SohoOS, a simple way to manage your micro-business for free.

If you ever have run a small business, or even worked as a freelance / micro business, you know that at any given time you are doing 100 things at once. As a result, when at the computer, you might have 10 + applications open at any one time.  Often, many of these are not integrated. In fact, many may not even be properly adapted to for maximum benefit, as all of this costs either time or money.

Now imagine a site that holds all your small business management applications. You’d be happy, right?!   The price? It’s basically free.  As a bonus, it even lets you network with ‘00s of other Small to Medium-sized business (SMB) manager. Who needs lunch with that?

May I introduce the SohoOS management services environment where small and micro-business can prosper through use of integrated and simplified management functions.

2 weeks ago, SohoOS announced a new partner, Plimus ~ an e-Commerce platform and Buy Anyware API, to support SohoOS.

Plimus, the leader in hosted e-Business solutions, today announced that SohoOS standardized on Plimus as the e-Commerce platform for SohoOS’ cloud-based business management services. Plimus provides seamless integration into the SohoOS platform and handles all payment processing, billing and purchase support services. Subscriptions can be upgraded easily and administered by SohoOS as business users add additional low-cost, value-added services to its free, cloud-based core product eco-system. The Plimus Buy Anyware API also is employed to recognize returning business users and provides personalized purchasing features that enhance the customer experience.

SohoOS provides everything a micro-business or freelancer needs to run a successful business, all available with a single click and in one location. The service is free, with charges incurred only when using SohoOS’ extended low-cost services such as communication suite, marketing suite and more. SohoOS gives the small and micro-business community the ability to integrate as many applications and services as needed with a unified contact system, payment processing platform, social community, marketing tools and customized reports.

"Plimus was great to work with as a partner," said Ron Daniel, CEO of SohoOS. "They took the time to listen to our business needs and spent the time working with us to ensure we launched successfully. The Buy Anyware API was extremely easy to work with, response time is good and the solution for recurring charges it offered was exactly what we needed. We look forward to growing our business with Plimus as our partner"

Said Plimus Vice President of Marketing Charles Born: "There is no doubt SohoOS represents a most promising step forward in the development of cloud-based business management software. Their goal to facilitate a global shift in the business community – where chances of success for small and micro-businesses are equal to larger enterprise companies – is very synergistic to our business objectives for facilitating e-Commerce in the small- and medium-sized business market. We are proud to be able to offer billing for Cloud/SaaS services to SohoOS and other exciting companies operating in the cloud, as they increasingly turn to Plimus for mission-critical, flexible solutions."

About SohoOS

Freelancers and micro business owners live in a corporate dominated world and are faced with an impossible task. To compete on a day-to-day basis with big enterprises equipped with the most expensive management solutions and web based services. SohoOS’s mission is to revolutionize the way small and micro businesses interact and offer them a platform that will help them run smoothly without interference, all the while giving them a corporate edge in a nurturing environment, bundled in a simple to use, friendly and free solution. Our goal is to facilitate a global shift in the business community, where chances of success are equal to all. SohoOS is an Israel-based company with a New York City presence.

Cloud-based Service Overview SohoOS

Five more nights of sleep until f8, Facebook Conference 2011. It’s of interest, not just for developers.  It’s a good idea for entrepreneurs and innovators as well. 

This conference will be all about building a more social web by defining tomorrow’s websites, apps and devices.  From a business point of view, not to be missed are the keynote at 10 am, and then in the afternoon the breakout sections of Transforming industries – Mobile & Social, Investing in Social; Building & Growing Social Apps: marketing on FB.

Location: 8th & Brennan, San Francisco, CA.

Can’t hop over to SF ? No problem. No jet fuel to be burned, trees can be saved: the entire conference will be Live-streamed at f8.facebook.com on the day of the event.

What do you offer people when everyone has an iPad or iPhone?

Money.

Cash.

Cold hard cash.

Microsoft is launching a new Dynamics CRM Online promotional deal titled “Cloud CRM for Less” that targets Salesforce, SAP and Oracle.  The timing is impeccable as Dreamforce starts tomorrow.

Microsoft is offering $150 in cash per user, per seat with a minimum of 50 signups and a maximum of 500 seats per customer. This promotional offer is available between now and March 31, 2012.  The deal is only open to customers in U.S. and Canada and only to those that purchase at minimum of 50 CRM Online licenses.  Companies are required to sign a two-year licensing subscription deal for Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Online in order to qualify for the cash reward.

Microsoft CRM Online is priced at $44 per user per month.  You do NOT have to be an existing customer of Salesforce, SAP and Oracle.

So basically, you get 3.4 months free when you sign up for 24 months, or a 7% in savings.

Last year, Microsoft had people on Segways to spread the Microsoft Dynamics and their $200 per user incentives to switch from Salesforce.com (or Oracle, for that matter). The slogan on the Segways had “I  Didn’t get Forced”.   Microsoft also ran a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal. 

