Below is a partial list of some of the Salesforce work we’ve been doing over the last 12-24 months.

Integration of apps (AppExchange, etc) – We have worked with email marketing services, survey software, and many other applications and service providers (This can become very complex, beyond plug and play, into core level integration, diagnostics, dealing with limitations within Salesforce, lack of documentation, etc.)

Custom development of applications using Fireworx’s own proprietary middleware on a Windows server, with MS SQL database, using ASP for page programming, that can extend Salesforce capabilities in real time with custom applications. We have built extensive custom quoting tools and billing portals, which included extracting data, moving into middleware, covering entire customer lifecycle from sale to order to provisioning and other functionality. Also integration with offsite applications, i.e. Sansay which sits at vendor’s co-lo. These are SaaS solutions that do not have APIs built to interact with Salesforce at this time.

Advanced Web-to-lead forms and workflow automation including integration with custom Web site forms and internal actions in SalesforceCustomize contact forms and fields inside of Salesforce to meet specific needs of client’s business model

Programming of advanced features inside Salesforce including triggers that can set in motion specific actions upon certain triggering events (change of status, etc.)

Import and export of data to and from SalesforceGoogle Analytics and AdWords integration inside of Salesforce

Pass-through integration with 3rd party tools such as Hubspot where Salesforce can be leveraged alongside other platforms or services

Cross integration with Infusionsoft CRM using our custom middleware

Integration of Google Maps into contacts

Product management and integration with external platforms for shopping cart or quote tools

Advanced lead and sales reports

Salesforce environment customization (page layouts, etc.)

Email templates and triggers (eg. Stages that fire off emails, pulling products into the email using Apex programming to cycle through customer data fields and then populating provisioning emails and automatically sending them out triggered by stage or other action.)

User management and general account administration

Call Paul McQuade or David Devore at 949-485-2204 to discuss your Salesforce-related customization or integration.

But every once in a while an email catches my eye and causes me to read. OK you have my attention! This is one of those rare emails. Good job Ann Handley at Marketing Profs!

Here are just a few reasons this email resonated:

• The message is highly targeted to me and other marketing professionals
• The message plays (very well) off my fear of becoming irrelevant!
• Using the Don Draper character instantly creates a visual of a “traditional ad guy” (something I have run from my whole career and they must know that over there…)
• Since they “must know somehow” (Gee, personas must work) that I don’t want to be a traditional ad guy, they use Don Draper in a negative light, refusing to attend something that will lead to “misguided attempts at innovation”
• Finally, receiving an email from a fictional character regardless of who it is arouses curiosity and a desire to at least give it a read

Whether I can attend this year’s B2B Marketing Forum or not, you can bet they have my attention, and I visited the site and checked out the agenda. (Not surprisingly this year’s theme is “This is NOT Your Father’s B2B.)

Here is the email message:

A message from a real Mad Man about MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2012.

Why I’m not attending B2B Forum 2012.

Recently, there’s been much talk about the “future” of B2B marketing. And I’m disgusted.

For my entire career, I’ve been telling people what they should buy, what they should do, and how they should think. It’s brought me success. A lot of success. In fact, there are whole bookcases devoted to my success.

And now, some individuals are trying to change things. They think they’re making B2B marketing better, and more insightful, all under the guise of “progress.” But I know better. I know people want to be told what to do, and in the same manner they’ve been responding to for decades.

So as of today, I’m putting my foot down. I’m telling the world that I will not be attending MarketingProfs B2B Forum in October.

If you want to abandon tried-and-true practices that have brought me countless victories, then by all means, attend. If you want to leave your success up to misguided attempts at innovation—put your faith in junk tactics like social media, mobile, content creation and search—then please, register now. If you think knowing how to optimize your lead gen funnel will help you attract and retain customers, then book your flight to Boston today.

As for me, I don’t need a marketing conference to tell me about the future. After all, the “future” was invented by guys like me simply to sell products. I’m just fine in the present.

