Week 17: tools to improve work place productivity

This week I have been at Netchemia all week and noticed some tasks performed by the sales people which were tedious and required lots of copying an pasting between applications. In this post I will write about tools to increase workplace productivity. Also I want to share some other apps which Netchemia already use to improve productivity and

MACROs
To improve the processes in sales I created some Macros in Microsoft Excel and Publisher.

This is the approximate process in the sales department:

• call customer and agree to a product price proposal
• Enter data into SalesForce
• Enter some of the same data into Microsoft Excel
• Create new folders on company network
  
• Enter some of the same data into Microsoft Publisher
• Create a pdf of proposal to send to the customer through SalesForce

I created Macros in Excel with form validation and drop down boxes to prevent inaccurate data from being entered.
The macros also automatically set up the new folder structure and save the completed files into the folders. This reduced the processing time from about 45 minutes per customer proposal to 10 minutes.

RatchetSoft
Ideally I would also like the fields to auto complete across applications. So data entered into Salesforce automatically went into Excel and Publisher. And just the weekend I found a new product offering which enables this to happen without manual copying and pasting: the data only needs to be entered once by the Sales team. The product is by RatchetSoft (see www.ratchetsoft.com) . This product allows tedious tasks to be completed easily by software, without needing to learn to code or change anything about the products you are working with.

Google Notebook
Another good way to improve productivity when researching is to use google notebook, the notebooks can be shared between numerous other people and everyone can work on it at the same time. This is useful when the boss asks for some research.

EFAX
This service was being used by Netchemia when I arrived, it allows faxs to be sent to the company as email and pdf documents. This saves a great deal of paper and allows the right person to recieve the fax much more efficiently. See www.efax.com for more information.

Printing Documents
To save paper in the office you can change the default printing options for most printers to print on both sides. This halves the paper bill and saves the environment.

This is what i've found useful in the office so far.

Sales 101: what I've learnt so far

It is often hard to contact the decision maker at a company. (S)He is often shielded by a secretary and has 100+ emails a day to deal with as well as all the real work they have to do.

While working for Netchemia I have been involved with a few aspects of the sales process. Also in attending the 'MIT Sloan Sales Conference' I have gathered some more tips. Heres what I've found.

Use Surveys
The key with surveys is that this is not directly sales, there is less pressure on the target prospect.

By Phone
Doing some initial customer surveys I rang 100 people. I got about 25 responses and spent 2 days working to get them: 2 leads generated. Information given by the prospects helped better tailor the survey and if I got in touch with a talkative person I could learn a lot. Response rate 25%. Read my other post on getting past the Gatekeeper for more information.

By Email
I set up the same survey using www.surveymonkey.com and emailed 1500 targeted prospects. I recieved 120 responses and 10 leads were generated. Total time used 4 hours. Response Rate 8%.

Surveying over email is a great way to generate leads quickly if there is a large sample size. However the response rate is much lower. I would first test out the survey on a small sample size by phone and refine the questions. Reading up about survey on this website I found that Wednesday morning was the most likely time people would respond to this kind of marketing.

Use Email
From the conference and though reading up on this website here's what I found to be the most important points in writing emails to potential prospects:

• keep the title less than 50 characters
• keep the email short
• focus on 1 small piece of information which you want to communicate
  
• ask for something which is easy for the prospect to give you, such as a referral
  
• Don't include your title in the message, people discriminate based on title easily
• Don't put any images in the email, many email systems block images by default and mobile phones don't display many image types
• Don't use any marketing speak in the email, make the email sound tailored to the individual
• Always finish the email with a question, otherwise the prospect feels no obligation to reply
• Don't start the email with "I have been trying to get hold of you" or "I have left x messages for you" the prospect may think that if thats the case then (s)he doesn't want to speak to you
  

Use LinkedIn
I have had a linked in account for a while now and have never really figured out what to do with it. Until I heard Jeff Hoffman of Basho Strategies talk. He suggested the following:

1. Search for a person you want to speak to. This will usually be a decision maker at a company. So search in the Title Field for VP.
   
2. Look for a decision maker in the target company , it doesn't to be the desicion maker your looker for but a decision maker.
3. When you find someone who is connected to you through one other person, then you want an introduction. But how do you get the introduction? Approach the person with an easy offer and proposal.
4. “Hi x, I was searching linked in and noticed you are connected to Y. I would like a referral to that person. Is there anyone in my network who you would like to meet?"

