#i have a long grail pipeline now

[actual-haise]

CIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL

[mechanicalinertia]

STMPD Attempts To Plan 2023

In case you haven't caught on yet, I make posts like this more to plan out what I want to do for myself, as a fanfiction writer, than spoil what's next in the ol' pipeline. I'm discovering what comes next for this year at approximately the same rate you are.

And... look. I think I'm going to be much busier than I was in 2022. This year is going to be a part of my life where I undergo a lot of big changes, make a lot of big moves, and hopefully don't fuck up too badly in between all of that. Bearing that in mind, my new year's resolution was simply to write less fanfiction and write more real fiction for real people. And given circumstances, I'll probably end up fulfilling that imperative.

But I'll still produce content. It will be smaller, less ambitious, but it'll still be there. I'll still be here. So let's go over what I could work on:

Anatomy Of A Lovedoll: Ha. Could work on? Oh, STMPD, you silly goose. I need to finish this goddamn thing. I have one big epic fight scene to hack out, goodness only knows how long that will take, then one super-short epilogue and I'll have a really good Bubblegum Crisis fanfiction actually finished! Of course, I have to get that fight scene finished first, and that's tricky right now for some reason. I don't know why, but the blow-by-blow just isn't coming to me organically. I'm not giving up on it, but I could stand to work harder on this piece. It's worth finishing, it really is. It's one of the things I'm unironically glad I wrote. I just got to give it one final push.

Divine Patronage: I used to think this was a fic with a lot of views: then I saw how many views Edgerunners fics can get, and realized that I don't know what I'm talking about. Ranma is an old fandom, certainly not a dead one but not a big one by any means. But I haven't stopped having ideas for adventures Urd and Ranma could go on together. Urusei Yatsura, Tenchi Muyo, Patlabor, Dominon... all these 80's and 90's anime that just call out for silly crossovers where Ranma and some cute girl can save the day together. So I need to get back to this one, but is that what I really want to do after Anatomy? Or do I want to try something else? Such as:

Witch of Tranquility: This, actually, was my original plan for a sequel to Anatomy, one which looks like it'll take awhile to really get going. I'm less enthusiastic about it compared to when I first drew up the concept, mostly because in my head it leads into several more fics involving more Edgerunners characters doing stuff. In other words, it's a commitment bigger than I'm willing to commit to, at least in my head. Maybe I could write it as a standalone fic, but it's the kind of fic that doesn't end happily, it has a big ol' world-shaking alteration to the state of the world in the 2060's. I was designing it almost predicated on the promise of there being more adventures after it, but who's to say there will be? And even then, the question of whether I should focus on Edgerunners characters or BGC characters looms its head. I had one idea for a Reika Chang-centric fic in the 2060's continuity, and another involving Celia / Sylia's mother coming back from the dead in a manner akin to Prospera Mercury in Gundam, but I don't know if either of those would really work.

As-of-yet-unproduced Fate / Edgerunners crossover fic: A relatively simple idea: David and the Edgerunners crew end up in a Holy Grail War in Night City. David's Sandevistan is magical, has a catalyst and artificial magic circuits implanted in it, etc etc. I came up with this idea in an Edgerunners fanfiction discord, only for the author of motherfucking Group Chat, one of the most popular Edgerunners fanfics out there, to turn out to be a huge Fate-head as well. I said I probably didn't have it in me to write it, and Arrow said he's interested in writing the fanfic. So I could theoretically just act as a creative consultant. Only... several people on forums think the idea is a bad one, and that it should be inspired by Fate/Extra instead, perhaps even eliminating David from the fic entirely. Which, since I know next to nothing about Extra's sub-canon, I don't really want to do. Well, we'll see if anything comes of the project. I'm excited for it, especially since I think David's drives are similar to Shirou's in crucial and interesting ways.

Fanfic Reviews: Sometime in the later months of 2022, I became convinced that I had run out of reviewable Bubblegum Crisis fanfic that I could recall without having to read too much of something I hated. But that's a falsehood. The number of review drafts I've got on tumblr speaks to that. Now, as tempting as it is to try to review a behemoth like YT2032 or something like that, I don't really feel ready to do that right now. Instead, what I really ought to do is start moving more reviews from drafts to complete posts, finish up what I can easily review and then go there. I reviewed a lot of fanfics over the past year, and it was a fun pastime, helped me get a better sense of what I want out of BGC fan content. So yeah, I need to get back to doing some more fluffy fic reviews.

Silly Miscellanea: Omakes, short stories - anything to get the ol' creative juices flowing. I have this fragment of a thing where Priss, Linna, and Nene talk about 3D printing as it might exist in the 2060's and how technology rarely disrupts the fundamental foundations of society anymore, this whole sci-fi philosophy discharge that could work as a short bit. I had this idea for a story in the vein of early 2010's battle harem high school light novels where Sho from OVA 3 grows up and leads the next generation of Sabers. I keep thinking it might be cool to explore the friendship between Reika and Linna once or twice. Stuff like that.

So: Will I end up writing any of these potential projects? Well, Anatomy's a given, the fanfic reviews are a given, but after that I honestly don't know. We'll see how the year shakes out, and if I find that I have the time to do more than just those projects - if I get to help write a fate fanfic, if I continue Divine Patronage, if I do anything else at all - then so much the better, right?

Yeah.

[versegm]

Holy Grail War where Guda is their summoner's weird back-alley encounter one night, then ghosts them for two days straight without an explanation and then seamlessly sets themselves up in the next-door apartment. They never explain what a holy grail is, and they're human-passing if they take sufficient precautions, and five months in it's just them and one enemy servant left. Guda goes drinking with them every Tuesday.

The first time you meet your new neighbor, you almost have a heart attack.

“Ma’am! Do you need any help with that?”

Face mask, sunglasses, leather gloves. They stand hover above you, and it dawns on you that you’re about to get mugged.

“No, no, it’s fine.” You steel your spine and straighten your back- and immediately wince. Old age has not been kind to you. “I’m fine. Really.”

The youth chuckles- they sound genuinely amused. Since you can barely see their face at all, you can’t read any of their emotions. It’s unnerving. “Don’t be silly, ma’am.” They take hold of the heaviest of your grocery bags. “Where do you live? I’ll walk you there.”

And you can’t really do anything but agree, can you? Ah, it has been a good life, at least. You suppose there are worse ways to go than...

... actually guided home by a yakuza? Who bids you goodbye and just leaves?

... Wait, they were being honest with the offer to help?

*

The youth, you learn quickly (for there is no better intel than old lady gossip) goes by Ritsuka Fujimaru, is probably not part of any yakuza group, and works part-time at the okonomiyaki place down the street.

Their apartment is also two rooms away from yours, which is why you keep running into them.

“Ma’am!” They wave at you excitedly. Their face is still covered. Apparently, they’re just that allergic to showing any important patch of skin. “You shouldn’t stay around these parts, ma’am. Haven’t you heard? A pipeline exploded yesterday.”

Huh, really? There has been a lot of these kind of accidents lately. You didn’t know another one exploded in the area.

This city really needs to get it together. You remember another serie of accidents like this when you were a kid. You’d think in sixty years infrastructure would get better.

“Ma’am! Ah, it’s good to see you sticking to safe paths.”

“Ma’am! Ah, you really ought to check the news! The next street is closed up! It shouldn’t last long, but better safe than sorry, right?”

“Ma’am! Let’s walk home together! I just finished my shift. Are you coming back from the market?”

“Ma’am! This looks heavy, do you need help? Oh, this is new! How do you cook that?”

*

One day, you go out, and you don’t see them. You don’t bat an eye.

The next day, they’re still not here. It’s not the first time that happens.

The next day, still no Fujimaru. Now this is a little weird.

The next day, they’re still absent. You’re getting worried.

“They’re on sick leave.” The okonomiyaki place tells you. “They should be back by tomorrow.”

Sick?

You frown. They’re a weird folk, but you’ve grown to like the youngster. Do they even know how to take care of themself? You remember when you were just getting started into adulthood and boy that wasn’t pretty.

So, you walk determinedly to the youth’s apartment, and knock.

At first there is silence. Then a ruffled sound. Then, a voice. “One moment!”

So you wait.

... quite some time.

After what seems like an eternity, but most likely was only a minute, the door opens up. “Hi ma’am! What brings you here?” And you can’t help but flinch.

They look the same as usual. Sunglasses, face mask, and gloves. The same, no sicker, no healthier.

Three scars like slashes come across their right eye.

They have a sheepish laugh. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t have time to put on my make-up.”

Make-up? To cover the scars?

You look them over. Sunglasses, face mask, gloves. At first you’d assumed they were some kind of delinquent. At first you’d assumed they didn’t want to be recognized.

Ah, sorry. I didn’t have time to put on my make-up.

Ah.

You think you understand now.

“... Would you like to have dinner with me?” Originally, you wanted to bring them some chicken soup and be done with it, but what little of their apartment you can see behind them seems... unfit to host people. You wonder how they manage to live in it. It’s just... so full. Toys and tools and papers as if they could barely focus on one task at once. Where did they even fit their bed?

“Ah.” They click their tongue. “That’s very nice, ma’am, but I don’t think-”

“I’ll look the other way while you eat.” You say. “If you really don’t want me to see your face.”

They stay silent. For a few seconds, you can’t even hear them breathe.

“...Okay.”

*

It starts with chicken soup on a sick day. Then it turns into a small chat every two week. Then a meal every week. 

After two months, you’ve gotten into the habit of hosting Fujimaru over twice a week.

They’re comfortable enough to remove their sunglasses when you’re the only one here, now. One of their eye is blank. The other one rarely ever focuses on you when you speak to them.

Weirdly enough, their eye is about the least interesting thing about Fujimaru.

"And there! That’s how you make mocassins.” They’re beaming. You can’t see their mouth, but you’re sure they’re smiling. “Friend of mine taught me how to make these.”

“You seem to have a lot of odd friends.” 

“Oh, definitely. But that’s just how life is, y’know?”

Somehow, you get the feeling that their life isn’t exactly what you’d call “average.”

*

It takes another month for them to take off the face mask.

... Huh.

“Hyperdontia.” That’s the only explanation they give you. You don’t press them. Not about their teeth, not about their eye, not about their soot-like skin under their gloves. From what you’ve seen, it’s a miracle that Fujimaru ended up somewhat functional despite whatever stacked that many scars on them.

“Say, ma’am,” they ask between two bites of food, “if you could have any wish fulfilled, what would you want?”

“A wish?” You raise an eyebrow. “I’m a little old to believe in genies, don’t you think?”

“Humor me.” They set their chin on their palm. “Any wish at all. What would you wish for?”

Any wish...

A few months back, you’d probably have answered ‘a friend,’ or something cheesy like that. Life can be... lonely, when one is as old as you, with no kid or nephew to speak of.

But now, well...

“... no, I can’t think of anything. I’m good.”

They blink. Evidently, they were not expecting that answer.

“... You’re a good person, you know that?”

Their teeth are long and sharp. Somehow, it doesn’t stop their smile from being incredibly sweet.

*

Fujimaru has a friend.

Well, multiple, obviously. Fujimaru looks kind of scary at first, but give them the occasion to chat you up, and they will not let you leave unfriended. But what you mean by that is that Fujimaru has a friend.

“I saw Caster the other day!” They always look giddy talking about Caster. You’re hesitant to call it puppy love, but evidently, this person means a lot to them. 

Here’s what you know about Caster:

- They act like an old man

- They look young enough that Fujimaru has to be the one to buy alcohol when they hang out

- They’ve got Opinion on writing

“So, you write too, Fujimaru?” You ask, after the third time they retell you about some writing discourse or another.

“Mh? Oh, yeah. sometimes.” They rub the back of their neck. “Well, not really. There’s just this one thing I’ve been writing over and over again, so.”

(They do that a lot. Repetitive things, you mean. Sometimes, they repeat something they’ve just told you. Sometimes, they do the same action twice, thrice in a row, as if they’d forgotten they’d already done it.)

(The scars on their face looks deep. You think they might have some mild brain damage, but again, this isn’t your place to ask.)

“What is it about?” You ask, because you’re genuinely interested.

They look down, and seem suddenly very interested in scratching the underneath of their nails.

“... It’s a little silly.” They finally say. “I had this friend, you see.”

You nod. Do go on. For all the time you’ve spent with Fujimaru, you know surprisingly little about their past.

“He was great. Incredible! He knew so much. And he was kind! And resourceful. He could always get someone out of a bind even when himself had next to nothing to work with. I owe him a lot.”

“He sounds pretty great.”

They nod excitedly. “That’s who I’m writing about. My friend.” They pause, for a second, as if unsure if they should continue. When they speak again, their voice is a little lower, as if telling a secret.

“There is power in stories, you know? If it’s written down, then it’s real. In a way. Not real real. But real in a way that matters. Once a story is weaved, you can’t unmake it. Even if no one knows of it. Even if it gets burned down afterwards. There is power in stories.”

It’s a good thing that they don’t ask you if you’ve understood, because you certainly hadn’t. But they go on.

“That’s what I’m writing about. My friend. I’m writing a story about him. Some meaningless slice of life thing. A regular day at work. Getting coffee in the morning. Saying hi to his daughter. Feeling the wind on his face. That’s what I’m writing. Normal life stuff.”

They tilt their head back, look at your roof.

“... It’s the least I can give to him. It’s the only thing I can give to him. A story in which he lives.”

*

It’s been six months since you’ve met Fujimaru, when they ask you with the utmost seriousness: “Do you believe in lucky charms?”

“As much as the next person.” You shrug. It’s very much a maybe maybe not to you. You don’t care all that much.

“Okay. That’s good.” Fujimaru smiles. It’s weird, how used you’ve become to these teeth. How comforting the sight of scars can become. “See, there’s this one lucky charm I wanted to give you. Something of a spell if you ever need me and I’m not here.”

? Well, why not. It wouldn’t be the strangest of Fujimaru’s quirks.

“Okay, listen up. Don’t repeat what I’m going to say. You can only say it one day where you really mean it, okay?” They lean towards you and cup their hands around your ear. Their breath is almost anormaly warm. “It goes something like this. By the power of my Command Spell, I ask of you...”

