by: Manish Kumar

Are you looking for a Sales Force Automation Solution (SFA) if yes then read on? Before start looking for a solution it is important to understand the meaning and the utility of the solution. The exercise starts by distinguishing between a Personal Information Manager and a Sales Force Automation Solution.

What is a Personal Information Manager (PIM)?

PIMs, such as Microsoft Outlook and PDA software, were designed to help you organize basic personal information. They typically include an address book, calendar, and to-do list, mimicking the paper-based format of each. PIMs enable you to maintain your personal information, as well as basic information about Sales Force Automations, but do not allow you to integrate information such as linking documents or e-mail communications to a Sales Force Automation.

Some PIMs provide basic Sales Force Automation tracking and searching functionality. For example, a PIM may offer the ability to attach notes to a contact, but it would not provide a historical view of that relationship. Piecing together relationship histories with a PIM would require a great deal of time and patience, plus supplemental applications (such as spreadsheets or other documentation).

What is a Sales Force Automation Solution & Customer Manager?

A Sales Force Automation solution and customer manager allows you to manage all tasks and information related to developing and maintaining relationships with the people, groups, and companies with whom you do business. Sales Force Automation solution and customer management involves a variety of activities, including the ability to:

1. Centralize critical contact and customer information and stay organized.

2. Manage and grow business relationships through top-notch communications.

3. Prioritize your work to stay on top of appointments and tasks.

4. Forecast and track sales opportunities for an improved bottom line.

5. Access and report on information quickly for a complete view of customer interactions.

6. Improve efficiency by integrating the applications you use every day, such as Microsoft Office and Accounting applications

7. Access critical information on-the-go from Palm OS ®, Pocket PC, BlackBerry®, and iPhone devices.

Built on the foundation of a contact-centered database, Sales Force Automation and customer management software provides comprehensive tracking and instant access to all contact and company related information. It’s intuitively designed for the day-to-day management of contact information by an individual, workgroup, or corporate team.

A major difference between PIMs and Sales Force Automation solution is that PIMs contain isolated (as opposed to integrated) components. For example, in a PIM you might look at a calendar appointment in one view, and then separately refer your contact list for details about the person you’re meeting. Sales Force Automation and customer management software’s provides a 360-degree view of your contact information so you don’t have to jump from one application to another to complete a task, plan your day, or execute your sales strategies. Sales Force Automation and customer management software is a tool to improve the way you build and maintain business relationships and enhance your professional image. It empowers you to focus on profitable endeavors, such as outshining your competition, by minimizing the time spent on routine tasks. It’s an essential tool for consistently transforming contacts into customers and first-time customers into loyal relationships.

A Sales Force Automation Solution has the following features:

1. Centralize important prospect and customer relationship details for quick, organized access.

2. Manage interactions at the company or account level for a complete view of relationships with that organization.

3. Get up-to-speed quickly and remain productive because of the easy to learn and use interface, eliminating the need for formal training.

4. Find specific relationship details instantly using powerful search capabilities in an easy-to-use format.

5. Manage daily responsibilities by scheduling and tracking activities to ensure individual and team productivity.

6. Forecast and track sales opportunities to stay on top of all new leads and to provide management with insight into sales pipelines.

7. Gain instant and accurate insight into individual and team performance using dashboards and reports.

8. Communicate consistently and successfully with prospects and customers using Microsoft® Outlook® or other e-mail solutions used by your organization.

9. Share and secure precious prospect and customer relationship details across teams of users.

10. View how your sales reps are tracking to their sales goals and how their time is allocated using interactive dashboards and reports. With this information, you can coach your sales reps, and help underperforming reps get back on track without delay.

11. Enhance sales predictability and results by providing a customized sales process for your team to guide their deals through close.

12. Streamline your team’s daily functions so they can focus more on selling rather than administrative tasks, to ultimately improve their productivity.

13. Maintain relationship details, despite sales rep turnover. Rest assured that prospect and customer details will remain as an organizational asset, even as your team changes.

Sales force Automation can be a boon for SME and SMB’s for their Sales and marketing teams. SME and SMB’s in India are relatively new to Sales force automation but slowly and gradually they are adopting SFA processes. Software Companies like Sage India specialises in Sales Force Automation for SME and SMB’s.

