Description:
In this blog I will try and keep you up to date on what is happening on our world of CMS, CRM and LMS development and share experiences and lessons learned.
One of the great techniques for building traffic to your blog and growing the Google page ranking of targeted content is to post in forums with links back to your blog or web site. This technique is referred to as "back linking". Here is a list I found of 100 Forums that you can use to grow your back linking campaigns.
What you should do is go to each site, sign up for an account. This is usually required to be able to post comments or discussion threads. Once you have an account consider some short comments you could post that are relative to the forum topics or in some cases you can insert your own discussion threads to convey an even longer message. In each of your comments or threads make sure you create links that push traffic back to the URL's that you are trying to build.
Yea sure, it is common practice that when you are putting a project out for RFP you want to narrow down the costs to a targeted flat rate whenever possible. This makes it easier to plan and coordinate the project within whatever else may depend on, compliment or enable it within your organization. I am sure we have all sat on that side of the table even if only purchasing items for our family. When you have a commodity product where you can determine your fixed costs, this is very standard and acceptable. However, when you are working with Web 2.0 technology or software integrations or if you have diverse migration needs it is very difficult to determine how long something will take or if additional features may be required to achieve your business goals and of course there are always surprises.
I see several approaches that venders take when they take on a flat bid contract. The key thing to keep in mind that since a flat bid contract is putting the risk on them and if they are going to have a chance of making this endeavor profitable they will have to compensate with a higher price tag. Flat bid contracts can also add a significant amount of overhead to handle the “Cover your butt principle” via change orders, extra logging steps and additional processes that can often be handled more efficiently through other means.
Take the money and run:
When a company is experiencing cash flow problems often they will just put out the lowest bid based on their minimum requirements and “take the money and run”. They just need to get something in the door to fill the immediate cash flow need and they really care very little about your business other than it is fixing their problem. It is the “all about me” approach. They have no intention of doing business with you after this initial project or at least are not thinking beyond it. Ask yourself is this the kind of vendor relationship I want to have?
Get um in the door and milk them later:
This happens when companies want to win the bid at all costs but know very well the project is going to cost more than this and they will tell you just about anything you want to hear just to win the contract and they intend on holding you over a barrel somehow so they can turn you into some kind of residual income stream or let you be the brunt of either having half of what you need or want thus forcing you to use them to get this finished. This often has hidden clauses in the contracts that they try to catch you on almost like a bait and switch. Ask yourself what your boss is going to say when the budget comes in way over and you do not have a justification since nothing in the contract actually changed.
Sponge and squeeze competition:
This is a challenge where the contractor is trying to give you as little as possible so they can yield the biggest margin on the project. You as the company then often are trying to scope creep and get the most time and effort for the flat rate promised. This actually puts you in competition with each other and the end loss usually sacrifices quality in the final outcome. It puts strain on both parties and can build resentment or dissatisfaction through circumstance. Ask yourself is this competition really the best approach for providing the best possible value in the long run?
The Value Builder:
The best overall approach for successful results, we have found is through effective collaboration. We call it the Value Builder Approach because it focuses on building value in the relationship and allows everyone involved to put greater emphasis on achieving efficient results. We have found it is best to bid on a project with hourly rates for the targeted service types required to execute the expected tasking. Then working with the customer through our 5 step design planning process does the following:
Establishes clear expectations
Builds respect for each other’s time
Offers more efficiently leverages resource contributions
Builds the most beneficial working relationship
Gives client the best return on investment
Allows vendor to focus on best advice and solutions
This methodology reduces risk for both vendor and client and creates a relationship of choice since the client always owns the technology and real value is found with the synergy built through collective teamwork.
Of course there may be variables depending on the point of entry in this process, the customer preplanning, available assets, scope of work, other stakeholders or experience in-house. And don’t get me wrong there are good vendors that can do flat bid contracts but we have found this to not be the best approach for delivering the best possible results on Web 2.0 projects with Joomla CMS dynamic web portals or our “CRBM Platform for success.”
Big red flag:
When someone comes with a rather vague project spec and says “Here is what we want, I just want you to do it” in an early client meeting this is a big red flag since in most cases they do not fully understand what has to happen in the process nor will they be able to accept the fluid changes required to have their project respond to changing customer needs over time. In the new wave of Web 2.0 and beyond for clients to expect the entire development project to be outsourced is unrealistic since there is no way they can have the subject matter expertise without an expensive process. Most small businesses just cannot afford this anyway and with purse strings needing to be tight, it is natural that they should participate.
