Full Sail Partners Blog | CRM (5)

With Deltek Touch CRM for Vision, Deltek Vision CRM customers have access to the critical business information they need, through their iOS or Android devices — anywhere, anytime! See how Touch CRM gives your firm the strategic advantage to do more.

Deltek Touch CRM: 3 Strategic Advantages

1) Access to Crucial Information While On-The-Go

Deltek Touch CRM provides out of office employees with immediate access to important information such as account history, contact information and much more!

Just a few short years ago, being away from the office meant being completely blocked out from your company’s competitive intelligence. Not anymore! With Deltek Touch CRM your employees have full access to your Deltek Vision CRM system from their mobile device. Boost your road-warrior’s productivity by providing them with the tools needed to keep in touch with a higher number of prospects

2) Collect Information at the Source

Deltek Touch CRM is designed to help your employees gather information at the source. Improve data accuracy by giving your out-of-office team the ability to instantly update Vision data from a mobile device, anywhere in the world!

3) Improve Company Insight

Deltek Touch CRM allows all of your employees access to the most up-to-date real-time information. Have you ever reached out to a customer, only to find out that one of your co-workers had already spoken with them the day before? This situation is not only embarrassing, but it makes your entire organization appear inept. Reduce the amount of information lag in your organization by enabling mobile CRM.

Instead of waiting for weekly, monthly or quarterly reports, decision makers can access on-demand information and address any problems before they arise.

Mobile CRM is No Longer Optional

You already take your smart phone everywhere, so why not take your Vision data with you? Today’s market place is a dog-eat-dog world, and you need every competitive advantage you can get. See how your firm can start doing more with Deltek Touch CRM:

 

I recently sat down with Ken Higa, Marketing Director for the Atlanta office of Perkins + Will to learn more about how he approaches budgeting for marketing in professional services. As a trained architect with an MBA, and whose other roles have included Principal and Studio Director, Ken is a very savvy budgeting guy. This article summarizes our discussions related to the historical context of marketing AE services, establishing a more integrated approach to financial management and improving the firm’s ability to track returns on its investments with the help of tools like Deltek Vision.

Hebblethwaite: What was the context behind your interest in finding a better way to budget for marketing?

Higa:  I’ve always been intrigued with the relatively short history of marketing professional services. AIA’s 1909 Principals of Practice forbid architects from doing most familiar marketing activity as another form of “advertising.” No proposals, no job signs, no free work, basically just a firm name and number in the Yellow Pages. That changed in the early 1970’s when the Justice Department sued AIA for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act because of its structured fee schedule. The legal profession also had its own battle in Arizona claiming violations of free speech. Long story short, that got the ball rolling. Things are obviously very different today, and marketing is a very complex strategic function of the successful practice.

Hebblethwaite: Our tools are much better these days too, right?

Higa: Well, yes - both for delivering our work and managing business information. These business tools allow us to plan, manage and leverage our marketing activities more effectively – no matter how big or small the firm is. Embracing those tools is essential for running a successful practice today. Young entrepreneurial designers are recognizing this.

Hebblethwaite: You went back and got your MBA. What kinds of budgeting improvements were you looking for in the roles you’ve occupied?

Higa: The typical way accounting looks at expenses just didn’t tell the whole story. Knowing how much we spent on paperclips and printer ink can’t help me plan the strategic activities that will win work. Marketing costs live in lots of buckets – computers, supplies, vendor services – and it’s hard to fully analyze the return on those individual costs. Using a more activity-based approach allows us to take a more project-focused look at how we’re spending money and time. That project approach actually makes sense to most design principals – and it’s a known methodology in systems like Deltek Vision.

Hebblethwaite: What are some good starter “projects” using this type of approach?

Higa: Start with the premise that you’ll track what you REALLY want to measure. Pursuits/Opportunities will likely be a third or more of your budget. Photography is a common one for architects – the obvious expense of the service plus tracking your staff’s coordination time. Other common examples include conference attendance and public relations. Come up with good pneumonic naming conventions – most people can remember things like “BD” for business development, and it’s easy to pull that up on your timesheet.

