Year: 2022

If a tree falls..

You probably have heard the philosophical question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?”

Here’s my version of it: “If you invested in a technology and no one bothered to use it, did you spend the money?“

Point is, if you used up precious resources to research and purchase a technology, but nobody actually used that technology, your entire exercise had zero impact on your business.

This is a mindset that affects businesses of all sizes.

Too many businesses spend inordinate amounts of time and effort to research different apps and software, splitting hair and agonizing over minor features of competing products. Then, when they finally do make a decision, they spend a lot of money to purchase/subscribe to that software. Mission accomplished!

And then… Nothing.

No effort to setup the processes.
No effort to train the users.
No effort to use the software.

Few months go by. Maybe a year..

Someone notices the charge on the invoice.
Everybody agrees that the software is no good.
Admin cancels the account.

Good riddance.

[PAUSE]

What just happened??
What was the impact on your business?
Nothing.

Time wasted, money spent, nothing accomplished.

The tree fell and no one heard it.

As a technology provider company, we see this happen again and again.

And as technology builder and business owner, this is especially painful for me.
Because I see the waste so clearly – time consumed, money spent, opportunity lost.

So, before you invest in any technology, be prepared to put in the effort needed to set it up and train yourself and/or your team to use it, and then monitor progress to make sure that it is actually being used.

With some technology platforms, the setup and training is easy. With others, it is more complicated.
But that initial effort is always needed.

ConvergeHub is a customer relationship management platform that is quick to implement and extremely user-friendly and easy to use so that you and your team can get familiar with it quickly and start using it right away.

If you would like to know more about how you can use ConvergeHub to skyrocket your revenue numbers in 2022, talk to us.

Or, if you like to check it out yourself, create a free ConvergeHub account here.

there’s common theme behind all HOT trends

Around this time of the year when we all getting started on driving sales growth for the year, there’s one topic that keeps coming up – hot trends.

For a company like ours with a product that primarily focuses on acquiring and retaining Customers, the question that we get asked is:

What are the hot Sales trends for the upcoming year?

And when you’ve been in the CRM industry as long as we have been, there’s one thing you know about all hot Sales trends:

They NEVER live up to the hype.

These earth-shaking ground-breaking hot-off-the-press latest fads that everyone talks about for a few months never deliver expected results.

Over the years many new sales processes and methodologies get introduced in the business community – like Account Based Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Solution Selling, Challenger Sales, Social Selling – most of which are quite valuable when implemented correctly and within the context of the big picture. But, when leaders of the organization want quick results, they often put their entire attention on this “hot new trend” believing it to be the panacea for all their sales troubles. Of course that never works and unfortunately the process or methodology gets the blame.

So, if you are looking for the red-hot sales trends for 2022, here are a few time-tested trends that ALWAYS deliver results:

  • End-to-end Customer Journey – Customer journeys have become long and complex and we can deliver value to the customer only when we look at their entire journey.
  • Non-linear Communication – The channels of communication are increasing every day, and our prospects and customers are interacting with our organization through multiple channels in parallel. It is critical that organizations are able to have a cohesive personal conversation, regardless of the channel.
  • Accountability – Every customer-facing department should be held accountable and that is possible only when actions are being measured on a common set of data and metrics.
  • Productivity – Covid has changed the way we work. The importance of communication and productivity while working from remote locations cannot be overemphasized.

These are practical down-to-earth trends that always work when implemented correctly using proper business processes.
If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you implement these time-tested trends and grow your sales in 2022, talk to us.

Or, if you like to check it out yourself, create a free ConvergeHub account here.

why customer relationship matters

If you’ve been involved with any type of organization for any period of time, you know how hard it is to build relationship with your customers.

Customers are busy running their companies and lives.

You are busy closing new sales.

You get customers the product or service they need.

And hope that your customers pay on time so that you close the sales and revenue grows.

That’s all there is to it.

Where is the time or need for building relationships, right?

Ummm… not really.

Not if you care about repeat business.

Not if you want to get referrals.

Stat after stat show that it costs 5 times more to get new customers than to keep old ones.

And customers are 77% more likely to go with a new product when they hear about it from family and friends.

So building that relationship with your customers is extremely important.

Building relationship does not necessarily mean that you have to know their next vacation destination, or their favorite place to eat, or where their kids go to school,..

But building relationship does mean answering questions and resolving issues quickly and efficiently.

Having open communication – processing orders quickly, sending frequent status updates, providing a way for them to track their own information – go a long way in building these business relationships.

And that is where Customer Lifecycle Management CRMs like ConvergeHub comes in.

ConvergeHub not only helps you close new sales, but also provides a way for the customers to contact you if they have a question, and gives you an easy way to get back to them quickly and efficiently, which is essential for building solid relationships with your customers.

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you build better relationships with your customers, go ahead and reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

Or, if you like to check it out yourself, create a free ConvergeHub account here.

The magic and mathematics of a brand new year

There is something magical about a brand New Year.. don’t you think?

We complete one trip around the sun and begin another trip.
It’s almost as if before we embark on another new journey, we get the chance to pause and think about our destination… where do we want to go? why do we want to go there? how do we get there? what do we do once we are there?

And while we answer those questions for ourselves, it is important to also answer those same questions for the organization, department or team that we lead (even if it is a team of one). What are the goals for our company this year? Why is important to achieve those targets? How will we achieve them?

To plan for the brand new year ahead of us, here are a few things we need to think through for our company:

  • Subtract – What do we need to eliminate from our organization? Is it negative mindset? Overly competitive work culture that does not encourage team-work? Unnecessary waste of time or resources? Decide what is holding us back and what we want to remove.
  • Add – What do we want to add? Maybe new processes? Focus of customer experience?
  • Multiply – What do we need to multiply in our company to achieve our goals? Maybe implement new technology that will multiply productivity? A shift in mindset that increases revenue growth?

It is important to remember that we don’t necessarily have to do one hundred and eighty degree turns in most areas. It is more likely that we need to make smaller adjustments to what we do now and increase our commitment to act on our goals.

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub will help achieve your goals and grow your organization in 2022, go ahead and reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

Or, if you like to check it out yourself, create a free ConvergeHub account here.