General Consultant Discussion

Winning Together - All-Hands Call notes

I missed the first 14 minutes - I'm sure it was important? Now they are talking about stickiness ... that's nice.

Subscription up by 96.5% (small base to start from), Recurring which includes subscription and M&S up by 9.4%, organic revenue up by 5.7%.

236 new customers in 6 months...

It's kind of hard to believe really ...

hmm. I wonder how many of these are winbacks?

Good point Jim.

#ThankyoufornewversionsofwindowOS (and XP being retired)

LOL - yes, it's driving some CRM upgrades for us.

#customerhasnochoice

Did anyone really ask about this Foundation stuff? I know it's a big push by Steven Kelly but ... seriously ... I want to make sure my customers get good products so I can feed my family and pay my team. That's what this call should be about in my opinion.

Sage bragging that they joined Invictus only 5 weeks before the event.... I'm not surprised because that seems to be the maximum pace at which Sage is able to make any decision.

Anyone know where Connie Certusi is? I thought she was supposed to be the NA Joe Langner? ?

So tired of ""customer for life"" bs. They say they care but they don't show they care.

Notice Sage doesn't talk about the number of customers on Sage 100 who drop maintenance. I bet it's way more than the 20 a month they claim they are adding.

I love the Mike called out Sage CRM attach rates on new deals. Mike is a bright guy (not sarcastic) and he saw the earlier comments about Sage CRM.

Absolutely Wayne. They grew 9% in recurring revenue - most of that would be M&S. How much did prices rise in the last 12 months? If it's more than 9%, than that number is horrible because it calls out attrition.

You know when you call an ""all hands"" meeting it should address everything. They should explain what the topic of the call is and clarify. They called out CRE sales yet CRE was not on the key initiatives slide.

Bets: Does Laura make it to Summit?

I met Laura at the President's Circle event. She is sharp. We had a long talk about why the hell she joined Sage. I was puzzled ...

I bet yes.

I find it interesting they can grandfather out and go up 25% on their renewal or you can sell 100c for a 15% increase. I wonder how that feeds into their stats.

Saw that response @LarryBradford -- they seem to admit that the ungrandfathering is a big price hike

Took them 5 months to plan and execute a monthly call. (back tracking to Pres Circle in January where most partners asked for this) Good lord.

Sad to admit I'm starting to miss Langner. At least you knew who was in charge....

Those are some impressive numbers to Sage. Someone is selling something out there ... Unfortunately those are the top 5 so what do the next ones look like?

That's one way to find out you are loosing your client...

Is that darth vader?

Greenbrier is my current Sage 100 customer. My key contact just left and never communicated to me this.

Sorry to hear that @LarryBradford - it does show the advantage of these larger partners with their steady cross-sell marketing. Shameless plug: we have joint marketing campaigns for Sage CRM to Sage 100 customers.

Bet: will Brian Lancaster make it to Summit? We should just get a list of all the management on this call and create a deadpool as too who makes it to FY17

Average Sage tenure of today's presenters - about 14 weeks.

Think of all the opportunities that Sage provides to meet new people every 12 - 18 months! So exciting.

X3 deals are nicely sized. I can see why Sage does so many direct.

@LarryBradford I have an identical Sage 100 customer to Greenbrier We should talk.

Shameless plug - xkzero Mobile Commerce is part of that mega SE Computer deal. :0 Automating deliveries for medical supplies.

Is everyone else hearing crackling on the audio? Wondering if it's my line or webex.

Clear line here

clear here

Peter time to invest in better phone lines

Thanks guys - yeah apparently so.

so all these web assets are just for the X3 platform?

They're on the X3 portion of the call

What happens when you give a prospect access to a product they have no idea how to use? Anyone? Bueller?

They should have a separate X3 call from the mid-market call. It seems like a different beast from 100 and 300. Just my 2 cents.

Where are Scott Munro and Linda Cade?

they were on the product webcast last week

Linda was on the last call but her phone wasn't working. No idea on Scott Munro but Mike Ritchie was there which may have been more of a match because I think Mike covers the ISV type relationships (according to his MOTM intro this year).

Sorry - yes, it was Ritchie

I don't remember seeing this

Giving away 1 seat of CRM was not successful way to get CRM out there. Why are they giving away 3 seats now?

Back to your point @WayneSchulz - what part of ""All hands on deck"" does Sage not understand?

sorry for the *on deck* I added - I feel like I am on board a sinking ship...

I can't understand why Sage promotes this as some type of new feature.

Sage SPS has been asleep at the wheel!!

I guess ""in product experience"" means adding Sage 100 links to other products, such as SPS or Job Ops. God forbid Sage should develop ACTUAL software features.

