The FirstRain team had a very successful and productive day at the Salesforce1 Tour’s Dallas Stop. Besides announcing Personal Business Analytics for Salesforce1, the expo floor was lively and the FirstRain staff was busy all day giving demos and talking to attendees—not to mention that we got lots of compliments on our booth! Even SaaSy stopped by.
It wasn’t all work for our team, though. They were able to get a real taste of Texas at a pit-style BBQ joint, complete with live country music. Then, after the Salesforce1 event, they had great appetizers, drinks and conversation at the FirstRain happy hour. All in all, it was a great trip for FirstRain. We loved mingling with other ISV partners & looks forward to seeing them at other events… and at Dreamforce in October.
Yesterday, CEO Penny Herscher took the stage on the Women of the Channel West’s Power Panel with other female leaders in the tech industry: VMWare’s Laurie Evans, Symantec’s Jana Valenti and Google’s Francine Geller, to help women understand what the next big trends are in tech, and what they need to know so they can best position themselves for success.
While each woman had a different take on what the most important skill would be going forward—financial fluency, coding, or something else—they all agreed that it was important to be as well-rounded as possible. Each one of the panelists stated that their companies don’t want someone who is specific to one skill—they want a generalist. Lay a good foundation and it’s easier to climb farther.
They strongly emphasized having a plan, but being flexible enough to roll with the punches. Laurie Evans put it beautifully when she said, “Have a plan. But if life zigzags, that’s OK—just hang on for the ride.” All of the zigs and zags will give you the experience you need to both decide what it is that you want to do, and prepare you for anything that may come your way. Find strong mentors and form partnerships that will endure no matter the twists and turns.
Their advice boiled down to a few powerful statements: Articulate your vision. Enlist allies. Remain fully present. Be joyful. Be authentic.
Guest post by: Jan Willis, Calibra.
Customer success stories are an important and necessary sales tool. Just like having references for any job interview, they aren’t going to make the sale but without good ones, it may cause a delay in the sales process. Yet, customer success stories are often cookie cutter in style and not engaging. Even worse, you may struggle to get your customers to approve them.
I’ve been working with companies on success stories across industries – from semiconductors to software development tools to software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. I have experienced the frustration of writing a customer story only to have the customer not approve it, or worse, approve it and then pull it after its been published. There will be many customers who won’t share their brand value with you for fear of diluting it. There will be others that you simply don’t have the relationship with to “override” the policy of not doing them. But there will be customers where you do have the product and people relationships that gain you the necessary approvals. Make the most of these customers and seize the moment as your champion might move on. Most of all, tell a great story for your company and their customer.
Here are three tips from my recent experiences that I hope will help you tell a great customer story. Let the story begin!
Tell the story in your customer’s own words
Don’t fall into the trap of marketing speak! It’s easier to just write the problem, solution and benefits using all the company’s great messaging, but it’s dry and boring. Tell the story as if it were unfolding as you read it. And to do that you need to interview the key people and collect as many usable quotes as possible. Don’t forget to ask for their picture to make it even more engaging and realistic. I like what I see for pulling all three of these elements together in the customer case studies by RelateIQ, a Palo Alto, California-based start-up that is quickly becoming the go-to relationship intelligence solution for professionals seeking to build better relationships and make smarter decisions.
Use surveys to help gather facts and interesting user commentary
Not another survey! I know we’re asked to respond to surveys almost daily now. But companies who are SaaS providers are one of the best examples of where knowing if customers are successful is not just nice to have – it’s crucial to achieving very high renewal rates, a key metric for a SaaS company. These surveys are usually quite effective as they are often run internally by the customer to validate the ROI. Provided there are open ended questions, this can be a rich source of additional commentary from the users by incorporating direct quotes that can help bring authenticity to the success story and have it sound less like marketing speak. I have seen this work for myself while working on case studies such as Nuance Communications for FirstRain, a pioneer and leader in personal business analytics solutions for the enterprise.
If you hit the wall on permission, try new approaches
Beware of the marketing police! I always find it a bit awkward to coach people on how to get through the marketing controls on the use of their brand since I used to enforce them myself. The truth is every decision is a business decision and with the right case made by the right person, there are exceptions. There are many companies who have business reasons to want to work with their suppliers on telling their story. The keys are having senior relationships between the companies and finding the win-win scenario. Should you still hit the wall on permission, there’s a new approach that I really like if you have 50-100 customers to work with. Founded in 2007 and based in Emeryville, California, TechValidate solves the problem of extracting quantifiable operational and financial metrics from your customer base, and then instantly turning that data into usable, third party verified marketing materials.
Author:
Jan Willis founded Calibra in 2007 after holding senior marketing positions at Cadence Design Systems, Simplex Solutions, Synopsys, and HP and completing an MBA at Stanford University. Calibra is a B2B business consulting firm specializing in helping high-tech companies enhance their brand and accelerate the market adoption of their products. Its consulting practice includes whole product strategy, company and technology branding, strategic options analysis, industry alliances, and interim leadership.
Salesforce is taking its Salesforce1 platform on tour—and FirstRain will be sponsoring their Dallas event! Attendees will be able to experience the power of the Customer Platform and see how to connect anything to everything: apps, devices and customer data. See how to deliver apps designed for the new hyper-connected world of customers that increase productivity and competitiveness, as well as learn firsthand from industry-leading customers how to sell, service and market like never before.
Will you be attending? Connect with @FirstRain on Twitter using the official event hashtag: #Salesforce1Tour
We would also love to meet you and show you how FirstRain is helping Salesforce customers like GE, Cisco and Flextronics grow revenue and drive better customer engagement. Stop by our booth to learn how market leaders leverage FirstRain’s mobile platform solutions to create sales organizations that consistently meet their revenue goals. Schedule a meeting with us!