Hebblethwaite: Are you able to use this approach for multiple business units or studios?

Higa: Absolutely. You should cross that project list against whatever your firm’s meaningful groups are: Offices, Profit Centers, Studios, Practice Area. These marketing projects then can be used to track real time and real expense just like your revenue-generating projects. That really enables you to get good snapshots for analyzing specific marketing investments and determining their value, like the healthcare studio’s attendance at industry conferences during the past year.

Hebblethwaite: How did you go about convincing your leadership to change the budgeting approach?

Higa: They knew this process would help identify where the real value was (or wasn’t) in certain marketing activities – and educate the staff about the cost implications. They also liked taking accountability for marketing activities to the individual timesheet level. Each person can stop and think, “What marketing activity am I really doing right now?” This helps reduce the tendency for marketing to become a big bucket with a hole in the bottom. I also had to help them understand that we needed to collect data for a period of time before meaningful analysis would occur – that took about a year for us initially.

Hebblethwaite: How do you approach analyzing and sharing information that you’ve collected using activity-based budgeting?

Higa: After collecting data for a while, showing people meaningful information really wasn’t that difficult. I would regularly hear from other principals, “Wow, you know all this stuff?” It helps them realize the cost of their efforts and decisions in a non-threatening way. You have to be careful not to give people all the data all the time. Like any other important business communication, take stock of your audience and determine how they like to digest information. For some, a summary list of bullets is all you need; for others, the prettier the graphic the better. Human interpretation really helps others see meaning.

Hebblethwaite: This approach must need at least a conversational relationship with other departments. What do I do if that’s still an “opportunity” at my firm?

Higa: No question. None of this would be possible without partnerships with accounting, as well as your Deltek experts and firm leadership. One unifying goal is getting the budget in-line with your strategy and annual goals – that helps everyone. When people realize there’s both quantitative and qualitative meaning in this process, they quickly see how they can be involved and contribute. It’s really important to develop some one-on-one relationships to help move things forward. I approached our head Deltek Vision expert and showed him my ideas – he was thrilled and said, “Wow, a marketing person that understands Vision, that’s AWESOME!” Things went very smoothly after that, but someone had to make the first effort. Marketing professionals are typically good at that.

Hebblethwaite: Agreed! So what’s the big takeaway?

Higa: At the end of the day, we’re all people just trying to get our jobs done. Getting the team on the same page about mundane topics like cost analysis and budgeting really helps you focus on what’s important: the strategy you started with, understanding the facts, and making better decisions about future investments and initiatives. It’s a team sport and marketing professionals can be great coaches!

Ken Higa can be reached at Ken.Higa@perkinswill.com and Kevin Hebblethwaite can be reached at khebblethwaite@fullsailpartners.com.

 

Successful professional services business development professionals often view themselves as hunters. Much like the cavemen or nomads, this group of professionals is responsible for learning how to navigate the dangers of the world to bring food back to the pack. This overly simplified analogy challenges us to view business development tools and efforts on a visceral level.

However, today’s competitive business environment requires business developers to be both hunters and farmers. Technology has drastically changed the way that relationships are cultivated. Our world is now more connected than ever before, therefore the ‘entry for admission’ to being a known entity is significantly higher than it has ever been before.

So what are the most essential hunter-farmer business development tools? Let’s take a look!

The Business Development Tools for Success

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | CRM tools make it possible for everyone in your organization to work together to meet your clients’ needs by putting your clients at the center of your business. Real-time, holistic, competitive intelligence can provide you with everything needed to gain the competitive edge, win more business and increase customer satisfaction.
    
2. Mobile Technology | For years BD professionals went out in to the field, gathered information, and brought the newly found information back to their firm. In today’s competitive business market we cannot afford the lag-time from collecting business intelligence, to acting upon it. Mobile technology has bridged this gap and allows professionals the full functionality of working from the office via a remote or mobile device.
    