On the other hand, SugarCRM handing out mock Christmas carol book and had a group of carolers singing carols with lines like “On the first day of Dreamforce, Marc Benioff gave to me: An overpriced subscription fee.”  Last year’s Dreamforce User Conference was held in early December.

Let the Games begin.

To spend 3 million dollars for a 30 second ad may be a lot of money, especially when you consider the potential 100 million targeted viewers.

A YouTube video going viral would have a better effect.  Entertainer Justin Bieber has over 430 million views for a single video without spending 3 million dollars.

Salesforce will have two ads during the SuperBowl.

Salesforce and its Chatter ads collaborated with the Black-Eyed Peas Superbowl half-time show featuring will.i.am.  It’s also an unusual coincidence that Mr. Bill is involved with technology, having just joined Intel as Director of creative innovation.

No need for stage fright, the Black-Eyed Peas has previous experience with the SuperBowl, being a part of the 2005 Super Bowl pregame show.  Half-time is where its at.

Of course, Salesforce used Chatter.com to produce the ads.

“During the production of the two commercial spots, we were collaborating on documents, scripts, artwork, downloading, uploading—all securely in the cloud using Chatter. Any task can be solved when you have a team working cohesively,” said will.i.am.

Here is the video on YouTube:

The SuperBowl XLV is approaching.

Yes, THE 2011 SuperBowl, but why they still use roman numerals is beyond me.

How much does it costs for a 30 second ad?

$3 Million for a single 30 seconds commercial.

What is the potential reach?

106 Million viewers in 2010 and 98.7 Million in 2009.

When you think about media, how many years did it take to reach 10 million eyeballs?  or 100 million viewers?

I am talking about traditional media, such as newspaper, radio and TV, including Superbowl TV ads.

I think a lot of companies are not aware of the impact of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

100 million targeted viewers may be a lot of money for 3 million dollars, but go ask entertainer Justin Bieber who has over 430 million views for a single video!  I doubt he spent 3 million dollars on that video.

It took TV and radio decades to reach 50 million viewers, but only months for Facebook to reach those same numbers.

In my opinion, traditional B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing efforts are becoming less and less effective.

By definition, P2P may mean peer-to-peer (i.e. Napster, Limewire, Torrents, etc.) but it also means people-to-people.

Branding is a personal issue, from the smartphone you choose to the sports drinks and running shoes you buy.

Recent Facebook stats show a dramatic increase in younger (18-24) and older generation (over 55+).  Yes, you can argue the grandparents signing up to see their grandchildren on the major cause of this increase.  Facebook’s greatest asset is photo, video and URL sharing. 

The world has changed the way business and consumers make purchasing decisions.  Why?  Because marketing is about building trust, relevancy, and most importantly, influence.  Ask yourself why you bought that iPhone or iPad in the first place?   Was it an ad on TV or a website, or did someone show you how cool and sexy it was?

Now, the Hard Part

The biggest task for any organization is determining the impact of any campaign.  There is no Nielson ratings for what the customers are saying, or the potential influence one has.

It’s easy to track the effectiveness of an Google AdWords campaign, with keywords, clicks and conversions, but social media is a different beast.

Years ago, I recall a story when  ex-Beatle Paul McCartney was in Montreal and denied entrance to a restaurant because he didn’t have a suit or dinner jacket!  Can you imagine if this happened today, and that famous person (or person with major influence) picked up their smartphone and Twittered this embarrassing moment?

The three most important concepts for social media implementation is monitoring, measuring and most importantly, engagement.

At the last Dreamforce 2010 User conference (part of Salesforce.com), I spent a lot of time in the Expo Cloud analyzing this trend, and the only company that was clearly the winner in this category was Radian6.

The 2 biggest reasons to use an enterprise software (preferable a cloud based one) is tracking the customer service complaints and the following the competition.

Everyone knows the Twitter and Comcast story (and their #comcastcares hash tag) on how Comcast actively went to the user to solve a complaint, before the user had a chance to complain directly to the Comcast service desk.  Customers don’t complain to the vendor, they complain to their friends and peers first.  And that’s why you should care about people-to-people or P2P Marketing.

Radian6 was the only vendor on the floor that was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of influence based on monitoring and measuring the social media activity.  It’s up to you to engage the customer and help rebrand the user experience.

This is a follow up to last year’s shenanigans.

Guerrilla Marketing at Dreamforce appears to be the norm.  If you DON’T do it, then you aren’t a major player in the industry.  What it really boils down to is competitors to Salesforce giving them a taste of their own medicine from their own tactics just a few short years ago.

But like a SuperBowl commercial, every year you have to out-do yourself and your competition with witty and catchy tactics.  The more viral, the better.

