Salestrakr Blog

Small Features, Big Impact

Our development cycle never ends.  We are always improving, either due to items we've added to our wish list or those items requested by customers.  We've made a few updates that will help all Salestrakr users gain more value out of the service.

Here they are:

- We have more fields on our business address.  You can now more easily enter a suite number or perhaps a floor number.  The link to Google Maps is there too.  Your entries here will show on the business card just as you type it in the fields.  This is helpful as some of our customers in other parts of the world list floor numbers or even building names to identify their location.

 - Our next update was the stretchable Details field in the "Opportunity" box.  This enables you to see all Details you've entered in an opportunity.  We've also added a "next step" field.  This too is stretchable.  Customers use this to show status and required next steps for a given opportunity.

 - We've corrected our tagging mechanism such that a tag that is no longer used now disappears from the tag cloud allowing for easier "housekeeping" of your tags/keywords.

 - Our pipeline report now has more information at your fingertips.  Now when you see a list of opportunities in a given stage, you can click on 2 new icons. One allows you to pull up the specific opportunity (to make changes or just see the information.)  The other allows you to open up a new browser tab or window with a report for that specific opportunity.  Once open, you can print the opportunity for use in meetings or reports.  See the graphic below.

Give these a try and tell us what you think!

Bye Bye Telephone Companies

Salestrakr already is helping businesses to bypass the telephone company.  Click on a telephone number in Salestrakr and it will use Skype to make your call.  If you have a Skype subscription and are logged in, the call is cost free (perhaps even to other countries depending on your subscription.  And if you don't have a subscription, you can use SkypeOut credit.  This is a very helpful feature for a salesperson who needs to work their CRM system.

This past week I registered my new Google Voice number.  It's totally free.  It's not perfect.  When you make an outbound call inside of Google Voice, it first calls your line (mobile or land line).  Once you pick that up, it then connects to the person you are calling.  OK, not perfect.  But, let's say you need a line for your small business.  Really for inbound calls.  You no longer need a hosted PBX or line somewhere.  People can call this number and it will ring to your mobile or other line and even record voice mail when unanswered.  

With iPhones and similar devices, such as the new T-Mobile MyTouch, having near full computer capabilities, we may see that these devices are our new PBX extention.  Only the phone system is Google or Skype and available from anywhere at anytime.

Social Networking Tools for Business

Our customers have been asking us what else we use, besides Salestrakr, to keep up with people we know.  There are many places to go, some good, some not.  But, a few of them are now even known by folks at church, friends in the book club even the coaches of the kids soccer teams.  So, here goes:

1. Twitter.  Twitter is basically a 140 character blog with a very simple "networking" method.  Those Twitter blog posts are called "tweets".  When you are logged on to Twitter, you are either following people or are being followed.  As such, each refresh of your page shows your posts and those of the people you are following.  And if you don't like using the Web to participate in Twitter, you can use one of many client applications out there available for participating on Twitter.  These include ones we use at Salestrakr: Twitterrific (Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch), Nambu (Mac, iPhone), Tweetdeck (Mac, PC and Linux) and Twitterberry (Blackberry.)  BTW, our twitter ID is Salestrakr.  Our URL is http://twitter.com/salestrakr.  My personal Twitter URL is http://twitter.com/newbrew.  My personal Twitter posts are "snarkier" and, well, personal.  However, I can still tweet about Salestrakr in that personal stream of information.
2. Facebook.  Salestrakr has it's own Facebook page.  It's still new.  But, it's another place for the company to have a "face".  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Salestrakr/91233944770.  Once you have a Facebook page for your business, you van invite "Fans" from your personal Facebook list of friends.
3. LinkedIn.  Ok, Linkedin is really about people.  You link with people.  And your profile is searchable.  My LinkedIn profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveyoungblood.  So, as long as I keep that profile up to date, people will know about Salestrakr.
4. Our Typepad Blog.  You're looking at it!  You can also though use Wordpress (either on your own server or at theirs.)  Wordpress and Typepad will "ping" other blog aggregation sites when you post to a blog.  Further, Google and Yahoo crawl blogs hosted at Wordpress and Typepad and make those sites available in their search results.  Ok, this is not REALLY social networking.  But, blogging is publishing information for people to consume.  Further, Typepad and Facebook work together to show Typepad posts directly on a Facebook page.

