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:
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 »
The world’s full of management and business strategy books. Sometimes they really change the way people think e.g. Re-engineering the Corporation. Others just look impressive on shelves in the office.
One of the best guides to the best books is the Harvard Business Review. When a book’s based on a paper published in the review, it’s usually worth attention. Blue Ocean Strategy is further proof of that statement. Read full post »
In his book The Long Tail Chris Anderson explained to us all there is almost infinite demand in any market that isn’t satisfied by mass market vendors. There’s nowhere this is more true than the market for small business software. Read full post »
Getting a Web 2.0 business application off the ground is a hard thing to do.
We’re happy to record we just passed a couple of milestones we’d set for ourselves.
Yesterday we processed more than 1,000 transactions for the first time - guess the weather must have been bad in several places:-)
Friday, for the first time, we had a user come to us and ask about collaboration between Front Office Boxes.
So tonight we’ll have a minor celebration.
Cheers
The avalanche has started.
What avalanche? Big brands starting to use the Internet to reach, influence and create loyalty in their small business customers!
Several phenomena are merging.
1) Big brands can no longer control demand and supply through their distribution channels. They’re being commoditised by Internet enabled competition.
2) Their big customers are disaggregating. Knowledge workers are exiting the corporate structures to set up their own businesses.
3) Social networking and Conversational Marketing are creating new models for communication.
4)Customer expectations are moving from simple supply to value add.
For big brands the old rules don’t work so well anymore, and they’re having to find new ones that do. Their answer - Internet enabled value added services. Blog’s, Wikis, forums, applications. All targeted at winning over the small businesses. Read full post »
A new sales rep, Mickey joins the Ferrari dealership and gets put with the seasoned pro, Sue, for training.
Mickey asks Sue, “these cars are so expensive, I don’t understand why people buy them”?
Sue replies “well you need to understand what we’re selling. Its not five wheels, and engine and a gearbox. It’s not the top speed of 170 mph. or the 0 - 60 in 4 seconds. It’s not that prancing horse badge representing one of the most famous brands. It’s not even the fact it’s so expensive, if you need to ask the price you can’t afford it.” Read full post »
Unfortunately somebody has already trademarked the phrase “information edge” - we would love to use it. Of course, it implies competitive advantage through the availability of information. All business software, to a greater or lesser extent, increases the information available to the user, so every vendor can claim to offer an “information edge”. We’re hardly going to stand out if we do the same. But it would be nice if we could because, for our target market, we make more information available, more easily, than the alternatives - an information edge. Read full post »
Are you going to get that sale?
Maybe, and maybe not. The best way to evaluate your chances, and improve them, is checking for some critical elements. The more of these you can honestly say “yes” to, the more likely you are to win the deal.
If you can’t say “yes” to some, then get to work and turn the “don’t know”s into “yes”. If you can’t turn the “no”s and “don’t know”s into “yes”s maybe you’d be better off spending your sales hours on something else. Sales professionals call this technique “qualification”.
We’re interested in working with people who want to help build a community of small businesses - a community where the small guys can work together in groups to better compete with the big guys. For these people we’ve created a special category of user account - Ambassador. Read full post »
