Full Sail Partners Blog (46)

Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Premier Partner, announces that Tanya Drake has joined the firm as Technology Consultant and will manage vendor relationships for the newly formed Technology Solutions Division. In this capacity, Mrs. Drake will provide assistance to professional services firms to identify technology gaps and support IT needs. This strategic hire strengthens Full Sail Partners’ technology group to provide clients’ hardware, software and technical services to support their goals and needs outside of their Deltek Vision software.  

Throughout her career, Tanya has held several roles with various business-focused technology solution companies where she has worked with clients to identify areas of opportunity for process improvement. 

“My past experience working with vendors allows me to expand Full Sail Partners capabilities to be a one-stop shop for technology needs,” said Tanya. “Having worked with their staff in the past I knew they were the type of company that is truly in business for the right reasons. I am proud to work for a company that is passionate about helping their clients.”

Tanya has more than 15 years of collaborating with professional services firms providing them insight to navigate the decision making process from inception to implementation on technology solutions. Her vendor agnostic approach to identifying solutions for clients ensures that the best fit and most practical solutions are implemented.

“Tanya has a passion for solving problems. With her addition we are excited to offer both stand-alone technology solutions and integrated solutions to support our core services for the Deltek Vision product,” stated Wes Renfroe, Vice President of Technology Solutions Division at Full Sail Partners. “Her desire to help clients combined with her past experience working with A/E/C industry positions our firm to provide even greater flexibility and choices for our clients.”

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing Communications Department. Interested in learning more about the Full Sail Partners' team? Check out our crew!

Recently, I was fortunate enough to participate in a lively discussion among up-and-coming marketers regarding the merits of running email marketing campaigns for professional services firms. Although opinions differed greatly on the types of campaigns firms should deploy, one thing we could all agree on:  Email marketing is widely effective. For example, Chief Marketer reports that email marketing shows an impressive ROI of 28.5%.

So, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite email marketing campaigns. These are the types of campaigns any firm can utilize. These campaigns are merely a starting point to get your email marketing creative juices flowing! Next time I check my inbox, I hope to see one of these campaigns coming from your firm.

The Right Email Marketing Campaigns for You

1. The Newsletter is alive! Believe it or not, the tried and true newsletter is alive and well. Transforming the newsletter from a print to digital format is a natural progression for most firms. In fact, the ability to customize and micro-target specific audiences allows marketers to ensure that they are focusing their messaging on their audience.
   
   When designing a newsletter, keep in mind:
   
   
   1. Subject lines are king. The battle for readership is won and lost in the inbox, don’t let a poorly thought out subject line land your newsletter in the trash.
   2. Create a central theme. Nothing increases your readership-bounce-rate like a disorganized, hard to follow, mailer. Create a central theme to your email blast and stick to it: Your click through rate will thank you!
   3. Make it clear on how to opt out. The number one sin when executing a digital newsletter campaign is trapping your audience in a slow painful death by email. Nothing deteriorates your brand faster than spamming disengaged customers. Give your readers a clear path to exit and your overall mailer will be better off. At the very worst you will know that your messaging needs refining based on an alarming rate of unsubscribes.
      
2. Spotlight your latest project. Have you recently completed an impressive project that your clients would like to hear about? Perhaps you can highlight your top projects to a target list of prospects that you would like to do business with in the future. Bolster your brand by taking pride in your projects and demonstrating your expertise to the world. Bonus: Your current clients get additional exposure for their project, a win-win for everyone!
   
   When spotlighting your next project, keep in mind:
   
   
   1. Give your images alt tags! Email clients can be a tricky beast, and you never know what settings your recipient has enabled. You are trying to spotlight a project, and surely you want to show off your beautiful project photography, right?! Giving an image an alt tag will allow alternative text to appear if the image doesn’t load.
   2. Tell your reader a story. It’s not enough that you recently completed a new state of the art project. In order for your message to be memorable you need to focus on engaging your reader. Make your email standout by crafting a relatable story.
   3. Reduce load time, not quality. Optimizing high-quality images for digital viewing is essential. Compressing your images allows you to maintain quality while reducing long email load times.
      
