For the storage I looked at Rackspace Cloud Files and Amazon’s S3 for storage, which are of course purpose built. The problem I had was finding an add-on that could access these private files. I looked Tools like Assets and Channel Files, which are great asset management modules, but my understanding is that the files on RS or AWS need to be made public - and therefore better for documents, images, etc that the public have access to. So I built an add-on for EE that allows CMS users to create an Amazon S3 Signed URL from within the control panel. I can then use that signed URL any way I want.
It works great and is available on Devotee
Two key things in the redesign are that I don’t want pages to do full refreshes on say for example a filter change and I want the URL to change i.e. from ?foo=bar to ?foo=johndoe but without a reload. After looking at HTML5’s History API I stumbled upon PJAX (jQuery plugin that uses PushState), which I later found out 37signals used for the new Basecamp (good video here on David Heinemeier Hansson on using PJAX over Backbone.js).
This looked like a potential solution, particularly as it felt a bit easier to deploy. The only problem is there is not a great amount of support for using PJAX with PHP or Codeigniter, as it was originally built for Rails. However, this week I managed to get a prototype of the new interface working that allows me to sort deals, filter and change dates all without the page reloading and with the URL changing accordingly.
It. Is. Lightening. Fast.
Below is a summary of some of the code that I used to get PJAX working with Codeigniter. It’s no where near perfect, but should get you off on the right foot. I’ve not got a demo to share at the moment but stay tuned to the buildtracks.com blog for updates.
Main controller
function index()
{
// --- lots of code above this line ----
$data = $this->load->view('your_views', $some_date, true);
if (isset($_SERVER["HTTP_X_PJAX"])) {
echo $data['my_PJAX_data'];
} else {
$data = // construct header and footer and any other views as string
$this->load->view('main_view', $data);
}
}
main_view / your template
JS scripts
The screenshot attached is taken from Business Insider
]]>
]]>I’ve been intrigued by the CRM market for years. Although there are some new systems that are worth checking out, the market is going through well needed change. And as a result, there is an opportunity to redefine 1) the problem and 2) the solution when it comes to small businesses managing contacts and communication and pipeline management and forecasting.
My first observation
One observation I’ve made recently is that the contact manager market (can I call it an industry?) is being disrupted. How we communicate with clients and prospects (or at least how we introduce ourselves or businesses) is evolving. This is not a post on social media, but it has changed a lot of things particularly in marketing. But the other reason why the market / industry is being disrupted is because of technology. Small businesses are no longer hooked into an exchange server and Outlook 2003. Email and related systems are much more open and thus easier to integrate with.
What does this mean?
It means that managing contacts, notes and emails will become (and is becoming) more integrated. Take Nimble and Contactually for example; two great services that integrate seamlessly with a raft of online applications from Linked In to Google Apps, and as are result help you be more proactive.
It’s fair to say, contact management in a few of years will be much different and easier for businesses.
My second observation
As a result of this disruption, everyone seems to have forgotten about sales pipeline management and forecasting. It’s all about “social CRM”. Salesforce are even trying to trade mark the term “social enterprise” (good luck with that…).
Sales pipeline management and forecasting software is not sexy. There’s no buzz about it. But does that mean it’s not done any more?
I’d argue that businesses are thinking about it even more than say 5 years ago. Rightly so, if you are to believe recent stats from the Aberdeen Group that actively carrying out sales forecasting can increase revenue by up to 9% and profit by up to 5%.
Given that the average margin of a B2B service company is 15%, an extra 5% is no doubt very welcome!
On top of this, through my work with small businesses and through the feedback I have received from the Tracks users it seems that businesses still struggle with pipeline management software and importantly struggle to generate accurate forecasts. Sales people still have a lot of admin. Sales managers struggle to get them to do it. And those in charge of the forecasts are still spending painful hours in front of Excel.
The problem with sales pipeline management and forecasting
In short, the problem is three-fold:
- Sales pipeline management and forecasting software takes up too much admin
- The forecasts are not accurate enough
- The software doesn’t help sales people sell
On top of this, there are many people based issues like the accuracy of the data, enforcing data entry and the huge variances between confidence levels (and sales processes) of those involved. The only way to eliminate this is to make sales pipeline management and forecasting much more integrated into technology, the business and the customer buying process.
