Salesforce.com's 2015 State of Marketing Ebook: a must read for any business owner.

If you know salesforce.com like we do at SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, you know the company is big on data. So it's no surprise that Salesforce has gone above and beyond the call of duty in creating its 2015 State of Marketing ebook. Salesforce surveyed more than 5,000 marketing professionals on a bevy of subjects including, but not limited to, budgeting, challenges, social and email, etc. It's a must read for anyone interested in gaining the most recent insights into where marketing is heading in the near and distant future. 

Some key statistics we found most interesting (but there's many, many more): 

You can view the whole Slideshare presentation here, or download the ebook from Salesforce here. 

Sore feet but sharp minds! The post-Miami Marathon edition of the SkyPlanner Parachute!

It's SkyPlanner Parachute Monday! Find out what we at SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, have been reading, watching, listening to, and learning from during the past week. 

• As a relatively new phenomenon Big Data might still be a mystery to many in the business world. Here's a great infographic outlining some facts and myths about Big Data, and it's place in business. [via Entrepreneur Magazine]
• Marc Benioff's vision for the future of cloud computing led to the creation of Salesforce. Watch him outline his vision for all of technology and business in this interview with Fortune Magazine. [via Salesforce Blogs]
• Dogs might be man's best friend but there's we can receive more than unconditional love from our furry friends. Dogs can also teach us a thing or two about being great leaders. [via Entrepreneur Magazine]
• Making money is serious business...but, like these great office pranks show, it's never a bad thing to take some time for levity as well. [via the Hubspot Blog] 
• As we have the last few years members of the SkyPlanner team worked up a sweat during the Miami Marathon as part of the Debbie's Dream Foundation team. It was a wonderful opportunity to get some great exercise while helping a great cause: find a cure for stomach cancer, the second and fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women respectively. While this morning brings sore feet SkyPlanner is proud to again have been part of such a great cause and we hope to repeat it again next year!

Members of the SkyPlanner team pose with Debbie Zelman, founder of the Debbie's Dream Foundation, and friends from LifeConEx at the Debbie's Dream Foundation Kick-off Party.

Members of the SkyPlanner team pose with of the entire Debbie's Dream Foundation Miami Marathon team!

At SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, we love to hear from ours clients and supporters so please feel free to comment or email us with suggestions for future content.

Many things change over time but the meaning of the "R" in "CRM" is not one of them.

This young century as seen a greater leap in technological advancements than basically all of history before it, yet there are some things that new technology will just not change. One of those is the meaning of "relationship" in Customer Relationship Management software. While CRMs have changed over the past decade or so, greatly in part to the salesforce.com's revolutionizing of cloud computing, the role of a CRM have changed little. A company's CRM is still all about helping users bolster how they interact with customers. It is a place where information, from however many sources, is aggregated and where that information can be readily accessed whenever needed. 

One area where technology has helped is in how CRM connect people within a company. While in the past departments may have been segregated with little to no communication between them, these days CRMs are able to connect everyone within a company. This in itself greatly improves how companies operate and statistics have shown incredible growth in sales, customer satisfaction, and marketing ROI (return on investment) thanks to this development. 

A CRM is also what keeps business and its processes grounded even as technology evolves at a lightning pace. Data is being collected from many different points as we speak. Not only is social media continually growing, and companies are expected to stay on top of trends, but the Internet of Things is getting bigger and bigger (we've previously written about how experts estimate that the IoT will grow to between 20 and 50 billion connected devices with the next 10 to 15 years). A solid CRM foundation allows companies to leverage these new technologies easily without a complete overhaul to their system. 

So if you're still hesitant as to whether a CRM will help your business grow then stop. You can't waste another second. Contact SkyPlanner, South Florida's Salesforce consulting and customization partner, and get your business on the right track!

Transparency, and how keeping your employees involved strengthens your business!

Last week SkyPlanner, South Florida's Salesforce consulting and customization company, provided our readers with a write-up of ways we've found are best for building accountability within a business, and how that accountability helps build customers' confidence in a business. If you didn't happen to catch it you can here. This week we decided to delve into another trait that can help build trust within the walls of your business: transparency. Transparency also happens to be one of SkyPlanner's core values - along with integrity, partnership, respect, accountability, innovation, and agility- but this blog post deals with transparency within your organization and how to achieve in a few simple steps. 

The steps for better transparency are: 

• Keep your employees up to date on everything happening with the company. Employees who feel like they are informed about where the company is headed tend to feel more motivated to work towards the common goal. Memos or emails are useful tools for accomplishing this but the most effective is to hold open-door meetings where management addresses the company as a whole and questions are taken. 
• Give your employees avenues through which to provide feedback and concerns about their duties, the company, or fellow employees. Asking management to have an open door policy where employees can raise issues can help sooth concerns or resolves problems at an early stage. Another way to achieve this is through the use of an anonymous suggestion box or other anonymous form of feedback like surveys through a 3rd party such as Survey Monkey. An anonymous method of feedback will let give employees the confidence to bring up issues without the fear of repercussions. It goes without saying that whether a feedback is public or anonymous, management must take appropriate action to show employees that their concerns matter.  
• Find a way for your employees to stay connected with each other. That's where a service such as Salesforce Chatter is worth its weight in gold. Chatter takes the idea of social networks and applies it to business, and provides management and employees the ability to connect in real time. 