FirstRain today released its third generation of mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, and a brand new app for Windows 8 phones. The apps now include social sharing, analytics and configuration integrated within the Personal Business Analytics mobile experience. These new upgrades mean that users can continue to see developments deep in their customer’s businesses and take the right actions to grow their revenue.
Mobile is now more important than ever to the executive agenda, but it’s important to do it right. Our app has already proven to be a hit with our customers; Todd Keiner, the managing director for strategic marketing at Pfizer, said, “FirstRain is my go-to mobile app, unlike many other general consumer apps, it provides a very personalized view of my markets and customers enabling my team to understand where opportunities exists that can provide mutual business value, even when I am out of the office.”
In order to continue to deliver an exceptional user experience and help our users see better productivity and more revenue, we have rolled out the following enhancements:
For more information, you can read the full press release here.
Congratulations to Chris from Siemens, the winner of an AppleTV! Chris attended our webinar for strategic account managers, Develop More Strategic Relationships with Personal Business Analytics.
Didn’t get a chance to attend the webinar? Check our events page to register for a future session.
It’s been a week since Gigaom Structure Data wrapped up, and I’m still processing a lot of what we learned, the great conversations that we had and following up with people we connected with.
It was a great conference! Here are the top 3 things that attendees learned about FirstRain when they stopped by our booth:
I’ve also gone back through the full video archive (thanks Gigaom!) and selected three videos that I’ve been sharing with my colleagues and some of our enterprise B2B customers thinking about big data projects:
Thanks again to all who stopped by! If you didn’t have a chance to stop by our booth, email d.barbosa@ignite.firstrain.com, so we can setup a time to discuss how FirstRain Personal Business Analytics can give you a big-data view on your customers and markets.
FirstRain is excited to announce that we are participating in this year’s Gigaom Structure Data Conference! The conference will be March 19-20 at Chelsea Piers in New York.
900+ big data practitioners, technologists and executives will descend on NYC to explore “how big data can drive business success.” Personal Business Analytics(TM) fits squarely into that subject matter, as we’re creating an area of big data analytics that is largely new to the customer intelligence landscape: getting highly personalized, relevant and timely information to business users. Our customers can now get a 360-degree view of their customers, markets and competitors, increasing revenue and solidifying their strategy.
You can also get a 25% discount on registration through FirstRain! Use code SPONSOR25 when you register, then come by and say hi!
We can’t wait to show the big data community what personal business analytics can do!
When it comes to landing a sale, there’s just one concept that sales reps need to know. Make it easy for your prospects to say yes. Henry David Thoreau got it right when he famously wrote these three words: “simplify, simplify, simplify.” Although that’s technically only one word, and if Thoreau was really following his own advice, he wouldn’t have repeated it three times.
According to Executive Board, making the decision process easier for customers makes them far more likely to buy. Brands that simplified the undertaking were 86 percent more likely to close a deal, and more than 100 percent more likely to be recommended. All because these brands removed any elements that distracted clients from their main goal: determining if the product would solve their problem.
How is This Achieved?
Essentially, being a resource for this information reduces the amount of thinking your potential customer is forced to do. It makes it easy for them to say yes. And, of course, you’re doing this through completely honest means, and not trying to dupe them into buying your product when it is not, in fact, the best choice for them.
Use these tips to make the sales process more straightforward and increase sales:
Research
If you’re truly making the sales funnel easier to navigate, you are going to have to do a lot of research on behalf of your potential customers. Research customer markets using sales intelligence software and get a better idea of what’s going on in their industries. Use this information to empathize with your customers. Why are they seeking your services? What problem are you going to help them solve?
Reduce Jargon
As Michael Boyette puts it on Salesforce Blog, simplifying things for your prospects does not mean being condescending. Buyers are usually very smart people, and highly intelligent individuals tend to get bogged down in details, which can be overwhelming. One way to reduce the noise for potential customers to get rid of jargony language. Don’t speak with it and don’t include it on any materials. This may be a good exercise for salespeople, as well. How many words does your sales pitch take? Are all of these words truly necessary to get your point across? Do any of them have more than four syllables? Try to use layman’s terms that are comprehensible across different fields.
Streamline Your Online Materials
Prevent sensory overload by having an easily navigable website with an obvious call to action. According to Ellie Mirman on Hubspot, this could mean actually getting rid of a few calls to action. They don’t need to jump out on every page. With your website, you should provide a clear pathway to the information users need. Once again, a little customer research goes a long way here. Use customer intelligence analytics to understand your customer. Rather than telling your potential buyers what you want them to know, try reversing the equation. If you were a decision-maker seeking your services, what information would you be looking for. Reorganize the website based on this perspective and you will have made the research process easier for prospective customers as well.
Be an Open Book
Pricing information shouldn’t be a secret. This is a key piece of information for people looking to buy a product. As has already been noted, you’re dealing with smart people here. If they can’t find the answer to this question, they will probably assume the number isn’t obvious because it’s unattractive.
Unclutter the sales journey, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the results
by Penny Herscher, CEO
It’s Valentine’s Day. The media is advertising flowers and movies, Facebook is filled with sweet sentiments&emdash;but me, I’m working. And, in a moment of curiosity, I plug “Valentine” into FirstRain.
Now, you probably know that FirstRain is a personal business analytics system. For the companies and markets you care about: your customers, your markets, your competition, the market trends impacting your go-to-market. Powerful, insightful, real-time … everything I tell my customers.
And more…
Behind all our powerful data science are the fun use cases too. Wine, vacation trends and now, Love.
Key market drivers on Valentine’s Day? Weddings, flowers, gold, diamonds, chocolate and… STDs!