3. Social Collaboration Platform | Businesses that have more collaborative and engaged employees experience a higher rate of success. Social collaboration spaces are the virtual equivalent of an open office environment for your organization. Connect your out-of-office and internal staff through a platform that encourages employees to stay connected and share ideas more freely. Simplify file sharing, keep the entire project team informed and engage staff.
    
4. Engagement Through Feedback | We are all familiar with the saying ‘it doesn’t hurt to ask.’ This concept is often overlooked in the business world. Don’t be afraid to ask clients if the processes you are using works for them. Utilize feedback to validate successes and identify areas of improvement. Foster long and meaningful relationships by asking, listening and responding to feedback.

Operate Like the Company You Desire to Be

As mentioned earlier, these business development tools are really the basics for being competitive in today’s market. Ultimately what differentiates your firm in the eyes of the client is how you utilize these technologies. Perception is often reality -- Clarissa the Client doesn’t know the intimate details about your firm, but she is aware of the image your firm presents. Firms that effectively deploy and manage the above tools are able to establish a brand within their market as top tier business partner.

 

 

Deltek Vision CRM is uniquely designed for scalability within your organization. Whether you are a novice user, or a tenured pro, Deltek Vision CRM is designed to allow you quick and easy access to the relationship data that will separate your firm from the rest of the pack! However, regardless of the capabilities of the software, the success of your firm’s rollout is affected heavily by your past experiences with services management platforms, the firm’s overall culture and philosophies of client management, and your users’ level of buy-in. Maximizing the value that the system brings to your firm requires careful planning and strong commitments to the implementation. 

Initially, you really need to have your act together regarding the overall objectives for improving the firm’s information management. It requires a core group of people to roll up their sleeves and connect the dots between business process and software tools. Once you have these important objectives defined, you can move forward with tailoring the system to support them.

In this discussion, we’ll focus on the following basic elements of handling critical information: collection, accessibility, management and lifecycle.

Collection

One of the most important, and obvious, things we must do with any successful information system is, oddly enough, collect information. When you consider all the data in your miscellaneous spreadsheets, business card piles, Outlook shared folders and “head knowledge” that you DON’T currently have in Vision, the task can be a little overwhelming. Develop capture processes that are efficient, consistent, and make the best use of the people resources you have available. Find any way possible to help unify your team around the belief that Vision is the firm’s single source of truth for the information it’s designed to collect.

Accessibility

It regularly boggles my mind that some users of an information tool as powerful as Deltek Vision take ten minutes or more to get logged in. There are plenty of reasons – I forgot my ID/password, lost the shortcut, can’t remember the URL, have to be at the office for it to work, and so on. Make Vision more accessible by:

• Creating Start Menu or Desktop shortcuts with Vision’s URL
• Using the Microsoft Office Desktop Integration utility (included with Deltek Vision CRM license
• Getting mobile with Touch CRM – Vision contact information literally at your fingertips!

As you gather tips and tricks from your power users, build internal training content and SHARE them. Do whatever you can to make “hard to get in” an unacceptable excuse for staying OUT of Vision. 

Management

Once you’ve paved the path into Vision, teach users how to quickly navigate, find what they’re looking for, and simplify the presentation of information that’s most critical. Mastering the art of searching in Vision is VERY important. The good news is that once you’ve figured it out, you can leverage the skill in any area. Remember that Standard Searches lookup records based on Vision’s basic individual fields. Advanced Searches allow you to construct multi-layered “AND/OR” parameters, search based on custom fields AND (Boolean pun intended) search across info centers! Help your users practice stating their searches out loud before building them in Vision. For those searches you seem to do over again every other week, set them up as Global Favorites. This will make your efforts to find all projects in the states of Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota, for which William Apple was Principal-in-Charge, the fee was greater than $100,000, and whose Long Name started with the letter Z, much more efficient. 

After creating a team of Search Gurus around your office, you can then help each become “Master of His/Her Dashboard.” Again, state out loud what lists, reports, or resources would be awesome to have available each time you log-in to Vision. Figure out which of these items can be displayed on Vision’s dashboard (unique to each Vision user account), choose some cool border colors, and off you go! 