3. Planning to attend an event? Let ‘em know! Email is an excellent tool to inform prospects and clients that you will be attending an upcoming event. Invite your contacts to join you to ensure that you get the most out of the event. I always like to say that email blasts are a way for me to start networking at an event, before the event ever starts.
   
   Before promoting your next event, keep in mind:
   
   
   1. Why do they care? Do you really think that the fact that you are attending an event is really enough to entice a client to show? You need to let your audience members know why they can’t miss the event. Make it all about them and you just may be rubbing elbows with them sooner than later.
   2. Make your email actionable. It’s not enough that the client or prospect knows that you will be at the event, make sure to let them know how they can connect with you on-site.
   3. Responsive Design. Fast forward to the day of the event and there’s a good chance that your client will be using their smart phone to refer back to the email you sent them with meetup instructions. Make sure that your email is optimized for mobile viewing.

Getting Started is Easier than Ever

So you have decided that this email marketing thing is for you, but you don’t know how to kick off your first email campaign. No worries, we have you covered. Sign up for a 60-day free trial of Constant Contact and access dozens of free email templates to help you craft your message.

Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Premier Partner, announces that Matt McCauley EA, MS has joined the firm as a Principal Consultant. Mr. McCauley’s hire expands the Full Sail Partners’ team to more than 30 professionals focused on technology solutions. His extensive knowledge of the Deltek product set and proven consulting expertise are an ideal match to help clients streamline business processes and achieve greater efficiency from their Deltek Vision ERP system.

With more than 20 years in the professional services industry, Matt has the insight that will allow him to identify the unique requirements of our clients. He specializes in Deltek Vision’s Core Applications, Resource Planning, VPM, and most recently, Fixed Assets.

“My prior experience as a CFO and a Deltek Vision client will help me bring a client-based end user approach to Vision consulting,” said Matt. “I’m excited to work closely with clients to implement Vision in a way that complements their business processes and to improve operational efficiencies.” 

Throughout his career, Matt has worked as both a client and a consultant, providing a unique perspective during client implementations. As a CFO and Deltek Vision user, Matt led the Vision conversion effort for his firm and managed Vision prior to becoming a consultant. Additionally, Matt has completed the PSMJ Project Manager and Financial Manager Boot Camps, and is an Internal Revenue Service Special Enrolled Agent, a Federally Licensed Tax Practitioner.

“We are excited to have Matt join the Full Sail Partners’ team,” said Scott Seal, Vice President of Consulting. “Matt’s background in Accounting and Project Management, both as a Deltek Vision Power User and Vision Consultant, provides more depth and expertise to our collaborative consulting team. Matt’s extensive 20+ years’ of experience in the professional services industry allows him to provide unique insight that will help our clients to better leverage their Deltek Vision systems.”

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing Communications Department. Interested in learning more about the Full Sail Partners' team? Check out our crew!

Garbage in, garbage out! Believe it or not, this is a real term in the field of computer science and it has an acronym, GIGO. More importantly, this theory can be applied to the data integrity in a client relationship management (CRM) software. Marketing decisions are only as good as the data used to make them. If the data in a CRM are incomplete and erroneous, developing strategic decisions becomes nearly impossible. In other words, it’s like throwing ideas at a wall and waiting to see what sticks. According to data experts, many businesses are struggling to maintain a CRM database with consistent and usable information about their clients. Look below to see what these experts have to say about client data integrity.

Are you thinking about needing a new accounting system or ERP? If your firm is still on Deltek Advantage, Sema4, or FMS or even on Quickbooks, Protrax or another system, you might be evaluating options to figure out which solution is right for you. We receive questions from prospects asking about the differences between Deltek Vision and some other product. Additionally, during our conversations over the years, we have heard many myths about Deltek Vision and we thought it was time to set the record straight, as we see it.