[andyctwrites]

Selling Your Story – Peaks and Pitfalls of Publishing Contracts

Points to consider when deciding if a Publisher is the right fit for you.

Landing a publishing contract is the Holy Grail for many creators who set their sights on “breaking in” to comics, and it’s understandable as to why this is the case…

It’s a big ego bump for starters. Someone external, has recognised your work as good enough to be associated with, promote and sell. In terms of logistics, publishers have established distribution and promotional tools at their disposal and should have a bigger voice than you alone to share your creation with their customer base. As an independent creator, associating yourself with something bigger can also boost your profile – Like a more positive version of joining a gang in prison (I’d imagine). 

The subject of publisher relations with creators, differential deals and the fairness of agreements became the subject of debate across comics twitter recently. Voices of creators and collaborators I have a great deal of respect for came out to talk about their views on several publishers with messages of both condemnation and support. Wider spread trends led to a number of freelance workers actively sharing what they had been paid for projects. While there’s no need to pick through a debate which is easily searched, I’ve been thinking a great deal on the subject of publisher contracts.  Specifically, how an independent creator can review and consider what publishers are offering more critically in the hope they secure favourable terms, or at very least don’t feel regrets down the line as items not considered at the time of signing come home to roost.

I’ve sat to write this piece in the hope it sparks more discussion and helps those working in the small press scene, which I love, ask the right questions and considering offerings from publishers who show interest in their work.  Hopefully I’ve made it accessible and not hideously dull.  

Before we take a step further, let’s cover a few notes and caveats here:

Who is this guy? – I’m Andy Conduit-Turner a writer and extremely small name, in all but letter count, in UK indie comic publishing. The chances are, that if we’ve not met, you’ve not heard of me.

My comics contracting experience is primarily limited to drafting my own commissioning contracts to engage with collaborators for comics I have written, and in licencing short stories which I’ve written to appear in anthologies and other mediums produced by others. At the time of writing, I have neither signed with, or been rejected by any major (or minor) comics publisher and am not providing comment on any observed content which may or may not appear in a publishing agreement from any given company. 

I am, neither a qualified legal professional or literary agent. In the event any contract you ever receive for any purpose is of extreme importance, investing in the support of a qualified person with greater industry experience is of far greater value than anything you’ll read here. 

Outside of comics, my professional career and other personal projects over the last decade have seen me review, interpret, question, edit and respond to countless legal agreements for a variety of purposes. This has left me with a wealth of experience in considering longer term impacts for both the purchasing and suppling parties of service agreements – I’ve spent a great deal of time having both commercial and capability-based discussions prior to contracts being signed.

This is by no means an anti-publisher piece – Regardless of where you stand on recent publishing discussions, I’ve no desire to create an Us (Creators) vs Them (Publishers) sentiment here. There are countless publishers who are passionate about sharing creator’s stories, invest significantly and add a great deal of value to both individual projects and the industry as a whole. No reputable publisher is out to trick creators or deliberately give them a raw deal.  That said, as with many transactions, a publisher is a business with an end goal of limiting liability and generating revenue in both the short and long term – Depending on your ideological feelings, this isn’t necessarily an inherently evil objective, and it’s how publishers remain in business. 

Your publishing contract is equally not a formality, a magnanimous offer from a friend with nothing to gain from the arrangement, and your unconditional ticket to success and acclaim. Different deals will work for different creators – A good deal to one will be an unacceptable deal for someone else and there are few terms which would be universally perfect or awful for everyone. I’d hope through these pages I can maybe help you consider your offers, ask necessary questions and make decisions you’re comfortable with for your own circumstances.

Negotiation carries risks – Especially within the sphere of indie publishing, there are a couple of truths we need to reflect on.

1. Comics are an attractive and exciting creative medium for people to get into. Especially if a publisher is welcome to unsolicited submissions, they are likely to have no shortage of people interested in publishing with them.

2. Many publishers aren’t huge organisations. In the event a member of their core team is not already a legal professional, it’s unlikely they will have a legal department on their staff to directly manage adjustments to legal documents and agreements.

What this boils down to is that, many publishers may simply not have the resources or interest in negotiating or adjusting a contract with you – There’s every chance that the offer made to you is non-negotiable. While I’d argue that the withdrawal of an offer in response to a question asked or statement challenged in good faith is indicative of the professionalism of the organisation in question, you should be prepared for the fact that being the squeaky wheel may not land you the deal you want, and may take the one you have off the table. 

A Note on NDAs and Market Norms

NDAs, or Non-Disclosure Agreements are very common, as part of, or prior to contracting in many industries. They are typically used to protect (in this case publishers’) private or proprietary information concerning their business practises, contracting terms, project pipeline and pay rates private and confidential. They are a routine consideration and not indicative of any sinister goings on.  In keeping with professional conduct, if you sign an NDA you should, of course, respect its conditions though here are a few considerations and questions you may ask or confirm however.

1: Is the NDA mutually beneficial – While you are agreeing not to share the details of a publisher’s business and offer outside involved parties, does the signed NDA bind the publisher to offer you the same regardless as to whether the end result is a signed publishing agreement?

Are there stated commitments to your work remaining confidential and not circulated to other outside parties during your negotiations? What commitments are made to the return / disposal of any project details or materials shared should an agreement not be finalised.

Additionally, can you expect details on deals you accept in terms of up front remuneration, percentage splits on profits and additional contract terms to remain confidential?

2: Pitch exclusivity – Are there any expectations, formal or otherwise that you should not pitch your comic elsewhere until negotiations have been concluded?

3: Your right to advice – No NDA should prevent you taking appropriate professional advice before signing any final agreement.

Rules on business competition internationally, already provide a great deal of legislation to ensure businesses to remain competitive and prevent illegal practises such as price fixing and market sharing. While market norms may dictate and guide the offers you’re likely to receive competing businesses should not mutually agree to adhere to set fees or conditions. At this point I’ll pause and note that I don’t hold the market specific professional knowledge to apply Anti-Trust and similar business competition legislation to publishing contracts – These should be forefront of a publisher’s mind when managing confidentiality of contract content.  

So…With all of that now said (in painstaking detail) let’s get into this shall we

What’s in this for you?

So, you’ve pitched your book to a publisher and they’re interested in working with you? Great news! Now comes the time when you need to consider what you want to get from your potential partner, and consider, realistically, what you’ll accept. For many creators your wants and expectations may include:

Contribution to production costs. Particularly for writer led teams, an ability to appropriately pay artists, colourists, letterers, editors and other professionals make up the bulk of comic production costs even before downstream logistics such as printing, marketing and distribution come into play.  Many publishers may state up front whether this is a model they can support. Initial production costs add to the overall risk and increase the volume needed to sell before profits are realised.   Consider – Landing a publisher may not relieve you of the need to raise personal funds or take to Kickstarter. 

Upfront royalty payments. A noble dream for some, though likely only realised by more established creators. Belief in your project will need to be high to warrant an upfront payment to the creator for a book prior to a single copy being sold Consider – Manage your expectations here, how promising is your pitch? Do you have a track record of success that offsets the risk of an upfront pay out?

Percentage Profits – This is likely to be a long-term arrangement of any publishing deal whereby the creator and the publisher acting a licence holder take an agreed % split of future profit revenue generated from the project – Profits from what exactly we’ll come to later.  Consider – There’s no way around this, any additional step in the process here are going to reduce the by unit revenue you receive per each sale. By working with a publisher, the benefit to you is that they support you in, ideally, selling more copies than you would alone.

Production and logistical support – Sure, you know writing, art or whichever your creative field may be, but there’s every chance that your publisher is more familiar with the processes involved with getting your book into people’s hands.  With established relationships with suppliers and retailers your publisher may also be able to optimise the per unit profit on your book sales, in addition to increasing your potential audience through supply networks and wider convention attendance.

In some cases, your publisher may also take a creative role in the process, appointing an editor, or suggesting changes to make a book more marketable in their experience – We’ll also return to this point later.

Comic Financials - Hypothetical example – Comic X

Working without a publisher

You as creator spend £2000 on the production of your comic  (Art, letters, colour, whatever!) Print volumes allow you to obtain copies of your book at £2 per copy

You price your book at £5 per copy Let’s then also assume a modest spend of £200 on website, and attending some local cons, and you break even on Postage and Packing. Under this model you’ll see a profit on your creation once you sell your 734th copy of Comic X. This assumes you sell exactly all of your stock and are left with no additional copies which you’ve paid to have printed, but not yet sold. Let’s make this a tiny bit more complex and suggest that you diversify from selling physical copies online and at cons alone. You begin selling digital copies via an established digital store front at £3. You also connect with local comic retailers who agree to carry copies of your comics in store. To keep this simple and not lose the remaining 3 people this dive into maths hasn’t lost already let’s assume that your sales across all avenues equal out to 1/3 each, and once again all copies you produce will sell. The digital sales have no print cost but the digital storefront takes 50% of the sale price

The stores agree to purchase copies of your book from you for £4, creating a 33% share on profit after print costs.

Under this scenario, Comic X will officially be profitable after around 245 direct physical sales, 489 digital sales and 367 sales via stores.

Working with a publisher

Under this model, we’ll assume that you as a creator invested the same £2000 in production costs but nothing further, leaving the publisher to manage the printing along with costs for attending conventions etc.

Outside of the numbers here, your publisher is also the party taking the risk regarding the volume produced if any copies go unsold. The trade off is that your publisher will take a percentage of any profits before they reach you. For this example, let’s say you agree on 50% revenue share and receive no contribution to production costs or any upfront payment.

For argument sake, let’s assume your publisher secures the same unit costs and margins (though you’d hope they may be able to negotiate better through volume purchasing). Understanding a publisher’s direct cost with con attendance, and marketing when applied to a single book is a level of hypothetical we won’t attempt here.

Focussing on you as a creator, under the same sales methods used in the non-publisher model you would begin to see profit on your production investment of £2000 from publisher paid royalties after 445 direct sales, 889 digital sales and 667 in store sales.

After all this talk of money, the first thing to recognise is that it isn’t everything to all creators. Many will consider the long-term goals of building an audience as a pathway to bigger and better things, or simply an investment in their creative hobby. Those with realistic aspirations will likely not expect to anything resembling a profit from their early books (save perhaps for those with the skills to produce a comic entirely alone or with collaborators satisfied with payment purely from sale revenue). For many creators, having a partner who ensures copies of their books get into people’s hands, minimising their own administrative efforts is the goal.  

What is critical is to do your own calculations, consider your goals along with level of financial investment and energy you have to invest in selling your own book. In this simplified example, we’ve not considered the accuracy of print orders vs sales, tax applications or eligible rebates or potential publisher costs deducted from profits to account for their operational expenses, but it should give you a loose model to consider your own investment against.

Potential Questions – Depending on your financial and creative motivations

What sales numbers does the publisher consider to be a success? Assuming the publisher will set sale price – What margin do they consider acceptable vs costs? What sales avenues does the publisher use? Does the publisher have established relationships with distributors and retailers with agreements to carry their stock? If so, what regions and countries do they have distribution networks within? Which electronic store fronts does the publisher make books available via? What volume of conventions, in which locations, does the publisher typically attend? Are they willing to share any statistics on which platforms generate the strongest sales? How, if at all, are publisher overhead costs factored into overall sale profits for division between publisher and creator? Does the agreement permit the creator to obtain copies of the publication at cost, or discounted rates for either personal use or onward sale? What marketing methods do the publisher deploy to promote new and existing content? Does the agreement, place any expectations or limitations on the actions of the creator to promote the comic? Does the agreement commit the publisher to any minimum volume of books to be produced for sale, or resources allocated to promote the publication?

What’s in this for them?

Now we come to the other half of the deal. In working with a publisher, you grant your partner certain rights in potentially both the short and long term. Understanding the rights, you’re happy to sign away and the long-term implications can be key points in your decision-making process.

Your potential publisher may request some of the following:

Percentage Profits on book sales – This is a given and how your publisher will make the most immediate return on backing your comic and investing in its production or distribution

Editorial and creative direction – While some publishers may primarily take on completed projects, others may provide editorial input. For many creators, this may be beneficial professional, input to improve the project overall.  Consider – When you engage an editor privately as a self-published creator, the final decision on how you incorporate your editor’s feedback is your own. A publisher driven edit may take the final creative control out of your own hands. As with many aspects in this section this can be a positive, but it is something you should consider and make peace with before you agree to your publishing deal.

Revenue on sale of promotional and licensed goods – As part of your agreement, your publisher may gain rights to produce and sell a variety of goods associated with your comic. For a small press projects, this could be as simple as prints, postcards and pins made available as add on purchases, but an agreement could equally account for additional 3rd party licensing. Consider – From a financial perspective do you retain a share of the profits from the sale of promotional or licensed goods? Is the rate in line with the percentage you earn from book sales? Depending on the answer to these questions, if your book is successful and lends itself to popular merchandise, you’ll potentially see a larger return on your production investment more quickly, in time you may even see more royalties from the tasteful sets of commemorative glassware your story has produced than the book itself.  From a creative standpoint, you need to consider that you are likely giving up a degree of control here. If you’ve strong feelings that series logo should never appear on a tote bag, this is potentially something your deal may remove your option to veto in the future.

Adaptation rights – In licensing your comic for publication, your publisher may request rights concerning the adaptation of your comic into other mediums.  These rights may extend to written and audio productions, stage, television and film versions and interactive media such as video games. The requested rights may be inclusive of both financial benefits of licensing for alternative mediums and overall creative control in the adaptation for other media.  Consider – If you’re a creative person with hands in other media, be it a keen filmmaker or an apprentice of coding, you may wish to seek to retain your own rights to pursue alternative interpretations of your story. Particularly in fields you have interest in.  This may also be the time to consider how you would feel about any alternative take on your work with which you may have no creative involvement or influence over. 

