Mindshare Momentum | Articles

Atlanta, Georgia – May 1, 2008 – InfoMentis, Inc., an Atlanta based global consulting and performance improvement company recently added two new client partners to its sales team. InfoMentis is proud to welcome Jeff Hart and Robert Lopp. Each are dynamic professionals who will help drive InfoMentis’ continued growth.

"Hart and Lopp are enormous assets to the InfoMentis team," said EVP Client Relationships, Bob Frailey. "They possess a deep understanding and shared commitment to the InfoMentis mission ‘to provide the highest quality training services by mentoring our clients to achieve breakthroughs in performance.’”

Jeff Hart brings to InfoMentis over 24 years of diverse experience in direct and indirect channel sales, partner general management, sales training, consultancy and sales management. He has worked with global organizations ranging from Fortune 50 to Fortune 1000 companies and has a successful track record in the international telecommunications and professional services industry.

Prior to joining InfoMentis, Jeff held various positions with Orange Business Services (formerly Equant, Inc.). Most recently he served as the partner general manager responsible for developing and implementing a multi-year go-to-market strategy with IBM. Mr. Hart has developed and implemented multi-year strategic business plans to generate new revenue streams with Fortune 50 companies in the automotive and energy sectors while leveraging relationships with alliance partners such as Cisco, Nortel, SBC and AT&T. Earlier in his career, Mr. Hart was with Sprint Corporation and also was a sales and marketing manager with the Coopers & Lybrand Management Consulting Services practice.

Robert Lopp is a successful technology entrepreneur who brings over 20 years of senior management and venture capital experience to InfoMentis. Most recently, he was a co-founder and chief operating officer of Allstar Ventures, a WISP and Service Bureau Applications company that provided internet access and back-office applications to internet providers. In this role, he was responsible for managing the sales, infrastructure architecture and deployment and technical support organizations. Before founding Allstar, Mr. Lopp was the executive director of corporate development for CSG Systems, the largest provider of Mr. Lopp was a founder and the managing partner of a boutique venture capital firm, Enable Ventures which focused on technology investments in the telecommunications, oil and gas, and customer care and billing markets. Additionally, Mr. Lopp also co-founded a professional services company, Techniki Informatica, which at the time of its sale to Software AG, was the largest provider of programming services to MCI and Sprint.

About InfoMentis
InfoMentis is a global consulting and performance improvement company providing configurable programs to help our clients enable cultural change. We teach our clients how to more effectively get, keep and satisfy their customers and partners, while at the same time helping them to achieve bottom-line results. Our configurable courseware, e-Learning modules, consulting services and collaborative productivity tools are designed to be adapted for role-based behavioral change for those in marketing, sales, services, support and management around the entire customer lifecycle.

Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, InfoMentis helps industry leaders around the world understand and embrace the value of determining predictable revenue streams. Through our unique offerings, our clients are able to recognize that an opportunity for growth is significant among organizations eager to differentiate themselves. Founded in 1996, InfoMentis has provided performance improvement strategy, consulting and coaching to over 35,000 professionals in 46 countries.

InfoMentis Gains National Recognition as One of the
Nation’s Top 500 Women Owned Businesses

Atlanta, Georgia – In recognition of the economic power of multicultural businesses, DiversityBusiness.com, the nation’s leading multicultural internet site, recently named InfoMentis as one of the “Top 500 Woman Owned Businesses in the United States”.

The Div500 is the 8th annual listing of the Nation’s top 500 women-owned businesses. The companies listed on the Div500 represent the nation’s top multicultural earners and challenge the long-held notion that a women-owned business is small or insignificant. Div500 members are sought after by major corporations wishing to increase spending with women owned companies.

The Impact of Women Owned Business
“Women businesses and consumers are a growing force in the U.S. economy, and a force to be reckoned with,” said Kenton Clarke, CEO of Computer Consulting Associates International, the company that developed DiversityBusiness.com. “This is a whole business segment that can carry its own, that provides jobs, products and services, and generates wealth for their communities. These are the new leaders in American business.”

Affected by recent economic and demographic trends and changes, Fortune 1000 corporations throughout the country have recognized that buying products and services from women-owned companies positively impacts their business. Diversity-owned businesses contribute over $1.4 trillion in sales to the U.S. economy.

“These companies represent a small sampling of the women who have made significant contributions in their respective industries. Through their leadership, a road has been paved for women around the globe,” commented Wendy Reed, CEO of InfoMentis.

InfoMentis was honored at a special awards ceremony during DiversityBusiness.com’s 8th Annual Multicultural Business Conference in Orlando, Florida.

