simple selling techniques work. If nothing else, try something simple to improve, innovate and demonstrate your product.
• Promote customer satisfaction, but sell loyalty. Loyalty is the reason customers want to buy from you.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

Nobody said CRM is sweet but here are a few ideas to keep your sales process on track:

• Qualification: Set out predefined Rating and Profile descriptions for your Account and Contacts. How well  each fits the ideal target can speed up this all important sales step.
• Customer Retention/Loyalty Process: Don’t leave retention and loyalty programs to chance. MosaicCRM offers ‘Marvel’ a unique system of multiple contact processes that keep your organization in front of customers.
• Daily Activity Manager: This eloquent system makes daily activities a breeze so sales staff can concentrate their energy and time on selling.
  
• Deal Nurturing: Nothing is dropped or forgotten with PipelinePro methodology and alerts systems.
  

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Written by
Bill Noonan, Founder & CEO, MosaicCRM

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Pre-CRM Planning Tips for SMB’s

I’ve put together this slide presentation that covers a number of key elements that can help in your CRM Plan or Re-Start program.  Some of the topics include Beware of ‘Quick and Easy’ CRM promotions, The Human Factors, Competition Applications, Abilities, Resources and Sales Process Design, Budgeting and more.
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“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” Patton

Motivating your customer to buy the world’s best doodad requires some different thinking in this economy. Understanding what a client really thinks can help. Having good answers helps even more! Automating the thinking task.. not possible but CRM can help you think better!

1. What type of capital investment is required?
Client: Our new budgets have stopped everything. Who is going to cut what to do this project?

2. What’s the ROI on the world’s greatest doodad?
Client: The ROI has to pencil out to ‘immediate’ if we are to do anything new or even think to replace anything we already have.

3. How is your doodad going to improve on my current way of doing things?
Client: We need to be assured that it works, everything we do goes under a microscope.

4. How can your new doodad not add to my costs?
Client: Somehow these wonder cures always end up costing more. We really can’t add anything to the budget.

5. How can you and your doodad help in an immediate way?
Client: Time is money and that means I need tangible results today.

6. Is your doodad going to take more time and distract my staff?
Client: Training, implementation, added costs and changing the status quo are big distractions we don’t need.

7. How much money is it going to save me?
Client: What specific examples can you show? Fluff isn’t going to cut it this year.

8. What happens when we have problems?
Client: We cut support personnel to the bone. When we have a problem is it going to take us weeks to hunt you guys down?

9. What will happen if we don’t do anything?
Client: We’ve been doing this way for years so why all the urgency now? Heck, our level of performance is understandable in this economy.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

• Add topical fields to your CRM program that include the top buying issues facing your clients.  For example, Opportunity/Drawbacks/Challenges can be simple fields with drop down menus to aid in speedily adding the info and tracking changes throughout the sales cycle
• Add a new technique ‘Opportunity Rating’ unlike Probability weight the importance of each issue to Rate the Opportunity against a specific Pass-Fail number
  
• Decision delays? MosaicCRM offers a ‘Deal Nurturing Strategy’ to your Opportunity mix: use a prescribed contact schedule and script to keep value and timely contact with decision makers

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Mirroring our Masters

In America over 77 million dogs have owners. Then it’s not so unreasonable to imagine that in the scheme of modern urban life that they have an affinity to look like their owners. During a recent lunch my guests discussed this phenomenon and for an added wrinkle we even went so far as to match a few business associates with the dog they owned. One commented how uncanny it was that their General Manager looked remarkably like his mutt. Upon further reflection the business too was beginning to look unremarkable, like her GM. This was not an appealing spectacle.

How does the leader look?

With dogs or business, one reason we might mirror our master is that we tend to seek out those things that are most familiar to us and readily adopt those traits. Some may argue that it starts out when owners pick their dogs, or staff, they unconsciously choose them because they truly reflect the owner, or boss as the case may be. The lesson learned is be careful of what you want your business to look like as it will invariably reflect just how the leader looks.

The Customer’s perception is everything.

I believe the same logic applies for customers: a reflection of them. They find what appeals to them and what doesn’t. This is beyond nettlesome because the ‘look’ or perception for most customers is everything. Worry too about the fact that most people don’t necessarily act in accordance with your reality quite as much as they do on their own individual perception of ‘reality’. To that end, our customer’s reality, good, bad or indifferent, is formed to a large extent by what companies do and not what they say.