This week's SkyPlanner Parachute: A collection of tidbits you can use to make your business even better!

It's SkyPlanner Parachute Monday! Find out what we at SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, have been reading, watching, listening to, and learning from during the past week. 

• Everything you need to know about the Spring '15 Release from Salesforce collected in one place here on the SkyPlanner Blog. [via the SkyPlanner Blog]
• Any one aspect of running a business can become a time drain if you're not good at time management. Here's 10 productivity hacks to get 2015 off on a productive foot! [via the Salesforce Blogs]
• As he states in this video, salesforce.com's Marc Benioff discusses why he believes CEOs like himself are the future of consumer marketing. [via Fortune] 
• Feel the need to feel more confident when meeting clients? These 7 key triggers will help you do just that! [via Entrepreneur]
• According to the 2015 Economic Preview by Florida Tax Watch, 2015 should be a good, if not great, year for Florida's economy. [via Florida Trend]
• You can't expect customers to trust your business if your business itself doesn't encourage a culture of trust within its walls. Follow SkyPlanner's Guide to Accountability and start building a culture of trust today. [via the SkyPlanner Blog]

At SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, we love to hear from ours clients and supporters so please feel free to comment or email us with suggestions for future content.

SkyPlanner has collected everything you need to know about Salesforce's Spring '15 Release in one place!

If there's one thing to be said about Salesforce's Spring '15 release it's that it takes being a "customer company" to a whole new level. With over 250 key improvements or altogether new features to what is already the world's #1 line of customer relationship products. The Spring '15 lets your business build even deeper relationships with your customers, partner companies, and employees on both desktop and mobile devices. Below we have compiled a collection of materials that showcase most of the new goodies included in the Spring '15 release so you can get caught up on everything it has to offer:

The videos below will provide even more in-depth information about the newest features of the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and more from the Salesforce Spring '15 Release: 

We're 

4 steps for building accountability -and trust- within the walls of your business.

At SkyPlanner, the South Florida Salesforce Consulting company, trust is a huge part of our success. Trust in each other and the work we do which in turn gives customers the confidence to place their trust in us. But building a culture of trust isn't always easy, and that tends to occur when there is a lack of accountability within the walls (both physical and metaphorical) of a business. Accountability happens to be one of the core values we hold dear here at SkyPlanner, along with transparency, integrity, partnership, respect, innovation and agility. Here are four ways to build accountability within your organization:  

1. Be as specific and clear as possible when outlining expected results. The clearer everything is laid out the harder it will be for someone to use misunderstanding as an excuse for underachieving. For example, at SkyPlanner management doesn't just tell developers "do this and achieve this result." Instead we create specific tasks outlining requirements then assign them to a specific developer, all within Salesforce.

2. Hold everyone visibly accountable. In the digital age it can be easy to shoot requests or orders around with a few keystrokes but all that does is breed a disconnect between peers. At SkyPlanner we have an open floorplan which allows us to interact face-to-face and hold open discussions about daily operations. While it might not be possible to run your business in that way, we recommend in-person dialogue as often as possible. Video conferencing is a suitable alternative. 

3. Get everything in writing. No explanation necessary, really. Having things in writing (such as documenting all decisions and deadlines agreed to in meetings) and making them readily available to be accessed by all parties involved will help keep everyone on top of their responsibilities...and those of their peers.

4. Set ground rules for interaction. The same things that make teams successful - different background, values and personalities- are also things that can lead to eventual disarray. Getting everyone on the same page by setting rules for things from communication protocols to conflict resolution will greatly improve accountability. 

New year, new beginnings and, best of all, a new SkyPlanner Parachute!

It's SkyPlanner Parachute Monday! Find out what we at SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, have been reading, watching, listening to, and learning from during the past week. 

• 2015 is the year of the Customer Service Revolution. And the tool of this revolution will be the Salesforce Service Cloud! [via the Salesforce Blogs]
• The best presentations are the ones that people care about, so the question is: do your presentations invoke the necessary emotions in your audience? If they don't then you need to check out this great article from Fast Company! [via Fast Company]
• A big trend for 2015: the need for companies to start thinking about every aspect of their business and its digital impact, from mobile application development to managing distribution channels for content. [via the Salesforce Blogs]
• Speaking of 2015, here's 5 reasons why this year could, and should, be the biggest one of your SMB's life! [via the Salesforce Blogs]

At SkyPlanner, South Florida's premier Salesforce consulting company, we love to hear from ours clients and supporters so please feel free to comment or email us with suggestions for future content.