Here’s to making it sexy
It’s clear that there is a design problem with CRM and related sales technology and processes. Here’s my take on what will make sales pipeline management that bit sexier:
- Make it more integrated with other systems (just like its sister the contact manager) from email to phone systems and from SMS to calendar activity. With technology becoming easier to deploy and data more accessible the level of effort in documenting the sales pipeline could (and needs to) go down. Ill bet everyone in your business would love to spend less time on sales admin.
- Make forecasts more accurate. Most small businesses go with gut feeling. Yes this is a good metric but I believe in using historical data to make predictions from the previous performance of a sales person to the spend patterns of a client. With data more easily accessible more insights can be found - and people love insights.
- Apply a bit more of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think. A lot of the CRM systems on offer are clunky to say the least. They are designed for features and mass customisation. You do the work. What about a bit of software and a business that does the work for you?
This is what we’re working on at Tracks. Sign up today!
Related Posts
]]>The document is available to download on Slide Share
Before you get started you need the following:
- A mac - your machine
- MAMP - your local web server and database
- A Beanstalk account - your repository
- Git Tower - your local version control app
- A license of Expression Expression
- A hosting account - I recommend Vidahost
- A text editor
- Patience - getting version control running is worth it
Related Posts
]]>First of all, after much trial and error I decided to start with a fresh install of MAMP - at the time of writing it was MAMP 2.1.1. Sadly, following many tutorials and using Stackoverflow to the extreme I couldn’t get it working. My main problem was that PEAR was installed in /php5.4.4 and PHPUnit was being installed in /php5.3.6 and I couldn’t get a symbolic link to work between the two folders. More advanced programmers could no doubt fix this, but this is the first time I’ve tried to do it - and was failing badly!
So moving on from that I then found an older version of MAMP (2.0.0) on my machine and given I had come across a couple of tutorials for 2.0.0 I decided to install a fresh copy of 2.0.0.
After doing that it was just a case of following BigDiver’s “MAMP 2.0 Pear and PHPUnit Installation” article. After hours of pain, I was so surprised when this actually worked! So if you are like me and going round in circles then I suggest you do the above.
Some other articles that have been useful are:
- Install PEAR on MAMP - Stackoverflow
- MAMP PEAR configuration is pointing to local directories - Stackoverflow
I know following a tutorial is probably not the best approach, but like I say it’s the first time I’ve done it, so happy that I’ve found a solution. Now I’m on to getting PHPUnit working with Codeigniter 3.0.0 - and of course upgrading from MAMP 2.0.0 to 2.1.1…
—-
(PS - I had a look as to where you might be able to download a copy of 2.0.0 but couldn’t find anywhere - sorry! Let me know if you find a location and I’ll add it to the post gregor /// @ /// goldhawklabs.com)
]]>Business
- The eras of selling From the CEB
- The End of Solution Sales from Harvard Business Review
- 5 Reasons Social CRM Is the High Ground for Revenue Production from the CIO
Tech
- The Future Of Customer Experience – 3 Examples Of Virtual Assistants, Biometrics And Siri-Style Services from TechCrunch
- 52 Types Of Blog Posts That Are Proven To Work from Copyblogger
- What’s the best date format? from Sitepoint
- Announcing jQuery Mobile 1.1.1 from JQuery Mobile
People & Icebergs
- The Only Definition of Success That Matters from Inc.com
- Coworking spaces & the demand for private offices from deskmag
- How Icebergs Work from How Stuff Works
Photo thanks to kaet44
]]>How happy am I? How successful you are is based solely on the answer to that question.
Although I’d be worried about that message getting into the wrong hands (state sponging waster anyone?), but the concept I do like. My only doubt is that some people - in my experience - are not built to be happy; they are built to be hopeful. So they yearn for more and once they have it they yearn for something else. Grass. Greener. And so on.
Would be interesting to read any studies that have proved that every human can indeed be happy.
]]>This was a conference that me and Kenton both attended a couple of years back - and although less of a “showcase” it was still an impressive event. Back in 2010, I was doing a lot of CRM research for a client and Salesforce was on the list, which ultimately ended up in this small rant. So I was interested to see how things had progressed and to see if indeed Salesforce is a good fit for a small company.
The answer is still no.