Sincerely,

:: Donald F. Draper
:: Creative Director
:: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

And as you most likely already know, LinkedIn is at the epicenter of networking and referrals for today’s savvy business. It’s become the de facto rolodex and virtual networking mixer of the twentieth century and it’s well worth your time and energy to tweak your LinkedIn presence and get with the program.

Sure you’ve created a LinkedIn profile– uploaded your best, business-appropriate head shot, and filled in your job title, current and past positions and a few other fields to get you started. Time to get cranking on those connections, and get the glowing recommendations you deserve right? Well, maybe you do deserve them, but (sorry to burst your bubble) you still have a little ways to go. But if you’ll take some time to check off these to-do’s you’ll be well on your way to a strong presence at the world’s largest networking party!

This post is the first in a series of how to fine tune your LinkedIn account and maximize your effort in online business networking.

Tune-Up Task Number One – Craft Your Headline

First, you need to make sure your profile is as complete as possible. This is your foundation on LinkedIn and most likely the first impression you will make on a potential connection. Start with taking a good look at your headline. Is it compelling? This is your chance to shine so don’t be shy or afraid to self promote. Because of the way LinkedIn prompts you in your edit profile section, most people miss the fact that they can be creative with this critically important line of text. Promote not only your areas of expertise but also your level of competence.

Start by doing some research of your competition, and make sure you are hitting on the appropriate keywords that match your skill set with the needs of your target market. You’re only allowed 120 characters so be very selective with what you choose. Make every character count. We recommend writing them all out on a sheet of paper and playing with variations of keyword phrases.

While we can’t tell you which words you should use, LinkedIn publishes the most over used words to maybe try and avoid. Words like creative, organizational, effective, extensive experience, track record, motivated, innovative, problem solving, communication skills, dynamic, and my personal favorite…results-oriented.

There is some disagreement over whether you should include your company name. I like including it as I don’t come across as someone seeking employment, and as owner, I like my identity to be associated with my marketing agency. But in many cases it is not necessary. As an example, my profile headline combines position, my expertise, my chosen targeted keywords, and something compelling about my experience.

While we strongly advocate the idea of a creative headline, be careful that you don’t get too cute or present a level of expertise that you can’t back up. And since LinkedIn is search driven, we recommend keywords over cute if you are forced with a choice.

I’ve talked to many clients and business associates that don’t really buy into the need for tuning up their LinkedIn account. While you may not perceive the immediate benefit if you’re not job hunting, your LinkedIn profile is having an increasingly bigger impact on business relationships than you think. So why not take a few minutes and start tuning up your LinkedIn account today?

We will be posting some more LinkedIn Tune-Up tasks over the next few weeks so check back or subscribe in the sidebar.

As many of you may already know, LinkedIn announced recently that you will no longer be able to link your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, which accounted for much of the sharing activity on LinkedIn. (You can still share LinkedIn posts on Twitter.) Despite the frustration of many developers and partners, and regardless of Twitter’s reasons for doing so, Twitter has cut off API access to LinkedIn and other developers in an effort to gain tighter control over the use of Twitter’s features. Most of Twitter’s content is viewed on other sites due to their liberal API policies in the past. An API is basically a developer’s tool kit that helps them write programs that integrate with other programs or websites. Twitter is focusing more attention on getting developers to build applications that run within Tweets. But that is not the purpose of this post.

Before we get to the workarounds, it’s important to reinforce that sending all of your tweets to LinkedIn was never a good policy in the first place. It’s best to be selective about what posts you send to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and breaking this policy of limiting your posts can actually be a turn off to your target audience, rather than engaging and building a relationship with them.

Here are two quick and easy ways to make sure you keep your social communication flowing on LinkedIn.

Workaround #1: Use a social media service such as HootSuite, Tweet Deck or Seesmic. I’ve used all three (and there are many more) but have now focused mostly on HootSuite as I like their interface and collaboration tools the best. Simply set up each of your social media accounts and then select which ones you want to post to and hit send. You’ve now sent your post to a variety of social media sites simultaneously.