You can get more information from their website:

http://www.sagesoftware.co.in/SubSubProduct.aspx?SubProductId=24

Manish,

Content Writer for Sage India on different software products

Visit the author’s web site at: http://www.sagesoftware.co.in

by: Sonia Dixon

When you are starting a new business online there are many opportunities for inexperienced entrepreneurs. You want information that is easy to use, has proven strategies, has a step by step guide, is good value for money and offers a 100% money back guarantee. Without the right strategies and starting point, many fall short, wasting time and money to prospective entrepreneurs. Your will review many of the top opportunities available online – products available on the internet today. Expert advice is necessary and you have experts who get straight to the point, telling you what you really need to know to make a lot of money online. Some have helped thousands of people make money online with a guaranteed stream of income that virtually runs 100% on autopilot. Systems that you can set and forget it! No gimmicks, no empty promises, just good business. Affiliates that are looking for individuals interested in starting their own legitimate home business.

There are new and very powerful upgraded versions of systems in place, skyrocketing sales and memberships. New people with little or no experience in this industry are seeing almost immediate results from newer system to make cash online. People who have never been able to achieve success in the Network Marketing arena are now making money, many of them within their first or second week.

This newest system is a revolutionary Sales and Marketing Opportunity that essentially eliminates the individual marketer’s sales and marketing abilities as a variable for their success. The system generates leads, then filters and even qualifies them for you. Next, highly trained professionals follow-up and close the sales in order to turn the prospects into customers. This eliminates any interaction between the System’s member and the customer until after the sale is made and the money is deposited into the individual members bank account!

This revolutionary way of marketing now levels the playing field in such a way as that new marketers are able to enjoy the same results as seasoned veterans. By removing the new marketer from the equation, he now can focus on building the business while “outsourcing” the most difficult variables, which are the sales and marketing aspects of the business.

There are a few ‘turn key” automated sales and marketing system ever created for Direct Sales Marketing and Home Based Business Opportunities. It eliminates the following aspects for the new marketer:

NO more personal selling, telling or explaining, EVER! NO more buying leads or learning how to advertise (unless you choose), EVER! NO more prospecting or dialling for dollars, EVER! NO more struggling and frustration in getting started! NO more long learning curves! NO more wondering how are the successful marketers actually making their money!

Internet marketing – the bottom line

You can turn some systems on, and head out to the beach, go to the mall with the children, or on a long overdue family vacation, and your sales and marketing system will be busy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week generating, filtering and qualifying your leads. Highly trained sales professionals will be making all of your calls and closing all of your sales for you! They system is on Autopilot!

If you have been looking for a Home Based Sales and Marketing Opportunity that eliminates all of the boring, time consuming, and redundant things like selling and explaining, you have found it. New revolutionary Marketing Opportunities are exactly what you have been looking for. Does it sound to good to be true? You will never know unless you take the time to look, will you?
Sonia Dixon is a book reviewer, coach and author. Affiliate Programs are just about internet marketing, business, autopilot, residual income and a new affiliate program, or starting an affiliate program.

For an even easier and faster way to make money, go to:
http://makemoneyonline.ebooksgain.com/
discover the secrets of Your very own affiliate program!

The author invites you to visit: http://www.ebooksgain.com

by: Nick Vaidya

The name may not excite you. While this may be a drawback for this product, besides the “me too ” sounding name, it is nothing like a sugar substitute, neither in messaging nor in experience. And that explains Michael Silver’s success in making the firm the 6th fastest growing company in the US as assessed by the Inc. 5000 survey. Just Like Sugar is not a sugar substitute. It is a sweetness substitute. Sugar is a bad substitute for sweetness, much like the other commonly available substitutes – like the pink or the blue sachets that you find at most restaurants.

In fact, I would call this product “Heartful Sweetness” or “Healthy Sweet” or something else like that. Perhaps, I would have spent a little bit of resources on marketing research to come up with a name that would make better marketing sense. Sugar is just as bad for health as the others. There is plenty of research to prove this point and most of us already know that. It does not need any proving.

But make no mistake; Mr. Michael Sylver has a whole series of marketing and sales lessons to teach. Here are a few reasons why he and his firm have done well.

1. UNBRIDLED PASSION: Nothing in this world sells like your passion does. If you are not passionate about what you do then you are undercapitalizing your own self as a sales person. Don’t sell that which you are not passionate about. Your own true beliefs attract people and lack thereof can undermine your own efforts. Trust and likeability are fundamental to any sales processes and passion supports both. The greatest salesmen have been those who have believed in the idea and talked about it with consummate passion. All religious activists substantiate the validity of this assertion. Think about it. This is the reason Mike Sylver is perhaps the best sales person that the company has.

