Front Office Box

The new Front Office Box (FOB3) is on it’s way - we don’t have any firm dates as yet but the design is progressing rapidly. This is very exciting for us because it will move the application up a gears.

FOB3 will bring a number of smaller improvements to the app as we know it now, but will also extend the functionality in four directions, each of which will make the software more usable, and useful, and put more distance between us and any other software out there.

New labeling

We’re changing some of the words we use as labels to make the app more friendly and moving some around to simplify the appearance.

New Dashboard External Links panel

In the Dashboard sidebar we’re including a new section for “external links” where you’ll be able to add links to other sites you use regularly. These links will open in new tabs so you’ll be able to switch between sites just by clicking tabs. This feature will make Dashboard your “window” to the Internet.

For a sneak preview click this link

New Collaboration

Soon you’ll be able to truly collaborate with other Front Office Box users. This new feature allows the sharing of plans between different FOB’s.

For a sneak preview click this link

Tip, click the SHARE button at the top of the page to see how the invitation to Share will work.

New Project Milestones

We’re now including Milestones within the Opportunity (Plan) pages. From now on you’ll be able to lay out a series of milestones for each Plan then assign actions within each milestone. Milestones will be the basis of the new sales pipeline reporting, calculating risk and probability. They’ll also be the basis of project progress reporting at some point in the future.

For a sneak preview click this link

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Back in the days before the steam engine, everybody had a clear understanding of customer service, cost efficiency and productivity.  They were mostly self employed as farmers, builders, blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers etc.
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A particularly bombastic branch manager, new to the job, smugly walked around the sales floor asking “OK, who’s sold something today?”.  The business was enterprise software, and proposals didn’t close every day.  The floor was so quiet we could have heard the pin drop.

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A few weeks ago a sales manager was kind enough to share with us, on Salesgravy, his biggest screw up.  He most ably illustrated how sales managers can take over at the wrong time, and make everybody feel bad about it.

The post reminded me of an experience that shaped my attitude toward anybody wanting to “help” with my deals. 
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There are two really interesting sites I came across in the last couple of days, both very tightly associated with selling. Salesconx brings together people who know of guys who want to buy with people who want to know guys who want to buy. It’s like a market place for sales leads and an awesome way for both lead sellers and lead buyers to make money while all the old farts, who aren’t watching Web 2.0 explode into the business field, go bust

Closely related is the best business content forum I’ve come across. The people posting at Salesgravy are real players with interesting things to say about just anything - well worth a visit (and the joining fee).

Below we’re publishing a blog post by Namxas where he mentions our software.

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Both sides of the business software market struggle with the same issue - trying to build, or buy, standard package software offering economies of scale whilst perfectly fitting the business requirements. Read full post »

We’ve just implemented our Front Office Box Forum, a resource reserved exclusively for entrepreneurs and people managing small businesses.

This continues our drive toward harnessing Web 2.0 for people like us.

You should join if you want:

• an opportunity to promote your business.
• to exchange ideas with people like you.
• extend your network.
• avoid all the social networking stuff that gets in your way.

Sign up for the Front Office Box Forum here

Ever meet an enterprise software salesperson you could trust? While such paragons of virtue exist, they seem the exception rather than the rule. Here are 7 common lies used by some way too many enterprise solution providers during the sales process. Read full post »