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How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

August 15, 2018 CRM News and Info

create email signatures in dynamics 365 crm 625x352 How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

In this video by our Dynamics 365 CRM support team, we’ll look at how to create email signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales.

“How do I create an email signature?” is a very common question from users, especially early on, and they are pretty simple to set up.

They are also quite valuable relative to the effort required to create them. Email signatures are digital business cards for your team members, and can help build brand awareness for your company. Your team can even set up different signatures for different audiences and situations.

That’s a lot of exposure for five or so minutes of set up per signature!

With all that in mind, our team created this short video to explain how to create email signatures in Dynamics 365:

[embedded content]

1.) Go to Settings > Options.

Each user can access and update their personal options from the Set Personal Options window.

2.) Click on the Email Signatures tab:

Email Signature Tab Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM 625x410 How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

You can add multiple signatures from this tab.

3.) Click on the New button.

4.) Enter and format your new signature:

New Email Signature Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM 625x525 How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

This example is very basic. You can design your signature as you wish. There are options to change or format your fonts. You can even add hyperlinks or copy in web-hosted pictures.

4a.) You also have an option to set the signature as default by clicking Set as Default:

Set Default Email Signature Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM 625x67 How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

Once a signature is set as your default, you can remove it as your default from this screen as well by clicking Remove Default (where Set as Default previously appeared):

5.) When you are finished, click Save and Close.

Your new signature has been created and is ready to use.

6.) Click OK.

1.) Go to + New > Email:

Email Signature Pre Populated Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM 625x242 How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

As you can see, your default signature is already populated in your email.

2.) To use a different signature, click Insert Signature:

Insert Email Signature Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

3.) Choose the signature you want to use, then click Select:

Select Email Signature Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM How to Create and Use Email Signatures in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales CRM

By Peter Wolf & the QuantaCRM Support Team
Follow Peter on Twitter @CRMWolf
Follow QuantaCRM on Twitter @QuantaCRM

About QuantaCRM

QuantaCRM is a Microsoft Gold partner out of Chicago, IL with nearly two decades of experience helping small and medium-sized businesses implement and succeed with CRM.

Our OnTrack CRM Success System enables CRM projects from implementation to adoption and beyond, and our top-notch Dynamics CRM support team ensures you get the most from your CRM long after your implementation is complete!

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Caged beast

August 15, 2018 Humor

Posted by Krisgo

Caged beast

via

About Krisgo

I’m a mom, that has worn many different hats in this life; from scout leader, camp craft teacher, parents group president, colorguard coach, member of the community band, stay-at-home-mom to full time worker, I’ve done it all– almost! I still love learning new things, especially creating and cooking. Most of all I love to laugh! Thanks for visiting – come back soon

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Deep Fried Bits

Overview of Dynamics 365 for Marketing | 2018 Release Notes | Marketing Automation

August 15, 2018 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Overview of Dynamics 365 for Marketing October ’18 release

Dynamics 365 for Marketing delivers comprehensive capabilities for creating and running multi-channel campaigns to generate leads for your sales team using simple drag-and-drop design tools.

In the October ’18 release, new capabilities include account-based marketing and deeper LinkedIn integration. The marketing app also supports additional languages and is available in more markets.

These key areas of investment are designed to help you optimize your marketing efforts:

• Intelligence integrated into the app means marketers can build custom dashboards using Power BI to leverage data from various apps, marketing interactions, and other data sources. Combine these analytics with social listening, which monitors brand awareness and sentiment on social networks, to get the full picture and evaluate the success of your campaigns—all right on the visual customer journey canvas.

• Personalized marketing experiences are fine-tuned for both users and prospects. Account-based marketing helps close more deals by targeting specific accounts that are most likely to generate revenue. Content management is supported at block level with role-based editing privileges. The new marketing calendar provides a quick overview of all scheduled journeys and events to help marketers plan better.

• More integrations with Microsoft offerings include video marketing with Microsoft Stream, and deeper LinkedIn integration extends into marketing automation.

• Fundamental improvements provide improved performance, and greater scalability and throughput of email marketing services. The segmentation user interface has been enhanced to improve usability and performance for the most common scenarios.

Call JourneyTEAM for a Quote
Are you ready to use your Active Directory groups in combination with Office 365? If so, we’ve got the solution! To find out more, visit the JourneyTEAM website or call us at 900.439.6456.

By: Dave Bollard
JourneyTEAM | Technology Solutions

JourneyTEAM is an award-winning consulting firm with proven technology and measurable results. They take Microsoft products; Dynamics 365, SharePoint intranet, Office 365, Azure, CRM, GP, NAV, SL, AX, and modify them to work for you. The team has expert level, Microsoft Gold certified consultants that dive deep into the dynamics of your organization and solve complex issues. They have solutions for sales, marketing, productivity, collaboration, analytics, accounting, security and more. www.journeyteam.com

Top Microsoft Creative Design and Public Relations Firm. Get the help you need to market your product or organization.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

TIBCO Named Great Place to Work for 2018

August 15, 2018 TIBCO Spotfire

We’re proud to announce that TIBCO has been certified as a Great Place to Work® for 2018-19. This is the second consecutive year that we have received this certification, and we’re pumped. It’s a testament to our culture and fantastic people, as well as the many offerings and perks that TIBCO continues to add for employees at all levels.