You need a good CRM.  But, you also need to use those tools out there that help you keep up with the latest information of your contacts. And help those contacts to keep up with you.

Salestrakr Enhancements are for Users, Not for Bureaucrats

I read a blog post this week talking about where innovation is coming from in the computer/Internet world.  The post was titled "Why The Flow Of Innovation Has Reversed."  It notes that systems no longer can be built to satisfy the engineers.  They must meet the needs of, entice or even seduce their users.  So much so that users become familiar and comfortable with the system/service.  The users determine who will use the service, not the engineers or managers.

This is no different at Salestrakr.  I was giving a demo of Salestrakr this week and found that over and over, customers really like our search box.  Just as with Spotlight on Apple's OS X, Salestrakr Search allows a user to start typing while immediately retrieving results.  No browser refresh or "click and wait" page refresh.  Without having to over-engineer the product, we have found a service that customers now steer.  They told us where they wanted the search box.  And now we've added the ability to also search all history, notes, email and tasks again with results appearing immediately.

Perhaps we are benefitting from our focus on small to medium size businesses who use the Salestrakr service because they want to, not because they have to.

Universal Access to Salestrakr

I had a customer ask me this week whether we supported an older version of Internet Explorer (the one that came with Windows 2000.)  I believe he is using IE 5.  But, Salestrakr is an AJAX based application (which stands for asynchronous JavaScript and XML.)  And unfortunately, our customer must move to the latest IE (version 7 or Beta 8) or to Firefox.  And given that support for Windows XP is supposed to end this month, perhaps a move to Vista (and thus a more powerful computer) is required.  I feel for this customer because it is now very apparent that they must get a new computer.  It's not the worst time to do so.  I saw a great new Toshiba at Office Depot yesterday for only $500.  But, for a small business, each dollar is scrutinized.  I know, Salestrakr is a small business.

But, things are better now with AJAX.  I've tested Salestrakr on IE and Firefox on XP and Vista and it works exactly the same.  Same is true on the Mac and on Linux.  A Salestrakr user can go into an Apple store and work from one of their machines or go to an Internet cafe in another part of the world and know they can gain access to their data.  Sure, you do that with any old web site.  But not if you rely on a sophisticated CRM/SFA client.  Salestrakr is essentially a client on the web but without the weight of a Java application or Flash. 

OK, I do have to admit something.  I tested Salestrakr today on my new Blackberry Pearl 8120.  The browser does not properly support AJAX.  Nor do the other mobile browsers.  Salestrakr is though offered in a lite HTML mode for mobile users.  I guess we'll have to celebrate advances in the PC world and push the device makers to catch up.

Social CRM

I read an article this past week at destinationcrm that references a Gartner prediction that "SocialCRM" will be at the center of change and growth in the CRM world.  According to the article "Social CRM does (help customers find important and qualitative information) this by providing sales people with the critical data needed to build relationships with customers, prospects, suppliers and vendors, all via one single interactive network."

Well, I'm glad Gartner and destinationcrm believes this.  We have for a while.  When you add a contact to Salestrakr (already very contact centric), Salestrakr then looks at the entered email addresses and then  searches the popular social networking sites for matching profiles.  Once Salestrakr makes a match, it puts a logo on the Salestrakr business card and provides a link from that logo to the appropriate profile on the social network.  Just another way to extend a relationship and bring unexpected value to our subscribers.

Freedom for Salestrakr

Salestrakr looks great and performs even better.  And thus we expect lots of new customers in the coming months.  People keep asking us how we will scale?  These questions were burning a few years ago.  But, with the maturation of open source, and with lower prices of hardware combined with much higher reliability, we no longer have to work so hard to squeeze blood from the stone.  We can really "throw hardware" at the problem. 

In our case, we utilize LAMP.  LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL PHP.  That's really it.  OK, we did write our own AJAX framework (and thus utilize Javascript and XML methods and external libraries to do what we need to do.) But LAMP forms our base.  Use of this base will keep Salestrakr easy to extend and scale (and use.)  Support is easier.  Thus, our costs are MUCH lower than they would be using most other technologies and methods on the market.

BTW, is that guy in the T-shirt Brad Pitt?