What I Want From A CRM...and can't seem to find

What I want is pretty simple. I want to send an email to a CRM system. The CRM will parse the email and add a contact or task/note to an existing contact. I don't want to actually go to the CRM unless I'm looking to create reports, review stuff, etc.

It would be pretty simple. It would require a small amount of  standardized language and formatting in the email. For instance this would be in the body of an email that I send to smallbox@mydreamcrm.com-

Name: John Smith

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Company: JohnSmith Inc

Follow Up: 03/01/2011

Note: had lunch, great guy, might be interested in a new website in third quarter.

Referral: Fred Jones

You could add a note or attachment to an existing contact by simply sending an email without the name. You could also do things like- follow up in 2 weeks and the system would understand it.

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: submitted

Value: $20,000

Timeline: 6 months

Work: Website

Note: followed up with proposal attached 

Follow Up: 2 weeks

(and then attach the file to the email)

Once I get the signed contract back I would then send it off to the CRM as well

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: signed

Notes: kicked off project 3/15/2011

(attach signed contract)

This would then change the status of the lead to a converted sale. If there was additional work then you could do the following.

Email: johnsmith@gmail.com

Contract: new

Value: $12,000

Timeline: 12 months

Work: Marketing

Note: we are now working on marketing the new website.

(attach signed contract)

I can imagine expanding this a little and there would be more fields. 

My problem with CRMs is that they aren't in my path, I have to leave my email account to go into a CRM. Then I'm bouncing between them, copying and pasting, etc. It's a mess. With this I could work within my inbox and my CRM would collect everything and send it back to me on schedule. I could then review sales leads, see which ones converted, etc.

Does this exist? If so, I can't find it. I gotta think I'm not the only one that would want something like this. 

In Defense of the Groupon Ad

Groupon's recent Super Bowl ad ruffled a lot of feathers. It's been decried as tasteless and offensive. But I found it daring and effective. Both in raising awareness, and most likely money, for the Tibetan cause as well as expanding Groupon's brand awareness. It has yet to be seen if Groupon will come out with increased positive or negative brand awareness. But they definitely got our attention.

So, I grant that Tibet is a sensitive topic. 

But is it really that offensive to raise awareness for an oppressed people, praise its culture (in this case Tibetian cuisine- albeit a dish, fish curry, they purportedly don't serve or eat) and then promote your service? 

If you follow that logic you could find fault with many cause-based marketing efforts. 

Brands have a long history of aligning with causes. Sometimes they do it in very serious ways, some times comedic, sometimes a mix like this ad. Generally speaking it doesn't denigrate a cause to have a mutually beneficial relationship with a brand. 

I don't think the Tibetan cause was hurt by this ad. I would argue it was almost certainly helped. Interestingly enough, it sounds like there are

plenty of upset Chinese

...

One final thought- Maybe the best way to save the Tibetan culture is to stop treating it like an artifact from an extinct civilization. These are living, human beings with a rich cultural heritage. Are the Tibetan people not allowed to open a restaurant and partner with Groupon to leverage their heritage to attract new customers?

What do you think? Was it a bad, tastless move by Groupon? Or sneaky, philanthropic genius?

note: I have my issues with Groupon, separate from this controversial ad, which I have outlined in this blog post.

True Believers

I was raised in a very religious family. Belief was something I took for granted. I didn't discover its radical underpinnings until I was in my senior year of high school. We were reading Kierkegaard and this passage really hit me- "belief is the edge of madness" (paraphrased).

It made sense. To believe something is to risk everything else, to make that terrible choice of forcefully limiting your choices. I realized belief was a powerful thing and not something you were born with but had to discover and develop. This thought grew and pushed me to reconsider many of my "core" beliefs. I realized I didn't believe the things I was supposed to believe. It kinda freaked me out at the time.  

I define a belief in a somewhat existential/Aristotelian way- your actions manifest your beliefs. You can say or think whatever you want but if your actions don't back that up then you don't believe those words or thoughts. 

So if we want to change our actions we have to become true believers. This requires a blend of will, mediation and practice. We can direct our words, thoughts and actions but it isn't easy. We aren't true believers if our entire beings aren't aligned around what we supposedly belief. Without alignment our beliefs start to wither and weaken. Their influence wanes and we eventually lose them altogether. 

Belief goes deep, beyond the conscious mind. It resides at the core of our beings. As our beliefs bubble up into thoughts, words and actions they often become diluted or compromised. Usually it's fear and sloth that do the most damage- what will people think, I'm scared, why should I bother, there's something else easier to do, I'm tired, etc.

The human beings that have changed the world, in big or small ways, have this in common- they are true believers. Their entire beings are focused around their core beliefs. My theory is that this is the result of years of hard work (will, meditation and practice) more than any moment of clarity. I'm sure some people have life changing moments but from what I have seen most people don't realize those moments until later. Only when they look back do they see the moment they crossed the horizon and began living an aligned life- beliefs, thoughts, words, actions. 

My goal is to live this aligned life. I've got a ways to go but it feels good to have a destination.

Being Grateful

I'm a selfish guy. I tend to focus on my wants and needs over other people. It's not something I'm proud of. Over the last few months I've become more aware of my thinking and behavior. I've also noticed that many of the people I most admire are very focused on others, not on themselves. These are also some of the most successful people I know. Perhaps our instinct to be self centered helped us survive through the eons. It's a hard habit to kick since we are wired for it.

I'm no expert on how to transition from being "me" focused to "others" focused but I believe it starts by being grateful. Too often I focus, in this blog and in my life, on problems. What's wrong with something. I tend to gloss over and undervalue all the amazing people, places and things that intersect my life on a daily basis.

I started to write a grateful list. But then it started to get really big and it hit me that being grateful doesn't require itemizing everything in your life you are grateful for- and I was starting to think it looked a little like bragging "hey check out all the awesome people in my life!". So instead of posting a list I have decided to find ways to show my gratitude to all the wonderful people in my life. Mostly I want to do a better job of communicating this gratitude with my words and actions.

So here's a start: to all the amazing people I have in my life- family, friends, neighbors, business associates, employees and everyone else: thank you for being in my life, I am incredibly grateful to you all.

Process, Product, Practice and Profit

We've been doing a lot of soul searching at SmallBox lately. What products do we want to offer? What kind of clients do we want to work with? How do we become crazy profitable in 2011? 

One particular struggle we have had is taking on projects that have no related process. Often we have done great work for customers but at the expense of profitability, customer experience and company culture. I don't mind being a little messy during the start up years but it is pretty unforgivable for a grown up business. 

The clarity I'm coming to can be summarized by these 4 "P"s- Process, Product, Practice and Profit. In that order. 

Process

If you don't have a process then you don't really have a product. In our case we have a pretty solid process for designing/building marketing websites but not so much for e-commerce, site audits, web applications, etc. So we have been walking away from business that doesn't have a related internal process. We have also been treating our process with the respect it deserves. Many elements may seem obvious but all the pieces have come together from years of trial and error. If there is a special sauce then the process is the stock and the team is the flavor. But process is just the beginning. 

Product

This is what the client sees. It is both the end product (the website) and their experience. The later is an area we have often come up short. We start down the project path hand in hand but somewhere along the way things get messy. The end product is almost always excellent, in my humble opinion, but the client can often leave feeling less than fuzzy about the experience. We weren't managing expectations. This is of course rooted in our process. Product=flower and process=soil.

Practice

This is about creating muscle memory. Doing things the same way over and over. Like basketball drills. All the checklists and milestone templates in the world can't replace a team that is in sync. It's a beautiful thing when it happens. We have done over 100 websites over the last 5 years but we still need to practice and improve. Many times the misses are around hand offs between teams, integrating new team members and client communication. You might think that practice comes before product but the reality is that every paying project is practice when you have an active, growing, always improving process. Practice also involves looking at the tape- reviewing what worked and didn't work and making changes. Ignoring the tape is lazy and stupid but we have been guilty of that many times over the years. No more.

Profit

The best P of all! This one has been a little elusive for us. We have had great quarters and not so great quarters. Overall we have been fortunate to grow over the past 5 years with double digit growth every year. But consistent, substantial profitability has been hard to come by. I believe the reason lies in our tendency to still behave like a start up- take whatever comes to us, ignoring mastery of a process for specific products, not reviewing the tape and making changes. I know now that profitability comes from a product with a rock solid process. This will clarify our value proposition in the market and create numerous efficiences internally. Sure, we might have fewer products which means turning away business but the products we have will be much more profitable than all the random engagements in the past. So going forward we have decided that if there is no process in place then there will be no product offering. Doing fewer things better.

Would love to get some input from other business owners on this post.