That being said, instead of just SugarCRM this year, we have Oracle and Microsoft joining in on the shenanigans.

Salesforce bought out all the billboards in the downtown area, everything from newspaper kiosks to skyscraper ads, but they left one corner untouched, and that is at the coveted Moscone center, ironically site of Dreamforce! Nothing fancy, just their standard Oracle #1 CRM red, black and white banner on the corner of the building.

Microsoft had people on Segways to spread the Microsoft Dynamics and their $200 per user incentives to switch from Salesforce.com (or Oracle, for that matter). The slogan on the Segways had “I didn’t get Forced”.   Microsoft also ran a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal.  The timing is impeccable.

SugarCRM handing out mock Christmas carol book and had a group of carolers singing carols with lines like “On the first day of Dreamforce, Marc Benioff gave to me: An overpriced subscription fee.”   Their URL for this stunt was redirected to NightBeforeDreamforce.com

They even had the classic red Salvation Army sign with the words “Salvation from Salesforce”.  SugarCRM is offering free migration to anyone switching to from Salesforce.com to SugarCRM, plus guaranteeing 50% in savings.

Here is the video on YouTube.

Date: November 11, 2010
Time: 10:00 AM PDT
Duration: 1 Hour

Register for this webinar now

Join Andy Drogo (Product Manager at Xactly) and Ryan Nichols (VP, Product Management at Appirio) in this webinar that explores how you can significantly improve sales productivity by getting real-time information across SaaS applications to your sales employees.

This webinar explores how you can leverage cross-cloud solutions to drive results by giving sales teams better, more accurate information from across their business. Appirio SalesWorks proactively brings sales people the critical and contextual CRM data they need in the tools they use every day – email, calendar and their mobile device – and allows them to take action then and there. With Xactly’s extension to SalesWorks, sales performance and compensation data can be delivered directly to a sales representative or managers inbox or mobile device – allowing them to act quickly on the opportunities that will yield the biggest business impact.

Register for this webinar now

If you shop online, and I’m sure most readers do, then you’ll be glad to know a recent crackdown or trend is happening as we speak.

There are just too many scams or tricks on the Internet.   And you thought con artists only existed in the days of Paper Moon?  There’s a sucker born every minute…

In the business world, you can make money either by adding value to the customer or by taking advantage of their weakness.

It’s no different in ecommerce, except your store is open 7/24.  Hopefully 5 nine’s (99.999%), but that’s another story.

The FTC have recently cracked down on bogus testimonials for web sites and blogs.  As well, you must fully disclose your relationship to the seller of any product or service you write about.  That includes commissions for affiliate sales and paid reviews.

There are so many scams out there, from Government Grants application software to the Acai Berry weight loss pills. 

Here are some examples:

• $25 shipping charges that cost $4.95
• FREE product but $25 recurring charge every month (good luck trying to cancel)
• Up sells and recurring charges
• Countdown timers with expiring deals, but don’t really expire.  Just hit F5 and refresh your browser.

A well known Internet marketer recently posted his latest terms and conditions from a credit card merchant provider (it was either Visa or MasterCard).  It doesn’t matter which one it was, but I enjoyed reading the latest customer service SLA’s. 

Now, these are “best practice” guidelines, but if it ever became law, I can see where you simply outsource your VoIP call center to a foreign country as your glorified answering service.  Right?  As long as the wait time is less than 2 minutes before speaking to a live agent, you are well within the guidelines.

Here is the snippet that only pertains to customer service:

• Multiple methods of cancellation must be provided for consumers to cancel or request refunds, including at least two options of contact. Example of acceptable service channels include: phone, email, mail, and online chat. Phone support is strongly recommended as one of the options.
• “Contact Us” information including contact methods and hours of availability should be prominently displayed in all marketing, offer and payment pages, as well as included in purchase confirmations, invoices and any other communication with consumers.
• Customer Service must be easily accessible and available during reasonable business hours
• Refund and Cancellation Policies must be followed as disclosed to the consumer at the time of order
• Hold times to reach Customer Service must be less than 2 minutes.
• After hours voice mail should include a greeting that properly identifies the merchant to the consumer, provides hours of Customer Service availability and an expectation for call back.

In a prior Youtube video interview with Mary Becker, VP of Sales and Marketing at Schumacher Homes, she discusses how Pivotal’s CRM is helping an “on-your-lot customer home builder” bridge the gap between disparate software packages and provide streamlined processes that increase the company’s competitive advantage.

2 Take-Home Messages

1) Analyze ALL of your business practices. What are you competitive at?  What can you do faster and better with technology?  People and qualified skills are another matter.

2) (from an on-line perspective) Marketing is a science.  If you are using a pay per click (PPC) campaign, you can analyze to your hearts content what keyword or keyword combination went the full distance on a sales funnel.