Use Blogs and Podcasts
Again this tip is from Jeff Hoffman of Basho Strategies. Why do people write blogs? for recognition. How often do others comment on their blogs? hardly ever. Therefore commenting on someones blog through email is flattering to the recipient.

1. Search Google for a blog or podcast written by someone in the target organization who is in a decision making position.
2. Read the blog and look for some information you find interesting
3. Email the author with the title being "I have just read you blog..."
4. Ask the author for a referral to the decision maker you are looking to contact

Use Analytics
Add analytics to your website. (For example Google Analytics which is free). And track visitors to your website. If someone visits on a number of occasions then they are interested in your product/service. This is a great opportunity to contact them.

Week 16: Netchemia and MIT Sloan Sales Conference

This week I have been working in Netchemia, spoke with an IP attorney and attended the 'MIT Sloan Sales Conference' in Boston.

There is a lot to write about so I will split it up into 3 short posts

Thoughts on IP

My Sales 101 learning

Takeaways from the MIT Sloan Sales Conference

hope you find it as interesting as I have

Week 15: American Work Ethic

This week I have been working in Netchemia. What I have slowly come to notice while working here, and hearing stories from other internship students, is the work ethic in American business.

The average working day is 8am-5pm. Often though I have found that many people are in the office before 8 and these same people are still in the office after 5. Compare this to the UK where office hours are 9am-5pm and workers stick to these hours quite rigidly. In previous companies I have worked for in the UK I found that as soon as 5PM comes the office is suddenly deserted.

Does this lead to higher productivity? I am not sure. In America the general practice is to take 1 hour for lunch; in the UK I have found lunch to usually be 30 minutes. I don't feel 30 minutes gives the same amount of down time to relax and unwind as an hour for lunch. This lack of unwinding means that the UK worker doesn't get the same chance to 'disconnect' from their work, which could in turn affect productivity.

Hard at work: source

During the lunch hour American's tend to go out of the office to a restaurant or takeaway. This allows greater socializing with colleagues in a more informal environment. UK workers tend to sit at their desks or the canteen with sandwiches. This could be because of the time allowed for lunch or maybe because in America the number of options and the price of eating out is so much cheaper.

Looking at the figures, America's GDP per capita is $43,500 compared to the UK's of $31,400 (source CIA World Factbook) I wonder if the work ethic has anything to do with it. (Maybe its a direct effect of incentivized employee payment through commission and tips).

On a side note, the US Courts have just had a landmark patent case challenging the meaning of 'obviousness' in a ruling against Teleflex's patent for being to obvious. Maybe the system will now reform! (see Bloomberg coverage here).

Week 13: Netchemia Internship

This week I had a day off work to attend some lectures organized in part by Kauffman. This included 'Angel Investment Term Sheets' at 'Invest Midwest'. What made this talk so interesting was that the talk was being presented to Angel Investors by an Angel Investor to try and educate them on how to go about writing a term sheet.

The bottom line was this: What is good for the Entrepreneur is often the best terms for the Angel investor also. Wow! Not only was this good new for all entrepreneurs out there but also they backed this up with solid data.

To ensure the best return as an Angel Investor the lecturer talked about tee-ing up the Start-up company for the next round of investment: trying to make the terms and conditions as easy as possible to stomach for the next round investors. Often if the angel investor doesnt consider the next round and tries to give him/herself terms which are too ownerous on the entrepreneur then one of 3 things happens:

• the entrepreneur can't find an investor who can tolerate the terms of the previous round and so doesn't invest
• the next round investor says that they will invest ONLY if the terms which they dont find favorable are changed
• the entrepreneur must find an investor who has money but not much sense

The second talk was at the Kansas City branch of 'Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus' an IP attorney. The talk was by Rob Sweeney founder of TextCaster. Rob talked about his experiences in business and what he learned when founding a company. At the time he spoke to Ewing Marion Kauffman and asked him for advice. Kauffman replied:

"Find the best person you can in your field, hire them and pay them well"

What great advice. Rob's company textcaster has patented the concept of "Permission Based Text Messaging" (see Patent US7197324). At first I was amazed this was possible. The 2 key points about patents are that they are:

• original
• not obvious

And too me this seems to be neither of the above. Even more surprisingly to me was that the patent has been extended to Europe, as originally i assumed this would be a business process patent. Looks like nearly anything can be patented these days!

For Rob the patent is great news as it provides his business with at least theoretical protection against competitors copying him. But I would bet that there are many companies who have infringed either unknowingly or before Rob filled his patent. And what small company can afford a patent lawsuit? So the patent at least at a glance seems useless.