Workaround #2: There’s an amazing automation tool called IFTTT (If This Then That) where you can create a “recipe” to automatically post a Tweet to LinkedIn. Here is a recipe I found using the hashtag #in created by Adam Nash. You can do the same with the popular #li hashtag as well. Just set up your IFTTT account and use this recipe http://ifttt.com/recipes/43398. The next time you want to send a tweet to LinkedIn, simply add the #in or #li hashtag and you’re done.

Fireworx provided complete web site design and web site copywriting, as well as development project management and a full corporate identity package. We also wrote and designed marketing collateral including data sheets, a downloadable white paper and press release.

The new web site reflects the company’s brand objectives in a clean cloud-themed layout. Acris Technology is the company behind Mortgage VCO, a suite of software and IT services dedicated to the mortgage industry. The challenge in developing the Acris site was to incorporate some of these same products and services for clients outside the mortgage industry, in a site that reflects the family brand of the company’s other products. Borrowing strong design elements from the Mortgage VCO site while giving Acris it’s own unique identity helped achieve the branding goals of the project.

www.acristechnology.com

For the first time, customers can make direct online purchases from the entire AFTCO fishing clothing line, including fishing shorts, shirts, pants, gloves and more. In addition, the site features a comprehensive catalog of AFTCO’s world famous hardware, including AFTCO roller guides, rod parts, gaffs, fishing harnesses and fishing belts, outrigger clips, Unibutts, and much more. These tackle items are not available for sale online, but each item includes a direct link to a dealer locator for finding retailers in a visitor’s local area.

The site is built on the Searchfit ecommerce platform, a favorite of ours here at Fireworx Digital, based largely on it’s extremely SEO-friendly architecture. Also included are a video blog, a dealer locator database for both clothing and tackle lines, and additional information pages featuring AFTCO’s unique technology that contextually tie back to each product. In addition, the site tells the story of AFTCO’s colorful history, including founder Milton Shedd’s founding of Sea World, and many other major ocean conservation efforts over the last several decades.

The AFTCO.com online store is the third site built for AFTCO Manufacturing. Fireworx previously designed and built online stores for GuyHarveySportswear.com and AlAgnewSportswear.com, two of AFTCO’s licensed product lines. As with the two previously developed sites, AFTCO.com is fully integrated with the company’s ERP software, Full Circle, which enables near real-time, two-way flow of pricing and inventory data between the two systems, as well as providing order and shipping information exclusively through one interface, familiar to employees at AFTCO.

Read more: http://monetate.com/infographic/is-pinterest-the-next-social-commerce-game-changer/#ixzz1mDQQVwxb

What’s cool is how this spot identifies with the active/interactive audience without offending the social media fanatics. It pokes fun in a non-offensive way. Pretty cool. Enjoy!

Cloud-delivered software suite allows lenders to slash IT and office expenses and run an entirely paperless mortgage business – including loan processing, customer relationship management (CRM) and integrated telephone communications – in a secure, centrally-managed virtual environment

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 14, 2011

Acris Technology, formerly Acris Solutions, a software development company and provider of paperless technology for mortgage bankers and lenders, today unveiled Mortgage VCO, an end-to-end, cloud-based “virtual corporate office” suite of software applications, IT and consulting services that enable any mortgage lender to run a compliant, scalable, paperless mortgage business without the expense and complexity of on-site servers, software, maintenance and upgrades. The announcement was made at the 39th Annual Western Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco.

Developed and refined over a period of 12 years, Mortgage VCO had been in use privately for years by Laguna Hills, California-based Millenia Mortgage to process over $10 billion in funded loans and is now available to mortgage bankers, regional and community banks, credit unions, and other mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO’s suite of solutions includes cloud-delivered virtual desktops, sophisticated loan origination and processing software, paperless document storage, digital signature technology, IP telephony, and mortgage-specific consulting and IT services. As a virtual, cloud-based office solution, Mortgage VCO drastically reduces lenders’ IT costs so they can focus on what matters: closing more loans in less time. It also removes all geographical boundaries from a lender’s hiring criteria and integrates all communications among all parties – including emails and phone calls – into the mortgage production process, enabling ultimate transparency and accountability within a lender’s operations. Lenders simply need a high-speed Internet connection to run Mortgage VCO.