From the photo below, you might just be able to make out (through the smoke from the smoke machines…) the scale of the keynote; it was huge. But more importantly (and at times annoyingly), George Hu (Salesforce’s COO), took us through the 7 components of the social enterprise. These are:
- Collaborate
- Connect & Sell
- Service & Engage
- Automate & Extend
- Social marketing
- Listen & Analyse
- Product & Partners
Ok so what is on offer is very impressive. Salesforce has some great applications for each of these areas; some of which are very complex - and complex means costly (to manage, to support, to develop, and thus ultimately, to purchase as an end user). That means Salesforce needs bigger businesses to subscribe to their products based on the simple logic that larger businesses spend more on software. Salesforce is eating into that pie.
So if you are evaluating Salesforce for your small business, don’t bother, as they are not in it for you as a small business. Instead, go with a CRM provider that isn’t actively trying to take over the world or partner with companies like SAP (which Salesforce may well be trying to do given this blog post and the amount of times SAP was mentioned the other day). That’s not a swipe at Salesforce, it’s reality, but I do find it a bit embarrassing that Salesforce offer small business services like the contact manager - why?!
With that in mind, here’s a few examples of CRMs in the cloud that are worth evaluating instead of Salesforce:
—-
Hope this helps!
PS - My disclaimer is that I’ve build an add-on for Highrise, but regardless, my opinion still stands! Get in touch if you have any questions.
]]>- Deal status
- Description
- Next steps
- Confidence levels
- Closing month
- When the deal was added
- Value
- If they deal has been invoiced
- Deal type
- Highrise deal URL and ID
One of the main reasons for feature is to help people do further analysis on deals won and lost in the past in Excel. We’re bringing in charts and reporting features for deals and pipeline “Quick Stats”, but if you’ve imported all your deals into Tracks you can export these deals and do what you want with them in Excel.
Not sure what Tracks is?
Tracks is an add-on for Highrise CRM that allows users businesses to do simple forecasting and pipeline management with their Highrise deals. Features include exporting to CSV, assigning confidence levels and closing dates to deals, syncing updates with Highrise and much more. It is designed for mobiles, tablets and desktops.
For more on Tracks check out the Tracks channel or sign up free
]]>Whilst most of the changes were technical (minor bugs, refactoring code, etc.), some changes we’ve made highlight some of the bigger changes we’re looking to make in the future.
Tighter integration with Highrise
So far in Tracks, the integration has really just been about importing Highrise deals into Tracks and managing them from there. However, we wanted to be able to allow users to push updates in Tracks to Highrise and pull in updates in Highrise to Tracks. Here’s a few changes we made:
When updating a deal you can now update the Highrise deal (only values and status at the moment)
When you update a deal in Tracks a note is added to the Highrise deal
This helps you keep up to date with changes in confidence or the month the deal is closing
When looking at your pipeline deal you can syncing Highrise and Tracks deals
As example of this is when you’ve updated a value in Highrise and it’ll update in Tracks
Stats
We’re really looking forward to introducing stats and charts to Tracks. For the beta users we’ve introduce a feature called “Quick Stats”. This breaks down pipeline values for different views that are set (e.g. for this month and next). You can also see probabilities and pipeline values for different confidence levels. Much more is coming!
Subtle user features
Whilst there are many interface challenges (and designing for mobile and tablets helps us restrict what we add), there are a number of subtle interface challenges planned.
One change introduced was to see when the deal was last updated. Showing when the last deal was updated outside of a day in red acts as a good prompt, but also makes it easier for users to look at the pipeline and see which deals need updated!
You can sign up to Tracks and make managing you Highrise pipeline and forecasting easer
]]>Jeff talks about his lessons learned over his time building businesses and Nika Water. Here there are:
- Begin with the end in mind
- Be transparent with your donations
- Act boldly with your financial backing
- Find like minded people
- The product and value has to be good
- Outsource as much as possible
- Learn on someone else’s nickel
- Dont’ quit when that seems obvious
- Find a partner or mentor who balances
- Rule of 2’s - things take twice as long and twice as much to get done
Ron makes some great points throughout the book and I liked how Ron has simply put what senior execs are looking for:
Senior execs have problems and they love people who solve (or elimate) these problems for them. Be one of those people. Senior execs also love people who make money for the company. But you better be DAMN SURE your social media strategy is going to do that if that’s the path you’re going to go down.
So if you’re selling social media services to senior execs, here’s a couple of tips from the book on how not to approach selling social media services (sound familiar?):
Having blind faith in social media is fine, but it’s no basis on which to make smart business decisions. If your justification of social media is based on fear of extinction, good luck…it won’t persuade senior execs to invest.
