Pitch Your CRM Software Project in 30 Seconds or Less

Mark Suster posted an excellent summary of his advice for entrepreneurs who want to hone their elevator pitch. THe "pitch" used to be something that screenwriters worried about: explain the movie you want to make to Jeffrey Katzenberg in the time it takes for you to ride the elevator from his office to the garage.

These days, the elevator pitch is essential for all kinds of businesses. You've got to "lay out the pain" and "provide the value." If you've got something you want to sell, you'd better be ready to capture your audience's attention in the moment.

This definitely applies to project managers on CRM software implementation projects. One of the biggest reasons CRM software implementations fail is through a lack of support by stakeholders. The very people you hope to mobilize are often the people who have the most mistrust for your project.

That's why you should treat those stakeholders like internal customers, and get ready with an elevator pitch for your CRM software project that helps them get on board. Along with Mark's advice, here's a shorter, five step process that you would use if I were a stakeholder in your CRM software proposal:

• Tell me what you want. Don't just butter me up. Lead with something strong that directly benefits me: "I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to take a minute to share some ideas my team came across that might improve customer loyalty in your division by thirty percent."

• Show your passion. Remember Covey's habit: "Win-Win or no sale." Your results are my results, and if I know you really believe that, I'll keep listening.

• Eliminate the jargon. CRM software managers love acronyms. Get away from telling me about the ROI on your hosted CRM system and show me what my team members are going to do with the thing.

• Give me hard data. That "thirty percent" line is critical. It shows me you've done some homework (or you're, at least, attempting to make an educated guess.)

• Ask for the follow-up. Respect my time, but be courageous. Give me a doable time, date, and next step. "I know you're busy and I don't want to keep you. Can I call you Tuesday at ten to discuss this further?"

CRM software implementation leads often complain about not having enough time to get everyone on board. Using this strategy, you can have lots of smaller conversations with key players that are less formal and more effective. By building rapport and by bringing the same principles to your more formal discussions, you can pave the way for successful CRM software launches within your organization.

Hosted CRM vs. Server Virtualization

As the sluggish economy impacts CIOs budget planning for the remainder of the fiscal year (and into the next), some technology advocates have revisited the debate over whether server virtualization initiatives save more money in the long run compared to "cloud-based" CRM applications.

Web-based, hosted CRM applications allow users to connect through any web browser, especially when using "dumb terminals" with little to no configuration. Essentially, a traveling sales agent with a computing mishap can walk into any retailer, purchase a bare-bones netbook or laptop with a supported browser, and reconnect to his or her customer relationship management tools instantly. However, "dumb" clients often lack the tight security demanded by enterprise IT managers.

On the other hand, server virtualization offers CIOs the ability to serve an entire desktop environment to an end user, not just a web application. Popular desktop-based CRM applications can be virtualized, along with other essential office software suites. IT management professionals enjoy the security of knowing that no customer data can live on "dumb terminals" in the field, especially if security measures prevent users from copying or pasting information from an active server session into a local document. However, a field sales professional must still provision equipment for use with a virtualized server environment. Client software and VPN tools must be installed and configured, often requiring direct support from IT teams.

Critics also worry that misconfigured server virtualization projects can cause companies to overspend on hardware, instead of investing budgets into CRM applications with proven ROI. Sales agents accustomed to buying the very best portable hardware might not realize that even a barebones client can enjoy the full power of a remote server. Likewise, conservative system administrators may fail to push rack mounted servers to their full potential, requiring extra backend costs.

As companies continue to develop remote CRM software strategies, hosted CRM solutions maintain an edge in both pricing and functionality. Yet, server virtualization solutions are gaining momentum, especially as end users become more comfortable with remote desktop technology.

Hosted CRM Vendors Debate Multi-Tenancy

If you're a small business thinking about CRM software, isn't it nice to dream about the day that your business grows so large that vendors will start to fight about whether you've outgrown your hosted CRM solution? That's the debate that some CRM software providers have been having both internally and externally. Assuming that nearly all CRM applications will one day be accessed across networks instead of solely on the desktop, experts wonder whether single clients can sustain versions of hosted CRM systems that were intended for thousands of shared users?