Follow the bouncing ball.

As business management and customers accelerate even further away from each other, success is often influenced to an immense degree by decision makers who have little experience or a ‘look’ for sales. In fact, your surroundings can begin to look astonishingly unfriendly, even somewhat dog-eared; particularly when the company’s current nirvana is simply the latest Guerrilla tactic that entirely ignores ‘reality’. Or the brains behind the new budget has patently little appreciation for brand or value; like the premier airline I flew last week whose management believes a fraction of an ounce of pretzels, a half of a can of soda, with questionable housekeeping and seats so close I could perform dental work will, of course, endear me to fly with them again.

Solution: Perception Truths.

If you find yourself or a client in this position what are you to do? Well there are a few Perception Truths I devised you can always use as a fall back.

• Brand Personality: Product Excellence and Superiority a.k.a. Value

Be ever vigilant for someone mucking it up. Your fundamental task is to correctly identify the customer’s preference for brand over price.  Look for customer clues where they value the significance of a great reputation, or beneficial cost of ownership matters like durability, warranties, multi task applications and even pretentiousness and esteem are striking buying qualities. If you’re not attracting enough of these types, then either you, the company’s marketing or its business style needs correction.

• Service

Practically nothing beats a high level of customer satisfaction, it’s not hard to understand why: customers want a pleasant buying experience together with attentive and responsive customer service, from both the sales and support staff. Lose this and you have lost the profitability associated with ‘value’ …and likely the customer. Now tell me again how much airline ‘A’ saved on those pretzels?

• Costs

Everyone knows that better products cost more and cheap products are made up of cheap bits and pieces. When it comes to cost, it’s the thing your customer perceives as price, your task is to hone in on what’s superior about your product or service. That’s because surprisingly few customers will bother to take the effort to figure it out on their own. Worse yet I am given to wonder why some salespeople can’t let go of customers that have little conscience of cost.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

There is no better tool than a well configured CRM program to monitor and manage perception truths. At MosaicCRM, we add simple yet effective fields to account monitors and specific reports in these key areas:

• Buying Qualities:
  

  Monitor and record customer preferences and translate that data into optimized sales cycle management tools

• Service Factors:
  

  Customer satisfaction, service and Case Management components tie the entire company relationship to the customer experience

• Value:
  

  Monitor where you are wining against competition, one click recording of sales factors, value milestones, even managing road blocks

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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When business was flying and financing was easy, getting the sale was sufficient enough and adopting a strict CRM protocol, along with a lot of other ‘protocols’, usually went by the wayside. Fast forward a couple of years into a deep recession to upset that status quo: Account Retention and Acquisition protocols are absolutely vital to success, mainly because nobody has the money or enough runway to wing it or buyers who have money or time to chance it.

1: Break the Outlook habit to optimize sales potential.

CRM users always gripe it is time consuming to enter data. Well, in comparison to what, Outlook or a spreadsheet? Outlook is pathetically inefficient and like cigarettes, has everyone addicted to it and a habit that needs to be broken. There is no possible way a contact manager or excel can be more efficient and effective than CRM to optimize sales.

• Use CRM to maintain a customer relationship e.g. manage all things related to revenue

2: ‘Vital’ information minimums.

As a company, detail exactly the vital information needed to acquire and maintain a sales relationship with the customer. You don’t need a record of every voice mail message, or the type of dog the contact has. Yet typically vital info is ignored e.g. full names, telephone numbers, email addresses, decision making authority. The lack of vital communication factors makes for a crippled CRM database that can only reference historical data and not the future.

Warning: The Social media craze might be killing your efficiency. So much of the contact/account data included in these programs is useless to your mission. Rarely will it qualify or add to a sales opportunity. Be very wary here of value versus results.

• Set out the required info
• Insist on 100% compliance

3: Monitor Results, not Activities

It is simply all about the results and not the volume of activities. The value of recording activity numbers with non-result actions e.g. leaving a voice mail message or sending a generic email is negligible.

• Your CRM must be monitoring next step ‘results’ of activities.

4: Ratios

What is working really boils down to ratios: how many calls develop how many appointments that result in so many proposals etc. Sloppy activity management will come home to roost in a big way.  Measuring results is the only way to can find out e.g.

• Power Caller User: 100’s of calls and low appointment results are telling in so many ways
• Least Resistance User: Low Calls-High Email is this opening opportunities or not?

