Paul Greenberg, one of CRM’s most respected visionaries, just launched CRM Idol 2011, a wonderful competition from the CRM Entrepreneurs among us.   If you are a young CRM start up with a great idea but frustrated how you can the word out, get some great advice from some of the brightest CRM minds in the world and get market traction, this competition is for you.

A quick overview of the competition (as taken from Paul’s blog post)

The Criteria

This competition is for small companies in the CRMish/SocialCRMish world. – see the categories below for some guidelines though please feel free to make the case if you don’t see yourself in the guidelines.

• You have to have software that is commercially available by the time of the demo – that would be in August – again see below. No betas, alphas, release candidates allowed. If we find that you’re not commercially available, and you have a time slot, you’re out and someone else will fill the slot. So please be sure that you can verify the claim if you want to participate.
• You have to have 3 referenceable customers that, if we care to, we can contact and ask about you.
• You have to have revenue under $12 million U.S. your last fiscal year. As far as disclosure goes, you have the choice of making the claim that you do – though that will have to be stated in your submission and we’ll trust you or you can disclose your revenue in the submission with the knowledge that only the permanent judges will know what it is. If you make the claim, please be prepared to back it up if we ask. Your call on how.
• You have to be willing to make a ten minute video if you get to the finals. More on that later.
• You have to fit a category – though there is some leeway there.

The Categories

The categories that Paul and his team have identified to start are:

1. Traditional CRM Suites
2. Social CRM
3. Sales – Sales Force Automation, Sales Optimization, Sales Effectiveness
4. Marketing – Marketing Automation, Revenue Performance Management, Social Marketing, Email Marketing, Enterprise Marketing Management, Database Marketing
5. Customer Service – all permutations
6. Mobile CRM
7. Customer Experience Management
8. Social Media Monitoring – requires the possibility of integrating with a CRM technology
9. Customer Analytics – including text/sentiment analytics; voice based analytics; social media analytics, influencer scoring, etc.
10. Enterprise Feedback Management
11. Innovation Management
12. Community Platforms
13. Enterprise 2.0 – collaboration, activity streams etc.
14. Social Business
15. Knowledge Management – this one requires the possibility of integrating with CRM systems
16. Vendor Relationship Management
17. Partner Relationship Management

Once again, if you don’t see yourself in this list, don’t worry. Just make the case as to why you have some customer-facing possibilities and the likelihood is that we’ll be cool with it. We’re trying to make this easier for you, not hard.

What Are You Waiting For?

Go to Paul’s blog to learn more and find information on how to enter.

What is in a Word?

Is there a difference between “credibility” and “trust?” How about “ownership” versus “control?” What about “influence” and “empowerment” (that is a trick question, lots of good posts on that this past week).  Feel free to pick on any one of these, some have their own threads going elsewhere. The set I am picking on today is ‘Knowledge‘ versus ‘Experience‘. Why? Because too many people are confusing one with the other, and some are actually falling short on both (ie, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you do not have experience). This post is not directed, in its entirety, at any one individual, so please do not be so ‘vain, to think this blog is about you’ as the song kind of goes.  If you see yourself in here, well, hey take something away from it (I know I am).

Much of what we are all talking about and doing with respect to Social Media, Social Marketing, Social Selling, Social Business and Social CRM is so new that very very few people can possibly be talking or writing from a position of significant experience. Some people are talking/writing eloquently, in the form of case studies, so we can all learn from the few experiences that do exist.  Taking information provided by others, adding some of their own interpretations and posting a blog, an article, giving a talk or sharing a video. So, here is my question: “Does writing about someone else’s experience provide knowledge”? I am not a philosopher, nor a sociologist, but I wonder about that – call me an intellectual, academic, geek, I can take the hit. I think is important, and valuable, just wondering.

It is the Combination that is Powerful

Which is more dangerous, experience without knowledge, or knowledge without experience? One direction is easy:  the book smart, well read individual who is a little green. The other side is a little harder to imagine, but one that I think might actually cause bigger issues. You might think of it as ‘street smarts’ or success veiled by serendipity, misinterpreted as knowledge. I can tell you, from a position of both knowledge and experience, that time spent listening (not waiting to talk) is time well spent. Do not get me wrong, I do get a bit passionate as was the case with a blogger earlier this week. My issue, however, was his lack of humility. I can admit when I am wrong, (I could be sarcastic and say it does not happen often, but I won’t go there) and my approach is direct, but does not typically start with “Very few people, aside from me” or “you cannot argue with…”

I rely on the combination of knowledge and experience to get me through the day. Limitations of one, knowledge, can more easily be made up for by reading, research and learning. Experience is tougher, but you can either bring people in, those whom you trust, to fill a gap, or talk to as many people as you can to see if you can replace a slight lack of experience with more knowledge. I admire the people that work hard to extend their knowledge (publicly even), as the public sharing can accelerate the process. I am not saying that will always work, as a matter of fact, it might be downright dangerous in some situations. But, we are all on the journey together. We need bridge builders, not egos and more people willing to consider the possibility that they are not always right. I believe this to be especially true with bloggers. If you really are a blogger, then engagement is more important than your schedule to put up another post. Sorry, I will stand firm on that one.

