Tag Archive for: networking

How To Attend Dreamforce as a Business Without a Booth

By Raj Adhi

What if you could go to Dreamforce without the cost of a booth? Dreamforce is an event that provides an incredible platform with endless opportunities for the Salesforce community and businesses ready to grow through technology and innovation. This event once again opens its doors to visitors September 25 – 28, with a view on learning about new tech and trends, sharing with industry experts and like-minded partners, and getting valuable insights and inspirations to building a successful business.

If you are attending Dreamforce this year, but didn’t want to blow your marketing budget out on a booth, fret not! You are not alone; in fact, you make up the majority of the attendees. Even if you don’t have a booth, you can allow that to work in your favor in many ways.You are free to venture into the other venues and get an overall perspective of the event. All you need is a well planned out agenda and a great attitude, to boot.

Whether you wish to attend all 4 days or just a couple, here’s how to get the most out of Dreamforce, and maximize your business’s exposure at this high-growth, networking-focussed gathering.

Have an Agenda and Strategize

Planning is key to an early start and to maximize your networking opportunities at the show. Decide ahead which booths you wish to visit on each day of the conference.

Are you partnered with any major brands other than Salesforce? This is a big factor when looking at Dreamforce. Most companies including Commercient will allow you to meet up with clients and other partners at their booth. This can be extremely valuable for running email and calling campaigns to set up meetings in advance. Customers are far more likely to meet up with you at the conference if they know where and when ahead of time.

If there is a particular talk or session you think is important, register to attend as early as possible. Scheduling interviews or one-to-ones with CEOs, CFOs and other important people should be part of the agenda. Lastly, get involved in some business-meets-fun engagements. The relationship-building purpose of these events is not complete without networking opportunities in a fun and relaxed environment.

Shared PR and Marketing Opportunities

Do what the magazines do! These events are full of specialists that can provide expert insights about what’s new or trending in the industry, and would love exposure opportunities. Some of them could be current or prospective partners and customers. Interview them and publish the speaker’s opinions or key excerpts of the interview in a blog post on your website and social media platforms.

They can also share this published piece in their own platforms to attract organic, valuable traffic to your website. To ensure a successful interview, prepare the list of questions you are going to ask the speaker. Scheduling well in advance is crucial as seats may be limited and not many experts may have the time for a one-on-one. Carry a backup battery for your phone and digital recorder to cover the event and refer back to it later.

Network and Advertise

Selling is all about actively listening to your customers and developing win-win solutions, through a personal interaction. Nothing quite beats a one-to-one interaction with businesses who share the same ideals and goals.

Whenever you stop to chat with people, make sure to ask open ended questions and listen, so you are better prepared to position your business to suit their requirements. This also gives you the ability to tailor your messaging to the needs and pain points they just expressed. Ensure you share information about the company you represent and include your success stories with clients.
Many long-term business relationships have started the same way. Understand what the rest of them have been working towards and keep in mind changes through personal engagements.

Let Your Hair Down

More lasting contacts are built at parties and events than at formal settings. Conferences can get hectic and rushed. One of the best ways to meet people is at a Breakfast or Lunch meeting, or a discussion over drinks at an after-event party, where you can catch people in a casual setting.

A change from the hurried business situation allows people to relax and have an open and honest discussion. It provides the ideal scenario for building relationships and long term contacts. Here you can connect with people at a personal, emotional level, where they express themselves more freely and enables businesses to create lasting relationships. You can also arrange a meeting with friends and clients at such fun events so you can cement and build upon the partnerships.

Follow Up

We all know the regular exercise of visiting booths and collecting brochures, business cards and other collectable advertising material from businesses which pick our interest. You may have also exchanged your own cards after the pleasant exchanges.

It is crucial to follow up after interacting with someone at the event. This serves to remind the other person about your company after the initial engagement at the conference. Besides making an impact, such your approach is likely to be very effective as you have shown interest and commitment to the person or company by following up.

Lastly, such a large-scale event such as Dreamforce makes for an ideal scenario for research. It provides the right opportunity to learn more about the competition, from various viewpoints, to marketing or pricing. You can then come up with strategies that can benefit your own business.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started with the Dreamforce plan. Commercient will be waiting for you at booth 1954, you can register here. For more on Dreamforce, click here.

Dreamforce 2018 Commercient

 

5 Goals Every Small Business Should Set In Quarter 3

If your small business is looking to grow in Quarter 3, consider setting new goals – it’s never too late. To help you, we’ve come up with five goals every small business should set in Q3 to be successful.

Boost Productivity in Your Business

One of the best things you can do to increase your business growth in Q3 is deploy productivity apps; and this should be the goal of every small business in Q3. For example, using accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks can eliminate manual calculations and simplify the aspects of record-keeping, which can help you save time and money.

You can also deploy project management apps like Asana, Slack and Trello, which can help you track task assignments as well as the progress of your project. This can help you ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page.

And, the good news is that you can connect all these apps to your ERP using Commercient IoT Pulse. Our platform provides integration with more than 815 Apps for your ERP to help you be more efficient. This can help save money and free up time for your staff to focus on what matters most – you’ll be able to get more work done. Apps such as email, marketing, CRM, time cards, and much more, can be connected to your ERP by IoT Pulse.