About DiversityBusiness.com
Launched in 1999, with over 35,000 members, DiversityBusiness.com is the largest organization of diversity-owned businesses throughout the United States that provide goods and services to Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies and colleges and universities. Members use the site’s technology to find and track new business opportunities. It also produces the country’s largest conference on diversity education and training for major corporations and small business. Its research on top businesses appears in Fortune, Forbes, Business Week and numerous magazines and media publications. The site has gained national recognition and has won numerous awards for its content and design. DiversityBusiness.com is produced by Computer Consulting Associates International Inc. (CCAii.com) of Southport, Connecticut. CCA was founded in 1980 by CEO Kenton Clarke.

Webinar: Selling in an Economic Slowdown
Presented by: Mark Norato, InfoMentis and Joe Galvin, SiriusDecisions

Recession-mongering got you down? While the economy may appear to be the biggest challenge facing corporate executives, economic conditions are temporary. However, mediocre sales performance is an on-going problem, which fortunately becomes visible during an economic downturn. However, if left unattended, it will become problematic over time.

In every economic downturn, certain sales organizations continue to grow and prosper—capturing more revenue and market share than their competitors. Don't let economic conditions distract you from generating sales! Learn more about the keys to growing your business in a down economy.

Transforming Your Maintenance Renewal Team Into a High Performing Sales Team
Presented by: Tony Arndt and Nora Laughton, InfoMentis and Michael Marguglio, Advent Software

Whether yours is a perpetual or subscription license model, this trend is clear: Customers are turning the renewal process into a sales process. Is your renewal team equipped to handle that?

A best practice trend set by companies whose maintenance businesses outperform others is transforming renewal teams into high-performing sales teams. Renewal reps have typically been focused on more tactical and administrative tasks, such as following up on quotes and invoices. Higher performing reps are actively creating relationships with customers, shortening the renewal cycle, up-selling premium services and driving additional revenue. Gain insight from a panel of experts on how they successfully managed the renewal efforts for major software companies and discover their experiences and best practices for transforming their renewal teams into high-performing sales teams.

Accelerate PS KPI’s to Best In Class
Presented by Scott Fletcher, InfoMentis and Ed Marshal, OpenAir

In this market, if you are not using best-in-class sales and delivery practices for professional services, you are at a competitive disadvantage. In fact, you are likely leaving money on the table, compromising both top-line revenue and margins. It's all in the numbers. While many companies have recognized notable growth in their professional services business, they have not yet achieved or exceeded best-in-class KPIs, including:

Learn how to enable your professional services organization to achieve optimal performance by gaining insight on detailed programs and initiatives used by leading professional services organizations, including Oracle and IBM/Internet Security Systems, to achieve the position of best-in-class operations.

Want to gain some insight into sales and marketing messages from your customer’s point of view? Just walk the trade show floor in your industry and use a quick three-question test to analyze what you hear:

For example, where do people go with hot new ideas that require funding? Venture capitalists. Professionals involved in the venture business (who are subject to numerous pitches daily) tell us all too often that at the end of a presentation they are still not sure what a product does. The presenters were so infatuated with their own product that they went heavy on the pixie dust and non-existent on the meat!

What are some key things to remember when creating messages? Let’s revisit our three questions.

What are you selling? The easy part is coming up with the comprehensive, technical explanation. The tough part is distilling that into something anyone can understand. We work with clients to help them “peel back the layers of the onion” to get to what is at the core. Think about how you would explain your solution to someone who knows nothing about your business. First think about the core of what your solution does and then consider the key reasons that it is necessary and beneficial. Analogies and practical examples help consumers understand more easily.

Why would they want to buy it? The first part of this process tends to focus on what your solution can do for them that they cannot do already. But, if your thought process stops there, you can educate them. But you can’t persuade them that they need it. There are always dozens of new features, functions and capabilities that someone could use, but what do they really need? It is imperative to understand WHO you are selling to and what would make them want to spend money on your solution versus an alternative. Think about your top three buyers and why they need what you are selling.

What questions do you ask? Quickly getting to the point about what THIS audience cares about is what will get their attention. Take the time to ask, understand and validate before launching into a laundry list of things that might intrigue them. By first asking few questions, you can focus on the two or three things that will get and keep their attention. We believe a key way to think about effective messaging is to compare it to a relay race.

Marketing is your anchor–the runner that begins the race. They must have the right content to get you ahead early. If they overload with information, they will overrun the next person in the relay (sales). If they don’t provide enough of the right information, then sales is trying to catch up in leg two. Aligning content and momentum is key to getting a clear message to the field in a manner in which they can internalize.

The next step of the race is getting the customer to “take the baton”. The content and momentum that a sales professional uses to get the customer ready is critical in the outcome of the race. Too much information without enough value will make the customer reluctant to engage. “Too little, too late” means the customer has joined the race with another provider and/or solution. Timing, content and momentum are all critical to the alignment needed to win.