The marketplace, with the evolution of open source projects like Joomla CMS, the landscape has changed from a very static “print esc” ecosystem to a dynamic “information is king” world of social communications. People not only want to get more involved but they expect to hear your voice in return. So if your customers are all active in the “Social Technology Boom” so must you be. What they are doing in many cases is collaborating on ideas and going in directions faster than you can go through a formal processes. Kind of like when I produced a CD Rom in the 80’s for promoting 25 bands to colleges and by the time the CD was released 10 of the bands had broken up. This is why you should get a good independent thinking, on the ball creative, socially aware and technical savvy web team and have them interact with your company folks whom understand your business inside and out as it is evolving in real time.
Scaleable web team adding value:
With a scalable web support team that can bring a broader range of skills yet have the fluid and rapid response capabilities to stay ahead of your competition; you should be able to respond with faster innovations to your customers and thus increasing customer loyalty. Much like that old play on words “forget about your teeth, they will go away” you have to be listening to your customers and responding quickly. The old way of thinking where you get a flat bid, it comes in a nice pretty box and move on are gone. With the global economy and fluctuating market you will be much better off outsourcing vs hiring in-house folks in most cases. You should however, do so with a “project management contractor model” using hourly rates and establishing a burn rate that can set a pace and comfort level which meets your goals and expectations. What I mean by “project management contractor model” is a team that has solid expertise and customer service but also leverages outsource labor resources in global markets, since if managed right this can give you the best of breed bang for your buck.
Does this mean contractors/vendors should not give you a ball park estimate on what it would cost to complete certain tasks, no, they should but often once you open up the hood to look and see what has to happen, you could just do it and be done vs creating a report and coming back to go through the whole process all over again to actually get the work done. Good rule of thumb is to break bigger projects into smaller bite size projects and compartmentalize them as they relate to your priorities. Then manage them very hands on. For smaller organizations when an effective support model, quality leadership, communication and a true collaboration across a balanced team is achieved, you will find that the return on investment and added value will be expediential.
In conclusion, I recommend that you choose a project management contractor or development team with diverse skills and an empowerment approach to delivering their services. Negotiate value driven hourly rates and determine a budget and burn rate that will help you efficiently plan and execute your project priorities. Look for qualified experience and personalities that will create effective collaboration with your team. Remember these kinds of projects may taper to a maintenance mode but they never really end since web technologies are becoming a necessity for doing business. Then stay focused, pay attention to your customers incoming knowledge stream, respect your vendors time and they should respect your budget. Make sure to do careful planning but do not get to bogged down that you can not respond fast enough to your customers and competition. Then empower your team to collaborate and be willing to get in and stay involved in the process. This method, model and approach will allow you to get more information to make better decisions and thus produce a much greater value on your investment. Chances are if you approach this right and pick the right team you will enjoy the process.
Our goal with CNP integrations is to provide the best service, deliver the fasted innovations, and offer the greatest value to our customers. Through our labor service and project management contractor model, we feel we can offer the greatest overall return on your investment. We offer more than the technology and the talent to bring it all together, we offer process with a CRBM Platform to guarantee success.
I look forward to your comments and discussion on this topic.
Info@hand is the "Business Portal" and central application in our CRBM Platform. Depending on your perspective or roles played in your business processes, you will find a benefit and perhaps many that apply to you. If you are a manager or book keeper there are several features that can help you track assets, inventory and help yougather solid business intelligence. If you are a production manager or talent resource there are many tools for managing project and improving efficiency or collaboration of your team. If you are a system administrator there are many tools for managing roles, teams and other system wide configuration and customizations.
There are really 5 clear value propositions that make the CRBM platform a perfect choice for virtually any small to mid-sized business:
1. Consolidated business management with reporting, automations, HR, Project Management with project profit loss tracking, Timesheet, and more.
2. Seamless integration with the Joomla CMS for virtually unlimited expandability for front end customer portal, partner portal or social networking community.