Week 12: Netchemia Internship

This week my main task has been to create a marketing survey for Netchemia's newest product. Then call the target prospects in Kansas and Missouri and get results to the survey. This is the first step in the 'Sales Funnel' which slowly whittles down the number of prospects till you find a prospect who wishes to buy the product. The funnel seems to involve about 5 main stages.

1. Survey
2. Indepth discussion
3. Product Demonstration
4. Pricing
5. Purchase

The number of potential prospects diminishes rapidly as the sales process continues; the potential value of each prospect increase.

Conversion funnels like this appear everywhere in business. Just do a quick Google image search for 'funnel' and you'll find:

• student enrollment funnel
• marketing funnel
• selling funnel
• Funnels occur in personal life: for example dating.
  

Ideas also create a funnel. And this leads to the product development funnel, for example: many product ideas, lots of computer designs, a few prototypes, one final product. And the product development funnel is just apart of a larger funnel, which is the consumers product choices in the market place.
The funnel is where entrepreneur's have both an advantage and disadvantage.

Advantage: entrepreneur can go with Gut instinct ignore many stages of the product development funnel and create the product which they feel will fill a niche best in the marketplace, this short circuits the funnel and gives the entrepreneur a huge time and money saving compared to well established companies, also allows entrepreneurs to create unconventional products.
Disadvantage: If the entrepreneur's instinct is wrong: the product fails in the market place, most likely their business will go bust. The large company can afford to fail and try again. The large company can also afford to invest more resources into the processes between the top and bottom of the funnel potential increase the value of the outcome.
In effect the entrepreneur funnel is very short bypassing many of the conventional big business process', leading to one offering: just like the big business.

Which is better? Who can say. It comes down to in the individual entrepreneur, the individual company, luck, connections, the list goes on.

Most business seminars today, in any field, will be showing to the audience how to improve the process between the start and end of the funnel, be its Sales, Marketing, product development etc. etc. (and for personal seminars this could be dating ;o).

Week 11: Start of Internship at Netchemia: Sales

My new Internship is at Netchemia. A 6 year old start up with 20 employees and 4 person partnership at the top. Netchemia provides school districts with web based software which allows them to streamline office processes by making them paperless. These process' include recruitment and learning plans for students.

I've been placed in the Sales department, where I will learn about Sales, Marketing, a small amount of Technical Development and making proposals for potential clients (in the UK called a 'bid' or 'tender' in America called an RFP: Request For Proposal).
Having only been at Netchemia for week I feel this will be a really useful placement for me, and also like the Kauffman course so far has missed out on a very important subject: Sales. You don't have a business; you don't have a customer without first selling.

The course has covered pitching for investment. I feel this is different. In a pitch I already have the listeners permission to sell to them. In a sales office getting this is just one of many steps involved: getting the permission to speak to the right person. This is a difficult challenge and a very worthwhile skill any entrepreneur should learn.

No matter who you are selling to the first few steps of the process are the same:

1. Target the right company.
2. Contact the company.
3. By default be put through to the company's gatekeeper.
4. Get permission from the gatekeeper to speak with the target customer: the prospect.

Step 4. to me, is what defines one of the key differences between an average and a great salesman (there are many more key differences but this is the first important one). The gatekeeper is often a receptionist or special assistant to the prospect. One of the jobs of the gatekeeper is to shield the prospect from 'unsolicited calls'. So as a sales person, one of the gatekeepers jobs is to not let you past. The gatekeeper is an interesting position, they have all the power to block you, but not necessarily the understanding to know if you will benefit their boss or not. Trying to sell to the gatekeeper is often a waste of time: what influence do they have in the decision making process to buy? Probably none and yet you must convince them that their boss would appreciate speaking to you.

Heres a few basic tips I have learnt.

1. Don't have a set script: it makes you sound like another seller in a call centre (center).
2. Don't waste to much time trying to explain to the gatekeeper why you are calling: the longer you're on the phone with them the less chance you have to speak with the prospect. Often you get to a point in the conversation where the penny drops the can almost hear the gatekeepers thought process: "oh hang on this is a sales person I don't want them to waste any time of my boss".
3. Just say in a confident polite way "X Please" where X is just the first name of the prospect (as if you know then on a personal level).

Then your through to the prospect! The first call you make to a prospect is never a sales call, all you want is 5 minutes of their time to see how they are currently dealing with issue 'x' and whether they would benefit from your system. Try to see if your product and their needs are a fit. Then arrange an appointment to call: a next contact: where you take a step closer to the sale.

Hopefully as the weeks go by I'll be able to close a sale!