To start, what we have found is some software providers say they have a feature, but the quality and capabilities are completely different. Some people might say we are biased. You know what, we probably are, but for good reason:

1. We use the product we sell. We know Deltek Vision inside and out. Can our competitors say that? Ask them.
2. We aren’t just sales people. We care about the success of our clients and that’s not just rhetoric. We’d rather turn a sale away then have an unhappy client.
3. We have done extensive migrations of all kinds of software. What we have found is many of our competitor’s software are done on the cheap or just completely leave out industry standard capabilities.

Below are the top 4 Deltek Vision myths:

Myth #1 - Deltek Vision is only for large firms.

Fact #1 – The numbers don’t support this claim. As a Deltek Premier Partner, the majority of the firms we serve are under 50 employees. Of those firms on Deltek Vision, 57% are under 50 employees; 33% are 25 employees or under; and 17% are 15 employees and under. Most importantly, the size of your firm should have no bearing on the solution you choose. What is more important is choosing a solution that fits your staff’s needs, the information you need to make business decisions and your firm’s growth plans. Deltek Vision fits firms of any size. Additionally, in 2012, Deltek came out with a cloud option (SaaS) for Deltek Vision that made Vision simpler to deploy at a lower entry price for any size firm. Check out this 10-person firm’s story.

Myth #2 – Deltek Vision is so expensive. 

Fact #2 - A recent 20-person firm looking at another AE ERP product was surprised to find that Deltek Vision’s cloud software option was less expensive. In fact, Deltek Vision has had a very comparable software pricing for small firms ever since the SaaS option became available. Additionally, the basic package of Deltek Vision’s SaaS offering includes 5 users of CRM for marketing and business developers and 5 users of Resource Planning for operations. The choice for us seems simple. For about the same price you get a much more robust system with Deltek Vision. Where the differences in pricing may come is with the services that are provided. Here are some key items to keep in mind when receiving an implementation quote to ensure you are getting the same level of service: 

1. Does the quote include migration? Our experts have been doing migrations for almost 30 years and we are proud to say we probably have some of the best in the business. When it comes to migrating your data, we highly recommend importing your historical data. The level of import can vary, but it’s important to make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Will bringing over the beginning balances be enough? This is only a question you can answer, but our experience has been firms rarely want this option unless that is their only option. Do you really want to lose all of your historical information?  
2. This is more than a transaction. You are not just buying software, you are buying a solution that needs to address the specific capabilities your firm’s needs. More importantly, you are buying into a relationship. From our perspective, we aim to make sure the software is the right fit. If it isn’t Deltek Vision, then we will raise our hand and tell you. That is why we take a consultative sales approach and conduct a discovery to uncover what is working well and identify if there are bottlenecks or inefficiencies that could help you improve your business. The discovery process should identify the output needed. More specifically, what data (reports, alerts, dashboards, etc.) is needed to make business decisions? These specific capabilities should drive what you are looking for. Make sure you are talking to a consultant during the process, not just a sales person and take time to establish a relationship. We are here to help you today and tomorrow as your firm grows. 

Myth #3 - Vision is complicated. 

Fact #3 – This fact is easily debatable. Driving a stick shift is difficult for some people, but for others it is simple. So the word itself is relative. We argue that Vision is not complicated, but rather it’s scalable. What can’t be debated is that Deltek Vision is great for growing businesses. Businesses are constantly changing and no one has a magic ball to predict when these changes will occur. Here are some key points to keep in mind if you are a growing firm looking for a new solution: 

1. Firm Evolution - Should your firm have different contract work types; need to expand your business; or face evolutionary life cycle challenges, like ownership transition and retirement scenarios, Deltek Vision can easily accommodate growing firms. It has all the utilities, under the hood to handle these contingencies.
2. Acquisitions – Should you acquire a new firm, all of the data can be accommodated in Deltek Vision. The same cannot be said about our AE ERP competitors. In fact, in addition to a push button conversion for Advantage users, Full Sail Partners has created push button conversion tool for Ajera. Additionally, we have a very streamlined process and economical migration price for Quickbooks. The same cannot be said of our AE ERP competitors. Because Deltek Vision has the ability to create custom fields, tabs, grids, and User Defined Info Centers (UDIC), all data can be represented. To put it simply, Deltek Vision can represent all data from other databases. However, if a firm was on Deltek Vision and tried to migrate to our competitor’s software, you would in fact lose data.

