Blog
How to Close a Sale: The Only Thing You Need to Know
This post originally appeared on Jill Konrath’s website and is republished here with permission. Have you ever heard the phrase "detach from the outcome"? It’s a tenet of Eastern religions. For many years it was a concept that I found totally unfathomable. After all, sales itself is about outcomes. Our income is at risk. We need to get the business. But over the years, I’ve learned the wisdom of that message. In fact, the more [...]
How to Seal the Cracks In Your Sales Pipeline
In the world of sales, there are few things that are a greater sin than letting good leads slip through the cracks. If you are like many companies out there, you spend too much money on marketing and perhaps have too few leads to have the luxury of wasting them. Unfortunately, that is exactly what many companies are doing. There are a number of ways that these cracks work their way into your business. Here [...]
Setting and Achieving Big Hairy Audacious Goals
When it comes to setting goals, sometimes it's best to go big or go home! Historically, some of the most famously successful goals have been “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGs). This term was coined by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. A Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a strategic business goal that is designed to focus an entire organization on an audacious medium- to long-term [...]
Complete XRM Announces the Release of PlanPlus™ Goals
Complete XRM Announces the Release of PlanPlus™ Goals Complete XRM, Inc. announces the release of the PlanPlus™Goals iPad App. PlanPlus™ Goals help users unlock their full potential through managing and reaching goals that will make them happier, healthier, and more productive. […]
The Difference Between Principles and Values
In his influential book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey outlined the difference between principles and values. In Covey’s view, principles are rules or laws that are permanent, unchanging, and universal in nature. Values are internal and subjective, and they may change over time. What are principles? For Covey, principles are self-evident and—as part of most traditions and philosophies over the ages—they’ve been woven into the fabric of societies throughout human [...]
Culture: Your Company Has One, But Do You Know What It Is?
Here's a simple statistic: 100% of companies have “a culture.” Whether you deliberately cultivated it, or it simply emerged and evolved on its own, your company has a culture. But what is company culture? Culture has huge implications for any organization, and it can ultimately make or break your business. However, many companies don't examine, evaluate, and understand the culture they have, and even fewer take actions to proactively influence it. To start understanding and examining [...]
How to Manage Your Manager
Let’s face it: not every boss out there is perfect at delegating. Not every boss is perfect at communicating. Sometimes your manager will make suggestions or request actions that don’t make a whole lot of sense or don’t seem to fit into your current priorities. There may be times when you are buried and your boss dumps a load of new tasks on your desk, and there may be other times when you have completed [...]
Taking Responsibility for Your Own Success in Project Management and Implementation
I recently had a kickoff meeting with one of our customers, and it was quite refreshing. These meetings are sessions where our Professional Services delivery team meets with a customer’s key stakeholders to “kickoff” a PlanPlus Online CRM implementation. In this particular meeting, the leader on the customer side began the session with a bit of a pep talk and motivational speech that set clear expectations and reminded the customer’s stakeholders of their responsibilities. This [...]
Catch-Up Day 2.0
We’ve all been there. It’s 5 p.m. and the workday has somehow raced past you without allowing you enough time to tackle what needs to be done. Twenty emails in bold type stare at you impatiently from your inbox, while you ponder if the three voicemails left on your phone during lunch can wait for a response tomorrow. Wait! Did you even have time for a lunch break?! Now it’s time to head home, where [...]
Achieving User Adoption and Implementing Best Practices in your CRM Software Implementation
The Dangers of Taking “Simple” for Granted These days, many cloud-based CRM software applications are pretty simple to use. In fact, many software vendors have done such a good job of touting the simplicity of their applications, with terms like “ease of use” and “user friendly”, that some of their customers take implementing and using their CRM system for granted. Unfortunately, just because something is simple does not mean that you can afford to neglect [...]