Fortunately or unfortunately I have just had the opportunity to ride out Hurricane Iselle on Maui. Now don't feel too sorry for me. The last few days have been incredible and honestly we dodged a major bullet as it looks like the storm has veered west southwest of the  islands. 

That all said the most impressive aspect of this whole experience has been how well we have been able communicate with our chosen airlines and hotels via Social Media. 

From Airlines flight updates and personal responses to our enquiries via Facebook and Twitter to the five minute response time from our hotel on the big island regarding potential changes to out reservations. All I can say is I am impressed. There is no doubt that Social Customer Service has come of age. 

So what's the take away. 

Simply put if you do not have social built into your Customer Service systems you are missing the boat big time. The days of toll free numbers are so last century. Customers want to use Social to interact with your brand and if you are not setup to respond back in a timely fashion you are not serving your customers. Worst of all your failures are broadcast for the world and your competitors to see. 

Salesforce.com has been pushing this for years and there were lots of people that chuckled and called it all marketing hype. 

Well I can tell you we have we just been on the receiving end of Social Customer Service done right and I can tell you that they were spot on. Social customer service is here, here to stay and Salesforce.com gets that.

The question is do you?

Great news from the blogosphere this week. You can now add Evernote for Salesforce.com to a custom object. Often in order to adapt Salesforce.com to better suite the workflows of our specific business we add custom objects.

In our Salesforce.com org we have a custom built Projects Object where we track Project Progress and all sorts of other client related information. It works great. That said another application we use extensively is Evernote. I have to admit I love this little app. It enables me to as my son says to "just remember stuff" and get to it from any device. 

When Evernote for Salesforce was first announced at Dreamforce '13 last November I was excited but at the same time a little disappointed by the fact that you could only associate Evernote Notes with Standard objects. 

Evernote have now published simple instructions on how to associate Evernotes with any custom object in Salesforce. 

Here is a link to the instructions. I warn you it does involve creating a VisualForce Page but hey its always good to learn new things. 

Add Evernote Business to Salesforce Custom Objects

There needs to be a point to data integration. Simply bringing in data and displaying it is not enough. Your business needs to have a plan for how that data will be used after it is integrated. 

Often I get the feeling that organizations treat Salesforce.com like some sort of data warehouse and then complain afterwards that producers aren't adopting the system. The majority of producers are not secretly hiding aspirations of being data scientists. The majority just want to service their existing book and make more money. 

Integrating back-end or third party data into Salesforce.com and hoping that suddenly it is going to inspire your producers to adopt Salesforce and put your agency on a pathway to success, is fools gold. 

So what's the answer? In a nutshell, you need to develop a plan for how the data is intended to be used. If you don't have a plan or a use, then don't integrate it. Success comes from making Salesforce.com part of a successful process and integrated data needs to have a clear role in that process. 

About the author
Andrew Bartels has been recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators with regard to implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. As a CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, he oversaw the deployment of a Salesforce.com system in 2010.  Over the next three years, he focused on customizing the system and implementing best practices for the insurance industry, ultimately generating a significant ROI for the firm.  Andrew brings years of hard fought experience to our clients so that they can accelerate their ROI in implementing Salesforce.com.

Lately I have had the opportunity to review a number of other CRM solutions built for professional services. My thoughts - impressive, great functionality, no ecosystem, whoa, and that's a non starter. You see that's what a lot of decision makers, especially in the insurance vertical, miss when comparing and evaluating SalesForce.com with other applications. Salesforce.com is the lynch pin of a ever expanding 'ecosystem' of functionality not included in the core Salesforce product.

Think about it in the context of an iOS or Android phone or tablet. What would a smart phone today be with out the innumerable apps that surround it? Its almost as if the fact that it makes phone calls is irrelevant. No amount of due diligence is going to protect you against what you don't know. Ever heard that saying, "it's not what you know that bites you but rather what you don't"? This is why selecting an application that is part of an ecosystem is so critical. Even though you might go through an extremely exhaustive selection process in order to ensure that the application does everything you need it to do today, in this ever changing global market place, it's almost impossible to predict your needs even two years ahead because lets face it, the future has not been invented yet. 

However, unlike functionality that allows you to play a phone like a flute, we are talking about business functionality. For example, marketing automation, social media listening, email mining etc, etc. Functionality that might not be critical to your business staying competitive today but absolutely will be in the future. I mean, could Blockbuster have foreseen that a technology like streaming videos would put them out of business in less than a decade? 

