BUFBLOPOFO 2009 (March 13, 2009)

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This is the busiest time of the year for me in the office, and Lord knows I have had my hands full at home, especially with my husband away. So I don’t know quite what I was thinking when I signed up to do this, but I always like a new challenge, and as I have heard said, if you want something done, give it to a busy person.

I have a friend, Mike Garvey, who lives in Buffalo, and is a fellow blogger. For the last two years, he has sponsored a sort of writing contest. Basically, every day for the next 14, Garvey will choose a topic and all of us participants have accepted the challenge to write a reponse to the prompt on our respective blogs. That is right my friends, every day for the next two weeks, you will be treated to a new treatise from me. I call us particpants, rather than contestants, because there is really no prize at the end except the satisfaction of having committed and made it out the other side. For more on the rules and details, please visit Garvey’s blog:

http://royaltoybox.blogspot.com/

The fun starts tomorrow, March 14th, and I am counting heavily on your moral support. Let the games begin!

CRM & Quality Content: The Sales Process’ Dynamic Duo

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CRM-ball

Customer relationship management (CRM) is critical to promoting progression through an organization’s sales cycle. More than just a warehouse of contacts, an optimized CRM solution contains critical data about your company’s clients, prospects, colleagues and/or suppliers.

CRM systems are responsible for some of the biggest gains in 21st Century commercial productivity, because data is king, and the ability to access it – easily, completely and accurately – can mean the difference between opportunities lost and won.

A top-performing CRM system tracks activity at every stage of the sales cycle. But it goes further, guiding producers on the sequential steps required to close a deal or cross-sell a particular client. To facilitate this, a full history of all communications and documents shared must be part of every CRM record.

And that leads us to a truth that cannot be overstated. Fresh, relevant and compelling content is absolutely critical to keeping your clients and prospects engaged, and the sales process moving. Here are some tips for developing web and social media content that supports your customer relationship management efforts.

Newer is better

You’ve heard the saying “what’s old is new again?” Forget that when it comes to the development and promotion of digital content. You don’t have to overhaul your company’s home page every week, but consistently adding new content gives visitors a reason to bookmark the site and return.

Know your audience

In a well-meaning effort to be all things to all people, companies can lose sight of their key messages – and their target audience. Remember the following acronym: WIFM. What’s in it for me? Your content should vary, but always relate to your demographic and its interests.

Leverage your expertise

Trust is big – and your reputation as a subject matter expert can open doors. If you can save a customer or prospect time, money or otherwise make life easier, don’t hold back. Best practice content delivered to your audience is a soft sell method that builds confidence in your business over time.

Keep it simple

Bulleted tip sheets, short articles with numbered titles (“7 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Garage) and brief blog posts (300-500 words) can hold a reader’s attention span. Dense documents do not.

Be consistent

Keeping the content on your website and social media platforms updated is a job, but it doesn’t have to be a time-consuming chore. If you own a startup business or work for a small team, hands can be scarce. Schedule a regular hour or two on your calendar every week to review, plan and assign content. The consistent flow of new opportunities into your CRM system will make the effort well worth it.

Originally published on the SAVO corporate blog. 

The Power of Swatting

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My maternal grandfather Eugene Casimir Bosiacki was a quiet man who weighed over 400 pounds when he died in July of 1993. Though he was passionate about polka, golf and food, my sister and I could never get him to talk about his time missing in action as an Aerial Gunner in World War II.

Through the hushed whispers of other family members who attended his funeral, we learned of the squalid, deprived conditions in which he spent four weeks waiting for rescue in the Philippines. Conditions that left him with a lifelong distaste for insects.

When Poppa (as Jenny and I called him) retired from a long career in sales, he took up a second vocation that united his love of silence and keeping the environment bug-free. Poppa went down to the corner drugstore, bought himself a blue fly swatter, filled a giant plastic cup with water and commenced the soldier’s version of neighborhood watch. Sitting sentry, Poppa surveyed the kids on the block at play, scrutinized suspicious characters and most importantly, leveraged that omnipresent blue fly swatter to disabuse flying critters with notions of sharing his space.

Having grown up in immense poverty before joining the Air Force at age 15 after expulsion from an orphanage, I don’t think Poppa knew much of control or choice in his life. But he could decide how many of his thoughts were shared – and what earned the right to fly into his home.

