22nd Mar 2021 | Business Ownership, Consultancy, Customer Engagement, General Information, Salesforce
Did you notice that the last 12 months has been interesting? Rather like that curse, may you live in ‘interesting times’.
For me, it has been a time of re-engaging with my lovely, lovely customers. A year ago, I gave up my staff, gave up the office, started working from home (again).
What I realised is that I love being the ‘front-man’ for the business who works with customers and discovers what delights them. I also found out that there is a lot more demand out there than I could satisfy on my own. What to do?
Whatever Cloud Genius is, it is a small business. By that, I don’t mean that it is small-minded. We have our eyes on the stars! What I do mean is that I always want it to have that feeling where you are talking to someone real.
I know that asking you to submit requests through the support@ email has been a challenge, at times, for some. What happens behind the scenes is that it means you get served quicker. It means that subsequent emails you send are grouped together… so that when you ask? What has happened, we know. When we want to look at the issues you have, we know, too. It also paves the way for expansion. You may have noticed the use of the word ‘we’… it has already begun to happen.
In the last year, I have tracked down an excellent recruitment agency. (Believe me, there are lots of bad ones.) I have also begun to engage trusted individuals, who I have worked with over a period of 14 years. These are coming together to increase the capacity of Cloud Genius. At the same time, I don’t want to lose touch with customers.
The challenge: how do we maintain that small business closeness and flexibility, but also expand to give you a better service?
There will be a couple of changes. First, some of those help requests may be dealt with directly by other people.
Second, I am going to start up a ‘Lunch and Learn’ group. We had a trial this month (March 2021). The sharing of information is going to happen monthly, on a Thursday, for 45 minutes at lunchtime. Of course, we will be using Zoom. It gets rid of travel, need to hire venues and gets rid of travel time. These are going to focus on different aspects of Salesforce. You guessed it, the customers get to name the topic. Look out for an email, soon!
This article will also be published on Medium… if you slide over there, you will have an opportunity to comment!
18th Mar 2021 | Business Ownership, Charity, Consultancy, Customer Engagement, General Information, Salesforce, Training
On of the advantages of the current crisis is that it has allowed us to meet virtually, at a moment’s notice.
No travel time. Distance is no longer an object.
It is a tiny sop, out of a global crisis.. but it is very real.
Running on cloud-based technology, my clients have been all around the world. When I spoke of learning, everyone thought of a classroom.
One of the side-effects of the crisis is that people are much more familiar with Zoom. So, now we can bring everyone together in a new and wonderful way. Rather than having to hire a classroom, have everyone travel to the same place AND put on food we can just spend some time together.
I was able to experience this at the first Cloud Genius ‘Lunch and Learn’ event on 11th March.
So, it set my mind thinking… perhaps we could have more of this.
What I am proposing is a monthly Lunch and Learn, where we look at different aspects of Salesforce and learn together.
Expect details to be posted here, soon.
Together, we can make amazing things happen.
7th Jan 2020 | Consultancy, General Information, Salesforce, Websites
I recently heard a great story about a man with a hammer… bear with me as I have a more up-to-date version.
The story starts with a submarine captain. His submarine is broken. This is a big problem. The submarine had a large crew. Every day that he was stuck in dock would cost a lot of money. Not only that, but he had a mission to complete. He was desperate to get going again. He asked around the docks and could not find anyone to fix his craft.
Eventually, his first officer managed to find an old chap with a hammer. The captain was sceptical, but invited the man aboard. He went straight down into the engine room. The man looked at all the pipes, took out his hammer, tapped a pipe and the submarine sprang back into life. The captain was overjoyed. He asked the man to invoice him. The invoice was immediately produced: £2,002.
The captain was staggered and challenged the man.. why so much money? All you did was tap a pipe it only took a few seconds.
The man patiently explained: Cost of tapping the pipe £2. The thirty years learning where to tap the pipe – £2,000.
A client of mine has been trying to integrate their website and their email and their CRM system. So far they have worked their way through 3 volunteers. The volunteers were great people, but they did not have the experience and knowledge necessary. They had not put in the time to build up the certifications, the years building up experience (through mistakes as well as successes). Although the volunteers were committed, they did not have all that experience and all those certifications.