So what is the take away? Make sure you future proof your business by selecting a solution that has a platform on which applications can be developed by developers outside the company itself, to provide functionality for needs which your business will need to remain competitive in the future. SalesForce 'future proofs' your business by providing a platform and an AppExchange market place. Developers can develop applications and offer them for sale to the ever growing Salesforce user population. At last count there were more than 2,000 applications available in the AppExchange providing add on functionality to the core Salesforce product available. Some free while others are licensed on a per user basis. All applications have been fully vetted and passed through the Salesforce security review process and are guaranteed to work with all future releases of Salesforce. In addition, most can be installed and configured by a Salesforce Administrator within minutes. Compare this to having to contract with a developer to custom code the functionality you require. Never mind the initial development costs and just think about the long term maintenance overhead. Yes you could buy a stand alone product but then would it integrate with Salesforce or anything for that matter? 

So the next time you are asked to compare the Salesforce platform with another application, a good question to ask of the competing vendor is, "does your product offer 'future proofing' functionality by way of an ecosystem? Because Salesforce does." 

About the author
Andrew Bartels has been recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators with regard to implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. As a CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, he oversaw the deployment of a Salesforce.com system in 2010.  Over the next three years, he focused on customizing the system and implementing best practices for the insurance industry, ultimately generating a significant ROI for the firm.  Andrew brings years of hard fought experience to our clients so that they can accelerate their ROI in implementing Salesforce.com.

There's a tee shirt I've always wanted to make. It would go something like this. On the front would be the words "Salesforce Sold You the Gauge" and then on the back it would say "And We Made It Move." Ok have a laugh. The truth is that the back should say, "People Move the Needle." 

This is true about most things. You can implement all the technology you like, but ultimately it is a combination of that technology, focused strategy and discipline (aka management) that moves the needle and all of these aspects involve people. 

So what's the point? The point is that when it comes to investing in technology, whether it be Salesforce or any other, it is critical to remember that success will largely be driven by people. How people use the system. How they choose to perceive the system. Do they view the system as something that will assist them in achieving their goals or will they view it as an obstacle? These are not new questions and they are not specific to technology roll outs. They apply to any large scale initiative that affects large numbers of employees. Ever heard a co-worker say "Oh I think that's a silly idea. Nobody ever asked us what we thought."? My analysis of a comment like this has very little to do with the initative been disparaged. Rather it has everything to do with the fact that the employee feels disconnected from the initiative  They don't have a stake in its success and they don't understand the reasons behind it.

The bottom line is that as human beings we support initiatives we feel we have a stake in. Successful advertising and political campaigns are examples of this from the public sphere. I hear the skeptics out there saying "But you can't have the whole company on the implementation team." Ok then, think about it like this. The most successful example of this 'stakeholder' mentality are sports fans. Ultimately the fan has very little physical connection to the team but any of us that are one or know one realizes how vested they can be in their teams' success. Think of a Steelers Fan with their little yellow towel or the most loyal of all, a Dallas Cowboys fan. So let's remember how important it is to develop a strategy that encourages the user base to take a stake in the success of the project, whether it be Salesforce or any another important company wide initiative. 

Now, I will be the first to admit that this is not an easy goal to achieve and it won't be solved with a few glossy posters in the hallways. It will take a lot of work. That said, however, the payoff in terms of adoption if you can achieve 'buy in' are huge and will pay off for the life of the project. So when it comes to technology projects, sure think about customization, code and workflows but don't forget your people. 

About the author
Andrew Bartels has been recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators with regard to implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. As a CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, he oversaw the deployment of a Salesforce.com system in 2010.  Over the next three years, he focused on customizing the system and implementing best practices for the insurance industry, ultimately generating a significant ROI for the firm.  Andrew brings years of hard fought experience to our clients so that they can accelerate their ROI in implementing Salesforce.com.

I often read blogs and articles about about how best to use leads or accounts in Salesforce.com. Sometimes they are about how to qualify leads or accounts. Sometimes they contain guidance related to when to add a new opportunity. Don't get me wrong, all of this is critically important. However, when driving adoption of a new system, it is important to use the language of the new user.

What do I mean by this? What is this language of the new user? Well, what do leads, accounts and/or opportunities all have in common? Fundamentally they are all lists. Lists are something any user, new or experienced, can relate to. We make lists everyday whether it be in our personal lives to remember to buy milk or in our professional lives to plan a meeting or prioritize a set of tasks.

We make lists to remember because in our personal lives, forgetting has a down side such as no milk for breakfast. Lists keep us organized and the more organized we are, the more effective we tend to be. So ultimately if we approach leads, accounts and/or opportunities as lists and present them to producers as such then it can be shown that most producers, especially those new to Salesforce.com, will get it. They will better understand because what many producers seek is better organization. They want to be more efficient and get more done in the hours they have available. This is a great start to showing them how Salesforce.com can transform leads, accounts and opportunities into lists, which they can use to manage their day to day professional lives. 

So, how can we present leads, accounts and opportunities as lists? SalesForce.com has a great and I feel under utilized feature, named 'views'. 'Views' are by all intents and purposes lists with all sorts of great features that you might find in a tool like MS Excel. For example, you can sort columns in ascending or descending order. Users have the ability to create their own custom views containing only the columns they deem important and to add simple or complex filters to focus on just the records the user deems important. Additionally using the inline editing feature you can edit list information without ever leaving the page much as you would do in MS Excel. 

Ultimately, lists are about organization. Organization is about structure. Structure comes from systems. Successful sales persons are by definition not lucky rather they are disciplined and organized. Explore the methods of every successful sales person or producer and you will find a system. Whether it be an intricate system of paper files or a mastery of ACT, Goldmine or Excel. The stories of producers, who into their 70's still bring in a million dollars of new revenue, religiously have their assistant bring them their 'prospecting' files on a Tuesday morning abound in different forms through out the annals of successful brokerages. Ultimately these individuals are disciplined and organized. 

What differentiates lists in Salesforce.com from lists created in other forms are the tools and functionality that Salesforce.com wraps around lists. Not only are your lists instantly searchable but a list created in Salesforce.com has depth. Information entered as lists in Salesforce is instantly reportable and dashboard-able. So instead of being visible only to the creator, lists created in Salesforce can be shared or made visible to team members. As we all know that the fundamentals of building a 'book of business' are prospecting, up-selling and cross selling. In most cases collaboration and visibility is required to achieve success in these endeavors. Developing lists is the first step in putting in place the foundations of a successful prospecting, up- sell/cross sell strategy. 

So when one analyzes the objectives of both sales leadership and producers, you will quickly see from the above, that lists are a way to begin to achieve both sets of objectives. Producers for the most part want to sell more and increasing organization and structure are the beginnings of meeting that goal. Leadership wants visibility so that they can ensure that producers are focused on the agreed goals and objectives, while enabling them to coach and facilitate when needed. All in all when you connect Salesforce.com with the concept of lists you provide a win win environment that is easy to understand and get started with while allowing scalability and flexibility in the future. 

So when introducing Salesforce.com to producers make sure you use the language of the new user.

About the author
Andrew Bartels has been recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators with regard to implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. As a CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, he oversaw the deployment of a Salesforce.com system in 2010.  Over the next three years, he focused on customizing the system and implementing best practices for the insurance industry, ultimately generating a significant ROI for the firm.  Andrew brings years of hard fought experience to our clients so that they can accelerate their ROI in implementing Salesforce.com.

The great thing about running an agency today, is that all the tools now exist to enable you to position your agency as a thought leader in the minds of your prospects and customers.

So what are these tools?

• Website
  
• blog
  
• Twitter
  
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Once you have assembled your toolbox, you have all the resources in place to begin establishing your agency as a thought leader.

Although, there is still one thing missing and that is great content.

The days of creating sales brochure style content are over. Today great content must be useful and informative. It needs to be content that makes your customers go, "wow, that is really good information". Independent studies shows consumers are 60% through the buying decision before reaching out to an agent for help. No content no policy.

Now I know some may question, " Well isn't that the magic sauce? Are you not giving away all of your secrets?". To this my answer is always the same - if it was that easy then what value are you really bringing to the table? Your prospects would not need you as they would just do it themselves.

The reality is what you do is much more complex. You have invested blood and sweat in putting in place the procedures, the staff, the relationships with carriers that make your agency tick. Your objective is to have your customer or prospect choose you over another agent that has that same infrastructure in place. 

Your toolbox for effective thought leadership are the tools listed toward the beginning of this post. The information you share on your blog, which you then distribute via social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are your weapons in your battle against your competitors to be that #1 choice. Make sure you have good content in place to win it.

Recently I was reading an article discussing why Smart Televisions had not taken off with consumers.

One of the reasons identified, was the poor design of the remote control. Does anyone remember the Logitech remote with a full keyboard more suited for an office than your living room? Or the remote for the Google TV that had no less than 80 buttons? No wonder adoption was poor.

What's even more shocking, is that this new generation of devices was competing to try and replace the remote and user interface associated with the cable set top box, which is surely one of the worst user interface experiences ever.

The reality was, that even though learning how to use these new devices would provide consumers with access to a wealth of information and even though the TV engineers were competing to replace a much maligned incumbent, users still voted with their wallets. This demonstrated very clearly that they would not replace one poor experience with another.

This is a very similar scenerio to the outcome many agencies experience when they try to implement Salesforce.com. From the agency management perspective, they see the newly deployed Salesforce.com implementation, with its wealth of information and features, in a similar way to how the Google design team viewed 'Google TV' for consumers. And like Google, many agency management teams find themselves battling low adoption rates. Yes, they are replacing a system that in many agencies is nothing more than MS Outlook and Excel, but too often producers would much rather stay with what they know than change. Just like how over the years, consumers have learned how to find the shows they need to watch, despite the poor experience.