And a tip on how to pitch it:
Yeah sure. Good for you. It’s nice that your mouthwash is environmentally sale and promotes healthy gums, but I’ve got bad breath. This is a “sales” meeting - you are selling you strategy to your prospects. Do what it takes to make the sale and nothing else.
Quite straightforward really!
—-
A Humorous Look at the World of Marketing in the Age of Social Media by Ron Shevlin is available via Amazon
It has been released as an alpha version, but we are trying some other functionality out that is not available publicly - in terms of a viable product though, it’s there! Some key features include:
- Different sales types
- Assigning confidence levels
- Assigning an anticipated closing date
- Deals search
- Monthly billing
- Multiple users
- Import from Highrise
- Push opportunities to Highrise
- And more!
Sign up and test it out. You can also read the story on how it came about.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give
- Sir Winston Churchill
]]>A recent story I heard was on the success of Lesney Products Limited, which was founded after World War II by Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith in 1947. The name obviously comes from “Les” and “ney”, but they added Products because they were unsure what they were going to make.
They started off as a die casting company making components for industry. From what I can tell they did alright, but over the Christmas period things were always a bit tougher because that’s when their customers did stock taking.
However, the company were asked to produce a casting for a toy gun and it was in 1948 that they decided to start producing die castings for toys over the Christmas period to help get over the lean time. This type of manufacturing led them to produce castings for toy cars and it was a couple of years later that they then started to focus solely on castings for toy cars.
Interestingly, the school in which the daughter of John Odell attended (the third founder), only allowed children to bring toys to school that could fit inside a matchbox. Lesney Products then went on to design toy cars that would only fit in matchboxes.
And Matchbox cars was born.
The first car called a Matchbox car was produced and sold in 1953; a remarkable 6 years after the business was founded. The business went on to be a huge success and although has changed shape over the years is now owned by Mattel, Inc, almost 60 years later.
This is a great reminder of what it takes to be successful in business.
Vidahost
I love this diagram of my favourite host’s cloud architecture.
Zipcar
Pretty cool application checklist from Zipcar. I like the strong visual representation.
Rule
I’ve recently come across Rule’s suite of products. The site is stunning.
Asana
I’ve been hearing good things about Asana (although don’t get why it’s free…), so I signed up for a trial run. Lovely clean welcome messages.
KISSinsights
A nice little touch from KISSinsights. I wonder how much it helps conversation rates.
Possibly the ugliest Google interface I have ever seen
Tracks was built for a consultancy called Mapa. Needing a bit more from Highrise CRM and sick of using spreadsheets for monitoring sales, the guys at Mapa decided to glue different parts of their business together with a web application that could be accessed from anywhere. That’s where Goldhawk came in.
If you’re looking for a tool that extends the deals functionality of Highrise then you’ve come to the right place. Tracks plugs into Highrise to allow for easier management of opportunities, pipeline, forecasting and monthly billing. That’s how we use it now, allowing us to use Highrise for managing communication with clients.
Tracks also works on mobiles, tablets, laptops and your desktop making it easy to see your sales pipeline and monthly billing on the go.
What’s next?
We’re building more features into Tracks, so stay tuned. Our goal is to make managing your business numbers easier, so if you want to sign up for the alpha version then fire away.
]]>His photos tell the story as it was: horrific. There is also a video exhibition where he tells his own story. Both Roo and I were blown away, but I also loved one of his quotes from when he was starting off:
I suddenly thought to myself, ‘For once in your life, you have a purpose. Use it. You could turn the minds of certain people and situations’‘.
The saddest thing is he feels he hasn’t changed anything with his photos. I disagree. You might too.
The exhibition is on from 7 October 2011 to 15 April 2012 at the Imperial War Museum.
- A strong pipeline avoids the quarter end crunch
- Pipeline velocity is more important than pipeline volume
- Pipeline is a better predictor of the medium-to-long term health of your business than forecast
- Having too many stages in the pipeline is counter-productive
- You can’t measure pipeline using ‘weighted average’ or ‘expected revenue’
- Marketing can’t fill the funnel for you
- A healthy pipeline has the right balance of deals in terms of size
- Pipeline sales stages have no value in and of themselves
- You need an algorithmic measure for each stage of the pipeline to determine whether you have enough opportunities at each stage
- Deals that are inactive should be cleared out of the sales funnel and sent back to marketing for rekindling
- Customers (or prospects) are entering the sales cycle further down the funnel now
- Unless you’ve established yourself as part of the ‘recommendation chain’, many of these opportunities will never enter your funnel
- Networking has always been the best way to fill the funnel
—-
Are you a Highrise user? Sign-up to Tracks - a new forecasting add-on
]]>Thankfully the world has moved on and he makes good documentaries instead.
Anyway, the documentary got me thinking about success and building a business. Many people say you need luck. You certainly need many things to go in your favour, but I’m not so sure it’s luck.
If I look at successful people who are either close to me or that I follow they all seem to have similar traits. I’m convinced that it’s these traits that bring good things. Here’s my view on what some of these traits are:
Say “yes I’ll go” more often than “no I can’t make it”
It doesn’t matter if it’s social engagements, business networking or something else the more you get involved in things the better you’ll get at seizing opportunities. Other people play a role in your luck, so don’t hide yourself away.
Get good at exaggerating
I’m not the most articulate person, but it seems the “lucky people” are. They can tell a story well and add some twists to the tale. This has a positive effect on how people view you. IMO.
Don’t dwell on the past
I guess we can all get caught up in the past, but lucky people tend to move on quicker. They’ve a positive attitude to change because there may well be an opportunity in that change. One person in the Derron Brown show was so stuck in the past that it restricted not only his life, but his immediate family.
Do things that make you feel uncomfortable
I think we’ve all got about 4-5 things in life that we’re really comfortable doing. It’s like our natural instincts. But good things happen to those that try to break out of this.
Be generous
Do you believe in Karma? I don’t believe that there is a Karma spirit looking after each of us, but I believe if you’re positive and you do positive things to help people it will come back on you. It’s like my first point of saying yes more than no.
Make decisions
A bit like getting stuck in the past, the people I regard as lucky make decisions and roll with them. And in many cases that decision is the more riskier one.
—-
Of course, I’m sure there are other traits that make a person lucky, but if you haven’t seen the documentary then I recommend you do. It is worth watching. Although I appreciate one-off bits of luck like a lottery win, luck on an ongoing basis only comes through some of the traits above.
I’m working on getting better at some of them!
]]>1. Don’t confuse consensus with collaboration
You need a clear vision, not agreement. Push ahead, but foster collaboration to make that vision a reality and turn it into a profitable product or service.
2. The ends always justify the means
Push as hard as you can to get what your company needs to best serve its customers.
3. Leadership vs. management
Build a strong management team that is complementary to your strengths and style.
4. Focus, focus, focus
Most small businesses want to be everything to everybody. They don’t want to miss any revenue opportunities. This is just the opposite of what Jobs did. Do a few things well
5. Commitment to the long haul
Overnight success sometimes takes seven to 10 years.
The article was posted by Barry Moltz on the American Express Small Business forum. It’s worth a quick read. My favourite point is no.5.
]]>
]]>But they just don’t seem to do themselves any favours with aggressive sales approach they take - when was the last time you went to a web host site and didn’t feel that you were being pushed into something? Text chat boxes, pop-up adverts, ridiculous promises, etc.
It even happens at the top end of the market - speak to a Rackspace sales advisor and you’ll be on an enterprise license with fully replicated servers and a 24 x 7 SLA before you know it.
There’s definitely space in the market for more transparency and more of a human approach, but recently I’ve come across Vidahost, a web host that just seem that bit more open and honest. Of course, technology, prices, location and security are all key factors in choosing a host, but for UK companies anyway (of which there are very few that don’t flag up any concerns) Vidahost are a very good option.
I’ve just started using them - after having used and researched a number of other US and UK hosts - and all is well. Ultimately, if you base your decision on the factors above, Vidahost are competitive, but here’s a few reasons that edged me to give them a try.
They are available on social media
And they are responsive
They publish their performance. And it’s good.
They are pleasant to deal with
They are straightforward
They don’t have a huge amount of crappy stock photography on their site. And when they do it looks OK i.e not cheap.
And they have an office dog
All of this just made me think they were an honest and transparent bunch of people, which is more than I can say for many other web hosts (in the UK and US).
Well done guys!
I’m not affiliated with them btw.
]]>As part of Tracks I wanted to make the alerts and messages very informal. I’ve used the same theme so far, and so far so good. Below are two messages I’ve added based on new features I’ve ben working on this week. Got to love it! Not sure if I’ll need to pay a license for the quotes yet though…
On importing deals:
On registering:
