prospective customer – Cooper Mann Consulting

January 3, 2014June 13, 2017

Degrees of Success: Improving Productivity and Performance through Process Automation

Few businesses use just one solution to get all their work done. In most cases, the business must at least communicate, produce information and account for financial activities – and each of these functions has a software product or service associated with delivering the required capability. While every business uses technology at some level, some businesses have more success than others in developing streamlined and efficient processes guiding the various tasks and activities performed throughout the day. Sometimes the problem stems from a lack of understanding of the importance of process automation, and sometimes it’s the software.

integrated

The success (or lack thereof) in streamlining a business process is often enabled by the tools supporting it, yet the truth of software and systems is that not everything is easily integrated and not all business workflows actually “flow” smoothly. In many cases it is left to the human user to connect the processes and keep the work flowing, creating the opportunity for missed deadlines, duplicated or erroneous data, and a greater dependency on individual worker knowledge than is good for the business.

The better alternative may be the adoption of workflow and automation tools to assist with bridging and scheduling of repetitive tasks, building the knowledgebase of process and task flow supporting business sustainability efforts and easing the burdens of training new employees. Process automation helps to improve productivity, it’s just that simple.

If the time is taken to really consider the variety and numbers of repetitive tasks employees perform throughout the day, the cost in time, lost productivity and data errors or omissions would likely add up to far more than initially expected. People tend to adapt to using the tools they are provided, and will find ways to get things done (whether it’s the most effective way or not). The end does not always justify the means, and many businesses ultimately find that it is here – where individual worker initiative and unguided action are most prevalent – that the operation fails to accomplish stated goals.

In order to create a sustainable operation with consistently high levels of production and performance, the business must establish a complete framework for process automation and support. Where existing application and software functionality is not able to meet the requirement, the business should implement specialized tools to bridge the gap and embed the process knowledge in the system.

Scheduled reporting, customer and product data synchronization, import/export routines, data maintenance routines – these are among the tasks and processes which represent the regularly-performed work that may be sucking the user productivity and performance out of the business. It’s a matter of degrees of success, and productivity improvements introduced through comprehensive process and task automation can make the difference between a little success and a lot.

Make Sense?

October 7, 2013

Marketing and Sales Needs System and Process Automation

Running a business means finding and keeping customers who will buy from you. This isn’t necessarily easy, particularly with the number and variety of “impressions” people get throughout their day. It used to be that simply locating a business in the right place would generate drive-by traffic, with location being the key to generating impressions and causing people to actually stop and shop. Impressions – yes, those brief instances where your brand or service is viewed – count.

The entire lifecycle of the customer relationship starts with the first impression, so it needs to be a good one. Marketing impressions expose your business and products to prospective customers, with efforts oriented towards the generation of sales leads. A lead is a business or individual that may ultimately develop into a sales or business opportunity. Rather than attempting to engage with businesses or individuals one at a time, businesses use marketing to target large groups in hopes of earning the permission to engage group members in more focused or individualized sales activities. When the business earns the ability to communicate directly with a prospective buyer, a sales lead is generated, and the business now has a prospective customer and the potential to make a sale.

Sales leads don’t stop becoming leads just because they purchase from you. Every customer remains an ongoing opportunity to generate new business directly or indirectly via referrals or recommendations. The best case scenario for your business is when you know when and why your customer buys from you, when the customer wants more, and that they will refer their friends or business associates to you.

Part of the problem with marketing and sales is that there are often too few people and/or resources to apply to the task. Most businesses aren’t in the position of simply throwing money at a problem (which rarely actually solves the problem), so it becomes essential that you find a way to get the job done with the same or fewer people and resources. The keys to solving this problem are systems and processes (automation). Automation doesn’t always mean that there is an “automatic system” somewhere which performs all of the tasks for you. In most cases, it simply means that the process is structured, efficient, and is able to be effectively repeated without significant deviation or loss. Structured systems and processes, along with a strong commitment to capturing activity data and measuring results, is the foundation which will support growth.

Marketing Automation Explained (Infographic) | The automation of business function is set to be the new trend in 2014. There are already dozens of sales, marketing and finance automation options, and for good reason: The quantifiable returns they provide are undeniable. Here is a look at marketing automation and how it works.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227923#ixzz2ghHq9Qpn

From the very first impression through the conclusion of the sale and ongoing, it is essential to capture the data which describes the activities and events around doing business with your customers. It is important to track unsuccessful efforts as well as those which are successful. By understanding what does not work, you develop valuable insight which helps refine the process and the approach, resulting in fewer wasted efforts. The accumulated data tells the story of how you earn new business and how you create a customer relationship, which helps you understand how and where you are successful in earning new business and why you are able to retain loyal customers.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

March 4, 2013July 19, 2018

Helping a Small Business Customer Choose Your Solution

In a previous article entitled The Psychology of Small Business IT Adoption, I discussed Icek Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior and how a number of researchers applied it to the process of small business IT adoption. The concept, which ended up proving to be true, was that IT adoption by small businesses is a function of a number of fairly well-defined elements, and is not so much defined by specific types of businesses or the business leaders. The elements which lead to the act of business IT adoption (as well as adoption of other services, I’ll bet) can be identified and addressed by the potential provider of the product or solution ahead of time, making the possibility of actual adoption much greater.