Sequel / Spin-off Rights – In agreeing to publish your project your publisher may also requests rights relating to production of related projects, both in comics or other media (as detailed above). These rights may include first review and option to license the new publication prior to it being offered to other publishers, the right to engage the creative team professionally to actively work on a related publication, or potentially engaging a separate creative team.  Consider – As with the above point, your decision on agreeing with these terms will depend on your overall attachments to the project and your own long-term plans for ongoing related stories.  If the idea of having limited or no control on how your original story grows into future projects gives you cold sweats, this is a right you’ll need to consider your comfort with, before you sign. How important is having ongoing control to you?

Potential Questions – Depending on your financial and creative motivations

What history does the publisher have with facilitating adaptation of comics to other media? Does the agreement, obligate or limit the creator in efforts to adapt the publication for other media? Does the publisher actively seek opportunities for property adaptations, or is this handled ad hoc as interested parties approach the publisher as licence holder? Does the publisher’s right to financial share in adaptation driven revenue differ in the event that the publisher take no active role in adapting or pitching the an adaptation of the property? What rights do the publisher hold regarding the sale or transition of publishing or ongoing licensing rights to a third party?

Overall, considering the ongoing rights and control a creator or creative team is willing to hand over to a publisher will be a critical point for many in making a decision before signing an agreement. How you perceive the value of publisher input, a potential reduction in creative control and your confidence in the long-term potential of your story will be key points in influencing what you’re comfortable in conceding in exchange for the benefits your publisher brings to the table. 

The Finer Details

With the main points of your agreement carefully reviewed, it’s time to consider the ifs and buts, concerning the terms and limitations of your agreement.

Time – How long does your agreement grant the stated rights to your publisher? A set period? A set period with right to extend or first refusal to negotiate extension on similar terms or terms related to performance? Indefinite? Location – Are publication rights granted internationally or only in certain territories? Does your selected publisher have capabilities to market and distribute in all stated territories?  If not, do they actively seek third party partners to distribute successful publications in additional territories?

Obligations – Are there stated timings for release, efforts to market, volumes sold, or stock made available for purchase a publisher must maintain to retain the license to your comic? Remuneration and Reporting – How frequently are royalties calculated and paid to the creator or creative team? Are there lower and upper limits to disbursement amounts? What reporting does your publisher provide to indicate gross profits leading to creator revenue share? Specifically, when it comes to matters of accounting. If you intend to maintain a financial interest in the performance of your work, appropriate transparency of accounting may be essential to understand your publisher’s level of investment and gross earnings before final profits are divided? Most organisations should permit you a right to audit, but be mindful of the conditions applied. Permitting a deep audit via the appointment of an official accountant able to review documentation on a publisher’s premises may fulfil legal obligations but creates an immediate pay wall for you as an independent creator, whose initial earnings on a single book may not warrant the investment.

If your potential publisher is able to provide sample reporting, you can accommodate yourself with the level of detail prior to signature and assure yourself that the level of transparency meets your level of interest.

Legal obligations – In addition to any submission conditions when you pitched your book, signing a publishing agreement will almost certainly involve your further verification that the work is your own and indemnify your publisher from any obligation or responsibility should this statement prove inaccurate in the future.  In addition to the obligations on the creator, take note of any commitments made by the publisher to protect the IP you are licensing to them, and potential indemnity from any actions arising from material changes to the work or subsequent adaptation upon which the publisher, or their representative exercises creative control.

Limitations and release – Tied to the any limitations relating to time or location stated in your contract, it’s also worth noting any other terms which would lead to overall rights being returned back to the original creator or creative team.  The most commonly anticipated reason for this would be publisher insolvency, though in some cases a struggling publisher with the appropriate rights could look to sell on any held licensing rights to a third party to raise capital prior to this occurring (assuming your agreement permits this). Clauses that benefit the creator in this area could speak to the minimum level of production or service provided to promote your comic, which if not met over an extended period results in the rights returning to the creator to pitch elsewhere or develop further with no further obligation to the publisher, thus holding your publisher to a higher degree of accountability for your book’s ongoing performance. Another alternative may represent a defined buy out clause, permitting the creative team to release themselves or further obligation to a publisher by either ensuring a pre-defined return on the publisher’s initial investment or a sum equal relevant to the book’s performance.   The latter examples, I’d anticipate would be less frequent in their appearance within standard contract language, however these may be some of the most essential inclusions for a creator who is invested in the long-term management and performance of their work.

For an example, we’ll return to Comic X…

Worst case scenario…

Joe Creator, writer of Comic X, signs a publisher agreement granting licencing rights, inclusive of, merchandise, sequel and adaptation control and financial rights irrevocably to a publisher.

Joe’s agreement sees the creator receive 50% of Net profits from book sales but nothing from any additional licensing or merchandising unless directly engaged by the publisher to work on this new content under a separate agreement.  The publisher will manage distribution and printing costs but does not contribute to the initial creation cost for artwork and associated tasks.

The rights will return to Joe only should the publisher file bankruptcy or should they fail to produce any volumes of the work within a defined period following initial project completion.

With no minimum term of service, the publisher fulfils their obligation to Joe through a short production run of 50 copies of their book, which are not directly marketed by the publisher but organically sells 30 copies through their inclusion on the publisher’s stand at conventions. The remaining 20 copies are sold at stock clearance reduction prices and do not recoup their print costs. The book is not listed digitally or marketed to any retailers. In the end of his first year since publication, the royalties owed to Joe from the profit share fall well below the minimum payment threshold and no payment is made.

In the five years that follow, the book remains listed on the publisher’s store front as “Out of Stock” and based on performance no further print runs are ordered.  

Meanwhile, Joe continues to build career momentum through well received subsequent releases, published independently and interest in obtaining adaptation rights for Joe Creator properties hits public consciousness.  Having secured irrevocable licencing rights the publisher secures a lucrative 3 series deal with Netflix adapting Joe’s original Comic X series. Netflix opts to use their own writing team, whose agents ensure they are recognised as lead creatives.  A credit listing “Based on Comic X by Joe Creator” appears at the end of the opening credits, but everyone skips these.

With the Netflix series differing significantly from the original Comic X, rather than reprint the original, the publisher opts to engage a different creative team to spin off a new ongoing series based more closely on the aesthetic and themes of the new Netflix creation. The financial impact to Joe from creating the original work remains fundamentally minus £2000 as the £35 owed to Joe in previous revenue falls below the minimum payment threshold. This is an extreme example, played up for the sake of hyperbole, but hopefully it illustrates the point Consider your conditions carefully, what you gain, what you give away, and the level of effort your publisher commits to you. and finally. 

Know who you’re dealing with - Know your own worth

Throughout previous sections, I’ve encouraged creators to consider what they want from a publisher, what they are happy to give in exchange and the finer details of agreements.

I’ll leave you with a (mercifully) briefer point by encouraging both research and self-reflection. Your research on a publisher should not begin and end with “Who is accepting pitches?”

Consider the fit of your project within their body of work.

Meet and connect with other creators who’ve worked with them and politely request their feedback.

Look at publisher’s company performance and makeup with resources such a Companies house or Endole. Do they appear financially stable? How large is their team? What other interests to their leadership team have?

Look at publisher’s websites and social media platforms, how are they marketing? How large is their reach? How much interaction do you see with their posts? How large is their portfolio?

Measure your own, time, resources, and reach against your potential publishers and consider objectively and, in quantifiable terms wherever you can, how you measure up.  If you’re brining a sizable or active existing audience with you to a publisher this may enhance your ability to negotiate.

To wrap up I’ll say, that I hope the last, almost 5000 words *Jeez* have been of some value, whatever your experience of creating or publishing to date. I by no means consider myself an authority on anything so would be delighted if this sparks further conversation and discussion from others who may add more specific examples and considerations which may help others chasing the goal of having published work out in the wild.

I’ll return to one of my opening points that there are some fantastic publishers doing incredible work in the indie comic scene and making books possible that would otherwise never see the light of day. For indie creators, whether a publishing deal is a Holy Grail or a Poison Chalice will likely remain up to the individual and determined by how circumstances play out.  If this helps just one person, take pause, consider their options and make an informed choice it will have been worth the effort.

[dailydoseofcolor]

Taking Stock of Units and Resources in Fire Emblem Heroes, Part 1

Okay, so I have been meaning to take stock of my barracks in Fire Emblem Heroes for....a while now. Being mostly F2P, I get so distracted by how shiny everyone’s exclusive 5*+10 units, and I need to start focusing more on the units I really care about and want to use and can feasibly obtain. The problem is that I have very strong collector tendencies and the indecision to actually use premium fodder for characters I care about. However, something about the remarkable weirdness going on in the game around this update (very likely COVID-related), I actually feel like I’m able to pause and peek under the hood a bit. I have all 10 free summon tickets ready to rip on the new banner, and I want to set my priorities straight going forward. 

So, this is going to be a long, rambly post of me taking stock of what I have, what I want, and what I can safely send home. Also, I am currently what they call in the biz ~highly caffeinated~ which is why this is an ideal time to do this. 

Let’s go. 

Let’s start with....resources. Let’s see what we’re working with. 

Orbs: 82 base; 14 in Feh Gifts; Several hundred in Chain Challenges... if I grind

Obviously I need to up my stockpile. I rarely miss F2P orbs except for upper echelons on Grand Conquests (I really hate that mode) and the Cavalry/Flying/Armor Training Tower orbs because...who has the time.

The problem, as stated, is an intense enjoyment of the actual summoning aspect of this game, as well as the desire to have at least one new unit from every banner that comes out, for Arena, AR, etc. This usually works out for me, but the characters are rarely ones I actually give a damn about. 

I also really love the artwork in the game, it’s one of my favorite things. 

The highest I ever saved was 250...and then Bramimond dropped. They’re not canonically non-binary, but it’s the closest thing we’re gonna get, and I need that sweet, sweet NB representation in my barracks. I scrounged together every fucking orb I could after blowing through the original 250 and I would reckon I spent 400 orbs to get one copy of that motherfucker. I’d do it again.

However, that now leaves me without a stockpile for future units, and I need to be more disciplined. 

Feathers: Just under 560,000 which is good for.....28 merges. 

Fucking hell. I don’t miss how stingy they used to be with feathers, but the 20k threshold to update to 5 stars still hurts. It’s rather remarkable how some of the mechanics from the very beginning have stayed the same.

I like having 5 star units available to me in case of a really useful refine and obviously new, interesting TT and GHB units eats into that amount. However, there’s still a ton available to me in-game...if I grind Chain Challenges...I don’t have the patience to learn how to do Hero Merit grinding. 

I’m glad I translated that amount into how many actual merges I have access to right now, because that really changes the calculus in terms of who I can get to +10. 

Dragonflowers: 2,634 Infantry; 2,331 Armor; 2,502 Calvary; 2,696 Flying

These are less of a concern, I hate to admit it. Obviously they’re great for the extra +2 to stats for units, but it costs so fucking many dragonflowers to get old units to +10, it’s insane. 

I have a strong preference for Infantry and Flying units, so I don’t really put as many resources towards obtaining Armor and Calvary ones.  

Grails: 6,871 

There are lots of ways to parse this out, but this essentially translates into 2 or 3 Grail Units of my choice that I could +10. I have several Grail units still in various stages of merge...but several amazing Grail units were either just added or are coming down the pipeline. 

This requires further analysis based on the Heroes I decide I’m interested in. 

Divine Codes: 5,192

Fucking hell are they stingy with these. I’m still at least 2 (3???) months from being able to pull the full route on one of the paths...I try not to think about these, because I still think this mechanic is hot garbage. The Limited Codes are handled in a much more interesting fashion, in my opinion.

Okay. That’s done. Onto the next. 

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

CoachZippy Review Discount And Bonus

Introducing CoachZippy

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Just how to produce your first online program-- step by step instructions (Part 4)

Here's a smarter process:

Load dates into your calendar. If you've been instructing this exact same web content for a long time and also have field tested it on dozens and also dozens of target markets, after that offer yourself 4 weeks for this entire procedure, plus one week for wind-up and also developing your marketing. If you don't have that street cred, dual your growth time for even more time in study (see over). Put the dates in your calendar.

Do the damn research study. Re-read my area on study over and the instance of piloting your CoachZippy course and then readjust your schedule turning points. Mind Map the material. Do this over numerous sessions and utilize an on the internet device like Mind Meister. This is a critical action: do not build up until you have actually checked out all possible material and discarded low-value or unneeded content.

Mind Dispose for each and every component. Now I transfer to my word processor to produce detailed notes for every component. Keep in mind the learning-level of your optimal pupils as well as don't forget to begin each component by reinforcing why this content is essential (ABS-- constantly be selling).

Include finding out factors and workouts. Much like any of my online seminars, I construct in tasks to boost the knowing and to keep the pupil involved. You have lots of activities to select from, consisting of: journaling in workbook, exercising a strategy, responding to a test, a self-rating workout (on a range from 1 to 5, how are you doing at ...), or completing a graph, etc

. Designing slides is the luxury you delight in after the grunt work of research as well as design.

Lastly! Construct your slide deck. Remember, this has to adhere to the previous steps, jumping into designing slides is a luxury you reach enjoy after the dirty work of research study and also style. I like to open a new slide deck in CoachZippy (or Powerpoint on your PC) and duplicate the message for every slide right into Speaker's Notes. By doing this I have a reference and also I do not obtain lost as I jump from slide to slide.

You're mosting likely to add a narration to your deck, so do not over construct your slides. Much like when you existing live, you do not intend to replicate what you say in the bullets-- simply supply a recommendation point. So, if you are mosting likely to claim "Leadership is about responsibility, paying attention, and coaching for efficiency" then your bullets are simply:

accountability

listening

training

Creating slides is the deluxe you appreciate after the dirty work of research study as well as style. Click To Tweet

6. Record your video clip. Two means to go right here:

For my BOSS program (Company of Speaking College), I set workshop video clips of me inviting the student to that module with a fast overview of what we'll be covering. After that I tape-record the 'backside' video clip where I voice-over my slides. The best devices for recording voice-over videos are Screenflow (for MAC) as well as Camtasia (for COMPUTER).

You can also simply record over your slides.

Post your videos to either vimeo or wistia to host your videos. These devices provide you much more control over YouTube and are well worth the little monthly price.

A workbook can add worth to your CoachZippy training course as well as in many cases it does not require to be made complex.

