General Consultant Discussion

Partner Success Day webinar has started. Ed explaining need to be to summit early.

1:00 7/27 rooms 243-245 on second floor. Will have breakout sessions. Still not fully planned.

Agenda: 1-4 - Generall Session - Stephen Kelly, Jodi Ueker,, rich Spring, Jenifer Warawa, Paul Bridgewater (SPS), Alan Lang (EVP Global Strategy), Himanshu 4:15-5:45 - Product and Role Breakouts 6:00 Breakout session

Love Ed but I'm wondering why I dialed in.

Ouch. Sage CRM isn't in the Product and Role Breakouts.

No breakout for CRM

Peter don't feel bad, there is no BusinessWorks breakout session either.

Yes but they dumped the other CRM systems and they clearly have no CRM DNA left

They should have asked Salesforce to speak about CRM.

Ed prefers the green Kool-Aid.

Drive the most customers to Summit and you win the opportunity to touch the robes of the Grand Poobah!

I prefer to think of it as giving Stephen the opportunity to meet with ME.

So do we think registration is down?

Don't your customers feel honored to meet with you? You should sell raffle tickets.

It's hard to say @DianeRuth - it might just be that they are up but they want to be up even more.

There is a fine line between promoting and begging for attendance.

I just posted a question around attendance - let's see if we get a response.

I only know of 1 of my customers attending. We had about 10 last year, none of whom are returning this year. Hummm perhaps a lack of value?

I'm not exposed to the thinking on that."" is a great quote from Ed that sort of exonerates him from the stupidity.

They are not sure if they are authorized but numbers are good

I have heard from a few Sage management that attendance is already up over last year. The hint was it was dramatically up.

A couple of the slides...

So the 'whole' day for partners is not a whole day?

I'm not exposed to the thinking on that."" - A personal anti-stupidity firewall would be a very marketable product. Ed's missing an opportunity keeping that to himself...

Looks like Sage CRM has joined BusinessWorks and 500 in this presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

Couple more slides

Register for the reception - there were only 288 tickets left just a minute ago... https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sage-summit-2015-partner-reception-tickets-17609604802?EventID=4178851979

I have REALLY EXCITING NEWS about an event we have almost planned, with a STAR PACKED panel of our own employees who are ROCK STARS in the industry. ATTENDANCE IS UP DRAMATICALLY from past years when we did not hold an event like this, so ACT NOW to get your TICKET TO THE MUST SEE EVENT with LIMITED AVAILABILITY! More tickets will be made available if you would please come. Is that SAGE enough.

Some clarification around Sage CRM ... I reached out to some Sage folks about the omission and was told that Sage CRM would be part of each ERP breakout so audiences don't need to split from their primary product to attend a CRM session. I think that makes sense. Also, I know for a fact that Sage is investing big time to send over a strong Dublin contingency and there is a CRM Sub committee meeting on Monday morning. This is a holdover from the BPAC days that has continued to go strong. All is (mostly) fine on the CRM front ...

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Last I heard Summit attendance was in the 5,000 range. Last year they predicted (presumably met) 5,000 and this year they are predicting 7,500 so that's probably why they continue to push. They make public estimates about the numbers to sponsors and vendors -- and now have to push to meet them. Also they likely have hotel commitments but the rooms appear mostly sold out so I'm not sure that's a factor.

First, if your product isn't on the slide. Read between the lines. Then go to the Sage site and notice that all the front page products shown are represented at this sit down. Also why a road ahead separate from customers -- I guess they learned a little from last year to separate out the ""smart money"" questions from the customers.

Perhaps after we hear nothing of interest they think we won't attend the customer one and heckle?

There are 2, 45-minute Sage 100 Road Ahead sessions for customers. There are no nuts-and-bolts CRM sessions I could find for customers. All the sessions on Partner Day are 90 minutes. I am really puzzled about what decent content they will include in the partner road ahead that is not in Customer? It looks to me like Sage UK has decided to position CRM as just an extension of the ERP system. ""After all, that's how Acumatica, xTuple, Netsuite position it."" I happen to think they are dead wrong in that thinking. I also agree with Wayne that current management thinks they will get better long-term returns from their salesforce integrations than from Sage CRM. I just came across more messaging from UK about its global focus: One, Life, X3. Only those. Not a breath about CRM. They are still the Book of Stupid, just another chapter.

@PhilMcIntosh - LOL! I love the Talking Heads, and the first few lines of that song sums up my experience with Sage the past 8 or 10 years. As for the Sage 100 ERP Road Ahead Session, my fear is that we are going to see and hear the same stuff that we saw at MOTM in San Diego with simply more concrete plans of what they are going to do with Payroll and the other questionable items we grilled them about. I am hoping for value, but I'm just not feeling it right now. @PeterWolf - gotta love Sage with that response. Well Peter, since we are going to talk about CRM (by simply mentioning Sage CRM and Cloud Connector three or four times) in every breakout session, we didn't want our ERP partners to choose between their primary ERP product and a 90-minute session about Sage CRM. Oh wait, your primary product is Sage CRM??? Well, that's no good. Let me introduce you to the X3 team so we can get you in line with all the other sheep. Ouch! On a positive note, it will be great to see everyone!