3. eCommerce synchronization for a ful transaction life cycle management and ERP inventory management capabilities with Sipping and Receiving
4. One time licensing fee on premise model and low cost of entry
5. Close integration and two way synchronizations with QuickBooks and Microsoft Outlook
This article will explore many of the features and capabilities of info@hand CRM. However for a full product feature review please contact us for a FREE 30 Day trial version and a one on one product demo. You can also visit www.learningcrm.com where you can find online training, documentation, product module reviews and a Live Demo. You can sign up here for a FREE 30 Day trial for your business any time.
Some of the key CRM capabilities of info@hand include:
Salesforce automation - including lead capture, and the promotion of leads to Opportunities;
Opportunity tracking with sales stage and percentage likelihood;
Sales pipeline tracking, with graphical charts that offer drill-down from the bar or segment of the chart to the data that underlies it;
Definition of sales teams and territories, to manage information sharing and track sales performance by territory;
Sales forecasting, and comparison of forecasts to quotas and actuals, by team or by individual;
Lead source analysis of sales and opportunities;
Flexible reporting, to extract precisely the information you want to see;
Corporate calendar management, for arranging calls and meetings; and
Integrated Inbound and outbound Email, which is automatically added to account and contact history.
Email & Letter Mail Marketing Campaigns:
Marketing campaigns may be conducted with email templates for automatically customized emails, management of prospect lists, and tracking of campaign click-through rates.
A target list for an email campaign may be assembled from a mixture of prospects plus pre-existing contacts and leads. You may create a target list as the output of a report, facilitating the targeting of prospects or existing clients with specific characteristics. A special Quick Campaign feature makes it quick and easy to perform spur of the moment email campaigns.
You can also import lists of prospects (in either Comma Separated Values (CSV) or Tab Separated Values (TSV) formats).
A mail merge feature enables the execution of letter mail campaigns, and target lists may also be exported to MS Word for a variety of purposes.
Project & Resource Management: info@hand tracks the performance of current projects, and organizes a history of all project-related documents, status reports, tasks and contacts. Utilization, and time booked to project tasks, are also tracked for resources assigned to the project.
Within info@hand, a project is modeled as:
A main panel containing summary information about the project
A financial information panel containing a summary of expected and actual costs and revenue for each month of the project
A number of sub-panels linking in related information
Document Management: info@hand enables the sharing of business documents - from HR claim forms and Marketing collateral to Engineering designs.
Multiple revisions may be stored ensuring only approved documents are used.
Documents in any format can be filed, and may be searched by title, description, file type, status, department, keywords and owner.
Documents may be associated with Projects, Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, or Service Cases.
A project can have all of the project's documentation attached to it. An account, lead or contact can have all related documents attached. And supporting documents for a service case can be attached to it.
Inventory Management:
info@hand includes a full inventory management capability. Two key modules perform the bulk of inventory management - Shipping and Receiving. In addition, the Sales Orders and Purchase Orders modules, as well as the Invoices module, evolved to support the tracking of partially received Purchase Orders, and partially shipped Sales Orders or Invoices (depending on how your business operates).
Receiving: The Receiving module lets users in shipping/receiving document the receipt of a shipment, list the items and quantities received, and link to the related Purchase Order (and Sales Order if any). It documents the inbound shipping provider, number of packages and weight, the supplier's packing slip number, and the date received.
The easiest way to create a received goods record is to locate your related Purchase Order, and click on the Receive It! button, Then just adjust the quantities and items received if they differ from the PO, and save. Partial quantities received are recorded on the PO, and if a PO has been completely received, it is marked Closed.
For businesses with multiple warehouses, each goods received record will be linked to the warehouse where the goods were received, and inventory is adjusted appropriately for that location.
Shipping: The Shipping module lets users in shipping/receiving record the shipments they send out. As well, it links to the FedEx and UPS shipping and tracking web services to automate those activities when using these shipping providers. It documents the outbound shipping provider, number of packages and weight, the packing slip number (it can also produce PDFs of packing slips), and the date shipped.
The simplest way to create a packing slip is to locate the related Invoice, and click on the Ship It! button, Then just adjust the quantities and items shipped if they differ from the Invoice, and save. Partial quantities shipped are recorded on the Invoice and on the Sales Order if there is one. If an Invoice has been completely shipped, it is marked Shipped, and if a Sales Order has been completely shipped it is marked Closed.