Alan Greenspan once said, “I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said”. While he may have a point relative to the complexities of his communications, it certainly doesn’t have to be the case when you are communicating with your clients, prospects and internal team.

“A 3% increase in maintenance would increase EPS by $.01”
“It keeps the lights on in our company”
“Without it, we would be dead”
“By far, our most profitable product line”
“Protecting it is our company’s most strategic initiative”

How important is maintenance? Just do the math . . .
A quick look at the numbers will tell you why maintenance deserves more attention than it gets. Representing the most profitable product line in most technology companies, even a modest increase in maintenance can have a dramatic impact on EPS. Consider the example below. For this company, a mere 3.7% increase in maintenance revenue would mean an increase in EPS of 6%:

We have found that today’s most successful software companies are taking a more proactive approach to managing their maintenance annuity stream. What many of these companies have in common is that they:

In addition, they’re using in-house and third party resources to develop strategies which are constantly being evaluated and re-evaluated in order to ensure all efforts are being maximized.

What are you doing to ensure the ongoing health of your maintenance business?
As we busily prepare for the end of this calendar year, make sure that your maintenance is getting the attention it deserves.

In many professional services organizations, the word “transformation” is stated as a major initiative, but what does it really mean? There’s a large interest in these organizations to transform the organization, goals, or practices, but what are these firms really aiming for?

Focus your transformation!
The most effective transformations in the services industry are accomplished when there’s a focused effort and process. While individual transformation efforts may have a variety of activities and tasks, there are some central themes which should be included for optimal results. A “short list” of these include:

What is your customer collaboration strategy?
The most successful services organizations have customer collaboration as a central theme in how they interact both internally and with their customers. A continuing relationship between the service provider and the customer relies on a substantial degree of trust and trust is established only with repeated interactions involving high degrees of credibility and reliability. But there’s one more aspect of the relationship which can only be demonstrated in collaborative manner and that’s the customer’s perception that you are doing everything with only one purpose in mind; they think you will help them achieve their personal and professional objectives.

This means that your customer collaboration must be the norm of how your firm operates, not the exception.

Return on WHOSE investment?
A growing idea is to align your services priorities based on a Return On Investment calculation, which sounds like a great idea! But on whose investment are you going to measure the return? Your organization’s investment or the customer’s? Well... both

The ROI philosophy has driven its way from the corporate boardroom into many services organizations. Measurability to link results and investments is now standard culture in most service organizations. But we must be careful to look further than the more short-term returns like simple customer priority rankings or monthly changes in our satisfaction metrics.

How high to jump? or “You’re fired!”
Before developing transformational initiatives, a services firm needs an “ROI scorecard” which considers both services and the customer’s investment (and return). Look at the bottom percentiles of your customers to analyze which of these customers is your organization’s primary provider, and which are likely to grow. Also, which organizations are small in revenue/profit, but strategic enough that you want to flag them for services investment because you would expect a likely return?

Conversely, look at your larger customers. Are there any who are nice revenue producers but are costing you valuable profits? Remember, if we’re taking a loss on a relationship, we need to look for ways to either improve the margins on the work we perform or consider severing the relationship in lieu of more profitable ones. You can’t “make it up in volume” when services are the primary deliverable to the customer.

First on the transformational list here is… sshhhh… say it quietly… sometimes the customer ISN’T always right. Expressed differently, it is sometimes more valuable to have policies which ensure the long-term preservation of our most valuable asset (our employees) rather than toward short-term customer satisfaction. But, again, this isn’t a seat-of-the-pants judgment call. Successful transformation is guided by policies consistent with an ROI scorecard. Built into those specific policies is a balance between customer goals and employee needs.

Yesterday	Today	Tomorrow
Product-focused	Customer-focused	Customer Collaborative
Customer-driven	Data-driven	ROI-driven
Customer goals	Employee needs	Strategic Balance

Services organizations could, up until recently, make a good impression if they simply appeared “customer focused” instead of product-focused. In the future, “customer focused” will be the baseline of acceptable behavior so those services organizations looking to transform themselves to the Next Level will need to do more! In the world of CRM and online customers, we must move our transformation onward to real collaboration efforts with our customers.

Today’s service organization transformation also needs to rise above the noise of CRM data and move to policies informed by long-term mutual ROI. These policies also need to transcend the passé ideas of either the customer or our employees being the top priority. Instead, strike a savvy balance guided by ROI principles and your service organization’s strategic priorities.

Communication is defined as the ability to arrange words in syntax, allowing the transfer of thoughts from one person’s mind to another; it is what distinguishes man from all other species. The good news is that our ability to communicate enabled our primal ancestors to crawl out of their caves and build societies.