2007 marks a significant change in GuideMark's
business. In addition to our SalesDRIVE CRM solution and
consulting business, we are now an SAP® Business One partner.
We are very excited about the potential of this
product for the many small and mid-sized businesses in
Northern New England.
GuideMark started in 1997 as a
general reseller of customer relationship management (CRM)
systems, and soon developed our flagship CRM offering for
mortgage and commercial banks: SalesDRIVE CRM.
In our
travels, however, we noted time and again that smaller firms,
and particularly small manufacturers and distributors, wanted
the sales and marketing information typically available from a
robust CRM combined with an integrated business management
system, but simply couldn't afford the expense of a BIG
system.
Which is why we made the decision to become an
SAP Business One partner. The SAP Business One product meshes
perfectly with our client and process driven approach. Now,
we’ll also surface and address complex business problems that
have a financial impact on manufacturing and distribution
client businesses.
SAP Business One truly integrates customer and vendor
management -- including sales, finance, manufacturing,
Web-based access, robust e- commerce, campaign and prospect
management, and inventory -- so that everyone in your company
is on the same page with a clear, 360-degree view of your
business. And it is extremely affordable for the small to
mid-sized business.
We look forward to bringing this
exciting business management solution to the Northern New
England market. Please give us a call if you'd like more
information or a demo.
Gene Mehr & Eli
Szklanka
Managing Partners
SalesDRIVE CRM, the CRM that helps you sell
more.
SAP Business One, affordable business management
software for small and mid-size companies.
GuideMark to Deliver SAP® Business One to Small and
Midsize Businesses in Northern New
England
GuideMark Announces agreement with SAP America, Inc.
GuideMark has announced an agreement with SAP America, Inc.
to deliver SAP Business One to small and midsize businesses in
Northern New England. As an SAP Business One partner,
GuideMark will provide New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine firms
with the technology, business process and consulting knowledge
to easily adopt successful, long-term IT strategies using SAP
Business One, an integrated, affordable business management
solution designed specifically for small and midsize
businesses.
Small and midsize businesses are constantly struggling to
gain and maintain competitive operating advantages. While
they’ve often invested in multiple software applications and
stand-alone accounting software to run their businesses,
typically they can’t access a consolidated real-time view of
information, when they need it, to make critical decisions.
SAP Business One solves this information gap by providing a
single application with robust and fully integrated financial,
reporting, manufacturing, CRM/sales automation and e-commerce
capabilities.
SAP Business One supports companies with as few as ten and
as many as several hundred employees, and can be implemented
in weeks. Key functionalities include materials requirements
planning, comprehensive financial management, with multi-
currency, budgeting, and bank reconciliation; a complete
inventory management system, with kitting and multi-level
price lists; and a comprehensive reporting module that allows
easy access to any data.
CRM Tips
Using CRM to Wring Up Sales in a Down
Market
Second of Three Parts
by Gene
Mehr
In our November
issue, we covered how CRM can help you identify your top
prospects. Once you know WHO to call on, you’ll need to decide
how often.
The right contact frequency
The right contact
frequency for calling on your customers is a function of your
service/product set, your buyers and how they prefer to buy.
For example, a financial services salesperson selling
Business–to–Business (B2B) might visit A customers at least
once per week, B customers twice per month and C customers
once per quarter. Someone selling B2B for a manufacturer might
call on A customers twice per month, B customers twice per
quarter and C customers once per quarter. All salespeople will
call on a given number of prospects every week. The best
method for determining the right contact frequency for A, B
and C customers is to take a representative sample of your
best salespeople and observe their calling patterns.
Once you know the contact frequency that delivers the
desired revenue, profit and incentive goals, divide your
territory into four geographic quadrants that contain roughly
equal numbers of A, B and C customers and prospects.
Three CRM tools will help you develop and execute
your contact frequency plan.
First, use the CRM
calendar to fill in your A calls for each week for at least
two weeks in advance to ensure that you are touching every A
in every quadrant. Then, identify the B and C customers and
prospects that are geographically close to those A customers.
You can use your CRM Group functionality to make this job
easy. Now, backfill your calendar with the desired number of
B, C and prospect contact calls within each quadrant. Once
you’re comfortable with planning out two weeks in advance,
move up to planning a month in advance.
Secondly, use
CRM Alerts to keep you abreast of other money-making contact
opportunities. Let your CRM continually monitor your database
looking for exceptional transactions (new orders, major order
status changes, unusual cancellation activity, etc.) or trends
(customer revenue/profit up or down by “nn” percent, unit or
dollar bookings up or down by “x”, etc.) that offer added
customer contact opportunities to help you blow through your
financial goals. If appropriate, have the system automatically
trigger the Alerts to multiple parties, including the
customer.
Finally, use automated CRM contact tools
(emails, mail and fax) to augment the physical telephone calls
and visits you have planned. For example, trigger mass emails
to targeted groups of customers for relevant product
announcements, pricing changes, customer success stories and
newsletters. Get your system to automatically generate
customer thank you messages, birthday greetings, holiday
cards, etc.
Next issue, we’ll wrap up this series with a few words
on how CRM can help you plan your call by targeting the value
proposition to each customer’s specific requirements.
About SAP Business One
SAP® Business One is an affordable, integrated business
management solution that provides an unified picture of your
business. This puts decision makers in charge, with access to
up-to-the minute data, so they can focus on growing the
business, not trying to locate business data and important
metrics.
Feature highlights include:
• Embedded
sales-force automation (such as customer relationship
management)
• Real-time, workflow-based alerts that help
users take action and manage by exception
• Easy to learn,
easy to use and fully integrated with the Microsoft Office
Suite
• Fast, easy, drag-and-drop reporting with a familiar
Microsoft Excel interface
• Flexible, powerful, and
adaptable architecture to meet the specific needs of your
business and industry
• Comprehensive, fully integrated e-
commerce
• Web-based marketing campaign management
prospecting
CRM Sales Star: Paul Weisel, National City Home
Equity
In our last issue, we spoke with six
Account Executives with National City Home Equity who were
kind enough to share some tips for being successful in a
challenging mortgage market. This month, we went into more
detail with Paul Weisel, an Account Executive based in
New Jersey, about how the GuideMark CRM system helps his sales
efforts.
For our readers unfamiliar with mortgage banking, this is
business-to-business sales; mortgage banking Account
Executives work with loan officers and mortgage brokers, not
directly with individual borrowers.
Paul says that right now, his biggest sales challenge is
the inconsistent market, specifically, the fluctuation of
rates and property values along with the general market
uncertainty.
He uses CRM daily to stay abreast of client activity and
says the information in CRM is invaluable in managing his
accounts. “I follow my pipeline very closely and am able to
turn around declinations or counter-offers because I am on top
of what is going on,” he said.
Paul stresses that client knowledge is the key to success.
He says you must thoroughly understand your clients and their
needs. CRM helps him by putting all the pertinent information
at his fingertips. His brokers appreciate his diligence, which
solidifies his relationships with them. “I am also able to see
trends in an account or as a whole, respond to what is
happening and react appropriately and swiftly to take
advantage of the opportunity,” he added.
Have some tips on using CRM that you’d like to share?
We’d love them. Please drop me a note at sgetgood@
guidemark.com.