Myth #4 – Other AE ERP Solutions have the same capabilities as Deltek Vision.

Fact #4 – The differences between Deltek Vision and other AE ERP software are vast and go beyond just multi-currency capabilities. Here is a breakdown of some of those differences: 

1. Audit Trail - Deltek Vision has an audit trail. When changes are made in Deltek Vision, all changes are tracked and you know who made the change and when. This is not only important from an accounting perspective, but very important for firms that have government compliance requirements.
2. Multi-Company - If this capability is needed, Deltek Vision allows the set-up of multiple companies including reporting with a single sign-in. One financial report can be run to see how each company is doing. Other solutions have tried to resolve this issue on the cheap by creating separate database instances requiring multiple logins. Keep in mind, you will not be able to share financial reporting for all companies and there is no automated Inter-company billing process, therefore, each company reporting is separate.
3. CRM - If this capability is needed, Deltek Vision has an integrated, seamless CRM and proposal automation module that has a single sign-in. Additionally, Deltek Vision integrates into other marketing tools, including Constant Contact, MailChimp and Hubspot. Other AE ERP solutions may integrate with other CRM solutions. Because of that you will have a separate system that requires two separate logins. The process is far from seamless and none of them integrate with other marketing tools.
4. Security – Deltek Vision provides the ability to lock down any field in the system and make it read only. Unfortunately, security in other AE ERP solutions are not as robust as Deltek Vision.
5. Built-in Capabilities – Deltek Vision contains tools that provide flexibility and allows users to streamline processes and clean up data on the fly without any programming knowledge. Because of the open architecture, the system is built to grow with your firm. Here are some examples of some of the built-in capabilities that can be utilized:
   • Custom Fields – Deltek Vision provides the ability to create user defined fields, tabs, grids and info centers as your firm sees fit. As your firm grows, you may need to track further information.
   • Workflows – Deltek Vision provides the ability to streamline processes through workflows. For example, sometimes data needs to be represented in two locations. However, you never want to a have dual entry process. In Vision, you can have data entered into one location and the data flows to the other location. View this webinar, to learn more about the power of workflows.
   • Utilities – Vision has built-in utilities to handle contingencies to easily clean-up and move data without a migration or custom expert.  
     • Need to move billed time to a new phase? There’s a button for that.
     • Need to combine two clients together? There’s a simple to use conversion tool to do that in seconds.
     • Need to move data from one location to another? There’s search and replace utility that is simple to use.
     • Have more than 999 projects and need to add another digit to your project number structure? There’s key formats for that.

Choosing the Right ERP 

Finding the right ERP solution for your business is not an easy process and is full of misguided information. Therefore, asking the right questions is imperative to get clear answers. Formulate your questions based on the needs of your firm. Then find out and compare how each ERP solution manages these requirements. Make sure there is substance. Those shiny features might just be an illusion to distract you from the lack of robust capabilities. Some AE ERP solutions try to act like Vision, but they don’t perform like Deltek Vision.  

The technology and applications that power your firm are critical to the overall mission of your organization. Unfortunately many of these applications are disconnected which causes us to end up with siloed data. So what’s the big deal? Firms that end up with siloed data spend more time flushing valuable resources (time and money) down the drain than working towards their overall business objectives! Do you really want to spend more time managing your data, than managing your clients?! Stop flushing your resources down the drain by eliminating siloed applications from your organization.