5: Get Maximum Activity Coverage

Scheduling one activity at a time by ‘opportunity’ is a really hard way to plan ahead. You’ve profiled and rated accounts right? Good, then sort your database and start scheduling en masse. Plus, dedicate a given time every week for scheduling.

• Insist there is a scheduled activity at all times for every Key Account, Pipeline Opportunity Account and Qualified Prospect. It is impossible to argue this from a sales person point of view… even harder to explain why not to management.
• Monitor activity ‘results’ associated with Opportunities: what’s open, closed, lost, a maybe… this is the most important criteria with which to measure activity efforts.
• Add another activity when completing one.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

Helping users achieve their activity objectives and making each one count is the hallmark of MosaicCRM. Here are a few built in systems we deploy to manage customer retention  and acquisition activities:

• Automatic Reschedule: Past due activities are automatically rescheduled by the system
• Mosaic ‘Marvel’: This tool pre-configures any number of specific activities by specific users in one click. Superb for customer retention routines, lead nurturing and prospect hunting.
• Daily Activity Manager: One simple screen for adding and completing all activities
• Dynamic Activity Objectives: Set number goals for Calls, Appointments, Presentations and Email and get instant monitoring by day, week and month
• Activity Results: Monitor results achieved by activities across the board or by individual
• Comparison Results: Activity comparisons for scheduled, completed numbers and overall database coverage
• Priority Alerts: All activities affecting accounts are profiled  and instant alerts issued

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Mastering Simplicity

At MosaicCRM we try to imitate a paper clip: master simplicity and keeping it simple. The traditional paper clip is a wonder of simplicity and the essence of form follows function. For over a century, it still works in spite of the fact that a lot of imitators have come and gone. Seemingly everybody’s got a simple this CRM or a simple that CRM to sell. The reality is there’s nothing simple about selling. Making CRM look simple, however, is the mark of a professional.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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The numbers game is dead. Long live strategic ratios.

The business climate in 2011 is projected to be brutal with less money, tighter budgets, fewer sales people and scarcer customers. In spite of this many companies will thrive. How? By changing the way they view prospects and the selling process.

Method 1: High Volume Low Results

The traditional approach to sales activity has been volume gets results. In other words, given enough volume, anyone can reach the desired results. The approach to the high volume is often too costly or too many factors skew the results. Take for example, simply adding more telemarketers to make more calls. If they are poor quality personnel with low skill levels, two things occur: The number of calls goes way, way up. The quality of the prospect goes way, way down.

A point of diminishing return becomes apparent.  Processing tons of prospects doesn’t guarantee more sales. Worse, numbers game activities can eat up valuable runway space and results in closed opportunities that carry a terrible, even unaffordable, price. It’s no longer sufficient to say any organization can sell (or manage) to the tune of just numbers.

Method 2: Regulated Volume – Strategic Results

The key management factor here is to regulate the volume to better qualify the prospects before engaging the costly sales process. With fewer resources or even with the same resources but higher quotas, defining the prospect, managing the prospecting process and inspecting what you expect are time- tested actions.

+ Don’t allow prospects into the pipeline (or prospecting channel) that don’t fit simple yet concrete parameters.

+ Deal with the ripe bananas, only the ones that can take advantage of a limited window of opportunity.

+ Deals won will increase because you have much fewer distractions and more on top of your game.

MosaicCRM Experts Tips – Looking at an improved management role for CRM

Allocating resources is critical, so is monitoring results to optimize these resources. Our CRM platforms provide a number of methods that go beyond traditional ‘activity measurement’ reports.

• Manage Call Ratios & Results: The key analytics determine how good the prospect demographics are.
• Monitor promotions with ‘Opportunity Source’ analytics: From Prospect to Customer can be a tricky course. Analyzing what prospects become customers  reinforces the call ratio and delivers a ‘success’ criteria blueprint to copy

• Aging Analysis: Tracking the time periods through the sales stages provides data to modify promotions/sales processes to shorten the sales cycle.
• Measure Deals Lost Analytics: Lost Deals tell a lot about customers, competitors, pricing, timing and more that will enable you to fine tune the next offering.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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Word of Mouth had gained our trust.