“The enormity of the changes sweeping through the mortgage industry is having a fundamental effect on how lenders do business,” said Richard Johnston, president of Acris Technology. “If there was ever a time to reinvent the mortgage office, this is it. For the first time, lenders can have one office solution that does everything they need it to do and more – including a completely integrated communications platform that provides total control over leads and call campaigns, and the ability to run an entirely paperless operation. Simply put, Mortgage VCO makes lenders’ lives easier and more productive.”

The Mortgage VCO suite begins with the VCO Desk platform, which delivers a Windows desktop environment to any computer, laptop, thin client, iPad or tablet PC with a high-speed Internet connection. VCO Desk also includes the Microsoft Office® suite and MS Exchange® Server. Any third-party or proprietary software can also be hosted and delivered through VCO Desk’s secure Citrix® environment. Each of the five separate components described below can be added individually or together as part of the integrated suite:

VCO Lend – Loan origination and processing software that lets lenders enjoy increased productivity from their sales and processing teams, get real-time visibility into their operations and staff, reduce errors and ensure complete, compliant loan files. Designed for a compliance-driven marketplace, VCO Lend features highly-advanced task parsing and file queuing technology, custom rules-based workflow management, real-time performance reporting, incentive-based compensation, lead tracking and distribution, and comprehensive secondary marketing tools. VCO Lend allows multiple people to collaborate on the same file at the same time, improving turn times from application to funding. VCO Lend is packed with features yet can be fully customizable to a lender’s unique business needs.

VCO File – An easy-to-use paperless document management and hosted storage solution that integrates seamlessly with VCO Lend and other loan origination systems, VCO File saves time, money, and eliminates the need for on-site servers and file cabinets, enabling instantly-searchable digital file sharing anywhere, anytime.

VCO Sign – A digital electronic signature tool that uses public key encryption to ensure security, turbo-charging a lender’s pre-disclosure and document signing processes.

VCO Link – Provides seamless integration links with a variety of title, escrow, flood, credit, appraisal management, compliance and other settlement service providers – plus the ability to integrate with most pricing or automated underwriting engines.

VCO Voice – Based on IP-PBX technology, VCO Voice integrates call center phone service capabilities into the mortgage production process, with features such as a CRM-driven dialer that provides click-to-dial capabilities directly from a borrower’s file and the ability to have a borrower’s loan file appear on the loan officer’s screen when the borrower calls. Integrated call reporting ensures company-wide accountability and performance monitoring.

Mortgage VCO also provides a full range of integrated IT, technology and managed services, infrastructure support, customer training, and software customization, all tailored specifically to mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO was originally developed by Millennia Mortgage, which has been processing loans in a paper-free environment since 2003. Acris Technology was founded to market the continually-developing proprietary software technology to the industry.

“It’s important to understand that while Mortgage VCO is new to the market commercially, it is a tried and proven platform that benefited from full-time developers and mortgage banking professionals, working side-by-side for many years – with innovation and process improvement as two of our primary core values,” said Martin Williams, CEO of Acris Technology. “We believe it’s the ultimate complete office solution for mortgage lenders that want to minimize overhead costs and IT complexity, increase efficiency and improve business processes.”

For more on the Mortgage VCO story, visit http://mortgagevco.com/our-story.

About Acris Technology
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, Acris Technology is a technology provider offering custom software development and a full range of IT services and infrastructure support. Its flagship product, Mortgage VCO, is a virtual corporate office solution that provides all the necessary software and tools to run a completely paperless, cloud-based mortgage office, enabling clients to realize increased productivity, shorter loan life cycle times and reduced expenses. The virtual suite includes loan origination and processing software, paperless electronic document management (EDM), digital e-signature tools, IP telephony, virtual desktops with Microsoft Office® and Outlook®, plus software customization and development services, IT, telephony and Citrix® virtual office consulting. For more information, visit http://www.mortgagevco.com.