Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The magic of dreaming and planning

Every year during Christmas break we sit down, relax and plan, usually first only with Peter on more strategic level and later with our staff. As said in many books, we do not find the final output important, but the process really is inevitable for certain things to happen. So, this year in January we were discussing how by Juny/July '07 we will grow our company and bring NextLogic to the new level - move to real office, hire more programmers and designer, start working on developing e-learning platform for our staff and how we might move into Ruby training in Singapore as no one else is really doing it here yet.
There you go, not even knowing how, its September and our business is exactly there. We have our great real office in Singapore, we are expecting our team to grow with 2-3 new members at the beginning of October (we will be hiring ex-offenders as we planned it, finally after one year of training in prison they are ready and able to join our team and we cannot be more happy about it). We just ran our first commercial Ruby on Rails training this weekend and Peter has been training SMU and NUS students since ITCS approached him last month and he will also be sitting in as a judge in ExtremeApps 24hours programming competition sponsored by Google coming weekend.
It really looked nothing like that maybe even a month ago. Its unbelievable how things sometimes out of nowhere start falling into place maybe because we planned them many months ago. I guess it applies in life and in business. We are very happy that our baby NextLogic has survived officially its first 2 years, that its growing and we are looking forward to the experience ahead.
Here are some photos from this week training that, by the way, was very successful and we are planning for more in the coming months.
We aim to be pioneers for Ruby on Rails in Singapore and its really happening.
So, dream and plan, as those dreams and plans might come true if the motivation behind them is strong enough.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

NextLogic's trade secret

I am not a programmer. I am "just" in charge of sales and marketing in NextLogic but I know what I must know about our trade and I am more than happy to share it. If only somebody would listen.
We have been around at the market for about 3 years now and we keep repeating small simple tricks that we use in our business to all IT companies, especially software development companies. It is not because we are so damn proud believing that nobody can copy us anyway but because we hope they will improve their service, prices, etc. and thus the whole image of software development industry would improve too. But its not happening. Maybe they think we are lying to them to confuse them :o).
What are the simple tricks or magic tricks that we use that not many software developers yet want to implement:
  1. give away your source code (at least if you develop customized software applications) - do not lock your customer to you just by holding back the heart of the application, give it away, its a great motivation to provide an outstanding service so your clients will be motivated to continue working with you and they will trust you more
  2. use Ruby on Rails - move on from old outdated programming languages like Foxpro, C sharp, PHP or even from Java - use the best that you can at the time, upgrade your skills set regurarly, do not sell solutions developed in languages that are already outdated, its like selling food after its expiry period. Do not think that because something is simple, it can't be powerful (Ruby). We have built over 40 customized applications in 21 different industries in past 3 years in Ruby and Ruby on Rails and they all work well and saved us lots of time and money and thus we could provide much more affordable solutions to our SME clients. Btw. if by now you do not know what Ruby on Rails is, better go and study fast or join our trainings :o) www.nextlogic.biz/ruby_training, www.rubyonrails.org
  3. utilize Open Source & contribute to Open Source - save time and cost to your clients by utiling tools/libraries, etc. that Open Source offers, there is no need anymore to reinvent the wheel BUT there is a need to contribute back so we all can learn and get better (by all I mean Geeks called IT people including anybody who provides software development services, hosting services, web design, etc.)
  4. use agile development practices - the waterfall approach it outdated and not suitable anymore, upgrade the way you approach development and deployment of your applications and the way how you deal and interact with your customers, use test driven development, object oriented programming , etc.
  5. do not sell BMW if the client is looking for Toyota - meaning its our responsibility as IT experts to provide to our clients or prospective clients solutions that match what their needs are (as in any other industry). Do not think that because people are not IT savvy you can sell them anything, do not assume they are stupid. I have seen many cases in which my clients paid lots of money for something they didnt need at the first place. Unfortunately, its still a very common feature of IT vendors to recommend inappropriate solutions just to increase sales. I am not sure why they do it but I would love to encourage all to stop doing that. Its proven (from our experience too) that if you start with small simple application that your client actually needs and will see the benefits faster, he would definitely ask for more evantually, just be patient and do an outstanding job.
  6. take responsibility - we are all human and we make mistakes, that's OK and our clients understand that. So, lets try not to bulshit them, if we make a mistake, we should admit it, apologize and fix it, not start fingerpointing game with fighting over contract whose fault is what, it makes no sense. Customer IS always right. If you make a mistake and customer wants his money back, give him money back with the smile and apologize, do not charge for something you had not delivered, no matter how much time you spent on it already.
  7. use SDM (www.scoredigitalmedia.com) to save cost for your clients and to be socially responsible company - SDM is something like a small IT company within Singapore Changi prison. It consist of very talented people (inmates) who could develop simple designs, videos, CMS websites for very little money and in much better quality than many IT vendors or freelancers at the market. How do I know it ? Because we trained some of them for the past one year :o) and we work very closely with SDM and support Yellow Ribbon Project. Many times I am suprised how little Singaporeans know about some of the government initiatives that are very powerful and mainly related to their business. Put SDM on your list of partners or competitors as its for sure one of those depending on how you see them. We proudly outsource lots of design jobs to them and we are happy about it.