The lack of functionality has cost their organisation dear… possibly thousands in lost donations, wasted time, etc.
When they came to us, we were quickly able to see the issues and get everything working closely together.
Like the man with the hammer we then have to send in our bill. Although it is not free, it will save them thousands. We are not ‘cheap’, but we try to offer great value.
Let us help you!
14th Jul 2019 | Accounting, e-Commerce, Finance, Salesforce
Back in 2015, I wrote a short article about Breadwinner and how this amazing product was integrating all of our Xero accounts into Salesforce. It seems to have made our lives so easy for so long. All our contacts in our accounting software match up EXACTLY with our Salesforce contacts. In that time it has been great to see Breadwinner continue to develop and add new features. At the time I said that Breadwinner was so good that it was a reason to purchase Salesforce.
If you were a Netsuite user, you had no such luck. You were left out in the cold with not proper 2-way integrations between your accounts/ERP and your Salesforce. Similarly, getting information from your Stripe account into Salesforce was ‘difficult’.
TODAY, I have heard that all that has changed.
Breadwinner is also launching integrations to connect Salesforce to Stripe, and another one to integrate Netsuite with Salesforce.
Breadwinner has brought out an integration for Netsuite. That has to be big news – your CRM and your Accounts/ERP package talking to each other. Using all the power of Salesforce reporting to give a real insight into how your business is doing.
Stripe talking with your Salesforce has to be big news, too! (But I am still more excited by the Netsuite news.)
So, what are you waiting for? I have always found Breadwinner to be super helpful, so why not find out more from the links.
Salesforce to Stripe, and integrate Netsuite with Salesforce.
21st Sep 2018 | Consultancy, Email, Event Bridge, Eventbrite, Salesforce
Has your synchronisation between Salesforce and Eventbrite been abandoned?
Occasionally, we have to claim our bragging rights. We do a lot of work with charities – more than 50% of our Salesforce work is with charities, but it is not all directly with Salesforce.
We (safely) unleash data you hold in one system and move it over to another system controlled by you.
What is the benefit?
Well suppose you have lots of events running on Eventbrite and you want to grab that data and put it in your Salesforce org.
In other words, you have lots of people who are interested in you and your products – they have attended your events – and you want to convert them into customers. Their data is TRAPPED in one system (in this case Eventbrite). You need it in Salesforce so that you can put it to work.
There are a number of ways of doing this. Most of them are half-hearted. A year or two after they have been written, they are abandoned. We are able to do reliable, repeatable synchronisations. Our tools are never ‘abandon-ware’.
Our Eventbridge has been continually developed over four years, through API and data requirement changes.
It has allowed our clients to revolutionise their conversions. It could for you.
12th Feb 2018 | Consultancy, Salesforce
Most people don’t want to live on the bleeding edge.
When the pioneers were landing on the Americas and exploring new frontiers, life was exciting.
There were herds of wild beasts that could trample you, new peoples who might want to kill you and so on.
Similarly, in the early development of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine explosions were not uncommon.
On the IT frontier, I have to admit to be excited by technology. My first computer arrived as a solder-together kit. It could lose all its data if it was wobbled in the wrong way.
Most people don’t want to live like that. It is not a good way to do business.
It also explains why so many NHS computers were still running Windows XP, which allowed them to be attacked by ransomware. (It’s a bit more complicated, but…) They were not on a more modern operating system because upgrades break stuff. (See below…) Some IT companies like that sort of thing… it is exciting helping customers out of a fix and they generally appreciate it.
BUT
People want their homes to be safe.
They want their public transport reliable (and safe).
Safe cars? To quote the Simpsons ‘unexplained fires are a matter for the courts’.
The point of all this? Salesforce has just performed a major upgrade.
What has it broken? Nothing!
What was the disruption like? There wasn’t any.
What incompatibilities has it introduced? Erm… none?
Boring Salesforce. I did notice it was slightly quicker. There was a slightly different signing-on animation. There will be improvements, that I will have to check over before rolling out to clients. But, everyone is on the latest version with its improved security. No cavalry riding to the rescue, just business as usual.