Too awkward a post for a Wednesday?

The subject line of this post is something I tweeted earlier today. Actually, the whole Tweet was “Reputation is a goal, building Trust is a goal; Transparency is not goal, it is a path to each“. This was in response to a typical contrarian post, someone picking on the word, but this one bothered me. For starters, transparency is not a goal, it is a characteristic of a person or if you have a strong leader, an organization. I believe it is a very important characteristic, one that often leads to building trust and then a supporting element of a positive reputation. I take issue with selectively being transparent, you are or you are not. That does not mean that for security, competitive or privacy reasons, certain information does not need to be held close. Stating that certain things cannot be shared is transparent, as long as everyone is treated equally and it is stated.

When doing just the slightest bit of research today, I came upon a good post, which quoted The 2010 Edelman Global Trust Barometer:

For the first time trust and transparency rank as important to corporate reputation as the quality of products and services.  In fact, in the U.S. and in much of Western Europe, those two attributes rank higher than product quality and far outrank financial returns.

In other words, I am not making this up, this is real and you should probably pay attention. I could pick on the wording a little, as I did with my Tweet, and suggest the modest differentiation between trust and transparency. Trust is something earned. There are many things which go into earning it, and it trust is one of (maybe the core) the components which make up reputation. Many believe that transparency, the ability to witness with an unobstructed view, what is going on, helps organizations to build trust – maybe even more quickly. If I can witness how an organization treat others, for example, I may be willing to take a risk and ‘trust them’ sooner than if knew very little about them. Just for completeness, ‘open’ is not the same as transparency, open is one level deeper. Open suggests that I can not only see through the window, but I can walk through the front door and participate.

What led me to this post this week, in addition to what I mentioned above? The FastCompany influencer project, which I talked about in a previous post here. In addition to everything I talked about above. Is it possible to be influenced (positively) by someone who I do not trust? Is trust a binary thing – I do or I do not? For example, I can trust that you want to do the right thing, but that does not mean I trust you to do the right thing (just try getting in a car with a new driver). The topic of influence and trust are aligned, this is an area I hope to explore further, but it is not simple. I do know that Trust can be fragile, and gaining it takes work, but it can be gone in an instant.

We were discussing the fact that major telco providers are dropping their “unlimited” rates for their cell phone plans from $99.00 to $69.00 (you may have seen some TV spots on the topic from Verizon). This in itself is a great example of value-based pricing, but that is a discussion for another blog.

Martin made a great point – he basically said (I’m paraphrasing somewhat): “Hey, these guys basically baked the cost of Sugar into the cell phone plan. Now there is no excuse for people not to equip all their sales guys with CRM and a blackberry.”

Apart from this being a great sales gimmick, this is an interesting point on a lot of levels. For one – most businesses did not blink an eye when they were asked to pay a hundred bucks (sometimes more) per person to imply use a phone and access emails. Yet, a lot of CRM companies are still trying to convince decision-makers that a CRM system is a tool they can’t live without.

I would like to think that core SFA systems have moved from the “nice to have” into the “must have” bucket. But this is not always the case. Hopefully, more people will see that with a $100 per person, per month budget – they can equip their sales agent with a complete desktop, laptop and mobile solution connecting them to their important data, their prospects, and each other.

Even though I spend every day thinking about markets, and lately the idea of “creating buyers” versus pushing products (thanks Paul Greenberg), I am still sometimes befuddled by the buying mentalities (and priorities) of companies.

How many times have you seen a major expenditure in your organization – one that will have zero effect on your customer’s success or satisfaction? Was it really 100% necessary?

Look, I know all businesses have to spend money to make money – and not all of that is on stuff that “touches the customer.” But as we move into a world where Enterprise 2.0 and social CRM concepts penetrate our operations – these are questions to ask…

What is your buying mentality? Are you investing in ways that – in some way – has the benefit of your customers in mind? The answer might surprise you.

I really do believe that concepts like the cloud and open source have ushered in a new era of application design and deployment – integration and coexistence is getting easier and easier.

Yet – we still see countless examples in the consumer tech world that buck this trend. Sony has long attempted to create models where all of your devices and the means to store and play media must be part of the Sony stack. It’s a bummer and what I think will ultimately be the downfall of the electronics giant.