There are many more things you could do to make life of your clients easier, lets share, explore and get better so we all can be proud of what our industry is like.

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Monday, September 10, 2007

How not to waste money on your CRM

Today, I would like to touch on the issue of utilizing CRM so it actually makes sense to use it and pay for it. Our SBS CRM is very simple and basic and it mainly caters to very small business owners, sole proprietors or even agents. Its is also very cheap yet those money might not be worth to spend if its not used properly. The more clients use our system the more I can see what kind of problems they are facing and it all comes down to the same thing - it doesn't produce what is expected because its not fully and properly used (unless technology fails of course).
I just would like to share how I am using the very same CRM for my own business as we are also SME and we do use it on a daily basis.
All it requires to make you money and save you stress and energy is DISCIPLINE, CONSISTENCY & PERSISTANCE.
Well, it might sound simple but its not as its directly linked to the traits of the human beings who are using the system. So the system is just as good as the person who is operating it.

How I do it and how it works for me ?
Being an addicted networker I go for many networking events where I collect many business cards and as soon as I come back or latest within a week (during weekend) I make sure I key in into the CRM details of all people I met or talked to with comments that I remember about them.

The second step is to follow up and here is how my simple follow up looks like:
1. I send thank you and "happy to meet you email" to all people I met, I do not wait for them to make a first step cause surprisingly, when I tested that approach, I didn't experience much initiative from their side..so I don't wait, I email them stating also that I will have a look at their web to learn more about their products and services so I can refer them correct people if I get a chance. This initiates two basic responses - none or email back :o). The ones that email back are worth to follow up on and I make a remark into CRM about all that happened - who answered, what I learned at the websites about companies, who might be potential good people to introduce to them, etc. Btw. after email I also sms to ask people to check their email and reply as in this age of spam you never know if they will receive your email or not.
2. I send 2nd email to the ones that responded and some others that I called or smsed stating that I would like to meet up in person and learn more about them and their services. Its so called "get to know each other" meeting. Most of them agree and here I mark down into CRM when is the meeting so I do not forget and make sure I will not schedule anything else there.
3. Meeting - I go for the meeting and learn more about the person and tell them about my business and myself. Most of the time is to see if we like each other and if there is any avenue for cooperation at all. Most of the time there is no potential at the first meeting, it usually takes me 3-6 months of permanent follow up till some real action takes place (meaning they refer me or I refer them or we become partners, etc.) I do not rush it, just use my CRM as my diary to keep note of everything that is happening and my comments. After the meeting, I key in what we discussed and what should be follow up and set up follow up date (being a follow up call, proposal, next meeting or just "no reason KIV")
4. Regular follow up - if there is nothing specific to work on I put follow up date as one month from the date that we met. I will make sure I will email the person at least once a month or call them to say hi and of course track it in the CRM. I also write down in case I meet them again at another networking event. With every event we usually know each other better and better so meeting same people at different networking events all over again and again might not necessarily be a bad thing. You can enhance relationship, just make sure you remember them (which for me is a challenge as many Asians look alike to me :o))
5. Sooner or later I definitely utilize the contact for something meaningful for the business and if not after 6 months I categorize them as "trash" in my CRM but I never delete their record. In case I get in touch with them again I must know what has happened before. And as my company grows and I will pass some of my contacts to my staff to follow up with the whole story linked to those accounts. It will be much easier to take care of them and much more professional. Having a proper info about all your contacts pays off, sometimes you do not even imagine how and when:
a) you decide to venture into another business and suddenly all contacts you found useless for your current business become very important
b) by writing it down you remember better whom you met and what happened and will avoid many unnecessary embarrassing situations when you proposing something to someone for the second time (or more times) not even realizing it
c) the history of your dealings with your accounts can serve as role model process of dealing with contacts and serve as a training to your new staff (saves you lots of time)
d) helps to avoid lots of finger pointing and blaming who is right and who is wrong - if you take your little time to write down everything down when it happens, you can always refer back to it as a proof

There are many benefits and they will be different for different people, but you will never experience them until you start to practice something along the line of what I just described. It doesn't have to be exactly the same, as long as it makes sense and brings results to you.
In this century, if somebody tries to outsmart me by saying that they remember it all by heart and do not need any system, I just laugh. Its possible with 10 customers but not with 100 customers, thats a fact. Information about your contacts is your future gold, do not throw it away, keep it, update it, use it for everybody's benefit.
At the end of the day, it does not matter which CRM you use as long as you use it properly and of course as long as it saves your time and makes your life easier and not more complicated. More complicated only means how data and data entry is structured in CRM, not that you can be flaky about using CRM.

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