Listen to Your Customers More

As we are in the Age of the Customer, where the needs and wants of customers is always changing, it’s more important now than ever to listen and talk to your customers. By talking more to your customers, you will be able to understand each of them better, re-evaluate your products and services, and make small changes to stay ahead of your customers’ demands.

At Commercient we love communicating with our customers, whether it’s through our blog; social sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; the Commercient newsletter; or through our customer success pages, where we showcase our current customers and how they feel about products. We also communicate with our customers through email, live chat and phone calls, and we’d love to hear from you.

Reduce Business Costs

Reducing your company’s expenditures and creating processes that will cost less money should also be a goal of every business in Q3. Thankfully, technology allows you to save money and advance your businesses in ways that weren’t possible before.

Businesses can now take advantage of open-source software, Web conferencing tools, remote desktop applications, and online payment services. All of these tools can help you cut costs.

And, if you decide you want to integrate your data between your ERP and CRM system, we suggest selecting Commercient as your integration vendor with SYNC, the #1 data connector platform for business. We provide premier, customized two-way data integration applications at an affordable price and rapid deployment rate. Check out our pricing page.

Find New Opportunities for Networking

If you are not actively networking, you should set a goal to find new opportunities to network in Q3. This will help get you in front of more people and expand your business network.

Try to attend more conferences, workshops, seminars and meetings, and ramp up your online networking on platforms like LinkedIn. Doing so can can lead to creating new connections, building stronger relationships, gaining exposure, growing your ventures, and meeting of VIPs. One networking event you don’t want to miss is Dreamforce 2018 – the Commercient team will be there, and we hope to meet with you there, too!

Build Your Online Presence

In Q3, you should also set the goal to build your online presence. Having a strong online presence will help you build your small business’ reputation and attract leads to your website. This can mean writing useful blog posts and sharing them with your social media followers, or optimizing your website to attract more search engine traffic (e.g. creating a customer success page with customer testimonials). You’d be surprise at what having a strong online presence can do for your business.

If you’d like to learn more about Commercient SYNC and IoT Pulse, or need more help in growing your small business? Contact us today — we’d love to hear from you.

SYNC Demo integrate CRM ERP

Give Your Small Business A Spring Makeover

The second quarter is here and it’s time to give your small business a spring makeover; it’s a great time to revamp your business to stay ahead of the competition. In this blog, we’ll uncover some steps you can take to give your small business a makeover this spring.

Connect Your ERP To The Internet And 815 Apps

Today the average small business may run several different apps, including ERP software, CRM system, a marketing automation tool, e-commerce system, billing apps, and much more. The problem lies in the fact that separately not all of these apps work together or communicate with each other, leading to undesirable data silos. However, thanks to integration platforms like Commercient IoT Pulse, you can now connect all your business applications to your ERP, and have them communicate with each other seamlessly.

As an example, if you want to connect Sage Live with MailChimp, Dropbox, or Insightly to automate your processes, IoT Pulse will help you do just that. It’s a great way to take your business to the next level in Q2. You’ll be able to connect your ERP system to over 815 other business applications without any coding knowledge. You’ll cut out tedious admin tasks, saving you time and money, and ensuring that you have correct, consistent information right when you need it.

Network With New People

Another way that you can give your business a makeover this spring by networking with new people. There are tons of ways that you can network in Q2. For instance, you can attend the Sage Summit Tour events, in which you’ll be able to connect with and get inspired by business and thought leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and peers alike. It will open the door for you to talk to highly influential people that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to easily talk to or find.

At some of these events, you’ll be able to meet and network with the Commercient team and our Co-Founders Richard Jenkins and John Angrove. So if you want to understand more about Commercient SYNC, IoT Pulse, or Sync2Pay, you’ll be able to meet with us and learn about our products.

Another great way you can network in Q2 is through LinkedIn, which has a lot to offer small business owners. LinkedIn is the world’s largest and most active professional networking platform. Leveraging the platform, and joining LinkedIn groups in your industry, can help you network virtually, stay on top of developments, and tap into advice and expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to easily get hold of. You can find us on LinkedIn, as well.

Refresh Your Marketing Strategy

In addition to connecting your ERP and apps, and networking with new people, you should also consider refreshing your marketing strategy this spring, especially if your marketing efforts are not working for you.

For example, if you don’t have a blog, now is the time to get started. A blog will not only helps your company get its name and information out through followers, but it is a great way to engage and connect with your consumers more directly. If you have some time, check out our blog and see how we do it.

If you haven’t done so already, another way you can promote and increase the awareness of your brand and your business profile is through social media. You’ll be able to build brand engagement and customer connections at relatively low costs. For instance, you can tie in ads and offers on your Facebook page, and have a direct channel with your customers on Twitter.

You can also send out newsletters, which is a great way for your company to communicate with your customers and prospects – you’ll be able to provide value, beyond sales, by informing your customers with interesting content that resonates with them. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Are you ready to give your business a makeover in Q2? Let’s get started in connecting all your apps today.

SYNC ERP and CRM