Netsuite is a sweet deal

As one of the earliest consultants in CRM, I have been following the evolution of sales automation area and believe that there are a few products which create an "evolutionary" or some might conclude "revolutionary" change.

Having been caught up as a consultant in CRM, over the past few years, I found myself being caught up in trying to keep up technically as an expert in areas that don't really impact my clients bottom line such as the back end of the product. (how to install and configure products, what server/hardware is needed, etc.)

When I first came up with eWarrior in 1997, I envisioned web based CRM system to replace the complicated and convluted setups for data synchronization and management reporting.

At the same time in Silicon Valley, from what I have read, Larry Ellison, the CEO and founder of Oracle Software was hatching his idea. Well he had the capital and the resources to bring in some of the top oracle developers in the world to work on this product. The product ended up being netsuite.

Imagine this, it is now almost a decade later and you can have a system that cost millions of dollars to develop for less than 1% of the cost of that sytem. Not only will this system track your customers, but it will do accounting, resource planning and integrate with a website. The icing on the cake is that is provides a powerful, yet easy to use executive "dashboard".

Just like you have a dashboard on your car that shows how your car is running, your business can create custom indicators (which look like the "meters and qauges" to see how your company is performing.

The best part is that this is live up to date data. You may view revenues this day,month or year, leads generated and deals closed. Also you can see accounting information such as your receivables and payables. In computer and business jargon, we call these (KPI's) -- Key performance indicators.

Imagine now that not only that this product exists and can be deployed within your company in weeks, both locally, nationally and/or globally, but you don't have to have anything but a browser and highspeed internet.

Also, from my experience companies such as Sage (ACT!) and Microsoft did not even use there own product throughout their company. ACT! salespeople used SalesLogix and from what I was told Microsoft was running on Siebel (I am not sure if they now run on Microsoft CRM). Netsuites' executives including CEO Zach Nelson run their very successful business on Netsuite.

Not only does netsuite work for companies with products to sell, but they also have modules for service professionals that do time and billing.

So if you are a CEO, company founder, board member or employee who has some vision, you need to at least go to www.netsuite.com and sign up for a free live demo.

LinkedIn Reaches 5 million members and profitability

LinkedIn is one of the newest type of eWarrior tools called "Social Networking". We have found that LinkedIn has opened up doors around the world for our company including former co-workers, college alumni and individuals with expert advice.

If you haven't been involved with LinkedIn. It is similar to "7 degrees of Separation" in that through the network an individual can meet other people through people they know.

On LinkedIn, my network of people includes technology experts in China, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, India and the European Union.

I have connected with classmates and others across the country who can help me with my business venture or just reconnect as friends.

LinkedIn also provides the ability to be searched as many recruiters now use LinkedIn for Candidates.

You can find me on LinkedIn under this profile.

https://www.linkedin.com/e/wwk/620260/

DailyCandy

Business week just featured and article about the concept of media company's buying up websites and editorial content. Robert Pittman and their private equity firm have invested in an eNewsletter/website called www.dailycandy.com. There are specific on-line editions in 10 cities from New York, LA, Miami and next is Atlanta.

This eNewsletter and website allow for new trends in fashion, restaurants, entertainment to be marketed to a very valued target audience, mostly women 18-34 with income and spending power.

Business weeks says that this webzine may be worth as much as $100 million dollars.

The trick to the valuation is to have a very professional staff and approach including a professional editorial team and advertising sales team. The rate card for advertising in Daily Candy goes from a few thousand dollars per ad to the thirty thousand plus per city edition. DailyCandy claims more than one million subscribers.

Learing about Podcasts

I have been fortunate to have be able to learn about radio first hand during college as a disc jockey and sports director at my college radio station and during my summers working at WNBC radio in New York.

Podcasting is a simple way to get your message to an audience via your computer. I have been looking and thinking about doing my own podcasts for about a year now. I have been analyzing the options and learning as much as I can.

I have read Podcasting for Dummies, visited websites, traded e-mails with some of the individuals who created podcasting, listened to podcasts, etc.

Since the holiday season, when my children received iPods, I have been learning and using iTunes. I have also been talking to Audible.com about the books they have in MP3 format to see how I can develop and audio book.

Well, bottom line is that I believe I have begun to demystify this concept and can see clearly how businesses, authors, musicians can take advantage of developing their own podcasts. The trick as in everything will be on how to create an audience to promote it.

My plan is to have my first podcast produced shortly. I will detail some of the trials and tribulations about this.

eWarrior and Salesforce.com join forces

Back in 1997, when I first created the concept for eWarrior, I had combined my background of ten years at Home Box Office with my ten years of sales and marketing consulting to conceive of the new era of web and wireless based services for the sales professional and business executive. We started out working with WebEx and building a portal for sales professional.

We are excited to announce a new relationship with Salesforce.com using to bring our eWarrior philosophy to action. Salesforce.com is an application with "no software" to install to get up in running. In fact, we can conoConsult with companies throughout the world. Why is Salesforce.com so revolutionary? In the past, if you wanted to expand your business, you had to consider investments in hardware and support of network.

Here are some benefits to this type of solution:

1) Expand into a new market by just having a sales executive or new employee log in via the web.
2) Traditional companies had focus on just the sales aspect of the customer relationship. Salesforce.com extends this to a very powerful customer service component with “cases and solutions”.
3) Marketing – all e-mails sent out via salesforce.com are easily tracked back
4) Dashboard – There is a highly customizable executive dashboard to quickly see your business operations
5) Powerful deal forecasting – There are routines for powerful integration of this into your business.

As on the journey, Salesforce.com and eWarrior are still at the beginning of this journey. Ewarrior’s intention is to help evangelize these types of solutions. Over the next few months you will see information from this blog regarding that.