Lifecycle

Typing information over again that already exists in a database is for people who have too much time on their hands. Once you have created a Lead named Bob Smith, who works for XYZ Company, which will soon build a New Headquarters Expansion, located in Nashville, Tennessee, wouldn’t you like Vision to simply pass this information forward through your phases of identifying, pursuing, winning and delivering the project? If so, your next “back to basics” move is to help your firm use Vision’s “Create From…” functionality. Vision can take data you already have and use it in new records in the following ways:

• Lead > “Convert” to Contact/Client/Opportunity
• Promotional and Regular Projects “Created from” < Opportunities
• Project Plans “Created from” < OpportunProject Plans “Created from” < Existing Promotional and Regular Projects
• Promotional and Regular Projects “Created from” < Project Plans

Before you go cross-eyed figuring out all this movement, understand that you need to first identify and sketch out your firm’s project lifecycle before effectively using Vision’s “Create From…” functionality. Think about the following questions:

• When do we want a prospective project to be "on the list" or counted in the sales forecast?
• When do we want to start tracking time and expense directly associated with a pursuit?
• When do we need to start planning and allocating staff resources to a likely project win?

Your answers will help determine points in your cycle where Vision can take much of the information already collected and continue using it in subsequent stages. This feature can be an incredible bridge-builder for interdepartmental relationships amongst the marketing, business development, accounting, and operations areas of your firm. 

It’s never too late to get Back to the Basics in your Deltek Vision CRM system. Remember that the system should support the successful business processes you’ve determined work best for your firm, not vice versa. Whether you’ve just been asked to join an internal discussion that started with “I think we need to get one of those CRM things,” or you’re a Deltek Vision CRM veteran looking to step it up a notch, revisit some of these concepts and help your firm ride into the sunset toward a more informed future.
 

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Deltek Vision CRM is uniquely designed for scalability within your organization. Whether you are a novice user, or a tenured pro, Deltek Vision CRM is designed to allow you quick and easy access to the relationship data that will separate your firm from the rest of the pack! However, regardless of the capabilities of the software, the success of your firm’s rollout is affected heavily by your past experiences with services management platforms, the firm’s overall culture and philosophies of client management, and your users’ level of buy-in. Maximizing the value that the system brings to your firm requires careful planning and strong commitments to the implementation.

Marketing is tough. Marketers are expected to be jacks of all trades:  Brand manager, technology expert,social butterfly and head collaborator. Yet at the end of the day marketing is often a thankless job. However, the fruits of our labors are often six degrees of separation removed from our actual efforts. We do not directly sell and there is no physical doo-dad at the end of the day that we can point to in order to justify our existence. Enter the world of ‘marketing analytics.’

What the heck are marketing analytics? Marketing analytics are the lifeblood of your efforts. You spend countless hours working on integrated marketing content – blogs, newsletters, infographics, proposals and much more! Yet at the end of the day can you honestly claim to understand the impact of these efforts? Marketing analytics are not only the indicators of our successes but the learning blocks of our mistakes.

Don’t fool yourself! Know what marketing analytics are worth tracking.

Like many things in life, we can often get caught focusing too much on the nice-pretty red herring rather than digging deep and identifying what truly matters. Metrics are no different! Marketers often get caught looking at superficial statistics rather than focusing in on metrics strengthen our business case. To better understand what kind of metrics you should focus on let’s identify the two main data types:

Vanity Metrics | these metrics often look good – and make you feel good – at first glance. Unfortunately, vanity metrics focus on pumping up our ego – not our business. I often equate these metrics to a high school popularity contest: All that matters is how many people sign my yearbook. But don’t be fooled, these metrics are not your friends. So what are some examples of these metrics?

• Total website visits
• Page views
• Number of subscribers or followers

As you can see, these metrics look good at first. But do they actually provide actionable data that allows you to drive your business case forward? The ambiguity of these analytics leaves your marketing efforts reactive rather than proactive.

