General Consultant Discussion

We are planning our marketing strategy for 2012 and wanted to poll the group to see.... Where is everyone getting their leads from over the past 6, 12 and 18 months? Do you see shifts or changes in the marketplace?

Existing users = web - with a much higher percent converting if they have some other interaction with us than just landing on our web page.

I had 2 new sales this year and 1 still trying to decide. All 3 of them originally talked to me before the economy tanked in 2009 and revisited. One came from an end-user who switched jobs from a current MAS client. One came from a business purchased by a current client. The other one came from a now-defunct reseller and I have no idea how they originally met up. MAS is pretty popular in a small area here so you get a lot of people having heard of it, which always helps. And customer loyalty - I have one end user who has drug me along into 3 or maybe 4 businesses which involved new sales at two of them. I wish he'd go get a new job...

Honestly, not much is working lately. I don't know if its just us, and this would be a good thread, or the national economy. I've noticed findaccountingsoftware.com's quality and quantity is down, unscientifically about 50% or more vs. last year IMHO. Lots of people looking for 10 user manufacturing systems software and services not to exceed $15k.... We are finding fewer and fewer opportunities for 'new blood' mas90/200 situations. Almost exclusively where somebody used it before or worked at one of our existing clients before. Head to head, in objective evaluations where a company has anything more than the most basic needs (which QBE often handles at a fraction of the cost) it just comes up short in so many ways vs. competition that ranges from cheaper (Dynamics NAV with the 5 users for $3k promotion) to maybe 50% to 100% more expensive (Epicor 9) Taking bias out of the mix, the number of scenarios where objectively MAS90/200 is the superior option vs. other major players is becoming fewer and fewer. Anybody disagree? I would say our telemarketing is still working but now takes 2 - 3 times more effort for the same number of leads as a few years ago. As Wayne said, sometimes I wonder if the web is worth it. I know thats where many folks look but you have to have a huge qualification process to avoid being jerked around as 99% of leads coming in on the web contacted 10 others and it boils down to a price war in the end.

Agree with others who have mentioned the single best source of leads are from MAS 90 alumni - people who have used it before and have changed jobs. Maybe we should all put our marketing dollars into a placement service to find jobs for for former MAS 90 users.

Mike, Will you be our first placement????

Need to ""recharge my batteries"" first