As consumers, we’ve all experienced and usually welcomed ‘word of mouth’ information from our friends, family and peers. Long ago the marketing guru’s declared you will live or die on the word of mouth reputation of your company or product; and for the past millennium it was a personal experience, often face-to-face and it became a natural extension of our conversations wherever we shared a common interest. It is precisely this long social history and deep relationship we have with word of mouth that social network marketing imitates.

For many consumers ‘caveat emptor’ applies here.

When it comes to social media, technically speaking, it’s no longer word of mouth and it’s never face-to-face. Social Media has the feel of something personal but to a great degree it is entirely manufactured. The big stars and entertainment shows that promote some networks are paid, yet you think it’s personal. It’s an ad but doesn’t look or feel like one. It has little to do with what’s real or who is real and the lines get really blurred. So just when you thought you were following your favorite movie star, guess what: there’s an ad masking as his or her personal favorites.

Word of Net Marketing is often a poser.

The problem is that a lot of online viral marketing that poses as social media is really aimed at creating a ‘buzz’ about the product. Instead of customer’s opinions, you are likely to get skillfully crafted hype by marketing ‘posers’ that, more often than not, stresses what you should think.

In this world you don’t need satisfied customers to promote your product by word of mouth: now all you need is a powerful spin (real or imagined) and away you go! Want to make millions using Social Media? Join the masses of promoters with the fast and easy way to make a killing using social media. Their premise: From toilet paper to elixirs, there’s a surefire way to get your message in front of millions of customers who are eager to buy the product. All you need is their special brand of social media marketing and you’re all set.

Social media does work.

For legitimate social media organizations it works because the ‘buzz’ is real and real customers support the value. On a personal level you can exchange your thoughts about a product easily and usually you are sharing this among other interested users. Perhaps social media marketing is best served up to compliment the traditional word of mouth conversations, calls and personal emails. Just to be sure, I’ll check out anything I learn online face-to-face at the water cooler with my homies.

Will it last?

The life cycle of any latest and greatest media tool is unpredictable for most of the stuff floating around the Internet. I suspect it lasts right up to the time something else replaces it. But based on SM’s ever growing popularity, there’s no end in sight for the magic of social media networking.

MosaicCRM Experts Tips – CRM & Social Media Integration

If relationship marketing is important to your organization, managing and collecting social network data and transposing this into your CRM program is radically different from the traditional historical based ‘interaction-transaction’ type recording. There’s a lot of talk about ‘Social CRM’ but hang on a minute, adapting traditional CRM with all the tools that work is possible, even preferred.

• Social networking requires you to adapt CRM to recognize the instant real time data and transpose this into live response data

• More than ever customer centric response models are vital: Re-engineer your CRM to optimize this closed loop marketing process
• Evaluate the type and degree of customer information needed to assist sales efforts in this medium

• Use CRM to spread the results of the customer experience within your organization

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Written by Bill Noonan, Founder and CEO of MosaicCRM.

I welcome your inquiries, questions and comments.

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Alchemy was the medieval attempt to turn lead into gold. Jean Dubuis described alchemy as the “art of manipulating life and consciousness in matter to help it evolve, or to solve problems of inner disharmonies”.

Modern CRM isn’t so different: data bases follow the alchemies operation of separating the ‘the prima material’ or so called chaos by taking this unstructured data and putting it into a structure to capture, index and store it.

On a simpler plane of thought, alchemy could easily be used as a metaphor of transforming prospects into customers. It’s this process that is almost magic, but not quite. It does involve a simple, yet demanding process of turning dumb or chaotic data (leads) into usable information (customers).

This is where the magic ends: CRM by itself does little to help you turn data into information and knowledge. Let’s take a look at how to make your CRM task a whole lot easier and beneficial.

1. Get better outcomes in less time with strategically focused sales behavior.

Begin at the beginning: rank and prioritize your leads. After all, who or what makes it into your database, and then subsequently into your pipeline, will determine to a great degree your success in turning these leads into customers.

2. Set out a clear and easily defined selling stage process.

I hear it all the time: my database is no good… bad info, leads are crap, I need more accounts…etc. Sales automation provides a huge volume of information; however, separating what’s needed to advance the sales process can often be an excruciating exercise that too often bears too little fruit. If everything makes it into your pipeline then you have a fantastic bowl of goop and nothing tasty. Unlike poor Oliver, you don’t want more of the same no matter how hungry you are for a deal.

The easiest method is to plainly and clearly describe each phase of your sales process, even a basic rating scheme will work. Then when a lead doesn’t make it to the next desired stage you know why and when and can manage your time and efforts much more confidently.