2. DEMONSTRABLE USP: Having a USP or unique selling proposition is almost a no brainier. Of course, and obviously, that is a great strategy for growth. The issue most of firms face is their inability to do so. There are many ways to make your product or service differentiated. When bananas and meat can be differentiated anything can be. Most of firms get stuck at trying to make the core product different and ignore that a lot of other factors make a product, from packaging to marketing. There is plenty of scope and ways to differentiate your product – and it is much easier for services to do so. Mike has done that well – just like sugar is just like sugar without the harmful effect of all other sweeteners. But it is not his ability to create such a product that is the reason for his success but it is his ability to convince us of the truthfulness of his assertions. You know it as well as I that good products do not necessarily sell and those that sell need not be the best. The key word here is demonstrable. You hear Mike talk about his product and you will want to try his product. This takes us directly to the way he has been able to convince us of the value of his product.

3. VALUE FORWARD SELLING: As my friend Paul DiModica puts it most firms fail to put their value in front of them that can easily be grasped by the prospect. Instead the value remains hidden, clear to customers but untrusted by the prospects. The reason is that most firms and sales people fail to see themselves from their prospects eyes. Mike does not do that. He knows exactly what the customer wants to hear and can rattle the sales talk with ease and finesse. He developed his talking cards well in advance. There is no confusion about the value of his product, unlike most less successful firms and products or services. You can view the video of my talk with Mike and learn for yourself what I mean. Visit www.8020ceo.com.

4. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Unlike many others who peddle their ware, he has a business strategy. He is not selling sugar substitutes. He is selling public health. He is not going after the end user. He is going after the major decision influencers. He does not plan to sell sugar substitute to major player like coke at huge discounts. He intends for them to want to use his products. He is not just making sachets. He intends to create a movement towards healthy sweets within his low hanging segment of the market. He is thinking strategically when he is going after schools boards and evangelists. In a sense his channel partners will do his bidding.

5. LEVERAGED PR: His alacrity to use PR is amazing. He will help you, if you can help someone else he wants to help too. That is his lever. Mike is a consummate public relations man. It seems that he might take his firm from zero to billion without spending any money and that seems to be happening now rather than too far in the future. The beauty of his approach is that he does not come across as a PR person but rather than as an engineer or a scientist who has just discovered this great product based on his passion for the rainforests and the deteriorating health of Americans at large. What can be more empowering PR campaign than the discovery of an innocent discovery? Well it was not an innocent discovery – we soon learn. Mike is the master of highlighting. That you care and have passion is not sufficient. You must have a communication strategy as well to be successful. Mike’s communication strategy is PR. If he were writing music, being on the Oprah show will be a crescendo that he is planning on. After all, he is not selling sugar substitutes. He is selling public health.

The one thing that I recommend for Mike is the one thing that got Obama elected. The web 2.0 tide is going to be in full swing soon and his boat is not parked yet. Just like sugar has the potential to be a major phenomenon very quickly by crafting a Web 2.0 strategy using social media, online evangelists, and creating a community of digital health workers. It is not easy to do but is doable. It needs to be done strategically but his business is most amenable to the phenomenon of voice of the people in the digital world. The same astute thinking that Mike has used for PR is required to create social buzz as well – thoughtfully and methodically. He can begin with the website and by giving his voice a digital flavor. One caveat… There are a lot of people touting their paint brushes, and easels, and other painting tools. Please don’t get deceived or bedazzled but them. Paints and paint brushes do not a painting make. All of us have great camera’s these day but do not come near the photographic artistry of decades ago that was done without all the technology.

Nick Vaidya is the Managing Partner of The 8020Strategy Group, the President of the Global Alliance of CEO’s, and the Managing Editor of The CEO Entrepreneur Magazine (www.8020CEO.com). At this site you can find videos of CEO level discussions, reviews of books, journal articles, events, and organizations. The magazine promotes collaboration among CEO’s, and aims to inform / inspire the community towards making better businesses decisions. Nick’s consulting practice focuses on business profitability management and he works with, both large and midsized technology driven firms, including firm like Microsoft, Dell, EBay, Qwest, IBM, and other mid sized firms. He has been a senior advisor with the Chairman’s Strategy Team at a Fortune 100 firm and was responsible for managing the profitability of almost half the company. His career includes sales, marketing, and advertising. He was a graduate faculty at Texas A&M University and did his graduate and doctoral work there, in business and in psychometrics. For keynote addresses, workshops, and consulting engagements, he can be reached at nick@8020ceo.com or 512 257 7868.

The author invites you to visit: http://www.8020ceo.com