Analyze ALL of your Business Practices

Remember it is humans that can properly strategize the processes of a successful sales and marketing group.  And at the end of the day it will be humans (hopefully highly qualified sales and marketing people) that will execute the marching orders. 

Computers and software only help automate the processes.

If I was a software vendor, my biggest fear would be the competition trying to out price you.  Everyone is looking for value, and believe me, a lower price tag can perk my ears.

Especially when I’m unhappy over a few issues.

It’s like the restaurant business.  Owners hate it when you leave unhappy and quietly.  They know you’ll end up telling two friends, or worse, set up a web site, or blast it on Twitter and Facebook!

Take a good hard look what you’re good at, and where you can improve.  Then take a look at technology to see if it can be automated.  Rinse, and repeat.

CRM in the Eye of Adversary Economic Climate

In the current global economic recession, the market strategy of choice is customer retention, and customer service is a core ingredient in this pursuit.

Indeed, Gartner reported mid 2008 that for the third year in a row, customer experience and customer service are cited by CIOs as key business factors that will drive decision making during the next 24 months.

Customer service in the context of customer retention places the emphasis on post-sale consumer interactions that are flawless.

However, a mere 11% of companies garnered a rating of “excellent” in Forrester Research end 2008 Customer Experience Index of large US firms. Over 4,500 consumers were asked about their interactions with 114 companies across 12 different industries, in terms of usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyability of those experiences. An amazingly large percentage, i.e. 38% of companies, scored a “poor” or “very poor.”

How can CRM help companies improve customer service?

The answer lies in embracing traditional customer service adages that have led individual industries for ages. Think for example of the hospitality industry motto ‘Smile, make eye contact, and use the last name’ to instill a customer service orientation in its front row of staff facing customers at all times.

Just taking these three values of ‘being pleasant, being there for the customer to instantly act according to its specific wishes, and knowing the customer’ into your CRM selection and planning process is half the battle won of instilling customer service into your CRM effort.

And that’s the advice for all companies, and in particular, the data- or process-oriented organizations such as banks, insurance companies and cable tv companies, who have been building complex still-internally focused CRM systems. CRM systems might have cut their process costs, but what is their customer service level? Do their CRM systems fully enable their customer service agents at point of contact, and enable their customers directly when they are in self-serve mode? In most cases ‘not yet’ is the answer, and that’s why according Forrester nearly 40% of companies offer a customer service experience that is rated as “poor” or “very poor.”

Who’s on Track

Companies that are exploring SAAS CRM systems are on the better track to win the customer service battle. While today’s SAAS CRM systems are not yet perfect for all companies and all industries, companies with SAAS-based CRM systems are best placed to offer superior customer service thanks to its web-based interface as well as its web-way of thinking.

Today’s Customers

Today’s customers live in a world called 2.0. Customer service is about knowing the customers and their individual needs. It is about being able to respond to these needs, with either a virtual or a physical a smile.

And as today’s customers live online, they may be more inclined to email a customer service representative than to pick up the phone. However, they will do both. Therefore, companies must integrate both information sources to deliver a complete and consistent response to the customer’s reality.

In addition, today’s customers are actively partaking in interactive communities online. CRM solutions need to tie in with these communities. A company like Adobe has been doing this for decades. Visiting its web site, and you’ll instantly know what is meant. The old ‘user groups’ have made way for communities. The main menu offers access to the communities by user group, or by resource: Adobe Labs, Adobe TV, Forums, User groups, Exchange/ Marketplace, Experience Design and Blogs. In other words, communities are an integral part of its website and of its corporate thinking.

Today’s customer is also like a 5-year-old: they want to do things for themselves and they want to succeed doing them. So, think in the form of guided self-service. Giving customers online account access through an easy to understand interface is what it is about for the next decade ahead for many industries. Therefore, the preferred CRM solution encompasses easily adaptable and easy-to-use user interfaces for both customer service agents and customers.

CRM for Customer Service Goes Beyond the Basics

Traditional or process-oriented CRM systems may be superior at enabling the basic sales tasks like product selection, order management, payment, account setup and basic support. However, additional capabilities are a ‘must’ in order to deliver contemporary, quality customer service through CRM systems.

Things to look for are those that follow the hospitality customer service adage:

• OFFER A SMILE: capabilities to use your CRM to nurture online communities through CRM integration with social media like Facebook; to allow the customer service agent’s presence into these communities; and to connect the customer service agent dashboard with customers’ own self-serve web interface; are three leading edge examples.
• MAKE EYE CONTACT: analytical applications to understand customer-intentions, which in turn enable tailored interactions as well as products & services to match customer preferences.
• KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER’S LAST NAME: to be really ready to serve a customer, CRM systems must have the capabilities for customer service agents to find action-oriented answers for his customer fast.

The customer service adage has stayed the same. The implications for our CRM systems will evolve over time.