Action Metrics | meaningful metrics are the bread and butter of your efforts. To be able to leverage marketing analytics to improve your marketing campaigns you must be able to understand the customer behavior represented by these metrics. Using the above high school analogy, these action metrics are representative of the number of people that invite you to their party. These metrics do not only want to know you – they want to hang out with you! Examples include:

• Site behaviors – what are people actually viewing and consuming on your website
• Who is converting; is there a common buyer persona?
• Customer acquisition costs

These metrics actually mean something to your business. They are not only indicative of your efforts, but reflective of your results.

How do we track marketing analytics?

So now that we understand what we want to track we must figure out how to track our desired marketing analytics. Luckily for you, there are hundreds of tools out there. Highlighted below are examples of each type of tool you will want to add to your marketing arsenal.

Content Management System (CMS) | a content management system will allow you to seamlessly optimize all of your integrated marketing efforts within your website. Gone are the days of fumbling with html and css codes. While in the day-to-day trenches of marketing you need the ability to quickly and easily access the living data regarding your marketing campaigns – and this is precisely what a CMS allows you to do.

Examples of CMS include:

• Act-On
• Hubspot
• Marketo

Whatever CMS you decide is right for you, make sure that it integrated with all of your other business systems and processes to provide you with maximum visibility.

Web Analytics Platform | integrating your website with a Web analytics platform is essential for taking the step from analytics-shmoe to analytics-pro. Yes, you already get analytics from your CMS. However, think of a CMS as fast food and a full Web analytics platform as a five-course meal. Your Web analytics platform is your go-to asset when you need the full meat and potatoes of reporting.

Examples of Web analytics platforms include:

• Google analytics
• Mixpanel
• Webtrends

Understanding a full Web analytics platform can be intimidating. Luckily you can often find free training. For example, Google offers a free analytics certification course that you can complete at your own leisure!

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System | what good are all of these marketing analytics if you can’t actually do anything with them? A CRM system will allow you to better understand your leads, holistically track your marketing campaigns and most importantly provide you with the tools needed to build meaningful relationships. Our CRM recommendation for professional services firms is Deltek Vision.

Go forth and spread your analytical marketing wings!

Gone are the days where you fear that your marketing efforts will be glossed over. You now have the tools and knowledge needed to go out and make something of your marketing campaigns! We hope that you take this new found knowledge and prove your resolve by becoming an analytical marketing guru!
 

 

The digital age has revolutionized every aspect of our lives. If you want to know something, simply search for the answer on the internet. Email and social media are now prevalent ways to communicate, and are becoming increasingly effective marketing channels. This revolution has changed how we conduct business. More importantly, the way we market our business evolves daily and has created a new role called the marketing technologist. 

The Impact of More Data

A Forrester Research study found that 96% of CMOs surveyed agreed that the pace of change in technology and marketing will continue to accelerate. As a result, firms cannot rely on mass marketing techniques that provide little return on investment. A wealth of information about your prospects and their level of interest is readily available with the right tools and knowledge. This modern marketing world is becoming more strategic and performance-driven. So with the rise of performance-driven marketing, marketing decisions are based on extremely accurate data. This new era of marketing has given birth to a new breed of marketing professionals known as marketing technologist.

What is Required of a Marketing Technologist?

A marketing technologist is a unique individual that is characterized as analytic and creative. They have a background that is a blend between information technology and marketing. Furthermore, a marketing technologist is the secret to staying ahead the technology curve and your competition. They know how to analyze the data collected from marketing campaigns to gain a deeper understanding of your customers. In fact, they can use this data to determine the level of interest of a potential lead to create a nurturing campaign that guides the lead through the business development process. In addition to creating content and evaluating campaign performance, marketing technologist are tech savvy and understand how new marketing technologies work. This increased ability to collect accurate data in near real-time is the direct result of the digital age and the advent of new technologies.

Why the Growing Demand of the Marketing Technologist

The marketing technology software industry is booming. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently reported that organizations worldwide will spend over $130 billion on software over the next five years for marketing departments alone. Today, having a website and a few social media accounts is the norm for business. Now there is a never ending sea of content management and marketing automation platforms that allows for all types of new creative ways to engage customers. More importantly, these platforms can be integrated with internal CRM solutions to increase marketing effectiveness by:

• Enabling lead nurturing before the sales team gets involved in the sales process.
• Gathering data about potential leads by tracking their web activities, browsing habits, and responses to marketing efforts.
• Prioritizing leads by scoring them based on their recorded activities and recognizing when a lead is ready to be engaged by the sales team.