3.    Manage your pipeline on a daily basis.

Regardless of the advances in CRM, you still need to figure out not only what to do, but what to do next. It’s often too late for management to have any significant impact on the outcome when they are only managing what’s closing this week or only get involved at the later stages. Rather they should be involved on a daily basis and knowledge of what works, what doesn’t and guidance on plan b.

Daily attention should not be an issue. CRM technology allows us to sort through leads, pipeline candidates and sales opportunities easily and effectively. Properly designed, it now forms the way we manage sales and activities by dictating what strategic value or action is necessary as opposed to blind sporadic oriented actions e.g. call everyone again.

4. Nurturing long term leads.

We all wish everything happened today. Alas that genie never seems to come out when we need it. Eventually it may by adding a structure to the lead nurturing process including understanding how each customer wants to be contacted and frequency. CRM make this a relatively brainless task of turning data into buying cycles.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

At the end of the day, any CRM is only as good as the data in it and how the users manage that information. To make CRM outstanding, we follow a strict methodology so users avoid the chaos:

• Implement sound business process and logic by concentrating on a vital few objectives that gain sales
• Eliminate fluff and duplication: ignore anything that doesn’t add immediate value
• Constantly improve the system: Step by step, month by month
• Vital tasks like qualification, stages and pipelines require little effort and are easy to understand
• Tracking, maintaining and developing contact points that match customer buying cycles

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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P.S. We ask questions that no CRM vendor wants to ask:

CRM Discussion Points – Getting CRM right begins with asking the right questions.

I have written this comprehensive discussion points guide that covers topics that no CRM vendor wants to ask mainly because they can’t pass you off to a junior menu list type techie. That’s because now you know what it takes to meet your CRM objectives and it is a lot of work to demonstrate how to get there. Far too many CRM vendors won’t put in that sort of time.

What this worksheet creates is the right atmosphere for discussion and strategy building your CRM. Let me know if it would help you on your CRM journey. Use the ‘Contact Us’ tab on the website and I would be pleased to email it to you.

Bill

Flipping a coin and determining whether it will come up heads or tails depends more on the fact that a tossed coin obeys Newton’s laws of motion than a simple random chance. With sales opportunities, like pennies, a bias has a huge bearing on the result. So if you want to improve your odds flipping a coin or managing a sales opportunity, spend some time thinking about how to create and maintain a bias in the mind of your customer.

How do you forecast a bias?

As with predicting the outcome of a coin toss, you might be surprised that a bias will skew your forecast. Ivars Petersen is a mathematician who illustrates why unexpected results shouldn’t come as such a surprise. The Lincoln penny provides a striking example of such a bias. Stand a dozen or so pennies on edge on the surface of a table. Then bang the table so that the pennies topple over. You’ll find that nearly always more heads than tails are face up. Sometimes all the coins end up heads. On the other hand, spinning pennies tend to land tails more often than heads.

Probing creates awareness that creates a bias.

April is Mathematics Awareness month. I’ve instantly created a bias in your mind about April, besides the first day being All Fools Day and showers that bring May flowers and that fact that there are 22 selling days in April. Now you have a mind full of data and awareness about April.

It’s no different than creating a sense of awareness with your customer. Just answering a customer’s question creates no advantage when new bias data is added to the customers mind. Essentially he now perceives everyone your response as the same as any other response.

By probing the customer for more information and understanding what’s driving their need, you now have ample opportunity to create a greater awareness (bias) of your products and services. This is not to say that you should stand there and rattle off 100 of your best features. Quite the opposite is required. Give them only the information they will value the most. You now have the bias on your side of the coin. Find out too if your competitor has a bias e.g. brand name, better warranty, less risk and ‘one up’ your own bias.

MosaicCRM Experts Corner

Beyond the operational aspect of CRM, most databases are chucked full of analytical data. One problem we see is that this analytical data is rarely configured for optimal ‘bias’ applications e.g. learning what customers want to buy at this very moment.  What do they look like, how much do they spend, when, how often is too often seen as information overload when in fact just the opposite is true: customers now get exactly what they want because you know them inside out.

As a side note, we do see social media as collaborative CRM data used as a vehicle that communicates with customers but this isn’t the same as using your CRM database for predictions analysis.

