CRM. What is it? First off, it's an acronym - Customer Relationship Management.  But far beyond that it is a methodology and set of business tools and practices to know your customer.  It helps answer the important questions.  Do they need anything? Are they happy with  what is going on with your services or products? Have you reached out to them recently? Without a CRM process or tool, you are dependent upon people keeping track of things individually which is ok, but it

Today, a friend and I were lamenting about getting people to do things and finish projects.  She said didn't I write an article once about this and I said, yes, it was a while ago.  In fact it was 2009. It was on another blog forum so it belongs here as well, based on recent events. This article is a departure from topics I normally write about.  By the way, this topic has been a speech, a magazine article and a discussion group topic.  It's about managing

Traveling for pleasure is an adventure - traveling for work, well, not always as much of an adventure.  I don't keep a  paper calendar anymore.  It's all on the computer or on my smart phone.  Yet, when I head out on a several day trip, I like to keep a paper copy of my details.  When you are on the road and once again either the GPS or your mapping program on the phone has steered you to a dead end, it is nice to have addresses near by.  Even more so it's good to

Yesterday I was once again reminded of something I read in a book by Dale Carnegie: "91% of customers say they give referrals yet only 11% of salespeople ask for them." One of my clients said they were really happy with what we had done and that they were going to refer us to their business networking group. And I asked myself, "self, when was the last time you asked for a referral?" Quick rap on the forehead, and then a postit note saying "Ask for a Referral" placed on the monitor. Such

In an interesting dialog last week, KPIs, or key performance indicators, were the topic but it occurred to me during the discussion that it meant different things to the participants on the call.  That inspried me to write this blog article. What do KPI's mean? And what do they mean to you and your organization. Wikipedia says: "A performance indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measurement. An organization may use KPIs to evaluate its success, or to

When you hear the term ROI, I am betting you are thinking money.  When I buy this stock, what will be my return.  If I invest in a business, will I get my money back. According to Wikipedia, ROI, or Return on Investment “is the concept of an investment of some resource yielding a benefit to the investor.”  Basically it means whatever you invest, be it money, time or effort, you are expecting some form of benefit. Often I am asked by clients to help them get across

Years and years ago, I presented a session at a conference and called it My Nirvana model.  The drawing to the left is what I presented at the time.  Basically the premise was having a model to find the proper platform for your business application.  The arrows on the chart meant the price went up based on various parameters. The key point I was making with the presentation though was to not only worry about the platform but to ensure you were asking the right questions in

This image is a screenshot of all of us during a video staff meeting. We're using Google Hangouts and headsets.  All of us have webcams - which pretty much come with newer laptops. Seeing each other in person is SO MUCH MORE effective than just participating on a phone call. The participants are in Chattanooga, Pikeville and Phoenix - but in reality we are all together in the same moment - and that's priceless.  We may never go back to just phone call meetings.   [caption id="