Change is hard and for any system to be adopted the user experience needs to be intuitive, easy to use and help deliver success for the producer from a 'Whats in it for me?' perspective. If you fail to deliver on any of these, your implementation faces a high probability of delivering low adoption and ultimately failing.

So what is the fix?

Whenever you look at Salesforce.com there are two different perspectives. The producer perspective and the management perspective. The root cause of many adoption issues originate with the decision to implement Salesforce.com from a management perspective. Huge amounts of effort are put into deciding what information needs to be collected and how that information will be displayed. This is exactly what happened with Google TV. As one reviewer put it, Google TV was designed by engineers for engineers. Google solved an engineering problem and at the same time forgot that in order to be deemed successful, the product needed to solve a consumers problem. Simply replace the word "engineer" with "management" and "consumer" with "producer" and there you have it. 

In my experience, the majority of producers, especially in Independent agencies, are quite happy with the status quo. So when the implementation team focuses on delivering what management needs without giving enough thought to how the producers will actually use the system on a daily basis, they are setting themselves up for failure. Going from a program like MS Outlook and/or Excel to an overly complex Salesforce.com implementation can be like going from your poorly designed cable remote to the 80 key Google TV remote. The intention might be good but if the change is just too overwhelming or the producer is left asking 'What's in this for me?' then as a result, adoption will be poor. 

If an agency is focused on driving adoption then they need to focus on understanding how their producers currently work and what their needs are. They need to customize Salesforce.com in such a way that it acts as an extension of a producer's day. The system needs to shout out, "how can I help you Mr. Producer?" or stated more simplistically, "How can I put more money in your pocket?" 

Approaching an implementation in this way, might actually mean that management might have to sacrifice some of what they want in Phase 1 in order to keep the interface simple. Shocking I know, but if you over-complicate producers' lives in Phase 1, you might never get to Phase 2. The beauty of implementing a platform like Salesforce.com as opposed to a traditional application is that it does not preclude you from adding additional complexity later. 

The moral of the story is that you can create a technically complex product with loads of "wiz bang" features and tons of super clever integration but still fail in your objective, which should be to create a tool that your producers will actually use. So, if you are thinking of implementing Salesforce.com in your agency, think like a consumer and not like a Google engineer. Make sure you focus on the needs of the producer first. 

At PSAdvisory we believe that we understand how Insurance Producers think and work. When we combine our understanding of Salesforce.com with our implementation framework which we call 'The 4 Quadrant Method' we believe that we provide your agency with the best possibility of success. 

If you are thinking of implementing Salesforce.com in your agency contact us and lets have a discussion. 

About the author
Andrew Bartels has been recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators with regard to implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. As a CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, he oversaw the deployment of a Salesforce.com system in 2010.  Over the next three years, he focused on customizing the system and implementing best practices for the insurance industry, ultimately generating a significant ROI for the firm.  Andrew brings years of hard fought experience to our clients so that they can accelerate their ROI in implementing Salesforce.com.

I often hear businesses or agencies discuss volume of 'visits' or if you prefer 'appointments' as a success determinant in the sales or cross sell process. Many of us know there is nothing like a face-to-face meeting with a decision maker to drive a deal forward. It is that magic period of time where you have the full and undivided attention of the person whom controls the fate of the opportunity. 

For so many organizations with outside representatives or producers this is one of the tangibles. Something you can measure. When I talk to sales managers this is always something that comes up as a factor in the success matrix because as the old adage goes, "with activity comes success."  Correct?

Well I would say maybe. You would assume that if there is lots of activity, lots of face time then success should follow; but, so often there is not a clear relationship between activity, face time and success. 

So I bet you're asking why? 

I would argue that there is a misunderstanding of the definition of a visit. Too often a visit is misidentified as a calendar event. That magical entry in the Calendar that denotes when you will physically arrive and meet a prospect. 

So what is the correct definition of a visit? 

By my definition a visit is a process. It is the process of planning what goes on prior to the actual calendar visit. It is what happens during the event itself and it is the actions that are executed following departure. The actual calendar event is only one part of a multi part process. Success is ultimately determined by the sum of those parts.

So if you agree that the planning and execution of a process is a key factor in a successful visit then the next question becomes how do you identify best practices and ensure that these best practices are replicated throughout your organization. 

This is where Salesforce.com can help. Yes, Salesforce can sync with Outlook, Google Mail or Lotus Notes but these are only events. What you really need is a business process that helps your representatives or producers plan, execute and follow up on prospect interactions. All of this can be done using the incredible set of tools that is the Salesforce.com platform. 

The take a way here is - focus on the process and not just the visit.