But wait, what exactly is a siloed application? Siloed applications are partitions within organizations that isolate departments, teams and even people. These applications do not communicate or share data with any other system, greatly limiting your ability to leverage the data living inside of these systems.

Are You Stuck in a Data Silo, But Don’t Even Know It?

Have you ever stopped to think about how your internal systems communicate and share data? Perhaps you’re unsure about the overall connectivity of your business systems. Read the below scenarios to see if you are suffering from siloed data.

• Your systems are slowing you down and preventing you from making real-time decisions
• You find yourself unsure of where critical data lives. Or even worse, you find yourself locked out of accessing data because you don’t know the right username or password
• You are unable to track campaign/project results without checking multiple systems
• You are representing data in multiple locations, causing the need for duplicate entry

If the above scenarios describe your firm, then you are suffering from data silos. Fortunately for you, this is a common problem and there is a solution!

How Can You Get Rid of Data Silos?

There are many ways to get rid of data silos in your professional services organization. The trick is finding the right solution that fits your corporate culture. Here are some examples of ways to break free from the grips of siloed data:

1. Take it to the cloud. As we have written about in previous blogs, there are multiple benefits to taking your organization’s data to the cloud. The benefits are clear in strict terms of breaking your data free from restrictive silos. Mainly, once your data lives in a cloud based application or system you are now able to leverage connections to this data from all over the world. Gone are the days of being tied to a desk. Employees are doing more than ever before and they are doing it from all around the world!
   
2. Centralize your data storage with a master record set. Creating a master data set will introduce a method to the madness of managing disparate data. Next time you are evaluating a new piece of software or application ask yourself how it fits in with your already established master data set. Is it worth adopting this technology if it only creates additional silos? This is something that you will need to review with all key decision makers and stakeholders.
   
3. If you connect it, they will come. Unfortunately we find ourselves living in a world of highly specialized technology. There is a reason the average company has 5.5 applications per employee; in today’s highly competitive market we need access to the tools that can help differentiate us from our competition. Fortunately, integration technologies are becoming widely available.
   
   Once seen as an option only available for major corporations, application integrations have become common place in both the business and personal world. If you have ever hooked your Instagram account up to your Facebook account – you’ve used an integration. If you’ve ever synced your email accounts to one central mailbox – you’ve used an integration.
   
   Integrations allow us to get the most out of current investments, while not limiting the technology available to our business teams. In fact, many firms won’t even consider purchasing new software if it does not have integration capability.

Not Sure Where to Start?

If you are ready to start breaking free of these data silos, but don’t know where to begin, we have the webinar for you. Join Pete Nuffer as he presents Dude Where’s My Data. This webinar will review best practices focused around data integrity, including the establishment of a master record set. See how new out of the box tools can be used to promote data sharing within your organization.

Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Vision Premier Partner, has released the Deltek Vision Connector for Constant Contact, an integration of Deltek Vision and Constant Contact.

The Deltek Vision Connector for Constant Contact allows Deltek Vision CRM users to seamlessly create targeted Constant Contact email campaigns by leveraging real-time intelligence directly from Deltek Vision CRM. Once an email campaign is active, users are then able to analyze the results of these campaigns directly in their Deltek Vision system.

“We are really excited to help professional services firms maintain consistency between their Deltek Vision and Constant Contact systems,” said Peter Nuffer, Director of Solution Development at Full Sail Partners. “Users of this integration are refining their messaging and crafting more meaningful campaigns for their readers.”

Connectivity between Deltek Vision and Constant Contact gives users the ability to create more comprehensive email marketing campaigns, reduce labor intensive manual processes and better capture marketing ROI. This mutual relationship between data will allow your marketing team to save countless hours over the duration of a marketing campaign.

