The new Front Office Box (FOB3) is on it’s way - we don’t have any firm dates as yet but the design is progressing rapidly. This is very exciting for us because it will move the application up a gears. FOB3 will bring a number of smaller improvements to the app as we know it now, but will also extend the functionality in four directions, each of which will make the software more usable, and useful, and put more distance between us and any other software out there. New labeling We’re changing... Read Full Story

Why the Burlington Coat Factory, no reason other than that’s where Gareth and Steve were when the conversation started. Their wives were “trying on” stuff and weren’t about to finish anytime soon. The two loitered amongst the leather jackets. They were planning on starting a custom development business and generally discussing opportunities and challenges. “The question is” said Gareth “what happens when the cost of software drops to zero?”. Gareth’s a recognized expert in Agile Development... Read Full Story

Forget voice mail and email - the new solution for internal communication is (don’t laugh) Twitter http://twitter.com/ A couple of months ago somebody dragged me in to another one of these new Internet based services.  To be honest I couldn’t see any “real world” as opposed to “social time wasting” use for it.  The main page talks about microblogging and “what are you doing?” type applications and I was already swamped by email and fed up with being invited to a host of networking... Read Full Story

Back in the days before the steam engine, everybody had a clear understanding of customer service, cost efficiency and productivity.  They were mostly self employed as farmers, builders, blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers etc. During the Industrial Revolution, we took all these capable people, put them in factories, and told them to make the machines go around.  Nobody knew, but this was the birth of what we now call the software industry.  Factory owners wanted to guarantee profit from... Read Full Story

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A particularly bombastic branch manager, new to the job, smugly walked around the sales floor asking “OK, who’s sold something today?”.  The business was enterprise software, and proposals didn’t close every day.  The floor was so quiet we could have heard the pin drop. “Well, actually, I have” came across the room in a sort of embarrassed way. “Which deal?” asked the branch manager in a sort of threatening manner. “Commercial Ignition” replied the sales guy, quietly. Instead of offering... Read Full Story

A few weeks ago a sales manager was kind enough to share with us, on Salesgravy, his biggest screw up.  He most ably illustrated how sales managers can take over at the wrong time, and make everybody feel bad about it. The post reminded me of an experience that shaped my attitude toward anybody wanting to “help” with my deals.  CEO’s, VP’s and Sales Managers need to stay out of my way until I decide how they can help, and then do it my way.  Here’s a true story, told in the 3rd... Read Full Story

and start scheduling your priorities! Due credit for this phrase goes to Brian Bieler who I came across at Salesgravy To start with the phrase just made me smile, like one of those oxymorons, but then two thoughts struck me. Confession time - I’ve never been any good at that Time Management stuff.  It just never really struck a chord for me.  Priorities have always been what counted.  Now at least there’s some justification for what will have seemed to my bosses to be a lack of discipline on... Read Full Story

There are two really interesting sites I came across in the last couple of days, both very tightly associated with selling. Salesconx brings together people who know of guys who want to buy with people who want to know guys who want to buy. It’s like a market place for sales leads and an awesome way for both lead sellers and lead buyers to make money while all the old fart, who aren’t watching Web 2.0 explode into the business field, go bust Closely related is the best business content... Read Full Story

Below we’re publishing a blog post by Namxas where he mentions our software. ” Both sides of the business software market struggle with the same issue - trying to build, or buy, standard package software offering economies of scale whilst perfectly fitting the business requirements. Anybody who stops to think will quickly see this is an issue that can never be resolved. Sounds easy enough! All realtors work the same way don’t they, for example. No they don’t, actually. They all have their own... Read Full Story