Evaluate the CRM Software technology, not the Partner

Remember: this meeting is to evaluate the technology, not the Partner. Yes, it’s human nature to role the two together and to some extent it’s unavoidable. However, do admonish your Selection Team to focus on the technology.

On your quest to find the best balance of features and budget, there are a few critical questions to answer at this meeting:

1. Is there a clear technology winner?
2. Is the project still feasible? It might be that the proposals all came in way over what you had in mind for a budget.
3. If there’s not a clear winner, do we feel at least one or two of the CRM software choices may be sufficient? (watch out for inadequate presentations done by Partners).

The Structured Proposal

It can be very tricky to get a proposal that reveals the true costs of a solution. To help you get a reasonable apple-to-apples comparison, I’ve developed a very simple technique I call “The Structured Proposal”.

(check out the CRM Survival Guide if you are interested in the Structured Proposal)

Problems With Just Getting a Quote

You’d think that a sales quote is a sales quote. But with CRM it can be anything but. If you let each presenting Partner give you a quote as they see fit instead of in the Structured Proposal format, you’ll get a wide range of quotes and have no valid basis for comparison.

If you were to take the typical quote from a Partner and then have them re-do it using the Structured Proposal format, the new quote would likely be significantly higher. This is because it is designed to force the Partner to put a fair bit of thought and specificity into it, digging up costs that usually are glossed over.

The Structured Proposal is designed to make it easy for you to reasonably compare the costs associated with each technology. (while you won’t get to a true “apples to apples” comparison, you may get to an “Ida Red apple to Empire apple” comparison.) The format of the Structured Proposal is simple and
yet designed to make it difficult for Partners to “play games” with their quotes.

The 4 Elements Of The Structured Proposal

1. Software Costs

This is really the key to what makes the Structured Proposal work. Usually, Partners will bury any custom development work into services and often just quote the programming costs, leaving out such things as rework (and you can bank on there being rework on any custom development). With the Structured Proposal, you’re instructing them to be much more precise:

• Create a detail line for each custom development piece.
• For each piece of custom development, they’ll have to sign-off that they’ve considered: Functional
  Spec, Detailed Design, Programming, Unit Testing, at least 2 rounds of revisions and delivery.

2. Service Costs

Each category of service should be clearly delineated. You want this to be broken down into enough detail that you get the sense that they have thought through all the various areas that will be needed.

3. Disclaimers.

This is a very effective device. By explicitly asking the Partner (in writing) if there are any areas of concern, the likelihood of you getting an accurate picture goes way up. Often, there will be areas mentioned in here that will warrant more discussion and perhaps more investigation on the Partner’s part. This can lead to some very useful and effective communications with your potential Partner. Partner’s that use this area well are taking a big step towards earning your trust and confidence.

4. Sign-off declaration:

There’s nothing like putting a corporate officer’s signature to a declaration to make sure that what they’re signing-off on is accurate! “I have read and understand the Business Requirements document and the attached quote represents within +/- 20%”

Summary

You need to look at the cost for the whole solution to account for differences in each software’s native strengths and weaknesses.

Fit With IT

It’s a good idea to pick a CRM system that your IT staff are capable of supporting. That said, be careful not to dismiss very good choices because your IT staff may not be familiar with current, main stream technologies. Being that you’re a small business, your IT staff should be reasonably
up to speed on main stream small business technologies.

You need to look at how well the CRM technology fits in with the skills and competencies of your IT staff. For example, if your IT staff is familiar with MS SQL Server (common for small businesses) as a database back-end and the CRM solution is Oracle based (usually used in larger
Enterprises), this could cause some problems. Certainly, your IT staff will not have a comfort level (at first) of working in that new environment for back-ups and database maintenance issues.

Contact vs. Account Centric

There are two basic paradigms for CRM systems:

1. Contact Centric: In Contact Centric systems, the primary organization is around independent contacts.
2. Account Centric: In Account Centric systems, there are two levels to the basic organization: a company or account layer to which multiple contacts can be related.

Reasons for Compromising on Technology

Contact Centric

In a contact centric system, the database is organized around individual contacts. So, if you have dealings with 3 different people all from the same company, you would have 3 different contact records and in each record would be the company name.

There may be ways to relate different contacts together, but these will be in the “workaround” class. A Contact centric organization makes sense if you are dealing with individuals and you do not need to do such things as look at an organization’s combined history. It is very difficult/clumsy to track company related information separately from contact information.

For example, if you want to track information about a company (e.g. sic code, # employees, annual budget, etc.) separately from contact related information (e.g. favourite hobby, home phone number, spouse’s name, etc.). there isn’t an easy way to do that:

• Under which contact do you store the company information,
• Which contact becomes the primary record,
• Do you store the information under both contacts…which makes updating difficult.
• Do you create a “contact” record to serve as the company record and somehow relate the contacts to it?

Account Centric

Account centric CRM systems have a layer above contact, the organization or account, that can tie multiple contacts together. This has the advantage of being able to track company-related information entirely separately from contact-related information. This approach is usually easier to:

• See all opportunities for an account/company.
• See combined history.
• Do address updates.
• See the organization and all its contacts in one view.
• Report on company vs. individuals easier.

Unless you are working in an industry where you only need one contact record per account, choose an Account centric CRM system.

Most of the companies I’ve seen implement CRM have checked out no more than 3 companies and only because they are the ones that happened to be top of mind. I’m suggesting going much broader with as many as 12 companies to do the preliminary research phase with. Doing this will:

• Give you a much better sense of what’s available
• Make you a much more educated consumer
• Increases the likelihood of selecting the right technology for you
• What To Look For
• When you’re in the Research Phase, the idea is to get a basic understanding of the variety of technologies available. You will get a good feel for what the choices are and should be able to easily identify 3 to 6 technologies you feel should be looked into more closely.

Popular CRM Packages

There are literally dozens of CRM packages available. In the next table, I’ve put together a list of 12 popular packages—by no means is this a complete list, but it does represent a good sampling of available technologies:

Alphabetical List of Some Popular CRM Software Packages

Package, Manufacturer, Website

ACT!,  Sage,  www.act.com
 GoldMine, FrontRange, www.frontrange.com
 Maximizer, Microsoft, www.microsoft.com/crm
 NetSuite, NetSuite, http:// www.netsuite.com
 Onyx , Onyx, www.onyx.com
 Pivotal, Pivotal, www.pivotal.com
 Sage CRM (formerly ACCPAC CRM), Sage, www.accpac.com/products/CRM
 SalesLogix, Sage, www.saleslogix.com
 Salesforce.com, Salesforce.com, www.salesforce.com
 SalesNet, SalesNet, www.salesnet.com
 Siebel, Siebel, www.siebel.com

Don’t Get Drawn In To A Sales Cycle

At the Research Stage, you don’t want to get bogged down on any one solution. This means avoiding salespeople and CRM Partners! Don’t look for or accept the direct help of the manufacturer or a Partner at this point.

If you are contacted, politely and firmly let them know: “Thank you for your call; we’re currently doing broad research. If you’d like to assist at this stage, you can send me any information on your solution that you can.”

If you’re pushed for a meeting, push back saying: “Now is not the right time to meet. We’ll be putting together a short list of companies to present at a later date.” Be sure to stick with the Insider’s Buying Process. Find out more in the CRM Survival Guide.

This approach of staying in control and making it clear that you’re following a process of your own has two purposes:

1. Keeps you from getting bogged down.
2. (more importantly) Sets the tone with the manufacturer that you’re serious and knowledgeable which will translate into better treatment and negotiating strength down the road.

Don’t Install A Trial Version

It’s amazing how many companies have called me up in the past and have asked me to send them a trial version of the software. Despite my best efforts to explain to them that after they install the software, they’ll look at the screen and say “Now what?”.

Let me be more direct with you than I was able to be with former prospects of mine: “Trial software that you have not been trained on, that has not been configured for your Business Requirements is useless. It’s a waste of time and I advise you to steer clear!”

You’ve probably already noticed. There are dozens and dozens (and dozens) of CRM software manufacturers. Some even make several CRM software packages that compete against one another! It’s big business. In fact, it’s multi-billion dollar a year big business and growing!

The competition is fierce and most of these companies are being run with the mantra of “maximizing shareholder value” and not so much thinking about you. It is an intensely sales driven, “better meet my quota or else” business.

So, despite all appearance, when you’re sitting down with someone selling CRM software, you can bet their inner attention is on their commission cheque and meeting quota. They are trained on how to lead you through their “consultative” sales cycle.

You, however, need to resist the temptation to “work with” a CRM consultant (i.e. salesperson) that you happen to “click” with. You need to go through a “due diligence” buying process which shouldn’t include a salesperson until you hit the right step.

So let’s face it. Sellers of CRM are out to sell CRM because that’s their job. While there are some unscrupulous sellers out there, most are trying to make a good buck and look after their family.

Regardless of which kind of seller you deal with, telling you the candid truth about whether or not their solution is the right fit for you isn’t in their job description. The truth may be that you should pick a competitor’s CRM software instead, but they’d never tell you that.

[TAGS]CRM,Customer Relationship Management,Buying Process,SFA,Sales Force Automation,Project Management,Small Business[/TAGS]

Case in point: FrontRange has officially dropped their GoldMine standard product. The option available to new users is to buy their GoldMine Corporate product which comes with a 5 license minimum.

And FrontRange isn’t alone.

Another popular CRM package with deep Open Source roots is SugarCRM. You can get their OpenSource offering free, but if you want the added features of their Pro system you need to buy a minimum of 5 licenses.

SugarCRM’s argument is that the OpenSource version is suited for the very small businesses and don’t need the added capabilities like:

- Sales Forecasting
- Campaign Management
- MS Outlook Integration
- Reporting

I disagree. Today’s savvy entrepreneurs are looking for sophisticated, easy to use software to run their businesses and CRM is no exception. I think for SugarCRM (and others) to claim that businesses with fewer than 5 employees don’t need access to these tools is patronizing spin to hide the true motives.

The question that I think begs asking and that reveals the truth of the matter is “Why don’t they just sell single licenses”? You can argue that it’s just as easy to sell a single license as it is to sell 5 licenses…and you’d be WRONG!!

The truth, as I see it, is that smaller companies with less than 5 employees (and I count myself amongst them) are:

• much more cost conscious (CHEAP),
• don’t have the same server and technology infrastructure,
• are less sophisticated and don’t have the IT resources to deal with the technology.

There’s an old expression “It takes just as much work to sell a small deal as it does a big deal, so sell the big deals.” I think the reason CRM manufacturers  are moving towards the 5 license deals is that as software prices come down, it’s too time consuming (expensive) to sell to the smaller companies that don’t have the resources and sophistication of businesses with at least 5 employees.

More than ever, it’s important to do your due diligence when selecting which software solution is right for you. If you are looking at a software that is still licensed for the “under 5″ company, be sure to ask them about their plans to continue supporting that market space. If you see a company starting to offer versions for larger companies, then double your efforts to get a straight answer about their committment to the “under 5″ space.

Sometimes, they ask about Maximizer or SalesLogix, but ACT! and GoldMine are currently the two main ones I get asked about for software comparisons.

I remember when I was a Consultant, selling CRM software, I used to wait for the head-to-head product comparisons from the CRM manufacturer. Why? Because it’s what my prospects kept asking for! And I wasn’t alone…this kind of product matrix or comparison chart was probably the most asked for marketing document from the Reseller community.

But they weren’t head-to-head comparisons at all. It wasn’t competitive intelligence. After a while I came to understand that these charts were thinly veiled marketing hype posing as “competitive intelligence” and were very biased and, in my opinion, deviously skewed. (A careful reading will reveal that the features or functions have been worded in such a way as to give one CRM package a better rating or score).

Now when I’m asked which CRM package is best, I tell people “You’re asking the wrong question!”.

For those of you who don’t want to listen to my explanation about what the right approach is, don’t worry. Further down, I have included some specific areas you should examine when evaluating such programs as ACT!, GoldMine and Maximizer. It’s not a comprehensive list, but should provide a really good start. (In the Insider CRM Success Toolkit, I give over 50 pages of detailed notes on comparing feature sets).

“GoldMine versus ACT! Is The Wrong Question!”

Usually, but not always, these companies are smaller (one or a few salespeople) that enjoys the entrepreneurial flexibility of “just do it”. However, when it comes to implementing a Customer Relationship Management system, it’s important to pause for a moment and make sure you’re taking the right approach.

When I see a company using the approach of comparing CRM software feature sets, that’s a pretty big clue that they’re headed towards project failure. Companies that “go looking for a CRM package” without having an explicit business requirements document and look for the CRM software with the best feature set are headed for project disappointment.

It may sound subtle, but the distinction is critically important to the success of your CRM project. (As you read my explanation, I want you to keep in mind that the failure rate of CRM projects is 70%!)

It’s All About The Business Requirement

Both ACT! and GoldMine have been around for many years, have a large and enthusiastic user base and depending on your business requirements are a great choice. So, how do you really know which one is best for you?

Let me be clear…

I’m not saying that you need to spend a bunch of money on an expensive consultant to do your business requirements or do a detailed needs analysis. In fact, my strong recommendation is that you do this yourself. The payoff goes far beyond just a CRM project!

Your business requirements document should:

• Be a formal document.
• Detail “what you need to be able to do” with your CRM system.
• Deal with your vision for the system for the next 3 to 5 years. So, if you’re starting with your salespeople now and hope to add customer service in a year, your business requirements should include both departments.

With your business requirements in hand, it becomes a much simpler task of looking at editor’s choice awards, magazine reviews, product recommendations and the like in order to make a decision. Instead of relying on often biased or rushed product reviews that simply repeat what the software makers have told them, you will have your own measuring stick.

What If Neither ACT! or GoldMine Is Right?

I would say better than 80% of companies that ask me which Customer Relationship Management system is best are only considering GoldMine or ACT! and have never considered anything else. This is usually because these are the ones they’ve heard most about and they probably have friends who use one of them. This is a mistake!

Don’t limit yourself! After you have you business requirements, it’s time to go look at the field—there are hundreds of CRM and Sales Force Automation (SFA) packages, all with their own particular strengths, weaknesses and specializations.

In The CRM Survival Guide, I show you how to efficiently check out the market and narrow down your choices. You may end up with an entirely different CRM system like SalesLogix, SalesForce.com, NetSuite, MS CRM and so on.

Look Beyond The “Back-of-the-Box” Marketing Hype

At some point you need to evaluate which CRM system is going to best satisfy your business requirements (you have decided to put together an explicit business requirements document, right?!).

I’m not going to give you a matrix that compares which system has what features—by now you should know that’s folly. What I am giving you is a list of features to take a close look at and make sure they do what you need them to. By no means is this a complete list—it’s just the tip of the ice burg.

• What kind of database is it? Is it a currently popular one? Are there utilities available for doing things like data import, export and clean-up? If you’ve got more than 20 or so users and/or a lot of data entry volume, then you probably want to be looking at a SQL based database such as MS SQL.
• How easy is it to set-up a new synchronization notebook? What happens if the notebook goes “out of synch” with the main database; what kind of refresh or recovery is available?
• Speaking of synchronization, what happens if, in between synchronizations, the remote user updates the phone number of a contact and someone at head office has updated the person’s title? Will one of the changes be lost?
• In addition to contact or record level security, what kind of field-level and function-level security is there?
• Is it contact centric or account centric?
• What types of fields can you have? They all have text fields, but what about text boxes, check boxes?
• How many add-ons are available for each? Is it widely supported by the 3rd party development community?
• What about a faxing solution? How can you do individual and mass fax blasts?
• Can you send personalized HTML Email blasts? How easy is it to do?
• What features are there to prevent users from printing out or exporting your customer list and walking away with it?
• Is there free support provided? Are there active public users groups where you can see what issues others are having and get answers to your questions?

Stop! Ask Yourself “Am I going to fall into the failure trap that everyone else does or am I going to listen to Scott and do this right?”

OK, I’ve said my piece. Thanks for hanging in there…it was important. You should walk away with three very important messages:

1. “Which is better” is the wrong question. The right question is: “Which best satisfies my business requirements?”
2. Don’t go shopping or talk to a salesperson until you have a clear set of business requirements.
3. Look beyond the “back-of-the-box” marketing hype and see for yourself how each system satisfies your business requirements.

Discover the step-by-step “No B.S.” answers that show you exactly how to implement an ACT! or GoldMine system that your users will welcome, that will let you manage sales better in less time, and will give your company the competitive sales boost it needs.