Sage SPS has been asleep at the wheel"" We've been waiting for over a year for a mobile API for payments integration to our products. So we can, you know, give them business.

We would all like to give Sage the business.

Are people still selling Sage 50? Where does that sit compared to Sage Live? I would think that they are at the same level so pardon my ignorance.

Avg wait 8.3 mins down to 3.4 mins for Sage support? Somebody please give me that phone number so I can share it with the world. Most customers complain about waiting 30 minutes or more. What am I missing?

Sage time = take the real time and divide by 10

I believe those stats are accurate... for the 3 people that know that secret phone number!

YEAH right ""I didn't expect you to call me back that fast

Yeah ... that definitely doesn't translate to CRM support. I wonder if they don't count hang ups from excessive hold times?

Epic Closing party?? (the day before it closes!!)

building the partner network.. more like rebuilding

is it the new ""new"" partner program, I thought we were already in the new partner program!

Well the Sage 100 roadmap last year was so accurate... can't wait to see the one they made up for this year

@JimSteele you are referring to the old, new partner program. This is the new, new partner program which is driven by the UK as part of a Global partner program - because that's what we all need is a global perspective. Also, don't confuse this with the future new partner program that will be unveiled in FY18 once Steven Kelly is gone and the new CEO has settled in.

I guess nobody attended the prior Sage webinars because this one pretty much repeats the last 5 of them.

@WayneSchulz - well, what else do they have to say? Nothing is happening in the USA.

6335? hmm not 12K

Too much turnover, too little focus on mid-market, too much focus on Sage Live + Salesforce + direct sales + accounting firms

I like Paige but none of this is inspiring me at all.

Note that this is North America totals

Summit used to have 3000 partner attendees, right? Or am I mis-remembering?

Learn about new technologies"" - What? Will they be demoing other ERP products?

I'm not sure on the total number but that was probably in Sage's glory days

If you count all the ACT people, Peachtree, Businessworks and BusinessVision, back in the day, I bet it was pretty big number

Insights, @PeterWolf (or Visions)

Wayne you're killing me!!! LOL

I'm lost .... or disinterested

raffle tickets... OH boy!!! .... really

I think I fell asleep for the last ten minutes. Did I miss anything?

After June 30 these promos will expire... until we bring them back in a channel email July 7.

Feb 23-27 - does that overlap MOTM - @JimWoodhead

Start playing the music to get Paige off stage...

LOL - where'd the Q&A go

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Goodbye.

That's my question - I'd like to know where's the Q&A

HMMMM.. no questions I guess!!

Ask me questions - I will answer just as well as they will.

except for a cough... nice!!

Who on BPAC said they missed these meetings????

In the words of Rick James -- wish I had more thumbs so I could give that call 4 thumbs down....

These types of presentations are key to whetting the appetite of all Sage partners to spend airfare and hotel to travel to Chicago to hear and see the same stuff for the 6x time......

Helped me decide not to attend, even though I already registered.

@MarkKotyla - I am leaning the same way now more than ever before.

I just commented privately but I think I'm not too far off the mark in saying that these webinars seem to show that there's nobody in charge of the overall operation in NA. We have one webinar for product. Another for marketing. Another for channel. The problem is the three webinars don't seem to have been coordinated in any way whatsoever. They duplicated significant content and some portions weren't terribly relevant to motivating the audience.

Yes, @WayneSchulz , and like you pointed out, this webinar was a culmination of the past several webinars over the last 5 or 6 months with nothing new to share.

Nobody in charge, and this is a B Team. Who else does 90-min webinars anymore? We now see a strong shift to 30-minute sales webinars. These guys need some real training on web communications. Who really is their audience? What do they want to leave the Audience with? The executive business review was interesting, and the sales cases could have been, but most on the call don't care about X3 or HRMS. No Q&A. Why not send a simultaneous email out with links to the presentation downloads of the earlier meetings they referenced. I know they mean well. But ...

I was an advocate for getting these calls back on the docket because most people don't read the emails or watch the recorded videos - they save them for ""later"". My suggested format was 30 - 60 minutes with the intended goal of getting partners re-engaged in Sage activities. I also thought including partner successes would be nice as well. I think the idea is solid and I'm hoping they will improve. I think they went long and too wide here. I'm hoping they will tighten it up for the future. Everyone should feel free to drop a note of encouragement with suggestions to Paige, Laura, Nancy, or MIke. I know all four of them are open to suggestions and feedback and would appreciate the comments if they are done in a positive manner.

Peter, good suggestions. I agree that your concept is valuable. Sage forgot that ""more is better"" generally doesn't apply to presentations