Identify the Need

Quickly identify your challenge on our homepage through the four classic sales, marketing and leadership challenges every business faces:

1. Low Lead Generation

2. Suffering Sales

3. Ambiguous Branding

4. Limited Profitability

Where Do We Fall Short?

Our new website makes it easier to discover where your business is falling short in our core competences with direct links to:

• Leadership – Global Benchmarking, Business Planning, Business Strategy & Models, Executive Coaching
• Marketing – Strategy, Branding, Positioning, Online Marketing, Traditional Marketing
• Sales – Leadership, Automation/CRM, Education, Coaching

How to Participate in Microsoft Programs

Find out how to participate in the latest Microsoft Programs and attend MPN Accredited Workshops with SALESWORKS.

Love the New Website?

Find out how SALESWORKS can design/redesign a new website for you today — contact us at sales@salesworks.com.

Working on a number of projects for Microsoft, as well as with individual Partners, to help them prepare for the Cloud business opportunity. It’s become very clear to me that what’s needed is not simply an evolution of existing business practices, but a whole new approach, and business model.

To be sure, Partners do not want to (and shouldn’t) abandon their traditional “on-prem” business, but in order to safely transition their practices to meet Cloud demand, they will have to keep their eyes on a few key things. Most importantly:

Developing packaged IP.

• The Cloud customer demands complete solutions, out of the box. Full stop. They are extremely reluctant to ante up considerable dollars for customization or even configuration. This means services revenue will shrink. In effect, it will have to be replaced by packaged IP that rounds out the base functionality (whether ERP or CRM). The Partner who ignores this need, does so at their peril. They just won’t earn the margins required to stay in business.

Lowering installation costs.

• In part related to the reluctance to pony up for services, and the need for packaged IP, is the requirement that implementation processes be streamlined. In some cases, dramatically.

Lowering customer acquisition costs.

• Today, it costs a Partner anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 to add a single “on-prem” customer. This is totally unaffordable in the Cloud, because there are no revenue “balloons” in the form of services or perpetual license sales. Both sales and marketing costs must be dramatically lower, in order for the Cloud to be profitable. Online demand generation and phone-based sales will rule in the Cloud.
  

Lowering ongoing delivery costs.

• Partners thinking of attempting to solve the technical issues associated with offering Cloud solutions, such as hosting, should think again. Hosting is a scale game. One the average Partner just can’t win. In practical terms, almost all of the time, this will mean outsourcing this part of the equation, and concentrating instead on adding customers, and building a subscriber base.

Good News

The good news is, for those who manage to do these things, the rewards can be very attractive. A subscription-based business model means a growing annuitized revenue stream. That means higher margins in the long run,

and a more saleable business, that commands higher multiples. Finally, an owner has a viable exit strategy, and can contemplate a comfortable retirement, when the time comes.

But this will require transitioning at least a part of the business to the Cloud. And make no mistake, demand will pull a Partner in this direction, ready or not.

So be ready…

Things are getting hairy at SALESWORKS. Since November 1, our Mo Bros have been growing mustaches for Movember, a fundraiser for Prostate Cancer Canada.

As of November 26, Team MoWorks has raised an impressive $3,425. And there is still time make a tax-deductible donation – simply visit http://ca.movember.com/mospace/561826/.

Special Thank You To,

We would like to take a moment to thank everyone who contributed and showed their support:

* In no particular order.

Team Donations:

• Lee Raesly (www.broadpoint.com)
• Bart Nachimow (www.mibar.net)
• Howard Riback (www.ventureswest.com)
• Andrew Crompton (www.fastsigns.com/669)
• Randle and Fran Jones
• George Brown (www.salesworks.com)
• Carlene Hornby (www.kpmg.ca)
• Lori Kittelberg
• Erica Hakonson
• Adrian Stepczynski

* May be incomplete. Will be updated shortly.

Not to be outdone by their colleagues, those who are facial-hair challenged donated to the cause and posed for pictures with their Mo Bros.

Photo © 2010 GSCameraworks

Enzo was not available at the time of the group photo.

Well done, team! And thanks to everyone who contributed so generously to this worthy cause.

On a serious note:

Please Donate

So go to http://ca.movember.com/donate/your-details/team_id/94710/ and donate generously to our “MoWorks!” Team. Or write a check payable to ‘Prostate Cancer Canada’, referencing Colin Greig (our fearless Mo Bro team leader) or Registration Number 561826 and mail it to:

Prostate Cancer Canada
Suite 306, 145 Front Street East
Toronto, ON M5A 1E3
Canada

All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Thank you in advance for your support!

The Salesworks Team

Living here in the Pacific Northwest I have more experience with clouds then I would like to really admit. They come in many shapes, sizes and intensities and each has their own individual purpose.

I look at the cloud front approaching our customers (VAR’s, ISV’s and SI’s) as the leading edge of a hurricane, a Category 5 Hurricane, something that can and will reshape this landscape from what it is now to something most cannot contemplate.

I would love to live in De-Nile (but Egypt is too far away); however as an organization we are coming to grips with what this means to the customers we have supported for over 20 years, and it’s not pretty.  This is not because there isn’t tremendous opportunity, not because there isn’t a place for our customers in the re-architected channel, it’s because so many I have talked to are truly in denial about what this means to them.

Moving to a Cloud

Moving to a Cloud-based business model means you have to toss out all the old thinking, in fact have it bleached from your mind because no stains to old thinking will support your transition.  Only once we can contemplate a future truly different from the past can we undertake the essential planning exercise to make the transition from one paradigm to the next.

I am not saying we are going to flick the switch and be there, I am saying to plan carefully enough to navigate your aircraft through these towering cumulus clouds and fierce head winds, we must first be willing to completely throughout our existing model and plan.

Then re-think the whole thing and consider how to put it back together in an innovative and creative way that will allow you to truly win.  In any channel re-architecture, the opportunities are HUGE for some and catastrophic for others.

Sales Process has Changed

We have to face that fact that sales will not be conducted face-to-face and that multiple 6 legged sales call to a customer with a multitude of demos is over.

That marketing has to attract prospects and convert them to leads
in a faster lower cost way than we have done in the past.

And that coveted software to services ratio in whole numbers in fact over 2x is gone.  In fact, we can see that already for traditional on-premise players, a slow descent that is driving the profitability out of the current models.

The full force of the winds and clouds are not yet upon us, you still have to time to consider options and strategies, but these storms move fast. So, in the famous words of Roy Rogers “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just stand there”

Pitter patter, tick tock.

Salesworks welcomes the newest member of the team, a 4-month old Schipperke puppy. His name is yet to be determined but it’s been narrowed down to either “Jackson” or “Booker”.

Post a comment with your favorite name (of the two) and help Cathy decide.

Conan was spotted at Cactus Club restaurant around the corner from our office in Yaletown. Erica, Lori and Genina from our team took the opportunity to pose with the friendly giant.

Conan has really been making headlines this week:

• Comedian Conon O’Brian tour begins from Monday
• Conan on TBS: Cable network is with Coco

Picture courtesy of Bryan’s cell phone.