Lonesome Dove (March 9, 2009)

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It’s day two of my new weekday life without Eddie. I mentioned that we have done this before, so I saw him off early yesterday morning without tears (not sure if I am capable of them at 4:15 AM anyway). I am bound and determined to make our time apart productive and as fulfilling as possible. I have my nose to the grindstone at the office and do my best to fill my evenings with work around the house, my regular gym schedule and other sundry activities. For the most part, I am so active and diligent in my attempts to distract myself, I forget that I am actually alone. The only two circumstances when I cannot ignore that weird feeling that something is missing are the bookends to my day.

My husband is noise incarnate. He talks, he snorts, he snores, he sings (loudly). Those of you acquainted with him know just what I am talking about. Eddie has a life force about him that I have often wished to emulate, but have been unable to duplicate. It’s just impossible to remain ignorant of his presence. So it was as I got dressed for work yesterday morning that I wondered about the eerie quiet. When Eddie was unemployed, he wasn’t even awake at that time, so why did I feel so alone? I realized that even my husband’s sleeping noises carry a weight and comfort for me. His tossing and turning, coughing and heavy breathing became as much a part of my morning routine as did wrapping my scarf around my neck before walking out the door.

When I came home from the office for the day, I found myself calling out to him from the front door out of habit. I somehow hoped he’d stick his head out of our office door to bellow the familiar, “Hello Pumpkin!” There are so many instances where I have found the attention grabbing and scene stealing powers of my husband to be annoying, but once they are missing from my everyday, I realize that I am nothing without my larger than life better half.

There are many couples in far more dire straits than us, and I only need to keep this up for four to six months. It will get easier each week. The human being’s ability to adapt to change is really quite remarkable, no matter how we may resist new scenarios at times. It’s sort of tough though when the person you most want to discuss these ideas with is the one person you just can’t see.

Mixed Blessings (March 5, 2009)

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Hubby got a job. A job with Comcast. It’s a 4-6 month contract-to-hire position. That’s not exactly longterm security, but in this economy…well I don’t need to tell any of you. It also pays darned good money, enough so that we can sock away a bit more while bracing for another possible hunt over the summer. But, though this is exactly what I’ve prayed would happen, as with any boon, there is always a catch. Eddie will have to travel back and forth to Denver, Colorado every week from Monday at 4AM, until Friday night at 11 or midnight. That’s going to be rough on him personally, and hell on our marriage in terms of time spent together. Believe me, this is no whine. We need this, and most critically, Eddie needs this. But I will miss him terribly.

We’ve done this before. In the 6 months leading up to our wedding in Raipur, India, Eddie was away each week on a project in Phoenix. We lived almost next door to O’Hare at that time, and he always returned on Thursday night. This was rough, especially on a bride to be, but back then he slept at home more nights than he was away.

The first 7 months of our marriage, Eddie was away in Red Bank, New Jersey, and I again held down the fort at home. The one thing that rendered this bearable to a newlywed wife was that I got him to agree that we’d move back to the City, pronto. It did make things slightly harder on him in terms of getting to the airport and back, but thankfully that was a sacrifice he was willing to make for my sanity. What really killed us both with this project were the 16-18 hour days Eddie put in as a leader of the team. More often than not, this work schedule was in effect even on Saturday and Sunday. One week, he just didn’t come home at all. Comcast at least states that they keep a pretty regular 9-5, Monday-Friday routine (and judging from the crap service I receive as one of their customers, I can attest to their immovability on that front), so I am keeping in mind that my sadness over the imminent disruption to our homelife can only pale in comparison to the trials we endured in 2008.

The field that Eddie has chosen for his career definitely lends itself to high earning potential. But it also comes with risks. One of those is volatility. The work is usually temporary, which creates a lot of opportunity to try new things and see new faces. But as I have seen throughout the worst of this economic downturn, that benefit of change can quickly turn to a disadvantage when you are a temp worker and payrolls are being sliced. There are no unemployment insurance benefits to collect. There’s no real way of knowing when your next paycheck is coming, even if you saved during your employed period.

But as a wife who genuinely and truly adores her husband (Jen and I have that in common), I can tell you that money means nothing when you have to look at your husband’s face after he returns home from months of living in hotel rooms and rental cars, working like a dog, just so he can give you the financial security he thinks you deserve. You just want to grab his weary body and never let him walk back out the door. I am proud of him. The job he has landed is nothing but wonderful, especially when you consider the many other people out there who are forced to make tougher choices than these everyday. But I can’t lie to myself. It won’t be so easy.