For businesses with multiple warehouses, each packing slip will be linked to the warehouse from which the goods were shipped, and inventory is adjusted appropriately for that location.
Note: Serial numbers are tracked from receiving, through the Sales Order and Invoice and on to the Packing Slip. Additionally, Supported Products are linked to client accounts, and also track product serial numbers.
Corporate Calendar: info@hand offers full group calendaring features:
Set meeting time and duration by simply clicking and dragging your mouse.
Check for schedule conflicts when planning calls and meetings.
Send invitations to colleagues and customers.
View the calendar by Day, Week, Month, or Year.
View Calls, Meetings, Tasks that are due, Project Task Assignments & Company Events - for yourself, for the whole company, by department, or for specific employees.
Check Resource and Meeting room bookings.
Create recurring meetings.
Email Management:
info@hand lets you compose and send email (text or HTML format), plus receive email from one or more accounts per user.
Create custom email folders to hold your mail for filing.
The system automatically links all mail to Contact and (optionally) Account history.
info@hand can also organize and perform outbound email marketing campaigns
Email addresses are auto-completed if you just type in a few letters of first or last name (see image of composing email).
Full text email search finds information in email body, not just email subject.
Each user specifies retention period for different types of email, reducing clutter of irrelevant emails.
Email signatures are provided as a convenient time-saver.
Personalized News Pages: An RSS News page delivers personalized daily news for each employee. See the top 5 stories for each news feed you select - and click to open them in a separate window. info@hand is supplied with hundreds of standard news feeds, and you can add your own quickly and easily.
Company Directory: A photographic company directory displays telephone extension, department, email, mobile phone number, and SMS address for all employees.
A handy indicator LED shows which users are currently online.
Report Designer & Generator: As businesses get larger and their data becomes more complex, a capable reporting system is a fundamental requirement.
Within info@hand the reports module shows a list of available reports. You may click on the name of a report to run that report, or to see the archived results of previous runs of that report. Each report listed shows its name, the principal module on which it reports, when it was last run, when it was last modified, and if it is set to run manually, interactively or automatically on a timed basis. Scheduled reports may be automatically emailed to a distribution list. Just imagine - your business tells you how it is doing without being asked!A number of predefined standard reports are included with the system, and new report designs may be easily developed and saved for repeated use in future. Try our online demo to see how easy it is to design your own reports.
Reports can include multiple sort keys, grouping, filters, and may relate data in multiple modules. Acrobat PDF documents may be created from any report, and report data may also be exported to several common file formats including CSV and HTML.
Reports may also generate charts of their data, and these charts may then be added to your Personal Dashboard.
Graphical Dashboard Charts: The system provides graphical dashboards for Sales, Service, Financials, and Projects. As well, a Personal Dashboard allows you to assemble and re-order a list of your key charts, including charts created from your own custom reports. When the system is initially created, these dashboards include the following charts:
Sales Dashboard:
Fiscal Year Booked Sales (Horizontal bar chart: Shows the 12 months of the current fiscal year, and the value of sales booked for each of those months.)
Weighted & Gross Opportunities by Month (Horizontal bar chart: Shows, for the 12 month period starting last month, the gross and weighted (by probability) value of the opportunities for each month - the sales pipeline.)
Pipeline by Sales Stage (Horizontal stacked bar chart: Shows the total value of potential sales at each stage of the sales pipeline.)
All Opportunities by Lead Source by Outcome (Horizontal stacked bar chart: Shows a stacked bar of the total opportunities for each lead source. Each bar is made up of multi-colored segments which represent the outcome proportions for that lead source.)
Pipeline by Month by Outcome (Vertical stacked bar chart: Each bar shows the total sales pipeline for each month. Each bar is made up of multi-colored segments which represent the outcome proportions for the pipeline in that month.)
All Opportunities by Lead Source (Pie chart: Shows a simple pie visualization of the proportion of total sales opportunities for each lead source.)
Cases by Status by User (Horizontal stacked bar chart: Shows the breakdown of cases by status, for each user.)
Cases by Priority by Month (Vertical stacked bar chart: Shows the breakdown of cases by priority, for each month.)
Bugs by Status by User (Horizontal stacked bar chart: Shows the breakdown of software bugs by status, for each user.)