As more technologies enter the marketplace, the demand for marketing technologist will grow.

The Future of the Marketing Technologist

Even though SHRM, the leading organization for human resources professionals, does not recognize “Marketing Technologist” as a job title, there are job postings on employment websites with similar job descriptions across the country. According to a recent study by Gartner analyst Laura McLellan, CMOs will be spend more on information technology than their counterpart CIOs by 2017. Marketing departments are spending more on technology than information technology departments - that is saying a lot about the future of marketing and is indicative of the future growth of the marketing technologist role. As companies invest more into their marketing technology, having a qualified individuals will be a requirement.

A current trend in many organizations is to closely align the marketing and technology departments to work together as a team. Not because they do not want to hire a marketing technologist, but rather the result of having a limited amount of people to choose from with experience in both marketing and information technology. The title of a recent article posted on Forbes, “The Rise of the Unicorns – Why Marketing Technologists will Rule Modern Marketing” supports this assertion and supports the real growth in the marketing technologist role.

 

 

 

I think by now we can all agree: The ability to automate proposals with InDesign and Deltek Vision is the greatest thing to happen to proposal creation since the copy and paste function! In this blog we are going to dive deeper in to the realm of automating information out of Vision in to InDesign and take a look at the two coolest ‘outside of the box’ features currently available. If you are just looking to get started with automating information from Vision to InDesign be sure to check out this previous blog.

It is important to continue looking at ways to increase efficiency throughout the entire procurement process. From proposals to the short-list interview, integrating Deltek Vision and Adobe InDesign can give your firm the competitive advantage needed to wow the client. Answer in days, not weeks. Spend less time on boilerplate material and more time on compelling, tailored responses that will further set your firm apart from the competition.

So, how can we use the Adobe InDesign and Deltek Vision integration in new powerful ways? Let’s get started with my two favorite outside of the box features:

1.  Create new, customized, cover sheets while preserving your firm branding.

Utilize the power of integration to create customized cover sheets for each new proposal. By utilizing the powerful template system created by Deltek you are able to wow the client by creating a beautiful combination of your firm branding and project specific information.  This marriage of project-specific information and targeted marketing media will allow you to quickly separate your firm from the competition with the first thing the client sees – the proposal cover!

2.  Stand above the rest and break away from the chains of PowerPoint

You’ve landed that ever elusive short-list presentation. Congratulations! Now you have to win it, or all of the work that you did was for naught. This is your opportunity to separate yourself from the competition. You can basically guarantee that the other short-listed firms are going to present a boring old standardized PowerPoint presentation. This is your chance to stand out and relate to the client on a personal level.

How does the Adobe InDesign and Deltek Vision integration help your presentations stand out from the rest? Simple:

• First impressions are everything | Too many professional services firms fail to differentiate their firm from the competition and let the client mistakenly believe that the decision boils down to price. By creating your presentation in InDesign, you are able to break away from the design restrictions of PowerPoint and instantly differentiate yourself from the competition.
• Eliminate mistakes | How embarrassing is it when our proposals and presentations reflect two different sets of data? Avoid this pitfall by automating all client and project specific information directly from your Deltek Vision system.
• Reinforce your firm branding | Your firm spent countless combined man hours putting together a proposal that got you to the short-list stage. At this point the client likely feels like they know your firm on a basic level. So why change your overall branding now, and start anew? By creating your proposal and presentation from the same set of templates and data-sources, you reinforce your firm branding at every stage of the sales process.

These are two of my favorite ways to use the Adobe InDesign and Deltek Vision integration to make my life easier. Are you thinking outside of the box and using this functionality in any neat ways? We would love to hear - please comment below.

Not currently integrating your Deltek Vision system with Adobe InDesign? Click below to learn how to begin: