General Consultant Discussion

MOTM 2017 Sage Topics I realize this may be somewhat premature, but I will be attending the BPAC meeting next week in Atlanta, and have the opportunity to meet with Nancy Harris, Connie Certusi and Kerstin Demko about their participation and potential presentation topics. I would like to solicit some ideas on what you as 90 Minds members are looking for. We have already asked Sage to provide a Road Ahead session, as well as a Town Hall Q&A session similar to last year. I also believe there will be a concurrent session on Sage Payroll. That leaves one more concurrent session of up to an hour. It would be helpful to be armed with some topic ideas for my meeting next week, which will be either Tuesday or Wednesday. TIA

What's the confidence level that any of the three listed will still be at Sage in February? high 40%?

Connie along with Nancy Harris may be in Costa Rica.... figures Sage would schedule the CEO Circle over the same weekend, We scheduled MOTM first !!!

Sage reports full year earnings 11/30/16 so any number of personnel shift could occur around that time.

Of course, Sage is still fixing the sales postings, so no one really knows who officially qualified for CEO Circle yet.

Based on my recent discussions, Sage management is concerned over FY2016 performance, especially the decrease in new customer acquisition, which is down year to year. I can identify a number of external factors which I think play into this, but the major issues are internal and it seems the channel and the people we deal with day to day at Sage are the only ones who really know what those issues are. NA management seem to be clueless, which is no surprise to most of us. Paige Erickson was the smart one here.

They are out of their damn minds. A first year MBA could sort out their problems. Here's a top 10 list: *10. They have divested all management of any type of authority. *9. They have ousted or encouraged good top management to leave. *8. They have seen an exodus of second tier management. *7. They have given up on maintaining the illusion that partners matter. *6. They have given up on maintaining the illusion that customers matter. *5. They have given up on maintaining the illusion that products matter. *4. They have decided that raising prices is perfectly valid even though there is no corresponding raise in value. *3. They have decided to adopt the attitude that the customers are prisoners. *2. They have decided that they don't care any longer about legacy stuff except where it offers them a cash stream to bleed in to their sad little cloud products. and the number 1 way Sage has completely destroyed their long term game: 1. They have decided that the best course is to set up a shell game built around Salesforce to elevate their stock price enough to allow upper management to get rich and make their time as Sage worthwhile even though they will leave it completely broken.

1. Sage Live is a flop 2. Sage re-branding was an ego boost, not a business boost 3. Lack of attention to channel strategy created a huge incentive for partners to defect 4. Revamping the tier did nothing but create partner mergers - which Sage apparently did not consider 5. Sage 100c strategy to migrate existing customers is (will be) a flop 6. Sage keeps making the same mistakes -- Sage EES = Sage 100c migration strategy/promo 7. What looks good on a spreadsheet doesn't often work in practice 8. Price hikes being mistaken for healthy NA growth 9. Still juggling too many products (No forced migrations gave life to products that should have been sold) 10. Running Sage globally not feasible - different regions are uique

This will be an interesting discussion next week! Any session ideas?

A bunch! ""How we are trying to give you the hint but you won't take it. Partner dis-incentives 2017"" ""Why we hate our customers. And our partners too."" ""We're increasing prices again - how to explain it to customers."" ""I will be out of a job in six months but have been tapped to give this presentation."" ""You thought we had our heads up our butts before now?

I think the topic is going to depend quite a bit on who is there and I think it would be idea if the person speaking had authority and not just ""I feel your pain"". The Sage 100c migration is not going to go away so I think that should be a topic but only if there's a presenter from Sage that can speak authoritatively

Thanks for handling this @JohnHoyt - here are a few ideas for the extra session. Please make sure that they stick to the guidelines we provide for the other sessions: Topics: 1. Update on the new Partner Portal 2. Q & A Session with a Tech Support Lead 3. SageCRM Update with focus on Sage 100 & 300 One last thing, I've heard several members found Linda Cade less than wonderful. I have no idea how you'd handle letting Sage know that, but I'm sure you'll think of something.

Thanks for the great ideas, @MoiraGoggin! I wish I could say Linda is an acquired taste, but she does not improve with the number of calls and meetings I have attended. She is knowledgeable, but her communication capabilities are lacking. She used to solely be involved behind the scenes, and it seems was given her new role by default (i.e. there was no one else because they're gone or no one else wanted to do it). I will communicate this to management as diplomatically as I can.

Thanks John.

Many 90 Minds members have chosen to pick up alternative products whether they be Acumatica, Intacct, NetSuite (notice a pattern) or xTuple on the ERP side and Microsoft CRM. What is Sage doing to prevent these formerly loyal partners from either 1. Leading with other products 2. Actively promoting migrations to other products or 3. Dropping Sage and actively promote other products? Just a question based upon feedback you are hearing...

Maybe give some notice that if they haven't fixed #KeyCluster by MOTM the pitchforks will be out in force...

- Faxing 101: How to properly address your fax orders so that Sage receives it - Payroll Tears: How to manage the initial payroll tears plus recurring maintenance conversation with an end user in under 12 hours of back and forth questions - Replying 101: How to get a reply from Sage in under 30 days - Public shaming 101: How to get a Sage rep to call you within an hour - Explain That To Me One More Time: Create and deliver an effective message to explain 100c and payroll tears in only 4 to 5 hours per end user - Ghost In The Machine: How to respond to an end user who calls to tell you that Sage hasn't returned a single phone call - Penalty Box: Explain why the EU was assessed a $700 penalty on their 10/31 renewal which was late by one day

LOL - Payroll Tears....

@JohnHoyt and @BobKohlmeyer If you are both at a PBAC meeting with SAGE this week, please tell them they need to ""FIX"" the Payroll Tier Subscription order process NOW! E-mailing the Order form and FAXING the Payment Authorization form is NOT WORKING!!!!!!!!! If I spend anymore time trying to make sure the client's forms are processed by SAGE, I'm going to start sending the Payment Authorization form to ADP and/or PayChex. I'm sure those two organizations can provide me with a secure FTP site where I can easily upload all the forms they need to switch my clients to their software.

Here here. Plus if you are renewing a perpetual maintenance customer you invoice them yourself then explain payroll has to go direct and give them the order form and fax. Sit back and wait while (a) trying to get someone at Sage to respond to you only to learn (b) nope, Sage never got the fax. I'd say that it is embarrassing but humiliating is probably a better word for this order process.

Probably nobody at Sage has ownership of this lousy process.

So, @JohnHoyt , any feedback you are legally allowed to divulge?