Bugs by Priority by Month (Vertical stacked bar chart: Shows the breakdown of software bugs by priority, for each month.)
Financial Dashboard:
Fiscal Year Invoiced Sales (Horizontal bar chart: Shows the 12 months of the current fiscal year, and the value of sales invoiced for each of those months.)
Fiscal Year Booked Sales (Horizontal bar chart: Shows the 12 months of the current fiscal year, and the value of sales booked for each of those months.)
Project Expected Revenue by Month (Vertical stacked bar chart: Shows the forecast income from Projects. The various colour bar segments are used to represent projects which have different status. The six months starting last month are represented.)
Projects Dashboard:
Project Expected Revenue by Month (Vertical stacked bar chart: Shows the forecast income from Projects. The various color bar segments are used to represent projects which have different status. The six months starting last month are represented.)
Each chart may be customized by clicking on the Edit button by the top right corner of the chart. This will bring up a small dialog area which permits you to specify parameters of the chart.
A remarkably powerful feature of the Dashboard is that the charts allow for drilling down into the actual underlying data. This means that each distinctively colored area on every chart is actively linked to the set of opportunities it represents - simply click on an area to see those opportunities.
The info@hand plug-in for Microsoft Outlook is available free of charge for all info@hand users, and utilizes the info@hand web services SOAP interface to integrate CRM functionality into Outlook. No server components or modifications are needed to use the plug-in. The plug-in is simply installed and configured on each client PC or notebook that needs this capability, and enhances the Outlook client installed on that computer.
CNP Integrations is value added reseller (VAR) for the info@hand software solutions and supports a fully integrated CRBM Platform with Joomla CMS, Info@hand CRM and QuickBooks. We provide the value building consulting and technical expertise to help you deploy these systems and integrate the human and business dynamics with the technology for targeted results.
As small businesses try to hang on in this ever changing economy it is more important than ever to shift resources and thought into how you canrespond to your customers needs and meet them or communicate on their terms and with their permission. The customer is clearly in charge of the purchasing experience and the competition is more global than ever before.
With this in mind developing a clear strategy that will meet your customers where they are hiding or "fishing where the fish are" will be important for capturing new customers. Then you should also make sure you have the processes and infrastructure in place to get the greatest value out of your investment in capturing new leads and prospects as well as be able to nurture the customer relationship once you have them. Customer loyalty is one of the big challenges in a rapidly changing marketplace. Often it is not the vast number of clients but the quality of relationships and user experience that you can create and maintain over time.
There are many companies that can provide technology solutions and technical support for this kind of infrastructure but you can look to CNP Integrations for a solid customer relationship business management technology(CRBM) platform in addition to the consulting and talent resources required for a successful design and implementation of these strategies. With a complete solution and support offering there are many points of entry and you should only engage in what you can realistically afford or sustain but working with a CRBM Platform you have complete scalable flexibility to future proof your business and be prepared for growth.
Here is a list of 50 Marketing ideas you could use to get your business products or services in from of potential customers. You would not need to do all of them but the ones you do should have some kind of link or common theme so they can all complement each other.
Start a blog
Go to Chamber of Commerce events and other local business events
Release products (icons, articles, etc.) that can be used for free with attribution
Write a press release describing something special about your business
Offer to speak about your specialty at networking events
Answer questions on LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo Answers and other question sites
Comment on articles and posts
Create package deals
Develop a partnership with a freelancer with a different skillset
Send out a useful newsletter geared towards your clients
Provide a free initial consultation
Join a professional organization
Add yourself to directories, both online and in print
Place promotional items in event and conference gift bags
Run targeted adds
Contribute articles to other companies' newsletters
Volunteer your services to non-profits
Contact companies that could use your services directly
Attend alumni events for your school
Contact past clients
Attend events for your ideal clients' industry
Join online forums
Print t-shirts listing your website
Have a giveaway or donate your time as a prize in someone else's giveaway
Survey companies in your target market about their needs (and then follow up on those needs)
Optimize your website for search engines
Hand out brochures that showcase your projects
Get great testimonials from past clients
Teach a class
Brand yourself as a business
Start a podcast or videocast
Sell your services through affiliates
Work with an agency
Swap ads with other freelancers
Send out a postcard or other mailer
Package your promotional materials or services with other freelancers
Tell happy clients that you'll give them a referral discount for any new clients they send your way
Celebrate the end of a large project with your client
CNP Integrations Value Builder program will help you get through the planning and implementation required to get the most out of your marketing and customer relationship business management investments. Let us know if we can have a conversation to see if CNP is the right partner for your marketing and infrastructure development to prepare you for the future.
