Paul Greenberg focuses on not only what CRM is but where its going in this blog on CRM strategy, technology, stories, companies and personalities.
In addition to being the author of the best-selling "CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers," Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC.
(PG NOTE: I actually posted this a few weeks ago on PGreenblog, but in preparation for Chapter 2 which I'm posting on both ZDNet and PGreenblog tomorrow morning, I wanted to get this one up on ZDNet so you can read them in (reverse) continuity. So forgive me if you've read this before and if you haven't and care at all, then please feel free to read it or read it again if you wish.
Here are a few reasons why 2012 has already been a pivotal year from a small business CRM-Ish perspective.
For years, we have been talking about the value of CRM for small business. Yet, we the pundits of whatever, always have been publicly puzzled by what we thought was the slowness of small businesses to adopt CRM.
Each year, as many of you all know, we run CRM Idol. This is year 2 so we are still babes in the woods and learning but because we have an amazing braintrust in Brent Leary, Esteban Kolsky, Denis Pombriant, Jesus Hoyos, Laurence Buchanan, Mark Tamis and Silvana Buljan, (and me) we just make improvements both from year to year and on the fly.
Let me start this with a strange and seemingly incoherent (but truly more inchoate) statement."If SAP marketed to the rest of the world, the way they produce conferences, they could arguably become the best technology company on the planet.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this because any small company in the CRM world or social tools world or anything that is customer facing world that hasn't heard of CRM Idol or taken advantage of it by applying really shouldn't be getting the benefit of the doubt.I'm not trying to be harsh, lord knows, because we're doing everything we can to get companies to apply so that they can hopefully take advantage of the CRM Idol competition.
For many years, influencers/analysts have heard the a clarion cry from small CRM companies:You guys only cover the big companies and never give us coverageYou guys don't respond to usYou never review usWe have no idea how to go about getting involved and could you guys give us some advice on how to get the visibility?
Lithium is becoming a major player, even beyond its size, and will become even more important as the days go on. Here's a look at the conference, the product and the company.
I continue to be impressed with SugarCRM, year after year, time after time.
Okay, I'm done teasing. Without further ado, welcome to CRM Idol 2012.