“As  one of the first users of the Deltek Vision Constant Contact integration, BG Buildingworks was excited to sync our contacts between our Deltek Vision CRM system and Constant Contact,” said Karen Crilly, Director of Marketing and Client Development for BG Buildingworks. “We used the integration to setup a campaign to announce our company name change. We were able to create a Constant Contact campaign directly from our Deltek Vision CRM system to notify over 4,500 contacts. The campaign went off without a hitch and we saw nearly a 30% open rate on our mailer.”

Interested in learning more about the integration of Deltek Vision and Constant Contact? Click below to learn more.

Finding and hiring the right talent is a lengthy and administratively burdensome process. The amount of time and money spent announcing job openings and qualifying applicants is barely quantifiable, but we all understand that the price is high. Add in the tasks created by legal requirements and corporate responsibility, and the process becomes crushing for even the most seasoned and organized recruiter. Therefore, hiring smarter in a competitive workforce market is critical to lowering costs of recruiting the top talent.

The Hiring Team

Businesses of all sizes use teams to conduct the hiring cycle. The decision makers on the teams are often professional staff whose primary role is to produce. The cost of time spent by these members can be massive and results in reduced attention to mentorship, production, or development. Having a portal that allows managers to see the progress of the hiring cycle and quickly identify their own action items is an integral to saving time.

The Job

Even if the job announcements are fully standardized, they must still be posted to each site of choice. Each site has its own format and requirements, forcing recruiters to take the same actions multiple times.

Using a tool that allows for automated posting to multiple sites and tracking of non-automated postings is an important time saving device. Having visibility into the applicant pipeline and notification alerts that action is needed helps streamline the requisition process.

The Applicants

There is a shortage of talent. There is no shortage of applicants.

Qualifying applicants and moving them through the hiring process is a time-intensive effort often plagued by manual processes. The mechanics of receiving an application, reviewing the data, and ranking the applicants are most often conducted via email or paper and creates risk legal risks without clear and objective criteria and measurement.

The ability to build a database of applicants who do, may, or do not meet the hiring criteria is highly valuable for this and the next hiring cycle. Hiring smarter requires retaining past applicants’ information so your firm has a deep pool of possible talent for future positions.

The Communications

The hiring process is full of action items for the recruiter. Traditional tools used to communicate with applicants and candidates often force recruiters to create a physical paper trail and allows important communications to slip through the cracks. Scheduling interviews and tracking the stage of candidates as well as memorializing the results, can become overwhelming in a multiple interview process. Leveraging the use of the database, automation, and tacking abilities, including bulk letter submissions, allows recruiters to save time and provides a reference for later use.

Hiring Smarter With the Right Tool

Every role in a firm is best served by having the right tools in place. Hiring smarter requires investing in a tool designed for the recruiting function that allows for not only time savings, but also optimization of the process, risk reduction, and increased satisfaction by hiring team members and applicants alike.

For project-based firms, timesheets are essential to ensure that an employee’s time is reflected to a specific project. I’m sure you already knew this, but do you manage timesheets correctly in Deltek Vision? Here are some facts and best practices for different scenarios to help you better manage timesheets in Deltek Vision.

Intro to Timesheets in Deltek Vision

Hopefully, one of the first things your Deltek Vision Consultant explained to you about timekeeping is that timesheets create payroll cost not payroll. As a “nuts and bolts” accountant, at least one side of our brain struggles with processing this information. So let’s break it down: 

1. The employee’s job cost rate on the accounting tab of their info center should represent their rate of pay. If they are true hourly, this is quite easy to determine. On the other hand, if they are salaried the hourly rate should reflect their annual salary divided by 2080 hours.
2. If adjusted salary job costing is used, the amount should reflect their salary based on the configured interval. For example, weekly, biweekly or a set number of days.