If you are an entrepreneur (doesn't matter whether you are a 1 person entity or a 1000 person enterprise), chances are you might be feeling the heat of the downturn, unless you are selling a service which we cannot do without and there is no competition (e.g. the electric utility, your mobile service provider or your doctor).
Here is a collection of the Top 10 Tips which would help you beat the heat of the downturn and hopefully emerge stronger from this once in a lifetime event.
1. Stop Innovating
As entrepreneurs or business managers, we continuously strive to get a step up over our competition by doing something new and different, in the hopes that this can be a sure shot way to bring in (hordes of) new business through the door. While progressive innovation is a good thing, making too many radical changes in your product or service can cause you to lose focus on the core and current business issues of your company. You will be running towards a mirage, expecting a silver bullet to cure all your business woes, which might not happen and you might be in a tighter spot than where you are now!
Instead, focus on improving your current business processes, systems and address the long standing issues which you were not able to get around to earlier. Try and improve what has already been built and is working (albeit a bit slowly). Rest assured, that once the market turns around and demand picks up, your clients will value the subtle extra services or convenience which your product has to offer. Unlike Nokia, you really don't need to start something new today!
Step 2: Automate Your Business Processes
When we implemented our web enabled CRBM Platform, it took us nearly 6 months of hard work and considerable effort and many people thought that this was an inessential service and something which was avoidable, as manual processes were sufficient to handle the current load of customers. However, we knew that our hosting services would grow and the CRM would enable us to automate and improve client communication, thereby generating more sales and we were so right.
Its been nearly 3 years now and our CRBM Platform infrastructure has paid us rich dividends by keeping our clients happy and securing more business from them. The morale of the story is that you could and should look at your current business systems and figure out how to automate and eliminate manual intervention to the maximum possible extent. This is a sure shot way to cut costs, improve productivity and pass on the benefits to your customer, building up more scale and profitability.
With the advent of Google Adwords and other PPC advertising systems, there is no reason why you cannot do very effective target marketing campaigns, which only show up when your target audience searches for your products/services. There are companies which only advertise online and this is the way forward for most businesses in the near future as the ‘web' becomes omni present around us. Note however, that setting up an online advertising campaign is not easy and requires you to work with a team of marketing and web specialists like CNP Integrations who have proven success in this domain. Also, you need to look at this effort as a long term investment and put in many hours of effort before you start seeing tangible results, so this is not a quick fix solution, if that's what you are looking for.
4. Get Up Close and Personal
When was the last time you spoke to one of your current customers and heard them discuss issues with your product/service? Chances are you like most of us would like to avoid dealing with your existing customers and would leave them to be handled (sometimes manhandled as well) by your support reps. While, having a dedicated after sales support team is an essential aspect of providing good customer service, don't presume that they are always doing a great job of it!
You need to be in constant touch with your most paying customers and also pay attention to your not so paying customers as well. Every interaction will give you an insight of what the market really wants and you are the best person who can use this knowledge to improve your offerings. I recommend that you speak to at least one of your clients everyday, even if it's not related to any support issues, so that they know you are around and that you value their business. It is all about nurturing a loyal customer relationship.
Step 5: Conserve Cash
We are all aware of how important it is to cut back expenses during a downturn and reduce overheads. But some of us realize this virtue once it's a little too late and after we have burnt a substantial amount of our hard earned capital. In the first stage, we are in a state of denial and refuse to accept that the market has turned bottom side up and we keep pushing at it with all our marketing might. In the second stage, we look for a silver bullet with a hastily implemented product/service that is launched with a lot of fanfare and expectations. When even this also fails to stimulate the market, we land up in the third stage and where we start to panic and take hasty decisions which damages your organizations goodwill and standing in the marketplace.
The key here is to keep an ear on the ground and become aware early of the emerging trends in the horizon. You can then adapt your operations and services much in advance which will help you secure your position in the marketplace and possibly enhance it as well. You need to do your own research and trust your own instinct to navigate you through such situations.