7. Construct the workbook. While absolutely not needed, workbooks add value to your on the internet training course and also help in the understanding. Do this last and also do not over construct it. In a lot of cases, you just require a phoned number title for the subject, followed by blank lines. Pages and pages of fill-in-the-blanks get old rather promptly.

CoachZippy Review & Introduction

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Product: CoachZippy

Introduce Date: 2020-Jan-24

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Front-End Rate: $97

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CoachZippy Review - Features & Benefits

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[unixcommerce]

Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time

Another week brings another conference.  This time around I headed to Boston. (Which is enemy territory for a Rams fan! But I digress.) There I attended Sugar Connection, hosted by SugarCRM.  Sugar launched 15 years ago. But the last two years saw a serious transformation, including private equity firm Accel KKR making a strategic investment in the company, a shake up to the executive team, and making three strategic acquisitions.

During the event, my CRM Playaz partner Paul Greenberg and I got the opportunity to sit down with co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Clint Oram, Chief Technology/Chief Product Officer Rich Green, and new CEO Craig Charlton. We learned more about how the company looks to transform itself from a CRM system into a customer experience platform.

Check out the edited transcript of our conversation with Craig Charlton below.  Watch the full conversation on the video above, or click on the embedded SoundCloud below.

***

Building the Perfect Customer Service Platform

Paul Greenberg: How are you thinking about go-to-market, the leadership, outreach, everything? How are you thinking about all that?

Craig Charlton: We’ve had the opportunity,  by virtue of our new owners, to completely level set everything. And I think a huge amount of opportunity.  And considering the power of technology these days, the sort of products that we’re bringing out, like Discover. I mean that for me, I was almost tearing up when they presented it back to the executive team. Because I said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been asking for, for years.”

In terms of go-to-market, not a lot is going to change. But obviously we’ve done the rebrand. We’ve done the relaunch, new mission, new vision. And we’re really promoting all of the things that have been great about Sugar that we probably haven’t done a very good job promoting. And you’ve talked to Rich [Green, CTO and CPO]. He’s a rocket scientist. And he’s got an amazing team of people.

Putting the Pieces in Place

They’d been working on this stuff for years. I’m just the beneficiary coming in as the CEO at the end of the day, with a good, healthy checkbook, and writing checks. We bought three companies. Which I think all of which have paid dividends in a major way for our customers. And we’re going to go out and buy some more.

But I think products like Discover; incredibly transformative. Because it’s questions that people have been asking for an extended period of time and not getting the answers. And even more importantly, it’s answers. They haven’t been asking the question where they should have been asking the question. So we’re super excited about that. I mean it really does change the game.

Gathering the Customer Feedback

Brent Leary: What kind of feedback have you gotten over these six months from customers and partners on this new direction?

Craig Charlton: Incredibly positive. Interestingly, whenever I’ve started a company, I spent a lot of time getting out as far as I can to everyone and just asking questions and talking. And our partners in Europe were quite vocal saying, “You need to get moving, Craig. You need to do some stuff.”

And the next time I went back out there, we presented everything what we’d done, and particularly the acquisitions, and they said, “Craig, you need to slow down, because you know, we got to catch up.” But we’re not going to slow down. I mean the pace of innovation is going to continue to accelerate. And I’m excited by that. And I think we’ve got an amazing team of people; and we’ve got great backers; and effectively an entirely new executive team with the exception of Clint [Oram, cofounder and chief strategy officer] and Rich more recently. So I think there’s a huge amount we can achieve.

Creating a No-Touch Customer Experience Platform

Brent Leary: So, I like to go back to this no-touch information management pillar, because that seemed to resonate quite a bit. And let’s face it, over the decades that CRM has been around, nobody likes spending time putting in data, maintaining data, searching for data. And that’s probably been one of the main reasons that a lot of sales people just don’t like using CRM.

So what are the different ways you go about executing on this no-touch strategy? And I’m always interested in where does voice fit in? Because you’re seeing a lot of… The last four or five conferences I’ve been to in the last couple of months, voice has really played a really significant piece in shaping the customer journey or at least being a part of shaping the customer journey. So when you think of no-touch, what does that mean in general from a Sugar perspective? And then how does something like these voice devices and voice interfaces, how does that play a role in that?

Creating Real Value

Craig Charlton: From our perspective, no-touch, and I’ve been around, you know, a long time in terms of CRM, and being in many environments where the salespeople, they’re very creative, they’ll find ways not to be a system. They’re very creative, right? But the balance was completely wrong. Where it was all effort and you can get out what you type in. There’s not value in that.

Brent Leary: What every word maybe…

Craig Charlton: So we want to turn the tables, and it’s all value and virtually no effort. And if we can do that, then people are going to embrace the system. In fact, demand the system, because it’s a tool that helps them to be successful. So the examples of no-touch, you know, that we’ve already got within the application. It’s obviously tying in all of the applications that someone’s already using. So that it’s data entry is the last resort. You should never have to reenter any data.

Building the Customer Experience Platform of the Future

Brent Leary: I like that, data entry as a last resort.

Craig Charlton: Last resort. Yeah. I mean, occasionally it has to happen where we’re not hitting the clouds, and completely disconnected from reality, but data entry is a last resort. So if it’s entered somewhere, get it into the system. But then more broadly, there’s just so much information out there today. Why should you have, as a salesperson, have to go trolling the internet to find information when there’s publicly available sources that can give you a complete refresh, an ongoing refresh, and an update of everything that’s pertinent to that customer, whether it’s a newsfeed, whether it’s a changing personnel. I mean, all of those sorts of elements. And then, the next level of that. Is that proactive insights that we were talking about earlier today.

Brent Leary: Right.

Getting a 360-Degree View of Your Customers

Craig Charlton: It’s to be able to surface information that I wouldn’t possibly, unless I was incredibly gifted, or had machine learning DNA, that I wouldn’t be able to actually ascertain from the data that I’m looking at. So it’s surfacing critical information, about you need to action this, this is your next best action, this leads just come in, and it’s a really hard probability of close, you need to be working on it.

So it’s using that 360-degree view of the customer, combined with AI and machine learning, and telling people what is it that they should actually be paying attention to. I think it’s two elements. It’s not having to enter into the system, but it’s also then, not having to go hunting and pecking through the system to find information, or go hunting and pecking through other systems, be they LinkedIn or whatever else to find newsfeeds. Having all of those feeding into your one portal, which is your customer experience application.

Determining the Kind of Customer Experience Platform You Need

Paul Greenberg: Graham Hill and I were tweeting this morning; and I said something about unified data on my tweet; and he responded, and he’s right, “Customer 360 isn’t always necessary, a lot of times people just need parts.” Basically, I’m clearly interpreting his tweet, but a lot of times they just need parts of that. They don’t need all of it, right? They don’t need the full profile end to end; they need pieces of significance at a time. And as he said, “Remember data is a cost.” And that was a very smart statement and he’s totally right.

Now in our world, the world we’re all in, we hear customer 360 non-stop, when we’ve heard it for 20 years, right? It was the Holy grail. Now it’s kind of necessary. But how do you take what Graham said and put it in terms of what Sugar is talking about? Because he’s making a really important point there. What we need is the data we need to get the insight we need to take the action we need to take. We don’t need all of it. We just simply need what we need.

Having a Different Opinion

Craig Charlton: So I have a very different opinion on that because ultimately if I need 90 degrees, I need 90 degrees. Take that out of the 360.

Paul Greenberg: Right.

Craig Charlton: You need to have the 360 in order to provide a foundation to answer every single question with that business. And the piece that I’ve always found with every CRM system I’ve ever dealt with, the piece that’s always missing, is time. The time dimension, that time fidelity. CRM systems are great at telling you the state of the nation now, they’re really poor at telling you historically what’s happened. And so the answer for a number of CRM systems is we’ll take a snapshot of the pipeline on a daily basis. That’s my contribution to history. That’s Frankensteinian right?

Being Able to Pull the Information You Need

I mean really, to be able to pull the information, you need to have time, and you need to have that 360-degree pool of data to get the answer to any questions, whether it be a really, really linear question or something far more holistic.

Paul Greenberg: Michael Wu, who was at this time chief scientist at Lithium, now chief AI scientist at PROS, said something very… He used to go around and talk to big data, small insights, which is really what we’re looking for, right? Ultimately, we’re looking for insights of importance to us, based on the data we need to get those insights.

Brent Leary: And time.

Paul Greenberg: And that’s where time does come in. Because one of the things I think you guys do, which no one else does, and it’s very powerful, and if you want my advice make more of this, is the way you look at anomalies, which we talked about with Rich too, because that’s really what you’re saying. You surface an anomaly, you see if it has any substance or validity, and if it does, you’ve got something that will effectively help direct you where you’ve got to go next, and that’s where that’s next action can come in or whatever. But at that point, surface that anomaly is what you’ve got to do first. And that really is always a measure of time, because it’s consistency versus some differential. Right? And so, you guys do that. You’re talking about that.

Learning Something from the Breakdown

Craig Charlton: We are. And, I mean that was an amazing acquisition, and when we looked at and started doing the due diligence, all the things that they were talking about, were the things that had been my ongoing frustrations as an executive in business, there were things that I couldn’t get answers to. And things that the human mind can’t comprehend because of the amount of data that’s actually available. Because it’s machine learning, it’s compounding, right? So you learn something from the breakdown of what’s happened with a pipeline this quarter, where the forecast ended up being off like the 48% we were talking about in the presentation, that’s been built in for what was the anomaly? What, were the characteristics, what were the changes in those a hundred different data dimensions that we’re tracking in order to lead to that anomaly?

Brent Leary: What do you see for the year ahead for you guys? Is it going to be some more acquisitions? Is it going to be more stabilizing and adding to the platform, organically? What do you want to see in the next year?

Acquiring the Resources You Need

Craig Charlton: We’ve done three acquisitions in the past seven months. The team asked me to hold back on acquiring anything else, while we get everything battened down. And that was primarily to launch [Sugar] Discover and Connect, which we’re doing now. So we’ve now got an appetite for what’s next. We’ve got a large pipeline of opportunities. We don’t want to buy disparate pieces of technology, which don’t fit well together, because I’ve been the unfortunate victim of systems that are like that. But there’s some great tech out there, that’s available at the moment, tech that we can assimilate into our platform very, very easily. So we’ve got a strategy session coming up in a couple of weeks, where we’re going to go back and revisit what do we build? What do we partner, what do we buy?

Paul Greenberg: Ecosystem.

Filling Out the Ecosystem

Craig Charlton: Yeah, exactly. Filling out the ecosystem. We’ve got backers that are prepared to write checks, and it’s going to be an exciting year.

Brent Leary: That’s always a good thing.

 Craig Charlton: It is.

This article, “Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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[insurancepolicypro]

Wanting Even Higher Because of a Robust 2018 Marketing campaign

Six months in the past, I defined why Liberty Braves (NASDAQ: BATRA) (NASDAQ: BATRK) — the Liberty Media monitoring inventory for the Atlanta Braves skilled baseball workforce (and a few associated companies) — appeared like a lovely funding alternative. Advantages from a brand new stadium, an enhancing workforce, and a rising actual property improvement surrounding the stadium appeared poised to spice up Liberty Braves’ worth.

Since then, Liberty Braves inventory has gained about 12%, which is comfortably forward of the S&P 500’s return. And it is not too late for buyers to leap on board. The workforce’s sturdy 2018 efficiency and stable demand for house in The Battery Atlanta actual property improvement are creating loads of upside for the inventory.

BATRK Chart

Liberty Braves Inventory Efficiency, knowledge by YCharts.

The Braves have surpassed expectations

Getting into this season, the Atlanta Braves hadn’t had a successful file since 2013 — and hadn’t even been shut since 2014. I hoped for stable enchancment in 2018, however nonetheless anticipated pretty mediocre outcomes.

As an alternative, the Braves improved dramatically in comparison with final 12 months, due to a handful of gamers performing higher than anticipated, together with an enormous contribution from prime prospect (and Rookie of the 12 months contender) Ronald Acuna, Jr. With lower than two weeks to go within the common season, Atlanta holds a 6.5 sport lead within the NL East division. That makes the workforce a digital lock to make the playoffs for the primary time since 2013.

The Braves’ spectacular play has pushed a modest 2% to three% uptick in attendance per residence sport. Income per residence sport rose 7% in Liberty’s second quarter. This was a stable outcome provided that a lot of the league has been going through attendance declines — particularly as a result of attendance had already surged 24% in 2017, due to the opening of the Braves’ new stadium, SunTrust Park.

Making the playoffs would result in some additional income for Liberty Braves. Extra importantly, it ought to energize the workforce’s fan base, boosting curiosity forward of the 2019 season and doubtlessly enabling the workforce to boost ticket costs. Having a aggressive workforce may even enhance the Braves franchise’s worth, estimated at $1.625 billion by Forbes earlier this 12 months.

The Battery Atlanta improvement is a big success

Story continues

There has additionally been loads of optimistic information over the previous six months for Liberty Braves’ actual property efforts. Demand for the residential element of the event was very sturdy. Liberty Braves has determined to money out of the residential buildings, and administration initiatives a stellar inner fee of return of 22% on that funding.

A hen’s-eye view of SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta improvement

Picture supply: Liberty Media.

The corporate has additionally continued to increase its improvement plans for The Battery Atlanta whereas figuring out tenants for the few remaining out there areas. Final month, the Braves introduced 140-room Aloft Resort will open on the property in 2020, complementing the 264-room Omni Resort that opened in early 2018.

In July, ThyssenKrupp Elevator chosen one of many few remaining open parcels to construct a brand new North America headquarters, together with a check tower that will probably be 420 toes excessive. This facility is scheduled to open in 2022 and will probably be residence to greater than 900 workers.

In the meantime, Liberty Braves has been filling out the roster for its retail areas. For instance, within the final six months, it has signed leases with an upscale movie show, a small grocer, an escape room, a “virtual-reality expertise heart,” an out of doors retailer, and a nail salon.

Briefly, Liberty Braves seems to have added worth by making a vibrant mixed-use live-work-play group: the holy grail for actual property builders right this moment. That ought to drive sturdy long-term monetary returns for each element of the event.