Zoli Erdos picks up the debate on the Cloud Ave. blog, where some of his colleagues believe that Software as a Service can only encompass "multi-tenant" development plans. Many SaaS CRM systems make financial sense because significant maintenance, hosting, and security costs on a single server cluster can be shared among thousands of clients. For vendors that outsource storage and processing to cloud systems, like RackSpace or Amazon, servers themselves may not even exist in the forms to which we have become accustomed.

However, some of the biggest potential clients for hosted CRM systems have no real desire to see their data floating "on the cloud." They're happy to pay for secure, in-house hosting and development in exchange for assurances of tighter security and guaranteed uptime. The leveraged power of a SaaS application becomes tougher to manage when a company tries to scale its hosted CRM system to reach 99% uptime and beyond. As a result, some vendors choose to build server "pods" to handle single clients or small clusters of clients. Other vendors have focused instead on powerful computing arrays that leverage CPU time and storage across millions of simultaneous users.

The good news is, regardless of who is "right" in the ongoing debate, strong competition in the CRM software arena makes it easier and more affordable for companies of any size to take advantage of the latest tools and strategies for customer relationship management.

CoTweet Twitter CRM Software Enters Public Beta

Expert marketers understand that responding to customer communications using a customer's preferred platform leads to stronger satisfaction and more positive word of mouth. With the tastemakers who use Twitter at the top of every marketer's mind, finding ways to plug "tweets" into a customer relationship management system has proven both challenging and rewarding. After all, a typical call center environment may house hundreds of service agents. Who in that environment can keep track of a single company Twitter account?

The founders of startup CoTweet hope to answer that question by streamlining Twitter communication across up to six official accounts. Coordinating tweets, replies, and direct messages through a proprietary CRM system, the hosted tool looks familiar to agents who have used comprehensive e-mail and ticket tracking tools. Agents log in to the hosted CRM frontend, review messages relevant to their department or expertise, and create replies that can be broadcast to the entire Internet or simply to a single customer.

CoTweet offers powerful direct marketing tools, as well, allowing agents to schedule tweets in advance. This functionality not only allows public relations teams to embargo announcements, it offers service agents the ability to notify customers of new products or offerings at specific times.

During the service's public beta, companies can sign up for CoTweet for free. New media companies that handle nearly all of their customer communication on Twitter can use the service as a standalone CRM application. However, larger organizations may still require middleware or manual cross-posting of conversations between CoTweet and their existing CRM systems. Best of all CoTweet supports active searches of Twitter feeds, enabling companies to proactively reach out to customers who have posted concerns publicly without contacting a company directly. This quick response to emerging trends can help set companies apart from the competition, especially when using CRM systems to respond to emergencies or to handle other crisis communications.

Doorbell Small Business CRM Suite Leaves Beta

Using the tagline, "sales software for non-sales people," Smibs released its small business CRM service Doorbell to the general public this week. The web-based CRM application addresses a few of the hot button issues on the minds of small business software users:

• scalability,
• security, and
• functionality for new users.

As Jason Kincaid points out in his feature on TechCrunch, Doorbell shares a development and marketing mindset with 37signals' Highrise application. Both hosted CRM systems allow users to work from anywhere by leveraging existing e-mail threads to customers and among team members. Using the "bcc:" field and a custom e-mail address allows teams to benefit from the knowledge generated from users that don't fail to log in to their companies' CRM systems. Implementation tends to be easier using platforms like these, since individual users have the ability to customize their own versions of the CRM software without restricting other users' actions.

Like other hosted CRM platforms, Doorbell offers its customers the ability to grow quickly. However, its pricing plans will appeal to small business CRM users more accustomed to paying one-time fees for desktop applications. Many businesses can qualify for pricing tiers under $50 per month, with one-or-two person shops permitted to use the service for free while their organizations grow.

Using a hosted CRM system like Doorbell also reduces some of the risk inherent in running desktop CRM applications. Since customer details are stored "on the cloud," only files on a user's hard drive are susceptible to identity theft in the event of a lost or stolen machine.

End users unaccustomed to CRM software will appreciate Doorbell's simplicity, especially compared to complex, legacy CRM applications. Tasks and events stream down the center of the user's window in a format familiar to Facebook users. Adding new events or attaching details to accounts and opportunities is as simple as sending an e-mail to the system.

As affordable, hosted CRM systems gain even more traction among small business owners, look for heightened competition to keep prices low and functionality high.