New technologies emerging with implied lock-in strategies, like Blu-Ray for example, also fit the bill.

Apple created a major game-changer when it introduced iTunes. But since it is really just (in Apple’s eyes) an avenue for iPod and iPhone sales – locking out other devices has become the modus operandi. Even when devices hack the code - Apple quickly moves to lock them back out.

I don’t know, maybe it is because CRM by nature needs to talk to other systems, or maybe I’m too deep in the open source mindset, but it bugs me to see these lock-in models permeate consumer markets.

The Palm hack of iTunes is more a marketing and revenue move than a political statement for interoperability. But whatever it takes, I guess…

So, the Kindle seems a great addition to my growing arsenal of electrical diversions.

But – then I (probably later than most) discovered the CrunchPad was getting really close to release.

A dilemma instantly popped into my head. Do I get the Kindle and basically just read books on it – and feed my culture-starved brain. Or do I wait and get a tool that also lets me browse around and use the web in various forms.

The Kindle seems far more portable (not talking about the weirdly huge DX) but the CrunchPad seems far more utilitarian in terms of value for the money. But, dragging a 12″ screen around is hardly a breeze.

I’d love to hear from the Outsiders readers – which would you prefer: A dedicated and portable reading enabler; or essentially a peripheral-less tablet PC? Which one makes more sense to your lifestyle?

VS.

Which will win?  Or, is it even a contest?

So, if you have a great Sugar success story to share – drop CRM Magazine a line and let the world know.

GM, among others, became notorious for “over-productizing” their businesses with too many competing brands, and probably would have been financially healthier if they had shed underperforming properties earlier. In that context, there’s a lot of similarities that can be drawn between the American automotive and software industry.

The continued emergence of SaaS and software applications acting as platforms on which businesses can extend the software into new capabilities is going to lead vendors to reevaluate their delivery models and the number and types of software products they offer. Sugar offers one, single type of application, yet we have customers leveraging it for manufacturing, PRM, and even in support of finance and billing.

We’ve seen this same trend in the software sector for years, with some of the larger, old-school vendors running large, inefficient business models that offer underperforming “add-on” products that customers should be able to bolt on if and when they choose to. I expect the economy and cost-cutting to only expedite the move towards more efficient, and more consolidated, software packages and offerings.

But what is interesting to me about this recession is that there are now more and more tools available for individuals to deal with the economic situation in much more positive, if not productive ways.

What I mean is that individuals (this is an idea I’ve obviously been harping on for a while now) are able to market themselves much more effectively with social networks and other web 2.0 communication platforms. We are more connected than ever before: to potential employers, support networks, even to potential buyers of our personal goods (homes, ebay-worthy items, etc.) that can net us some quick cash. In short, we can weather the storm, if not profit by it, in ways we could not have imagined in the 1930s or even in the slowdowns in more recent memory.

Seriously, nowadays if you lose your job, you go directly to your laptop and start cranking out a revised resume and performing exhaustive web searches on networks like Monster, the Ladders, LinkedIn and even Craigslist. Your ability to cast a wider net is exponentially greater than it was even a decade ago. Even leveraging Twitter to blast out a “hire me” beacon has worked for some. And of course – getting in touch with everyone you know that might be able to hire you in your Facebook network can’t hurt either.

On the flipside, for those trying to sell in this economy to the individuals that are feeling the pain – the ability to leverage sales 2.0 concepts in both B2B and B2C settings makes the job a little easier. In a dialog-based sales environment – being able to communicate that you truly understand the present economy and the pressures it places on buyers is a benefit. Being able to work through sales in an iterative process, not just throwing out marketing campaigns and taking orders, helps buyers to see that you’re truly a customer-centric organization – one that will be rewarded with loyal customers once the economic woes end.

So, while we can all agree that recessions suck – at least we are much better equipped to deal with the downturns in ways we could not have imagined only a few years ago.

And I should add, this is a bit of a self-serving posting. Mainly because a) I respect and share a lot of the opinions of Paul Greenberg and always want to give him props because he always returns the favor and b) because I love that my Philadelphia Flyers are creating a fan experience that bests any in the League (or professional sports for that matter). Also, I went to school with the guy who runs a lot of the Flyer’s operations – must be something in the South Jersey water that makes us care about customer satisfaction…

Paul demonstrates the actual fan experience in a cool manner, check it out:

What I like most about this concept is that by nature fosters a word-of-mouth approach. One person sees the site, puts in their number and sees how cool it is, and you KNOW they are gonna add their friends number. The conversion rate for tickets might not be super high (and who knows, maybe they are), but the message and the cool factor will keep the Flyers top of mind as the NHL playoffs begin.

But as long as they beat the Rangers, it’s all good…right Paul?