Extra good issues to return

Whereas the Atlanta Braves have carried out much better than anticipated on the sector this 12 months, the workforce ought to be capable of hold enhancing in 2019 and past. About 30% of the workforce’s 2018 payroll was tied up in two gamers who did not seem in a single sport for the Braves.

Consequently, the workforce ought to have no less than $35 million out there to spend in free company throughout the 2018-2019 offseason. A few of which may be wanted to carry again the Braves’ personal free brokers, however there ought to be sufficient cash left over to usher in a few stable contributors.

Moreover, Atlanta continues to have top-of-the-line farm techniques within the league, with 9 prospects ranked among the many prime 100 in baseball. A number of of those gamers will probably be Main League-ready in some unspecified time in the future subsequent season, offering one other enhance for the Braves.

This sturdy expertise pipeline ought to allow the Braves to subject a reliably aggressive workforce within the coming years with out breaking the financial institution. That can get followers excited concerning the membership, paving the best way for additional ticket value will increase. Moreover, the Braves’ present below-market TV deal expires in 2027, so there’ll possible be an enormous leap in income a decade from now. That can drive larger income whereas additionally permitting for a better payroll — which is able to assist the workforce hold its star gamers.

With the Atlanta Braves enhancing sooner than anticipated on the sector and The Battery Atlanta actual property improvement gaining traction, Liberty Braves inventory seems simply as attractive because it did six months in the past.

Extra From The Motley Idiot

Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Liberty Braves (Sequence C). The Motley Idiot has no place in any of the shares talked about. The Motley Idiot has a disclosure coverage.

from insurancepolicypro http://insurancepolicypro.com/?p=522

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Wanting Even Higher Because of a Robust 2018 Marketing campaign

http://tinyurl.com/y3cch23o Six months in the past, I defined why Liberty Braves (NASDAQ: BATRA) (NASDAQ: BATRK) — the Liberty Media monitoring inventory for the Atlanta Braves skilled baseball crew (and a few associated companies) — regarded like an attractive investment opportunity. Advantages from a brand new stadium, an enhancing crew, and a rising actual property growth surrounding the stadium appeared poised to spice up Liberty Braves’ worth. Since then, Liberty Braves inventory has gained about 12%, which is comfortably forward of the S&P 500’s return. And it isn’t too late for traders to leap on board. The crew’s robust 2018 efficiency and stable demand for area in The Battery Atlanta actual property growth are creating loads of upside for the inventory. Liberty Braves Inventory Efficiency, information by YCharts. The Braves have surpassed expectations Getting into this season, the Atlanta Braves hadn’t had a profitable report since 2013 — and hadn’t even been shut since 2014. I hoped for stable enchancment in 2018, however nonetheless anticipated pretty mediocre outcomes. As a substitute, the Braves improved dramatically in comparison with final yr, because of a handful of gamers performing higher than anticipated, together with an enormous contribution from high prospect (and Rookie of the Yr contender) Ronald Acuna, Jr. With lower than two weeks to go within the common season, Atlanta holds a 6.5 sport lead within the NL East division. That makes the crew a digital lock to make the playoffs for the primary time since 2013. The Braves’ spectacular play has pushed a modest 2% to three% uptick in attendance per house sport. Income per house sport rose 7% in Liberty’s second quarter. This was a stable outcome provided that a lot of the league has been going through attendance declines — particularly as a result of attendance had already surged 24% in 2017, because of the opening of the Braves’ new stadium, SunTrust Park. Making the playoffs would result in some further income for Liberty Braves. Extra importantly, it ought to energize the crew’s fan base, boosting curiosity forward of the 2019 season and probably enabling the crew to boost ticket costs. Having a aggressive crew can even increase the Braves franchise’s worth, estimated at $1.625 billion by Forbes earlier this yr. The Battery Atlanta growth is a large success There has additionally been loads of optimistic information over the previous six months for Liberty Braves’ actual property efforts. Demand for the residential part of the event was very robust. Liberty Braves has determined to money out of the residential buildings, and administration tasks a stellar inner charge of return of 22% on that funding. A hen’s-eye view of SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta growth Extra Story continues Picture supply: Liberty Media. The corporate has additionally continued to develop its growth plans for The Battery Atlanta whereas figuring out tenants for the few remaining accessible areas. Final month, the Braves introduced {that a} 140-room Aloft Lodge will open on the property in 2020, complementing the 264-room Omni Lodge that opened in early 2018. In July, ThyssenKrupp Elevator chosen one of many few remaining open parcels to construct a brand new North America headquarters, together with a take a look at tower that can be 420 ft excessive. This facility is scheduled to open in 2022 and can be house to greater than 900 staff. In the meantime, Liberty Braves has been filling out the roster for its retail areas. For instance, within the final six months, it has signed leases with an upscale movie show, a small grocer, an escape room, a “virtual-reality expertise heart,” an outside retailer, and a nail salon. Briefly, Liberty Braves seems to have added worth by making a vibrant mixed-use live-work-play group: the holy grail for real estate developers at this time. That ought to drive robust long-term monetary returns for each part of the event. Extra good issues to return Whereas the Atlanta Braves have carried out much better than anticipated on the sphere this yr, the crew ought to have the ability to maintain enhancing in 2019 and past. About 30% of the crew’s 2018 payroll was tied up in two gamers who did not seem in a single sport for the Braves. Consequently, the crew ought to have a minimum of $35 million accessible to spend in free company through the 2018-2019 offseason. A few of which may be wanted to carry again the Braves’ personal free brokers, however there must be sufficient cash left over to usher in a few stable contributors. Moreover, Atlanta continues to have top-of-the-line farm methods within the league, with 9 prospects ranked among the many high 100 in baseball. A number of of those gamers can be Main League-ready sooner or later subsequent season, offering one other increase for the Braves. This robust expertise pipeline ought to allow the Braves to area a reliably aggressive crew within the coming years with out breaking the financial institution. That may get followers excited concerning the membership, paving the way in which for additional ticket worth will increase. Moreover, the Braves’ present below-market TV deal expires in 2027, so there’ll doubtless be a large leap in income a decade from now. That may drive larger earnings whereas additionally permitting for the next payroll — which can assist the crew maintain its star gamers. With the Atlanta Braves enhancing quicker than anticipated on the sphere and The Battery Atlanta actual property growth gaining traction, Liberty Braves inventory appears to be like simply as attractive because it did six months in the past. Extra From The Motley Idiot Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Liberty Braves (Collection C). The Motley Idiot has no place in any of the shares talked about. The Motley Idiot has a disclosure policy. Source link

[felishasheats]

How to build a pipeline from online leads

The following content may have been republished here without the author's permission. The original post can be found at the following URL: How to build a pipeline from online leads. Please visit REMonline.com for more content like this, and contact web@remonline.com to inform us of any unauthorized reproduction.

Once your sphere/database has been exhausted you need a new source for clients. There are offline methods for developing leads and clients such as open houses, door knocking and cold calling, but online is where it’s at these days.

I know your first thought may be to scroll through this article because it is long, but each point is truly is critical. This article, in order, will deal with why online lead generation is the new big thing, the different ways to generate leads online, how to convert those leads and how to turn them into over $100,000 a year in income.

[banner]

Why are online lead-generation strategies permeating the new Realtor zeitgeist? There are a number of reasons:

They work so you don’t have to. Online lead-generation strategies work round the clock; they work while you’re with clients, sleeping and while you’re taking a day off.

They work continuously. They keep generating leads for the long term, which helps avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of real estate. This keeps you from getting too busy with clients to build your pipeline, then get desperate when those deals are done, then do mega marketing, get busy and repeat the cycle again.

They can target your ideal client type – you choose who you target.

People research real estate online before they find a Realtor. By the time they are actively looking they either already have a Realtor, or they at least have a shortlist.’

How to generate leads online

Websites:

“I have a website but don’t get leads, so online lead gen doesn’t work.”

Just having a website doesn’t generate leads because people don’t know it is there. If your search engine optimization is on-point and you’re at the top of Google, then sure, that will work for lead gen. You just optimize your website for viewer-to-lead conversions. If your SEO doesn’t have you at the top of Google, then be prepared to invest tens of thousands of dollars in hiring a company to get you near the top of web searches over the next year. Yes, it takes that long. If you don’t have the money to hire a company, then spend time on courses and improving your own SEO…but it will still take that long. And realistically, 95 per cent plus of Realtors quit before they start getting results because it is such a grind and they quit/burn out before they succeed.

Another way to get leads from your website is to do paid advertising. This can be done with either online or offline advertising. But to get leads from a website you need the traffic that converts into leads. If you’re wondering how much traffic you need to get leads, keep this in mind: the average website conversion is one to three per cent (and Realtor websites are generally less than one per cent).  So, if you convert let’s say one in 50 leads, you’ll need 50 leads…which will require at least 5,000 viewers.

Organic social media marketing:

Generating leads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest is the new holy grail of online business. Most Realtors, however, are more “The Knights who say Ni” as opposed to a social media ninja.

Social media marketing works for lead generation, but it is also a long-term strategy. You need to first develop your audience…because without an audience you have no strategy. Then you need to engage and grow that audience. Then you need to turn them into leads and clients. Once you have an avid follower, turning them into a client is significantly easier than a cold call or cold lead.

The challenge of social media marketing is defining your brand, establishing your audience and building it. While it’s about establishing a great connection through marketing, it is a numbers game partially. About one per cent of the population is buying or selling a house at any given time. So, if you want four clients a month you need at least 4,000 engaged followers – and that is if every person following you who is thinking of buying and selling uses you (and not their husband’s mother, cousin or best friend’s best friend). You’re not going to sign every follower looking to buy or sell, so you need a large group of ACTIVE social media followers. If you don’t have that now you need to grind to build a bigger following or do paid promotions to build your audience.

Social media ads:

I specialize in social media ads – especially Facebook lead-gen ads, and here’s why: your website isn’t going to spontaneously get leads. Your social media isn’t going to go beyond your current sphere of “friends” or “followers” without getting more exposure. To get leads online you need traffic/viewers. Period.

You can get traffic to your website or social profile, then hope someone follows you or contacts you (a low percentage), or you can get the lead from the get-go. Ad types like Facebook’s Lead Generation gets you the name, email and phone number, then you immediately pick up the phone and start a conversation. If you do paid advertising to send people to your website or social media profile(s), you’re going to lose 96 per cent plus of that traffic. And the ones you do capture then need to be nurtured just to become a lead.

The way I look at things is that instead of spending your time getting traffic to your website or social profile/page/group, only for most of them to leave and the rest to be nurtured over time to turn into a lead, spend that time/money turning them into a lead immediately. When you get right to the lead stage you take out the time nurturing them and instead turn them from a lead to a client. It cuts out the middleman.

Check out my article on ways to do authentic Facebook ads.

How to convert online leads

You have online leads – awesome! Now what?

Online leads aren’t referrals or a warm lead from your second cousin. There’s no magic bullet solution here, unfortunately. They take work. If you don’t want to work to get their business, sorry but I can’t help you (and I don’t think anyone can).

There are two major approaches to converting online leads into clients:

The email list /drip campaign marketing: For those getting a large amount (at least a thousand a month) of leads from their website, have social media marketing and/or paid advertising and are too busy to reach out to each lead individually, there’s the drip-campaign (email marketing game) option. This can work well if you have a large number of leads coming in and have a great email conversion campaign. Your conversion rates will be low though, between one and four per cent.

The phone call: I am such a huge fan of the good old-fashioned phone call. You can send a thousand emails and get nowhere but make 20 phone calls and get a meeting.

Choose wisely.

To convert leads you really need to connect with them on the phone, which is the precursor to in person (the only real closing capability for leads). If you want to convert online leads, you need to talk to people. Period. You can work up to a conversation, but you’ll never get their business without a meeting.

To book meetings you need to block time – and stick to that – every day to follow up on your leads. You will not succeed without this and you’ll be stuck in a boom and bust cycle forever. You need to call people one to three times a day until you reach them, almost every day. If you’re sincere about helping them they will thank you for not giving up on them.

The final thing is to look to lead-conversion training. Online leads aren’t warm referrals…they take hard work. You don’t learn how to convert online leads in real estate licensing school. There’s a ton of agents who think they are amazing at converting online leads, but when push comes to shove…. they aren’t. Do not be afraid of that. Your favourite electrician couldn’t sell real estate and you couldn’t rewire a house up to code if your life depended on it. Look at learning online lead conversion as learning new strategies that build on what you already know. The best of the best are always learning and expanding their knowledge and skills.

How to turn online leads into over $100,000 a year in income

While leads are a numbers game to a certain extent, I never believe that leads should be treated like a number. These are people, and my top clients truly care about every person they talk to. Having said that, despite how much you care about each person you talk to, not every one of them will become a client.

For online lead conversion (from lead to client) you’re looking at a rate of at best four per cent. Most of my best converters get three per cent but the bulk are at two per cent.

So, you know what it takes to get a client online. Now let’s reverse engineer your income. If you want just $100,000 a year you need to look at your average income per deal. For example, if you make about $5,000 per deal (after paying expenses), then you need 20 deals a year. That’s 1.66 deals a month.

Let’s reverse reverse engineer that. If you need two deals a month (I’ve rounded up because some deals will fall through) to make $100,000, you need at LEAST 50 leads a month.

Boom – a pipeline that will increase your business to over $100,000.

The above content may have been republished here without the author's permission. The original post can be found at the following URL: How to build a pipeline from online leads. Please visit REMonline.com for more content like this, and contact web@remonline.com to inform us of any unauthorized reproduction.

How to build a pipeline from online leads published first on https://oicrealestate.tumblr.com/

[lenakrruger]

How to build a pipeline from online leads

The following content may have been republished here without the author's permission. The original post can be found at the following URL: How to build a pipeline from online leads. Please visit REMonline.com for more content like this, and contact web@remonline.com to inform us of any unauthorized reproduction.

Once your sphere/database has been exhausted you need a new source for clients. There are offline methods for developing leads and clients such as open houses, door knocking and cold calling, but online is where it’s at these days.