How Timesheets Work

When a timesheet is posted an amount based on the hourly rate multiplied by the hours charged is applied to the selected projects. Thereby creating direct or indirect (overhead) labor/payroll cost in the General Ledger. The credit created by the timesheet can go to either one of two places: 

1. The Income Statement as job cost or payroll variance - This account is an overhead line item used to adjust the total of the timesheet posting to the actual payroll distributed. Furthermore, amounts that remain in this account after the payroll journal entry has been entered reflect a net of uncompensated overtime (OT) for salary staff (negative amounts), and based on this process, the premium portion of OT for hourly staff (positive amounts).
2. The Balance Sheet as a payroll liability - After the payroll journal entry has been entered, the remaining amount needs to be reclassified to the Income Statement as stated above.

Accounting Tip for Paid Time Off

Have you ever noticed your Paid Time Off (PTO) balance not being relieved even during peak vacation periods? You might want to consider booking PTO taken to the Balance Sheet. To do this, you need to configure timesheet postings for PTO to go to a PTO liability account. Then when time off is taken and posted, the debit entry reduces the liability. Based on a true computed liability, an entry can be made on a pre-determined interval to accrue additional PTO and book the expense. If you are using benefit accruals in Vision, the entry can be taken from that report.

Handling Leave without Pay

Many firms fail to account for leave without pay (LWOP) properly. Sure, there is a need to track hours for statutory purposes when employees are on leave, however, no payroll cost should be recorded. The simple fix is to enable cost rate tables and attach one to LWOP projects. The table should contain either a labor code(s) or a list of employees with a ZERO job cost rate. This will override the employees default job cost rate and avoid any recording of payroll costs.

Punch the Clock

Some of this might seem complicated at first, but these best practices should help keep your books in order. I hope that this has taken the mystery out of Deltek Vision timesheets. Now punch the clock and update your timesheets.

Let’s admit it, running a business has plenty of challenges. Why create more by overlooking the critical connections that support your business? Throughout my tenure as a business owner and entrepreneur, I have found three connections a business must have to reduce the challenges. These are connections with employees, clients, and technology. Let’s take a look at the importance of these three connections.

Connections with Employees

For starters, firms need to create a workforce that are driven to work hard and are enthusiastic about their jobs. To achieve this, employers must find ways to create connections with employees that shows them you see them as people, not just employees.

The easiest way to show an employees you see them as people is to engage them. For example, use meetings as a time to let everyone express their ideas. Ask for their opinions, and ask them to think critically about things. At the end of the meeting, people walk away feeling as if they contributed to the better good of the organization. For more about connecting employees, check out the “9 Ways to Connect with Employees” blog.       

Connections with Clients

For project-based firms, it’s important to connect with clients throughout the entire project lifecycle. Ponder this question. Have you ever completed a project for a client and you believe they are completely satisfied with your services, but find out later that they were not happy? Sometimes even a client you know may feel uncomfortable telling you something is bothering them. So how do you identify there is an issue?  

First, work with the client to setup expectations before a project starts. Secondly, continuously check-in with a client on a regular basis during the project lifecycle to manage expectations of the entire team. One of the best ways to do this is through an automated feedback process. Watch this vlog, “Client Connections – Create Unique Client Experiences” for more ideas about connecting with clients. 

Connections with Technology

Most if not all businesses use technology to support their operations. The question here is, how many different systems does a business use and how do they connect? In reality, they usually don’t seamlessly connect and share information. As a result, critical business data is stored in multiple systems, making it difficult for business leaders to make informed decisions.

For businesses to be successful, systems and applications must be in place to support all departments. Although each application is designed to support a specific function of the business, the data for these systems should start with a core ERP system and have the ability to connect to other critical systems. This allows for clear visibility throughout the entire organization. Interested to learn how you can connect to other external systems? Watch this vlog, “Systems Connections – Is Your Critical Technology Connected?” to learn more.    

Connecting It All Together

A project-based firm is so much more than the service they provide; rather, it is a network of connections that require special attention. It is important to connect and communicate with employees and clients in order to build a sturdy foundation for your business to grow from. Connecting with technology is equally as important, as doing so can maximize efficiency in operations while also providing an edge against competitors. Ensuring that these three critical connections are a priority is simultaneously ensuring your business will be successful.