To maximize CRM’s return, it operates best in a forward looking mode and least optimal in a rear view looking transactional recording mode. For example, one of the best known predictors is credit analysis. Wouldn’t every organization want the same level of predictability with their customer base or at least their pipeline? Start with defining CRM data models and routines to optimize predictable outcomes and biases for:

• Cross Selling/Up Selling
• Supporting Customer Loyalty/Retention
• Minimize Customer Attrition
• Improving Sales Forecasting/Decision Making
• Better marketing relationship with the customer

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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It just doesn’t look right.

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink argues that it takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions and explains this as thin slicing. Referred to as the ‘adaptive unconscious’, these mental and physical ‘touch points’ take mere nanoseconds to associate the impression of you in the minds of the receiver.

Clients have the same reaction.

What you should know is that whether or not it ‘looks right’ is subconsciously regulated to the viewers higher thinking zones, almost instantly, and this impression can last a long time. This is a good thing or bad thing, depending on how you measured up.

A good example of just how fast an impression is activated is to think about the last time you bought a book: you quickly scan the shelf of the New York Times Best Sellers and unconsciously make a mental decision on the book cover, title or bi-line, even picking it up as if trying to evoke an impression from it… because we all react the same way.

Clients sense a physical presence to digital communications.

It’s no different when your client makes the same unconscious and rapid impression of your email, even imagining and sensing a physical presence to it. There’s nothing to touch or feel yet impressions are won or lost in seconds.

It’s not just the look but the content and layout that drive the impression centers. Like the statue that was faked with incredible detail and fooled all the experts, it’s the whole package that counted.  Ask a recruiter what their impression is of a hot shot’s resume with a typo: it’s exiled to the junk basket. Unfortunately clients won’t be so communicative when it comes to expressing their impressions to you.  These are all impressions that were sensed long before your final proposal and will either bless or haunt you.

Learn from the Automotive Marketers.

These boys know how to play upon the value of the ‘right look’.  The color, look, smell and feel are huge touch points and formed the buyer’s ‘impression’ long before you wander into the showroom.  In a recent visit to a car dealership I found out that new sales recruits don’t get business cards until they last at least 3 weeks. So the dealer won’t make an investment in a cheap card (even less investment in sales people apparently) yet they presume the buyer will make a huge investment with that same person. No matter how good the marketing was to get me to that dealer, my ‘unconscious’ brain went into hyper drive. It started with a ‘weird feeling’ and then ‘no card’ (or brochure for that matter) was a great excuse to get out of there.

It’s all about the impression.

DeBeers is simply the best at creating an impression. Even in the face of indistinguishable replica diamonds at a fraction of the price, their ‘impression’ is undeniable. They’ve also crafted our impression on the fakes… interesting how they did that.

Creating a good, lasting impression is priceless.

My first business venture was a high line shoe store. A small but very cool item was a business card of genuine leather. It was costly but so was getting a customer in the door. Without fail, the response was ‘wow, what a great card’.  It always left a good impression. For that, the cost of the card was minimal.

The lesson I learned (and often forgot) was creating a good, lasting impression is priceless. I recently ordered up some business cards online. The quality was ok but they just didn’t look right. I kept them thinking it didn’t matter, right until I handed it to the CEO of a prospective client. His impression was definitely not a wow one. I would have paid anything to change his impression at that moment.

MosaicCRM Expert Tips

It is practically impossible to get a second chance at making and keeping a good impression with customers. So we have guided a number of clients to view their CRM program as a tool that works absolute wonders with customer loyalty ‘impressions’:

• Focus reams of client data: Customers habits change and so keep your CRM geared to refining their profile to their specific likes/needs. MosaicCRM offers custom fields on account, contact, sales and activity components making it easy to define and refine your data.
• Apply ‘Buying Cycle’ information: Mosaic CRM sales and activity monitors improves how you manage customer purchasing behavior. Nobody wants to be pestered with uncoordinated calls, email and marketing pieces.
• Analyze your audience: sort through the data to determine the best customer experiences, and then copy them.
• Build confidence and excellent brand experience: get everyone who touches the client involved in CRM with one enterprise-wide single picture of the customer.
• Build in sales processes and work flows: keep personnel on track with what the customer needs, how they like to be contacted then follow that script with built in tools like Mosaic’s Marvel that schedules the precise types and content of customer touch points.

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Written by
Bill Noonan, CEO MosaicCRM

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