I know your first thought may be to scroll through this article because it is long, but each point is truly is critical. This article, in order, will deal with why online lead generation is the new big thing, the different ways to generate leads online, how to convert those leads and how to turn them into over $100,000 a year in income.

[banner]

Why are online lead-generation strategies permeating the new Realtor zeitgeist? There are a number of reasons:

They work so you don’t have to. Online lead-generation strategies work round the clock; they work while you’re with clients, sleeping and while you’re taking a day off.

They work continuously. They keep generating leads for the long term, which helps avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of real estate. This keeps you from getting too busy with clients to build your pipeline, then get desperate when those deals are done, then do mega marketing, get busy and repeat the cycle again.

They can target your ideal client type – you choose who you target.

People research real estate online before they find a Realtor. By the time they are actively looking they either already have a Realtor, or they at least have a shortlist.’

How to generate leads online

Websites:

“I have a website but don’t get leads, so online lead gen doesn’t work.”

Just having a website doesn’t generate leads because people don’t know it is there. If your search engine optimization is on-point and you’re at the top of Google, then sure, that will work for lead gen. You just optimize your website for viewer-to-lead conversions. If your SEO doesn’t have you at the top of Google, then be prepared to invest tens of thousands of dollars in hiring a company to get you near the top of web searches over the next year. Yes, it takes that long. If you don’t have the money to hire a company, then spend time on courses and improving your own SEO…but it will still take that long. And realistically, 95 per cent plus of Realtors quit before they start getting results because it is such a grind and they quit/burn out before they succeed.

Another way to get leads from your website is to do paid advertising. This can be done with either online or offline advertising. But to get leads from a website you need the traffic that converts into leads. If you’re wondering how much traffic you need to get leads, keep this in mind: the average website conversion is one to three per cent (and Realtor websites are generally less than one per cent).  So, if you convert let’s say one in 50 leads, you’ll need 50 leads…which will require at least 5,000 viewers.

Organic social media marketing:

Generating leads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest is the new holy grail of online business. Most Realtors, however, are more “The Knights who say Ni” as opposed to a social media ninja.

Social media marketing works for lead generation, but it is also a long-term strategy. You need to first develop your audience…because without an audience you have no strategy. Then you need to engage and grow that audience. Then you need to turn them into leads and clients. Once you have an avid follower, turning them into a client is significantly easier than a cold call or cold lead.

The challenge of social media marketing is defining your brand, establishing your audience and building it. While it’s about establishing a great connection through marketing, it is a numbers game partially. About one per cent of the population is buying or selling a house at any given time. So, if you want four clients a month you need at least 4,000 engaged followers – and that is if every person following you who is thinking of buying and selling uses you (and not their husband’s mother, cousin or best friend’s best friend). You’re not going to sign every follower looking to buy or sell, so you need a large group of ACTIVE social media followers. If you don’t have that now you need to grind to build a bigger following or do paid promotions to build your audience.

Social media ads:

I specialize in social media ads – especially Facebook lead-gen ads, and here’s why: your website isn’t going to spontaneously get leads. Your social media isn’t going to go beyond your current sphere of “friends” or “followers” without getting more exposure. To get leads online you need traffic/viewers. Period.

You can get traffic to your website or social profile, then hope someone follows you or contacts you (a low percentage), or you can get the lead from the get-go. Ad types like Facebook’s Lead Generation gets you the name, email and phone number, then you immediately pick up the phone and start a conversation. If you do paid advertising to send people to your website or social media profile(s), you’re going to lose 96 per cent plus of that traffic. And the ones you do capture then need to be nurtured just to become a lead.

The way I look at things is that instead of spending your time getting traffic to your website or social profile/page/group, only for most of them to leave and the rest to be nurtured over time to turn into a lead, spend that time/money turning them into a lead immediately. When you get right to the lead stage you take out the time nurturing them and instead turn them from a lead to a client. It cuts out the middleman.

Check out my article on ways to do authentic Facebook ads.

How to convert online leads

You have online leads – awesome! Now what?

Online leads aren’t referrals or a warm lead from your second cousin. There’s no magic bullet solution here, unfortunately. They take work. If you don’t want to work to get their business, sorry but I can’t help you (and I don’t think anyone can).

There are two major approaches to converting online leads into clients:

The email list /drip campaign marketing: For those getting a large amount (at least a thousand a month) of leads from their website, have social media marketing and/or paid advertising and are too busy to reach out to each lead individually, there’s the drip-campaign (email marketing game) option. This can work well if you have a large number of leads coming in and have a great email conversion campaign. Your conversion rates will be low though, between one and four per cent.

The phone call: I am such a huge fan of the good old-fashioned phone call. You can send a thousand emails and get nowhere but make 20 phone calls and get a meeting.

Choose wisely.

To convert leads you really need to connect with them on the phone, which is the precursor to in person (the only real closing capability for leads). If you want to convert online leads, you need to talk to people. Period. You can work up to a conversation, but you’ll never get their business without a meeting.

To book meetings you need to block time – and stick to that – every day to follow up on your leads. You will not succeed without this and you’ll be stuck in a boom and bust cycle forever. You need to call people one to three times a day until you reach them, almost every day. If you’re sincere about helping them they will thank you for not giving up on them.

The final thing is to look to lead-conversion training. Online leads aren’t warm referrals…they take hard work. You don’t learn how to convert online leads in real estate licensing school. There’s a ton of agents who think they are amazing at converting online leads, but when push comes to shove…. they aren’t. Do not be afraid of that. Your favourite electrician couldn’t sell real estate and you couldn’t rewire a house up to code if your life depended on it. Look at learning online lead conversion as learning new strategies that build on what you already know. The best of the best are always learning and expanding their knowledge and skills.

How to turn online leads into over $100,000 a year in income

While leads are a numbers game to a certain extent, I never believe that leads should be treated like a number. These are people, and my top clients truly care about every person they talk to. Having said that, despite how much you care about each person you talk to, not every one of them will become a client.

For online lead conversion (from lead to client) you’re looking at a rate of at best four per cent. Most of my best converters get three per cent but the bulk are at two per cent.

So, you know what it takes to get a client online. Now let’s reverse engineer your income. If you want just $100,000 a year you need to look at your average income per deal. For example, if you make about $5,000 per deal (after paying expenses), then you need 20 deals a year. That’s 1.66 deals a month.

Let’s reverse reverse engineer that. If you need two deals a month (I’ve rounded up because some deals will fall through) to make $100,000, you need at LEAST 50 leads a month.

Boom – a pipeline that will increase your business to over $100,000.

The above content may have been republished here without the author's permission. The original post can be found at the following URL: How to build a pipeline from online leads. Please visit REMonline.com for more content like this, and contact web@remonline.com to inform us of any unauthorized reproduction.

How to build a pipeline from online leads published first on https://grandeurparkcondo.tumblr.com/

[todaynewsstories]

As China builds biotech sector, cash floods U.S. startups

SAN FRANCISCO/HONG KONG (Reuters) – For three whirlwind days in June, U.S. scientist Zhi Hong went shopping at the Boston Bio Conference to find drugs to fill the pipeline of his two-week-old drug company.

FILE PHOTO: A scientist works at Zai Labo’s drug development facility in Shanghai, China October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Adam Jourdan/File Photo

Crammed in tight, four-person booths executives use for private conversations, the former GlaxoSmithKline PLC executive pitched dozens of U.S. biotech companies to partner with his start-up, Brii Biosciences.

Months earlier, Hong had raised $260 million – much of it from Chinese and Asian investors – with a strategy to bring U.S. biotechnology drugs to China, the world’s second-largest prescription drug market and home to a rapidly growing biotech sector.

Brii is now discussing partnerships with about a dozen drugmakers, which it aims to help by conducting clinical trials in China, applying for governmental approval and eventually negotiating reimbursement in a bid to capitalize on China’s stated plan to become the next global player in biopharma.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Hong told Reuters. “They said, ‘If you start a company, you won’t have any problem raising money.’ I didn’t quite believe that at the beginning. But as we went through the process, it was incredible.”

Brii is one of many biotech startups riding a wave of money from Asia that so far this year has poured $4.2 billion into private U.S.-based biotech companies. That is over 43 percent of the total amount of venture funding invested in the biotech sector, according to PitchBook, up from just 11 percent in 2016.

These investors range from China’s 6 Dimensions Capital and Hillhouse Capital Group to Hong Kong-based Blue Pool Capital, the investment arm of Alibaba’s executives. They are in search of better returns across the Pacific after China’s recent homegrown biotech push has driven sky-high valuations.

“There are companies in China that haven’t even started clinical trials, and they have received term sheets for $400 million,” said Nisa Leung, managing partner and leader of healthcare sector at China-based Qiming Venture Partners, referring to the agreements that describe the terms of an investment. “I think that’s crazy.”

China’s biotech craze stems in part from a government plan launched a few years ago as part of the Made In China 2025 campaign. The goal is to promote biotech as a strategic emerging industry, spawning rapid development and investment into the burgeoning sector.

A rule change at the Hong Kong stock exchange this spring is also providing an added incentive for investors. Biotechs without revenue or profit from around the world are now able to list on the exchange  – which provides a faster way for investors to cash out.

Among the winners are Menlo Park, California’s GRAIL Inc, an early-stage cancer detection company that in May raised $300 million in a Series C round led by Chinese healthcare fund Ally Bridge Group. Immuno-oncology company TCR2 Therapeutics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, received $125 million in March in a Series B round co-led by Pacific-focused investor 6 Dimensions.

In the United States, the influx of cash from China has inflated the size of biotech funding rounds and quickening the pace that companies can raise money. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2CG36Gb)

Companies that rely on licensing deals to develop innovative drugs in China – like Brii or Shanghai-based Zai Lab – are more often paying a premium. The interest from China has driven the upfront payments for licensing agreements for U.S. drugmakers to over $30 million currently from $1 million or $5 million three years ago, according to Leung.

Other headwinds for Chinese biotech investment persist – ranging from the nagging threat of the Trump administration broadening restrictions on Chinese investment to the lackluster stock performance to date of the first Hong Kong biotech IPO under the new listing regime, Ascletis Pharma.

Still many investors interviewed by Reuters do not expect China’s biotech hunger to end overnight.

“It makes a lot of sense (for Chinese funds) to look at U.S. biotech firms especially as many Chinese biotechs still lag behind their U.S. peers in terms of the quality and the pipeline of products,” said Jonathan Wang, senior managing director and co-founder of the Asia fund at OrbiMed Advisors, a healthcare investment firm that continues to invest in young biotechs in both China and the United States.

FORTUNATE TIMING

For some biotech companies, money from China has breathed new life into experimental drugs or devices that lost priority inside company pipelines for various reasons.

That was the thinking behind scientist Bing Yao’s move to strike out on his own, just as Asia investor interest in biotech was taking off.

Yao first had the idea to leave his position as the head of the respiratory, inflammation and autoimmunity disease unit at AstraZeneca MedImmune in March 2017. The pharmaceutical company was pruning its drug development to focus on priority areas like cancer, so he proposed spinning off some programs to a new start-up that he would create to develop the drugs.

One year later, Yao launched Viela Bio with AstraZeneca’s blessing and six of the pharmaceutical company’s experimental drugs. The furthest along is a medicine for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, a rare disease affecting the optic nerve and spinal cord of around five in 100,000 people.

Yao raised $250 million from a consortium of investors led by China-focused funds, including Boyu Capital, 6 Dimensions and Hillhouse. AstraZeneca remains the largest minority shareholder.

Yao said he received interest from more investors than he wanted to manage, so he selected the firms that “came earlier and faster.”

“A few years ago, it would have been harder to raise large sums like this,” said Yao, who spent over 20 years focusing on immunology at companies like Amgen and Genentech before AstraZeneca.

But it may not be as easy for companies going forward.

HURDLES AHEAD?

Changes in Washington and the challenges of breaking into the Chinese healthcare sector are emerging on investor radars.

A new law passed in August expanded the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investments for potential national security concerns. The broader scope prioritizes the protection of emerging technologies, including genetic information.

Even those with funding could find the China market difficult to navigate. Launching new medicines in China is still relatively untested, and conducting clinical trials, getting government approval and selling medicines in China’s segregated healthcare marketplace present formidable hurdles.

“It’s a significant job,” said Moncef Slaoui, former head of global research and development and vaccines chairman at GSK and a Brii strategic advisor. “But this is a moment where there is an opportunity,” he said, because moves by the Chinese government, such as modernizing its version of the FDA, will have long-lasting impacts.

At Brii, the strategy calls for working with AliHealth, the healthcare arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, to find potential patients for its drugs. Another deal with WuXi AppTec Co Ltd gives Brii access to WuXi’s extensive research and development capabilities in China.

Brii’s first U.S. biotech partnership is with San Francisco-based Vir Biotechnology, an infectious disease-focused startup headed by former Biogen CEO George Scangos. The deal grants Brii the rights to develop some of Vir’s future drugs in China. ARCH Venture Partners’ Robert Nelsen backed both companies.

“Other companies try to become global,” said Hong. “We’re doing the reverse. We are dedicated 100 percent to the Chinese market.”

Reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco and Julie Zhu in Hong Kong, additional reporting by Gui Qing Koh in New York; Editing by Elyse Tanouye and Edward Tobin

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[wikimakemoney]

Q&A with Tom Libretto, CMO of Pegasystems

30-second summary:

Analyze the three P’s when evaluating a new job opportunity: people, product, and potential

CMOs need to be purveyors of the market at large — identifying what’s needed and working to develop the correct products/solutions

Customer engagement is the Holy Grail for marketers

Nowadays, you need to market to specific individuals — not to large groups of people

It’s important to pick one specific outcome before designing your entire customer journey around achieving this objective

There’s a certain irony to modern marketing. We’re reliant on technology — but we should increasingly focus on empathy. We can reach millions of people at once, yet we need to market to individuals more than ever before. Pegasystems is at the heart of this ever-changing landscape: giving companies of all shapes and sizes the ability to connect with audiences, improve their customer engagement, and become more operationally efficient.

We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Tom Libretto, CMO of Pegasystems, about all these topics and more…

Q) Can you give us a brief insight into your professional journey and how you became CMO of Pegasystems?

