Recently Harvey Mackay spoke about optimism saving the day and it mirrors my life and business philosophy.  I wanted to share these thoughts and help you to start the week off right.

By Harvey Mackay:

Optimism saves the day

U.S. President Harry S. Truman once said, “A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." Which do you think will reach their goals, live a happy life, and achieve their dreams?

Imagine interviewing two people who have identical skills, but one is always grumbling about how unfair life can be, while the other one talks about what wonderful possibilities exist.  Who would you want to hire?  Whom do you think would do a better job?

When you business demands more functionality than Act! to keep your edge, Saleslogix is your next logical step.  

It's CRM from the makers of Act!

As an Act! user, your business has relied on the #1 selling contact management solution to manage all the details of your customer relationships in  one place.  But as your business grows, you may discover that your needs are beginning to punch the boundaries of Act!.  You need to evolve the way you manage leads, sales opportunities, marketing campaigns, support ticketing, and business work flows to keep pace with the growth of your business.  you're ready for upgrade your CRM to Saleslogix.

Guess less - grow more profitably

There ought to be a better ways to connect with customers and prospects about what they are most interested in so you don't have to guess as much and you can grow business more profitably. With the integration of Swiftpage emarketing into Act! v16 and Saleslogix we are sharing some friendly advice compliments our business friends at Swiftpage. Here is a handful of insights to get growing with Act! or Saleslogix emarketing so you can focus on what you love. 

Our love is helping business professionals develop positive relationships among employees, customers and prospects and definitely providing the tools to make it easier and smarter doing so. 

Bob Thompson, an international authority on customer-centric business management, has released a new book, "Hooked on Customers" that is well worth the read.  He covers the five habits of legendary customer-centric companies. Discover how to embed customer-centric habits in your company's culture and how CRM and CEM (customer experience management) relate to each other.

What the Mind Concieves the Mind Achieves -

The following in from C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income.  

The process of converting a prospect to a client can seem like it takes forever. You meet a prospective client, follow up with him or her over time, and hopefully have a chance to make a sales presentation or schedule an initial consultation at no charge. Then you follow up some more, trying to close the sale. Months can pass, or even years, between your first encounter and getting the prospect to sign on the bottom line.

Great actions to take for following up....

The following is from C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. 

A successful CRM system in-place has a huge impact on knowing the most about your prospects and customers. It can also help you follow up in a timely and concerned fashion with knowledge at your finger tips.

Use a few of these action steps each day to reach out. 

Bob Apollo from Inflexion Point wrote a blog article titled:  Sales Enablement: the essential bridge between B2B Marketing and Sales.  Both of our businesses understand the role of marketing in high value, complex sales situations.

The primary role marketing must play is in the targeting, identifying, attracting, qualifying, and persuading more of the right prospects and turning more of them into customers.   Sounds similar to the role of a CRM foundational system for long-term business success.

Sales enablement is a hot topic and a rather recent concept.

CRM is here to stay - Real benefits for accelerated business success

Whether your sales team is using the most basic CRM tool or the very latest release with every bell and whistle, customer relationship management - CRM - is now a mainstay of professional sales forces. 

Love it, leave it, use it, lose it curse it, or embrace it, CRM is here to stay. It is simply too useful for sales reps, sales managers, marketers, and top management to do without.

Today March 14th is "Question Day".  It marks the 135 anniversary of the birth  of Albert Einstein, a life-long champion of questioning and curiosity. He stated the importance of asking a good question lead to better answers.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

People successful in business know that questioning is a critical starting pointing of problem solving and innovation.  So with that in mind, my question for today is:

 

How Might You Have a Better and More Engaging Business- with CRM?

It is important to understand that CRM is an enabler of the overall business strategy.  CRM is there to help you get better and better at understanding People: your customers, prospects, you employees, your management team, vendors, your referral sources and your strategic partners.  Also CRM is used to improve your Processes - the way you do things.  Basically, to work smarter doing things more effectively and efficiently.