It’s the community not the application

I enjoyed reading a posting from Brian Carroll, a fellow blogger in the B2B lead generation and sales effectiveness space. The recent posting discusses Lead Management and the challenges in effectively generating leads and measuring program effectiveness, especially as marketing transfers leads to sales.

Towards the end of the post he comments, “It’s certainly is not easy, so start with the mindset that lead management is a process and make that process as simple a possible. Don’t forget that software does NOT create collaboration.”

Dave and I are in complete agreement with this. From Dave’s experience as a CTO at a social networking site, he’s always telling me, “It’s the community that matters, not the product, we just facilitate it.” And I nod my head in agreement. I’ve been the sales liaison at several companies for their new SFA initiative. Although I’m the sales manager, I’d argue that the system first needed to support the rep’s daily activities – calling, to-do’s, calendar, quoting and forecasting. Once reps adopted the SFA system, then management’s wish list could be implemented. Otherwise, the reps would not adopt the software and we’d all be frustrated that the software did not improve productivity.

So as Inquisix gets closer to beta rollout (email me at msk at inquisix dot com if you’re interested in an invitation) we continue to remind ourselves that it’s YOU and the community that makes Inquisix worth using.