Triangle Business Journal

David Chapman

Great web tools for sales pros

In recent years large companies have spent billions of dollars rolling out sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) software to their sales forces.

These offerings, from companies like Siebel Systems, Vantive and SalesLogix, have given sales professionals a wealth of data on potential customers, and given senior managers a powerful tool for managing the sales process.

Meanwhile, with the price tag of a conventional CRM suite out of reach, the small business community went with low cost contact management alternatives such as Act, Goldmine and Filemaker Pro. The software isn’t easily customized to your business process and sales forecasting needs.

Over the past six months, a spate of new Web sites have emerged that lease Internet-based CRM software for less than $500 per user, enabling the small business to fully manage customer relationships.

Whether you have a sales force of one or 1,000, check out the Internet-based software alternatives listed below. In addition to high-octane contact management tools, each vendor offers access to information that will help your sales force get up to speed on specific customers, industries and competitors.

SALESFORCE.COM

A powerful Web site that offers small companies sales-force automation tools, including account and contact management, forecasting, and reporting. This software also supports personal digital assistants and scheduling tools.

The company, started by an ex-colleague of Tom Siebel (co-founder of Siebel Systems), has formed agreements with business content and service providers, including Dow Jones & Co. and Hoover’s.

INTERACT.COM

The Internet portal from SalesLogix provides contact management and other tools from their large-scale automation software package. In addition, Interact recently signed an agreement to give its clients access to leads generated by InfoUSA Inc. The agreement will give salespeople who use Interact.com access to InfoUSA’s database on potential customers.

SALESONLINE.COM

Oracle’s Salesonline.com will launch its own site for salespeople in the second quarter of this year. Salesonline.com will let salespeople at small and mid-size companies export data from spreadsheets to online sales management applications.

Siebel Systems, the leading CRM vendor, has already created and spun off a similar site, Sales.com. This site allows you to manage and track all of your contacts, get tips and techniques from industry experts, stay on top of sales trends, and get “24x7” travel services for $20 per month.

Internet-hosted CRM vendors offer small and mid-size companies vital sales force automation tools and services they need to move faster and cut a wider path to the customer. From a management perspective, the services are scalable as you add employees, can be deployed quickly and enable you to slice data in ways you never imagined.

What are you waiting for?

Chapman is president of 919 Marketing, a Triangle-based marketing and public relations consulting firm. He can be reached at (919) 557-7890.