Knowing how your prospective customer will approach the decision-making process is important, and getting a little insight ahead of time never hurts. Particularly when a lot of customers don’t actually reveal their thinking, it can be tough to know where to begin. You’ve been there before – you’re making your pitch and asking questions, but are getting nothing in return. Sometimes it’s “deer in headlights”, and they are simply overwhelmed. Other times they’re thinking about things you’re not telling them… but they’re not letting you know you’re not telling them. Dead air, and then a lost opportunity.

Boiling it all down to a fairly simple explanation, businesses adopt IT because there is a conscious plan to do so, and that plan is supported by a belief that the solution will do good things for the business, the solution is a recognized (if not expected) approach, and the business believes it has adequate resources and capability to effectively handle it. It’s all about:

Intent,
the attitude towards adoption,
belief of expected outcomes and their value,
expectations and the motivation to comply with them, and
evaluating barriers and the adequacy of resources to overcome them.

Intent

The first and most important element is intent, a conscious plan to get or do whatever it is. If the customer has no plan to get the item and sees no need for it, then the barrier is pretty high. However, if the need can be created, and the customer can be driven to believe they need to get the item, then there is intent. Now they’re looking for you and not vice versa. Consider that the Snuggie wasn’t “something” until folks were told that blankets simply weren’t good enough any more for lounging around (they don’t have sleeves!). Once people believed there was a problem, they pursued finding the solution.

The attitude towards adoption

Next, what’s their attitude towards getting the item? Sometimes people go looking for things they don’t think they can actually get, and often they know they need something but don’t think the solution is even out there, so they have a jaded viewpoint from the start. A prospect with a positive attitude and who wants to actually find a solution is far better to work with than one who has already determined that you can’t help them. Sometimes all it takes is a good listener to help create a positive attitude and make someone willing to tell you how you can help them.

Belief of expected outcomes and their value

Now, what does the customer think they will get from the deal? Will the solution actually solve problems or create new ones, and are the perceived problems to be solved big enough to really worry about in the first place? Small businesses tend to be very cash conscious, wanting as much value as possible for any expenditure. Further, most small businesses don’t let go of their cash easily and certainly not for frivolous purposes, so a successful sale is often supported by the customer’s belief that they will get a real solution and benefit – something of value which will be realized, and that is important enough to deal with sooner rather than later.

Expectations and the motivation to comply with them

It is interesting how many small businesses go shopping for products or solutions that they don’t actually intend to purchase or adopt. Sometimes they just want to be able to say “we’re looking in to it”, even if they aren’t and don’t plan to, and sometimes they have a business requirement that they don’t want to have to meet due to cost or complexity or whatever. Let’s say a business has customers complaining about unresponsive or bad support, and how they should have a ticketing system to help track issues better. Maybe the customers have the right idea: maybe the business should have a ticketing system (the business provides support and ticketing systems are considered a support service industry norm). This is the expectation. Let’s also say the business uses a CRM solution to handle support, and they believe it handles things just as well as a separate “ticketing” solution. Just because there is an expectation (customers want ticketing system), it doesn’t mean the business is motivated to comply (CRM does just fine). Expectations come in many forms and from many sources – customers, vendors, employees, contractors, the government and regulatory… on and on. Expectation and motivation to comply are both high when it comes to legal and regulatory issues, as these things can be tied directly to money and cash and risk. In other areas, it may not be as easy to identify or address. The best way to look at this issue is to try to understand what the business is doing now, whether the approach works or may be materially improved in servicing their business and model, and whether or not the business recognizes an immediate need to make the change.

Evaluating barriers and the adequacy of resources to overcome them

The final and perhaps most important factor in SMB adoption of IT is the simple belief that it can be done. Done at all, I mean, not just done “affordably”. My dad taught me that it’s not a bargain if you can’t afford it. Now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when a business needs to bite the bullet and extend itself to become better. But any small business in this position is a tough sell, simply due to real resources and capability. No matter how much a business may know it needs something, if it really can’t do it, or believes it can’t – it won’t.

Make sense?