I’ve always been enamored by the intersection of technology, marketing, and storytelling. I started my career at IBM — I loved it, and I was fortunate enough to cut my teeth in a variety of disciplines all across the company. I then moved to Nokia; I initially had a ton of fun trying to build a software and services side to the business, before moving around the company and eventually landing in my last post, where I ran what was the world’s largest CRM program at the time (we had 1.1 billion consumers actively using our technology.)

This really showed me the power of consumer analytics and data management in effectively connecting with consumers. After Nokia, I pivoted into financial services — spending four years at JP Morgan creating a digital office and running a whole range of digital transformation programs.

Then Pegasystems came calling, and it was the right opportunity to wed my passion for technology with the challenge of connecting to various types of audiences.

Q) What have been your biggest challenges at Pegasystems so far and how have you dealt with them?

I worked with three massive organizations prior to Pegasystems, so my experiences there were very different from how it’s been coming into a midsize company like Pegasystems.

I’ve loved it here because there’s an opportunity to really put a mark on a variety of areas across the business beyond the marketing domain itself. But this process required a certain personal adjustment — here we have a faster, more nimble, less bureaucratic culture if you will.

Q) Based on your experience, what advice would you give someone who is starting their journey as a marketing leader?

It’s a bit cliché, but when evaluating a new job opportunity, I always analyze the three P’s: people, product, and potential. 

Firstly, we come into work and interact with our colleagues day in, day out — so the company culture has to be aligned with your own value systems. From a product perspective, it’s important for me as a marketer to feel that the product has the right thought-leadership governing product direction, and that it does exactly what we say it does (and ideally even more). Lastly, it needs to have the potential to provide real, lasting value for the business’s target customers.

So when looking at any job opportunity, I always keep these three things in mind.

Q) How have you seen the CMO role change in recent years?

There’s no doubt that the CMO role has been changing now for the past decade or so, and I think that it will continue to change going forward. From my perspective, the role will start to encompass a wider mandate around setting the company strategy — CMOs will act as a sort of purveyor of what the market needs. This will then support a lot of internal decision-making regarding what products are developed, and what the shape and texture of those offerings are. 

For example, here at Pegasystems, I’ve noticed how critical it is that the CMO is a close partner with the sales organization and sales leadership in general. 

Plus, I also think that a CMO’s profile is also changing — more and more of the CMOs that I interact with come from deep data and analytics backgrounds; they know how to wield data in the right ways to make better decisions around how to connect with (and engage) their customer audiences. 

So I think CMOs will need to be more technology-focused going forward than they were in the past and will need to be true experts in harnessing the power of consumer data.

Q) As a CMO, how would you like your CEO to judge your performance?

Fortunately, my CEO and I have a very aligned view on how to measure the marketing department: it starts and stops with customer engagement.

We’ve scientifically correlated customer engagement outcomes to a wide swathe of other commercial outcomes like pipeline generation, deal size, and average deal size. So across my organization, across the different marketing disciplines that sit within our marketing department, we’re all shooting for the same goal: increasing user-based interactions or engagement. We measure this on a 90-day basis across dozens of different real time-interaction channels.

Q) Give us a brief introduction to Pegasystems: what are the core martech capabilities that you bring to a marketer? How do you stand out in an overly saturated martech space?

So we’ve actually been around for 36 years. We were originally the 800-pound gorilla in what used to be known as the ‘business process management’ market, and the company has since gone through multiple renaming cycles. Our current tagline is “Intelligent Automation” — this includes things like robotic process automation, business process management, case management, and low-code application development. That’s been our bread and butter for a really long time. 

For about a dozen years, we’ve also been equally strong in the customer engagement market, which is sort of today’s nomenclature for CRM. Very simply, we want to enable organizations to make better decisions as a result of their customer engagement. Then, on the other side of the aisle, to get work done more effectively — becoming more operationally efficient through increased process automation.

Q) What tips do you have for someone looking to implement Pegasystems’s tech?

We’ve been in this field for a long time, so we fortunately have a hardened methodology and blueprint for how companies can get started very quickly. We call this a microjourney approach; simply put, companies need to pick one single end customer outcome before they begin. Once you have this nailed down, you can design that very tight, microjourney directly within our software — we generate the code behind the scenes in order to bring that customer journey to life in a matter of days and weeks. Then, rinse and repeat. 

When looking at how organizations can better engage their customers, we have what’s called our Pega Customer Decision Hub: a centralized authoritative brain that integrates very easily with any of a customer’s interaction channels — whether that’s pre-login, web login, web, mobile, call centers, IVR, or retail outlets. All of those interaction channels can be wired to a singular brain that then decides in real time what the best next decision is to make.

This means that organizations can consistently manage their customer experience independent of the channel — the world’s leading brands are relying on this tool to help them transform their customer engagement profile.

Q) You recently gave us your marketing predictions for 2020 and said “marketers will go all-in on empathy” this year. Care to elaborate on that?

My perspective is that martech is quickly giving us the ability to offer one-to-one customer engagement — instead of looking at the wants and needs of a segment of your customer base, you should be looking at a specific individual’s wants and needs. 

This requires a complete shift in mindset. It’s not about generating an audience and then firing off a campaign to see what it does, it’s about dealing with every single customer as an individual. So that’s how I sort of define empathetic marketing.

Q) Obviously the relationship between customers and brands was at an all-time low last year — have you seen this improve at all recently? What can brands do to win back the customers?

I think it’s now arguably more difficult for brands to project a brand value statement into the marketplace — there are more platforms, more people offering their opinion, and it’s difficult for brands to manage all these different voices and perspectives. But in many ways, I think that’s requiring most brands to just go back to basics and to treat their customers like they want to be treated themselves 

Q) Another key trend for this year is the ‘true application of AI and automation’. What are your thoughts on that? What role will these technologies play in CRM and CX?

Well given that these are the two areas we mainly focus on, we hope they’re going to play a huge role going forward! We’ve always strongly believed that there are endless opportunities to automate work around an enterprise — especially as technology is becoming greatly more accessible and easier to adopt. 

With regards to artificial intelligence, there are again vast and endless use cases for AI: ranging from natural language processing through to the widespread adoption of continuous-learning models that are constantly getting better and better (like our Pega Customer Decision Hub). 

Q) Looking ahead, what are your plans for Pegasystems going forward?

We’ve basically had the same goal since our founder and CEO, Alan Trefler, founded the company: to be the leading technology provider for digital transformation initiatives, helping our clients achieve truly unprecedented outcomes.

This remains true today and it will also remain true in the future. We get a lot of energy, excitement, and satisfaction out of seeing organizations that we work with — enterprises and governments and so forth — realize their digital transformation ambitions, whatever they may be.

Q) Which tool in your personal tech stack can you not do without and why?

To be honest, we’ve gone all-in on our own technology — our Pega Customer Decision Hub is the single most important tool in helping our own customer engagement efforts. It’s transformed our marketing organization, and it’s done amazing things for helping us connect and engage with our own audiences. There’s no way we could replicate that if it were ever taken out of our stack.

The post Q&A with Tom Libretto, CMO of Pegasystems appeared first on ClickZ.

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/04/17/qa-with-tom-libretto-cmo-of-pegasystems/

[serenaakin23-blog]

The moving Sands Of Business Growth

"I am a small business owner, I don't need it and it will just consume my time." If that is what you definitely say, then think again. Book-keeping is essential to every business. If you don't do it, you will not see how much money you made from your business in that year. You will not also see in what field these huge expenses and how will you correct it next time. And without a book record, the law will sent you to jail for not doing it in your business. The government might think you are escaping from the taxes. So if you have time, do it now. There are generally two ways to build your multilevel best internet marketing business. One is to do it yourself (even if you are using some lead system, autoresponders, or other business aid. The other is to enroll in a guaranteed program. Either way, building your business will take time. In the first example, it will take your time. In the second, it will take someone else's time. In either case it will take time. If you ask any experienced network marketer what the number one challenge is in this business, they'd answer "getting leads." MLM lead help is the number one request that people ask of their sponsors. And the idea of an endless source of qualified leads is like the holy grail of the network marketing world. When you loved this post and you would love to receive details with regards to Ecologic Power generously visit our webpage. Those of us who took this business seriously from day one blew through our warm market lists in the first month. Then we discovered that the real driving force behind business growth was getting cold market leads. But how? When I study these super affiliates and some successful people, I found out that most of them take a long time building up their business. They spent the bulk of their time building "assets" that will bring them the passive income later. Robert Kiyosaki said that assets are things that bring in income. If you take a look at affiliate marketing business, the assets will be our database of prospects and website traffic. Most Super Affiliates have a massive database of prospects that they took most of the time building. IV.Search for relevant knowledge in your area of specialization and interest. Knowledge they say is power. The Word of God says, "a man is commended according to his wisdom... a man's wisdom makes his face to shine." Don't think of decorating your home, shop or office with your degree certificate; instead, decorate your mind with current innovative strategies, techniques and trends that will help grow your business or career. Search out new pricing and sales techniques. The truth is that you cannot be better, bigger and more successful than what you have on your mind. Your actions and inaction can be traceable to your knowledge power; and your knowledge power determines your thoughts! Remember, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." Creativity and innovation is 90% within and 10% without. Always have more prospects then you can handle. When you have more prospects coming into your pipeline every day...it doesn't matter if the 5 prospects you talked to yesterday join you or not. You will have 5 more to talk with today. Looking at the tips above is a good start for you to get ahead in the game of marketing development. Invest in building your contact list and you'll be able to see better things for your company. While a manager and a leader are not one in the same, there is no denying that the two go hand in hand. A manager plans and organizes, and a leader motivates and inspires. It is no secret that running a business requires both management and leadership, but the trick is to find the right balance of the two.

[unixcommerce]

Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time

Another week brings another conference.  This time around I headed to Boston. (Which is enemy territory for a Rams fan! But I digress.) There I attended Sugar Connection, hosted by SugarCRM.  Sugar launched 15 years ago. But the last two years saw a serious transformation, including private equity firm Accel KKR making a strategic investment in the company, a shake up to the executive team, and making three strategic acquisitions.

During the event, my CRM Playaz partner Paul Greenberg and I got the opportunity to sit down with co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Clint Oram, Chief Technology/Chief Product Officer Rich Green, and new CEO Craig Charlton. We learned more about how the company looks to transform itself from a CRM system into a customer experience platform.

Check out the edited transcript of our conversation with Craig Charlton below.  Watch the full conversation on the video above, or click on the embedded SoundCloud below.

***

Building the Perfect Customer Service Platform

Paul Greenberg: How are you thinking about go-to-market, the leadership, outreach, everything? How are you thinking about all that?

Craig Charlton: We’ve had the opportunity,  by virtue of our new owners, to completely level set everything. And I think a huge amount of opportunity.  And considering the power of technology these days, the sort of products that we’re bringing out, like Discover. I mean that for me, I was almost tearing up when they presented it back to the executive team. Because I said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been asking for, for years.”

In terms of go-to-market, not a lot is going to change. But obviously we’ve done the rebrand. We’ve done the relaunch, new mission, new vision. And we’re really promoting all of the things that have been great about Sugar that we probably haven’t done a very good job promoting. And you’ve talked to Rich [Green, CTO and CPO]. He’s a rocket scientist. And he’s got an amazing team of people.

Putting the Pieces in Place

They’d been working on this stuff for years. I’m just the beneficiary coming in as the CEO at the end of the day, with a good, healthy checkbook, and writing checks. We bought three companies. Which I think all of which have paid dividends in a major way for our customers. And we’re going to go out and buy some more.

But I think products like Discover; incredibly transformative. Because it’s questions that people have been asking for an extended period of time and not getting the answers. And even more importantly, it’s answers. They haven’t been asking the question where they should have been asking the question. So we’re super excited about that. I mean it really does change the game.

Gathering the Customer Feedback

Brent Leary: What kind of feedback have you gotten over these six months from customers and partners on this new direction?

Craig Charlton: Incredibly positive. Interestingly, whenever I’ve started a company, I spent a lot of time getting out as far as I can to everyone and just asking questions and talking. And our partners in Europe were quite vocal saying, “You need to get moving, Craig. You need to do some stuff.”

And the next time I went back out there, we presented everything what we’d done, and particularly the acquisitions, and they said, “Craig, you need to slow down, because you know, we got to catch up.” But we’re not going to slow down. I mean the pace of innovation is going to continue to accelerate. And I’m excited by that. And I think we’ve got an amazing team of people; and we’ve got great backers; and effectively an entirely new executive team with the exception of Clint [Oram, cofounder and chief strategy officer] and Rich more recently. So I think there’s a huge amount we can achieve.

Creating a No-Touch Customer Experience Platform

Brent Leary: So, I like to go back to this no-touch information management pillar, because that seemed to resonate quite a bit. And let’s face it, over the decades that CRM has been around, nobody likes spending time putting in data, maintaining data, searching for data. And that’s probably been one of the main reasons that a lot of sales people just don’t like using CRM.

So what are the different ways you go about executing on this no-touch strategy? And I’m always interested in where does voice fit in? Because you’re seeing a lot of… The last four or five conferences I’ve been to in the last couple of months, voice has really played a really significant piece in shaping the customer journey or at least being a part of shaping the customer journey. So when you think of no-touch, what does that mean in general from a Sugar perspective? And then how does something like these voice devices and voice interfaces, how does that play a role in that?

Creating Real Value

Craig Charlton: From our perspective, no-touch, and I’ve been around, you know, a long time in terms of CRM, and being in many environments where the salespeople, they’re very creative, they’ll find ways not to be a system. They’re very creative, right? But the balance was completely wrong. Where it was all effort and you can get out what you type in. There’s not value in that.

Brent Leary: What every word maybe…

Craig Charlton: So we want to turn the tables, and it’s all value and virtually no effort. And if we can do that, then people are going to embrace the system. In fact, demand the system, because it’s a tool that helps them to be successful. So the examples of no-touch, you know, that we’ve already got within the application. It’s obviously tying in all of the applications that someone’s already using. So that it’s data entry is the last resort. You should never have to reenter any data.

