aheadCRM

  Zoho hosted its usual Analyst Day to coincide with the annual Zoholics event in Austin TX. You’ll likely have seen the announcements already, as well as some analysis of them; I’d like to focus on one set. Zoho has opened up beta access to a set of apps that are specifically targeted to serve solopreneurs, small business owners in the making, freelancers, and similar individuals. Briefly, these apps include: Zoho Start , which guides individuals through the process of launching a business; Zoho Publish , a visibility tool to access listing services, maps, and feedback sites;  Zoho Tables , a hybrid spreadsheet/app combining ease of use with team access; and Zoho Solo , a mobile-only set of essential CRM and other business tools for solopreneurs. On the one hand, this is very smart. The majority of solo/small businesses worldwide have a smartphone or tablet as their only computer, driven by the commonality of solopreneurs around the world, both in the developed and developing...

Now this title is not a case of do a rhyme or get bitten but actually summarizes the topic pretty well. The CRMKonvos team had a long and good discussion with John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems about the needs and wants of a CRM for SMBs. Are the requirements that an SMB has really different from the ones that an enterprise has? At the end of the day the original challenges seem to be fairly similar. Especially on the sales side, people avoid the system, just like Denis Pombriant found in a study that we talked about earlier this year in our CRMKonvo about why salesreps hate their CRM . Here a short version that just answers this very question . The parallels in thinking and observations between Denis and John are striking! But then, there are a few differences. Listen to John explaining them. But then this isn't all. Talking about value of the systems we couldn't not also talk about the value of AI. Is there any? Where? Spoiler alert: There is, but on...

As a consequence of an organizational stuff up we had a CRMKonvo that was even better than could be expected in our wildest dreams. Our guests Sheryl Kingstone of 451 Research and Laurie McCabe of the SMB Group have a lot of data and insight to share about data driven experiences and what the digital maturity of companies small and large actually is. Do we talk digital transformation or just digitalization - even only digitization? Will, whatever changes towards digital communication and collaboration stay? Will it change back to what it was? Something in between? Sheryl and Laurie have some very interesting data points and observations on these topics. Two strong and renowned analysts - leading experts in their field - with different company focus and different approaches offer significant insight for us. Great stuff. Enjoy

The News Last week, on July 24, 2019 Salesforce announced adding conversation channels to its Salesforce Essentials offering with the goal of giving small businesses more personalized ways to interact with their customers. As usual, you can read the press release below or directly on the Salesforce web site . In a nutshell, Salesforce adds the ability to have conversations with Facebook Messenger, to get notifications when customers comment to posts and videos on Instagram or Youtube, and native phone support. All this can get set up with the help of simple guided walkthroughs. The overall goals are to speed up the setup and to offer a path for growth. The latter being offered by the fact that Salesforce Essentials is built on the same platform as Salesforce’s enterprise applications and is essentially an entry tier for small businesses. Still, talking to Melissa Meli , Director of Product Marketing for Salesforce Essentials, the emphasis is on easy. ...