By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a general Arlo Guthrie iPod mix. It's always tricky using Arlo for work music, I get so caught up in the stories and sheer fun of it all I generally have to switch over to something else to get work done:

 

SFA and CRM vendor Satuit Technologies, selling to the professional investment markets, has announced that Eric Overgard has joined the company as senior consultant of the development services group.

 

Satuit officials say Overgard will be responsible for building and delivering custom products and last-mile integration for Satuit clients. Prior to joining Satuit, Overgard served as senior business analyst and developer for Rothschild Asset Management, where he was responsible for the company's CRM system re-engineering, improving the reliability of the company's CRM data and reporting capabilities and developing CRM training materials.

 

Karen Maguire, CEO of Satuit, said Overgard had "completed several custom integration and development projects with SatuitCRM and has worked to integrate Satuit's products while at his former posts with U.S. Trust and Newgate Asset Management."

 

Prior to Rothschild, Overgard served as consultant and senior business analyst and developer for Newgate Capital Management, where he was responsible for developing and deploying custom applications for new accounts and account updates to a hosted CRM application. 

 

He has also served as vice president and senior business analyst of institutional asset management for U.S. Trust Company of New York/Bank of America, and as a consultant to First Data Corporation and Deutsche Asset Management. 

 

Overgard earned a bachelor's degree in computer applications in astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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So there I was, rocking along in Google Chrome, when I realized there's no way to turn off that stupid red line under words the browser thinks you misspelled. Goodbye Chrome, back to Firefox as the default browser. Get that fixed, Google, and let us turn off the automatically underlining links and I'll use it again.

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Steve Ireland, founder of Joblogs, is announcing the company's Web-based service that focuses on helping service-focused teams organize their constant flow of client communication and projects. 

 

Pronounced "job-blogs," Ireland says, it's described as "private Web workspaces that pull everything and everyone together to get work done. The service blends the concepts of Blogs and CRM into a private, versatile hub where staff across a company team-up among themselves and with their customers to stay coordinated and get work done."

 

He quotes one early user saying "Holy crap, this is like Facebook for business."

 

Joblogs is not a blog platform in the traditional sense, Ireland says, adding that in Joblogs "a blog describes a single Web page that tells a story about something a team is working on -- e.g. a private agenda or folder for a business transaction or project." Most blogs remain private, used internally by the team, he says, whereas publishing a blog to an external guest (anyone with an e-mail address) "opens up a whole new world, enabling the team to expose a specific view of its internal activity with its customers." 

 

Ireland says while conventional CRM, CMS, Intranet and enterprise software has largely focused on material goods based industries, Joblogs "has been designed from the ground up to support service-oriented professions. Our customers are in the business of providing services which require daily coordination of a set of people, information, processes, schedules and decisions and need to keep the entire business in sync.

 

Similar to advanced enterprise systems, such as CRM, Joblogs has features to capture, relate and search for information, "but it does so in a style that is more suited for teams that provide services to clients," Ireland says: "Joblogs is approachable, intuitive, fun to use and plays nice with other systems. It replaces numerous software applications with one attractive, practical and simple to use online service."

 

It will be released for general availability Sept 9th.

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Izmocars has announced the certification of izmocars Customer Relationship Management Software (iCRM) by the Chrysler Corporation. Izmocars iCRM is now approved for use in the Chrysler Lead Central program.

ICRM is a Web-based Customer Relationship Management product for the automotive industry for the CRM needs of an automotive dealership, including Sales Force Automation  and service management.

The product lets users track customer communication and interaction with every department at a dealership throughout the customer relationship lifecycle, including pre-sales, sales, finance & insurance, service, and business analytics based marketing campaigns.

" The izmocars iCRM product is the perfect compliment to the Chrysler Dealer Network," said Tej Soni, President of izmocars. "With the Chrysler certification, izmocars is now a preferred national partner."

The izmocars product suite includes izmoWeb, izmoRainmaker and iConsult, described as "personalized sales performance coaching for a dealer's sales team's ability to sell."

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GoLeads, a vendor of business and consumer sales leads and mailing lists integrated with CRM technology, has introduced what company officials call "its first major enhancement to its Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) product, Relay Connect." The result is a combination CRM/Leads Management product called Relay Connect Pro.

 

The release "extends the capabilities of the base product from lead generation and distribution to tracking and analysis and reporting tools," company officials say.

 

Sales organizations have a variety of tools, list sources and applications at their disposal, but using them to their full potential "can be complicated and time-consuming," said Bill Mattern, president of GoLeads. "With Relay Connect Pro, they are able to consolidate their efforts into one centralized system."

 

The basic Relay Connect CRM product allows leads to be distributed to sales reps without the use of Excel or NotePad. Once in the sales rep's queue, Relay Connect allows them to view the details of each lead, make notes, schedule meetings and track progress from lead to prospect to customer.

 

It also provides managers with the ability to track leads by sales rep and to find out how every list, lead and rep is performing.

 

With the addition of Relay Connect Pro, users will get such features as List Generation, which lets them use "all of GoLeads databases, including Brand New Businesses, New Movers, New Home Owners and U.S. Farm Data," company officials say.

 

Users can also import third-party lists to create a centralized database, and de-dupe lists to ensure they are not paying for leads they already have.

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An international partnership will benefit Nova Scotia businesses, according to The Burnside News. So don't ever say First Coffee doesn't scour the world to bring the news to you.

The new ACT! by Sage Platinum Care subscription service includes Sandler sales training content and access to a new online business development portal with moderated discussion forums.

"Sandler Training and Sage Software are both big, international organizations, but the RED Group and our office understand the local need," Eldon MacKeigan, franchisee of Sandler Training in Halifax, told The Burnside News. "The consistent development of business people in sales is the result of productive systematic processes in selling and the effective management of the customer data."

"It's essential to have the CRM product partnered with business development methodology," said Bruce Seidman, president of Sandler Training International. "It's not just putting data into blank fields. The combination of the sales team incorporating this technology into their strong daily sales behaviors unleashes a powerful one-two punch to drive sales."

Subscribers receive a full year of access to the Sandler Broadcast Center, which includes weekly members-only podcasts, a DISC individual strengths assessment, Sandler e-mail newsletter and one complimentary sales consultation at a Sandler training center.

"It's essential to have this CRM product partnered with methodology. Great initiatives can come from large corporations. But without local energy, these big initiatives are worthless," Seidman says.

Sandler Training and the RED Group will host a two-hour executive briefing on September 25 from 8:30 am to 10:30 a.m. at the Sandler Training Centre in Dartmouth.