Building the Customer Experience Platform of the Future

Brent Leary: I like that, data entry as a last resort.

Craig Charlton: Last resort. Yeah. I mean, occasionally it has to happen where we’re not hitting the clouds, and completely disconnected from reality, but data entry is a last resort. So if it’s entered somewhere, get it into the system. But then more broadly, there’s just so much information out there today. Why should you have, as a salesperson, have to go trolling the internet to find information when there’s publicly available sources that can give you a complete refresh, an ongoing refresh, and an update of everything that’s pertinent to that customer, whether it’s a newsfeed, whether it’s a changing personnel. I mean, all of those sorts of elements. And then, the next level of that. Is that proactive insights that we were talking about earlier today.

Brent Leary: Right.

Getting a 360-Degree View of Your Customers

Craig Charlton: It’s to be able to surface information that I wouldn’t possibly, unless I was incredibly gifted, or had machine learning DNA, that I wouldn’t be able to actually ascertain from the data that I’m looking at. So it’s surfacing critical information, about you need to action this, this is your next best action, this leads just come in, and it’s a really hard probability of close, you need to be working on it.

So it’s using that 360-degree view of the customer, combined with AI and machine learning, and telling people what is it that they should actually be paying attention to. I think it’s two elements. It’s not having to enter into the system, but it’s also then, not having to go hunting and pecking through the system to find information, or go hunting and pecking through other systems, be they LinkedIn or whatever else to find newsfeeds. Having all of those feeding into your one portal, which is your customer experience application.

Determining the Kind of Customer Experience Platform You Need

Paul Greenberg: Graham Hill and I were tweeting this morning; and I said something about unified data on my tweet; and he responded, and he’s right, “Customer 360 isn’t always necessary, a lot of times people just need parts.” Basically, I’m clearly interpreting his tweet, but a lot of times they just need parts of that. They don’t need all of it, right? They don’t need the full profile end to end; they need pieces of significance at a time. And as he said, “Remember data is a cost.” And that was a very smart statement and he’s totally right.

Now in our world, the world we’re all in, we hear customer 360 non-stop, when we’ve heard it for 20 years, right? It was the Holy grail. Now it’s kind of necessary. But how do you take what Graham said and put it in terms of what Sugar is talking about? Because he’s making a really important point there. What we need is the data we need to get the insight we need to take the action we need to take. We don’t need all of it. We just simply need what we need.

Having a Different Opinion

Craig Charlton: So I have a very different opinion on that because ultimately if I need 90 degrees, I need 90 degrees. Take that out of the 360.

Paul Greenberg: Right.

Craig Charlton: You need to have the 360 in order to provide a foundation to answer every single question with that business. And the piece that I’ve always found with every CRM system I’ve ever dealt with, the piece that’s always missing, is time. The time dimension, that time fidelity. CRM systems are great at telling you the state of the nation now, they’re really poor at telling you historically what’s happened. And so the answer for a number of CRM systems is we’ll take a snapshot of the pipeline on a daily basis. That’s my contribution to history. That’s Frankensteinian right?

Being Able to Pull the Information You Need

I mean really, to be able to pull the information, you need to have time, and you need to have that 360-degree pool of data to get the answer to any questions, whether it be a really, really linear question or something far more holistic.

Paul Greenberg: Michael Wu, who was at this time chief scientist at Lithium, now chief AI scientist at PROS, said something very… He used to go around and talk to big data, small insights, which is really what we’re looking for, right? Ultimately, we’re looking for insights of importance to us, based on the data we need to get those insights.

Brent Leary: And time.

Paul Greenberg: And that’s where time does come in. Because one of the things I think you guys do, which no one else does, and it’s very powerful, and if you want my advice make more of this, is the way you look at anomalies, which we talked about with Rich too, because that’s really what you’re saying. You surface an anomaly, you see if it has any substance or validity, and if it does, you’ve got something that will effectively help direct you where you’ve got to go next, and that’s where that’s next action can come in or whatever. But at that point, surface that anomaly is what you’ve got to do first. And that really is always a measure of time, because it’s consistency versus some differential. Right? And so, you guys do that. You’re talking about that.

Learning Something from the Breakdown

Craig Charlton: We are. And, I mean that was an amazing acquisition, and when we looked at and started doing the due diligence, all the things that they were talking about, were the things that had been my ongoing frustrations as an executive in business, there were things that I couldn’t get answers to. And things that the human mind can’t comprehend because of the amount of data that’s actually available. Because it’s machine learning, it’s compounding, right? So you learn something from the breakdown of what’s happened with a pipeline this quarter, where the forecast ended up being off like the 48% we were talking about in the presentation, that’s been built in for what was the anomaly? What, were the characteristics, what were the changes in those a hundred different data dimensions that we’re tracking in order to lead to that anomaly?

Brent Leary: What do you see for the year ahead for you guys? Is it going to be some more acquisitions? Is it going to be more stabilizing and adding to the platform, organically? What do you want to see in the next year?

Acquiring the Resources You Need

Craig Charlton: We’ve done three acquisitions in the past seven months. The team asked me to hold back on acquiring anything else, while we get everything battened down. And that was primarily to launch [Sugar] Discover and Connect, which we’re doing now. So we’ve now got an appetite for what’s next. We’ve got a large pipeline of opportunities. We don’t want to buy disparate pieces of technology, which don’t fit well together, because I’ve been the unfortunate victim of systems that are like that. But there’s some great tech out there, that’s available at the moment, tech that we can assimilate into our platform very, very easily. So we’ve got a strategy session coming up in a couple of weeks, where we’re going to go back and revisit what do we build? What do we partner, what do we buy?

Paul Greenberg: Ecosystem.

Filling Out the Ecosystem

Craig Charlton: Yeah, exactly. Filling out the ecosystem. We’ve got backers that are prepared to write checks, and it’s going to be an exciting year.

Brent Leary: That’s always a good thing.

 Craig Charlton: It is.

This article, “Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time” was first published on Small Business Trends

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The post Craig Charlton of SugarCRM: We’re Adding the Missing Dimension to CRM Systems – Time appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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[konsyg-blog]

Be A Great Sales Manager!

The expression Internet Marketing contains names such as any person, MLM marketer, affiliate marketers, and networker who has an internet home based business. So as to have a business enterprise that is prosperous, you need to develop into a generating expert. If you don't have people to speak with you will soon be out of business, let us face it. There sales management strategies ppt are lots of methods to create traffic that are free and others which will cost you per click through. The later can become quite expensive if you don't know what you are doing so do not try it till you can spend it. It does no good if you don't, to become a lead generating expert CALL men and women. Have a look at these techniques to get prospects.

Give away an great item. As a person in network advertising your organization has more than likely supplied a business URL to you to promote the business. DO NOT use this site to publicize your company. Stop cramming your business and LEAD them to it instead. You give things away rather and must lead with worth. Have people sign in to a mail list to be able to get the item. Now they're in your own listing.

Buy an email lists. Because you don't understand how great the record will be I disagree with this particular one. Trust me, when I was first starting out I purchased a huge amount of leads which got me absolutely no where. I discovered that many of titles on the lists were not konsyg.com lookers for my merchandise or buyers. Lists can be very expensive and most people receive the "spam" and just delete it anyway. They do not know you. Therein lies the problem, they do not know you. You can not purchase a qualified prospect, you need to get to know them first.

You need to promote to a certain niche. This enables you improve your conversion prices, and therefore to get targeted prospects. Get on the net and do some research to find things like magazines and clubs market. As an example the Mustang has had an unbelievable following since its beginning. You will find global sales manager job description publications, parts catalogs swap meets, car shows and so on. Look at your company and identify precisely the very same kinds of things. If you're attempting to sell to everyone you'll never get anywhere. Cater to a set of individuals. Trust me once I say it is a lot more profitable if you're doing.

Write a post every day. This is the number one method to create free traffic to people. There are companies that will write posts for you although it can be very time consuming. One time I outsourced five posts and had to re-write every single one of these. I take the opportunity to study, compose and publish every article. It pays big dividends in the long run. Write an article that will help people promote a product, examine a business or solve a problem.

Every network marketing supplier seems to be looking for the magical network marketing lead resource that is currently going to provide them an ongoing stream of fresh mlm leads with charge card in hand begging you to combine your chance phoning them. I even saw a site this week were somebody calling them self a guru, was promising to teach you how to make that occur. What BS!

IT DOESN'T EXIST!

Regardless of what many of those "Self Proclaimed" mlm gurus are trying to sale you, I will promise you, it does not exist. additional info If such a mlm lead strategy or source was out there I have been for 30 decades, do not you think I would know about it?

The Internet has not been changed since by my philosophy on MLM lead generation. The world wide web is a fantastic tool to help you generate more leads for your Social Network Here small business, but isn't "THE WAY". If anyone tries to tell you that they've "THE WAY" to create network marketing leads for your small business, RUN!

You here the term be The hunted and not the hunter bounced around by many "Web is THE WAY" self proclaimed gurus today. Please think through this. Being the hunted rather than the hunter has nothing to do with the fact if a prospect has been created offline or online. It's a mindset. I will state that it's an Attitude.

Your results will probably change whenever your attitude changes. I recall especially, exactly when this happened to me personally, before the web even existed, and it was. It happens for everyone once they understand how to create their own mlm leads offline, online, or both. IT IS AN ATTITUDE!

After you receive the "Law of Averages out of your mind to your heart" and you understand that recruiting, online or off is a numbers game your posture will change. When you start to recognize that you don't desire them, sales pipeline management they need you and everybody who joins your staff will take your time up, so you don't want. As I have taught for 25 years, you are needed by them. You've got a six figure opportunity, they have a supervisor.

I believe that the majority of those "Attraction Marketers" who are attempting to convince one to neglect the recognized network marketing lead generation systems of yesteryear click to investigate are sincere in their view. However, I'm always reminded of a quote from the late great Jim Rohn "Never mistake sincerity with fact, because some people are sincerely wrong"

Is that people teach at the point. Some people consider $500 a month a success, for others. And it is $500 per hour. I can understand if a person struggles in network marketing for 4 or 3 decades, Konsyg then begins taking the majority of their prospecting online so that they feel as they have discovered the holy grail of recruiting and now they're making $ 500 per month. I get that.

What I don't get is they don't recognize that if not to this 3-4 years in the trenches, developing online. Do Konsyg sales pipeline management all of it online, if you are someone who's preaching attraction advertising, consider it and mark my words.

The failure rate for the ones that try to create their prospects online, and the ones that try to create their mlm leads off line, ULTIMATELY WILL BE THE SAME! I listened another night, in on a MLM Lead System Pro webinar along with the speaker made the statement we want to turn around the collapse speed in network advertising to success rate with our platform. The part about that statement is I believe it was believed by them. Never confuse sincerity with fact.

The truth of the matter is 76 percent of the population of the USA die without enough cash in their bank account to pay for their own funeral. I am not likely to change that, your not likely to change that, and no MLM Lead Generation System is going to change this. As as human being and network entrepreneurs we need to learn how to work with human nature, and the way it is.

4 out of 5 small companies of any sort don't make it five decades.

Not to sell their home. The specific same thing can be stated about insurance brokers that never market their very first policy.

So what exactly does this all have to do with getting a Master in MLM Lead creation? Everything! You must understand that for fascination advertising to work, you ought to be attractive. There's nothing sales pipeline management template more unattractive than a fired up newbie who just got off a conference call talking about that which they know nothing about and calling them self a "MLM Consultant". This has gotten way out of hand on

You would come across a wide assortment of wages, if you should scan job boards for a profession in lead generation, appointment setting, or teleprospecting. Some positions pay as little as $8.00. Others can pay as large as six figures when you add commission, salary, and bonuses. Just how can you put a value on direct generation?

Business-to-business generation of leads is all catching on all across the nation. Many companies hire a third party company. Other people hire people with a sales history or train current workers. Qualify them to the fullest the objective is definitely to predict on leads, and provide a logical step for the external sales team. A next step could be a meeting, a conference telephone, or a webinar.

Why is there such a disparity with generators' salaries? I think there are some reasons. To start with, it's a organization's job to make as much profit as possible. That often means paying workers as little as they can eliminate. There is absolutely no guarantee that any lead will turn into a closed deal, so determining the value project management pipeline strategy of supplying them can be complex. Each firm has its own unique product and service offering, and the worth of those offerings can be different from company to company. For example, a firm selling $500.00 coffee manufacturers may pay significantly less than a software firm selling an ERP solution valued at $500,000 each thing.

To take advantage of a lead creation career, direct gen. experts must become experts in their area. For instance, if the majority of lead gen. tasks are with software companies, lead generation experts must study the intricacies of applications and maintain trends. Generating reps must also practice becoming outstanding callers, which entails learning how to overcome objections and choosing the proper words to ignite an interest. You'll find that many of the lead creation reps possess a sales background but they also have some expertise in the area in which they are currently calling.

You decide the worth of direct generation, when you become an expert in the field. It doesn't matter if you work for a business, a generation more services the company firm, or start your own firm. The value of what you accept as payment for it and what you are doing is totally up to you.

-- E. R. Carpenter

more information on wikipedia

E. R. Carpenter is a sales specialist and writer whose work has been published by Little, Brown and Company, The Midwest Book Review, Forest Wade Press, and AALBC.com. inside sales management strategies The Air Force veteran and Capital University grad lives in the Cleveland region.

The reaction I know some of you are having right now is oh no Dale. Everybody I'm talking to states Market doesn't function and I don't want to pursue my friends and family. Let me say this,

Just because the "ace" you are listening to blew it in their hot market rather than figured our how to help anyone be prosperous in their warm market, DOES NOT MEAN WARM MARKET DOESN'T WORK!

When done each method will provide you with leads that are workable.

Market methods work as well and that I will supply you the names of countless industry heavy hitters that came into the industry due to a market contact or network marketing lead generation approach.

The main point is you opt to get a searched or be searched. In addition you choose if you would like to become a Master MLM generator or concentrate on just 1 of those 6 methods. One last thought and then I will let you go. When you think about the fact that 42 percent of the American people does not have an email address, why would you wish to remove 42 percent of distributors and your potential clients before you ever begin?