Step 6: Get Fighting Fit
While it's important to focus more on your business during hard times, it shouldn't be at the expense of your health. Spending long hours at your desk might make you less productive on a long term basis apart from taking a toll on your overall well being. Staying healthy requires you to devote at least an hour for 3 days/week with any physical activity which you can pursue on a long term basis. Strength training, jogging, running, swimming, cycling, yoga or even simply walking are some of the excellent way to achieve good fitness along with a well balanced diet.
Remember, when the market turns around, you need to be fighting fit to grasp the opportunities with energy and enthusiasm and not look feel like a dried up vegetable!
Step 7: Enhance Your Knowledge
OK, when was the last time you picked up a technical book on your areas of service? Chances are, its been a while and we are all guilty of postponing learning those cool new technologies/innovations due to lack of time. However, this is a great time to invest in yourself and learn about those key innovations in your business which you had always wanted to but simply had no time to look through. Remember, all the best brains in business, spend a lot of time poring through books, manuals and blogs to help them get a 360 degree view of their services and there is really no excuse for you not invest a small amount of your time everyday in getting better at what you do.
Remember, your clients are doing business with you as they assume you to be (amongst) the best in the industry and if they come across someone else who has a better handle on things, they might simply switch to your competitor.
For the world of CRBM, Social technologies we recommend the following books as excellent resources.
CRM at the Speed of light by Paul Greenberg
Implementing SugarCRM by Michael Whitehead (creator of info@hand CRBM)
Groundswell Socail Technologies - Forester Research
The world is flat - Thomas Freedman,
And for Joomla check out just about anything published by Packt Publishing
Step 8: Share Expenses
Instead of completely cutting down on a service which you feel is valuable but cannot afford it, you might consider to share that expense with another organization, who is not in direct competition with you. Some examples could be your unutilized office space, broadband connections, car pooling, online subscription services, bulk hosting plans, specialized staff, etc.
There are also a lot of opportunities for partnerships that could reduce overhead such as consolidating your business with other non competitive partners and sharing on admin, accounting or even in some cases legal document development where your company services or intellectual property rights are similar or overlap. For example we considered partnering with a company in RI, and we are in MA so we could share Chamber Memberships and reduce association membership fees.
Sharing expense allows you to avail of the same services which you had been doing earlier without the whole burden of it on your shoulders. Think of it as car pooling for your business.
Step 9: Take a Vacation
Sometimes, it might make sense to step out of the confines of your current environment and take a vacation, even though there might be pressing issues back home. Taking a break from work and going for a holiday, allows you to recharge your batteries, get a different perspective on your current problems and address them with even greater enthusiasm once you are back to work. This new perspective can help you think more outside the box for solutions but be careful it does not take away from the daily minding of the shop since if a ball gets dropped it could be very costly in such times. Definitely better to take more frequent short breaks than extended time away from your business since it also takes time to get back in the swing if you have been gone to long. So keep an eye on potential disruption.
However, have you ever noticed that people who go for regular vacations (at least once an year) are on a more even keel and more relaxed than those who don't. Don't be a paranoid workaholic but believe in yourself that everything will work out fine and the world will not come to an end while during your week long break.
Step 10: Cut Your Losses and Move On
While watching a recent interview of Azim Premji, the Chairman of Wipro Ltd., he made a remark that the world has been fundamentally ‘reset' and the old ways of doing business might not work anymore in the new scheme of things to come. His remark made me sit up as it was a subtle message which had very wide implications. What had worked previously, might not continue to work anymore.
If something is not working anymore, don't go in a tizzy and push your head against the wall. Instead, accept it as an inescapable truth and move on from there. The world order has been fundamentally shifted after this ‘financial tsunami' and we need to accept this and move on. Sure, there would be many more opportunities in the days ahead but it might not be something which are expecting and you need to gear up for the same! Try not to get to emotionally attached to pet projects that may bear fruit in the future but are a drain on your bottom line right now. If you can step back this may enable you to gain ground that can help you come in stringer in the future and once you can do this these kinds of projects have a greater chance of success anyway. If you mis an opportunity that you could not afford well it is much better than the pickle you could be in if you drain your resources un wisely.
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