TIBCO earned our “Great” status based on our people-focused perks and programs as well as very positive ratings from US employees via a third-party anonymous survey conducted last month. TIBCO earned high marks across the board, with the majority of employees agreeing that this is indeed a great place to work.

“According to our study, 81 percent of TIBCO Software employees say it is a great workplace,”

said Sarah Lewis-Kulin, Vice President of Great Place to Work Certification & List Production. Michele Haddad, SVP of Global Resources, commented, “This certification speaks volumes to us and is important to our entire leadership team, including our CEO Murray Rode. In fact, he’s who actually requested that we participate – unlike at many other companies where it’s fully driven by HR and/or Marketing.”

So what makes TIBCO such an attractive workplace? Take it from TIBCO employees themselves:

89 percent say they can be themselves at TIBCO
88 percent say that management trusts people to do a good job without watching over them
92 percent say they are able to take time off work when they think it’s necessary

Comments from employees include:

“TIBCO Software genuinely cares about their employees and encourages everyone to succeed. This is an extremely welcoming environment that has been fostered by our executive leadership team.”
“Working here is not boring. I wake up every day and feel excited to go to the office, as the people and culture here are too good. I’ve not felt this kind of enthusiasm to go to work before joining this company.”
“The individuals within my team and department are constantly looking to improve our business processes. I find it exciting that we are given the opportunity to contribute in such a significant way.

In addition to employee responses, Great Place to Work takes other company information, perks and programs into consideration, including generous benefits and vacation policy, flexibility and work-life balance, trust and respect for individuals, ongoing leadership development and other learning programs available to all employees, focus on diversity and unconscious bias, and career growth. For more information, check out our full profile on Great Place to Work’s website.

Interested in joining the TIBCO team? Browse our career page to explore our exciting, open positions in locations around the world. We’re looking for talented, energetic people who demonstrate our TIBCO values — in other words, who work well Together, are Innovative and Bold, emphasize Customer Focus, and are Optimistic about our possibilities and future.

Are you a TIBCO employee? Share what you think makes this is a great place to work!

Great Place to Work® is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work® provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures.

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The TIBCO Blog

Glassdoor: 13 of the 25 highest-paying U.S. jobs for 2018 are in tech

August 15, 2018 Big Data

Career website Glassdoor today released its 2018 report on the “Highest Paying Jobs in America.” Out of the top 25 U.S. jobs listed, 13 were in tech — two more than last year, and as always, more than in any other industry (health care was next in line, with five jobs).

Glassdoor’s list is ordered by average base salary. For a job title to be considered, it had to have received at least 100 salary reports shared by U.S.-based employees over the past year (similar job titles were grouped together, C-suite level jobs were excluded). Glassdoor says it also applied “a proprietary statistical algorithm to estimate annual median base pay, which controls for factors such as location and seniority.”

Without further ado, here are the U.S. tech jobs that made the cut:

Enterprise Architect
Software Development Manager
Software Engineering Manager
Software Architect
Engineering Manager
Applications Development Manager
IT Program Manager
Solutions Architect
Data Architect
Systems Architect
Scrum Master
Cloud Engineer
Data Scientist

The first four tech jobs placed in the top 10 of the full list. Enterprise Architect was fourth overall, Software Development Manager took sixth, Software Engineer Manager grabbed eighth, and Software Architect snuck in at tenth. Last year, only two tech positions made it into the top 10.

Glassdoor’s report is based on what employees say anonymously about their employer. Job openings per job title refer to the active job listings on Glassdoor as of July 19, 2018.

Here is the full list of the 25 highest-paying jobs in the U.S.:

Physician: $ 195,842 base salary, 3,038 job openings
Pharmacy Manager: $ 146,412 base salary, 2,009 job openings
Pharmacist: $ 127,120 base salary, 2,534 job openings
Enterprise Architect: $ 115,944 base salary, 1,097 job openings
Corporate Counsel: $ 115,580 base salary, 693 job openings
Software Development Manager: $ 108,879 base salary, 1,064 job openings
Physician Assistant: $ 108,761 base salary, 8,616 job openings
Software Engineering Manager: $ 107,479 base salary, 1,105 job openings
Nurse Practitioner: $ 106,962 base salary, 14,931 job openings
Software Architect: $ 105,329 base salary, 1,130 job openings
Engineering Manager: $ 105,260 base salary, 4,738 job openings
Applications Development Manager: $ 104,048 base salary, 360 job openings
Plant Manager: $ 103,892 base salary, 1,182 job openings
IT Program Manager: $ 102,969 base salary, 218 job openings
Solutions Architect: $ 102,160 base salary, 5,899 job openings
Financial Planning and Analysis Manager: $ 102,155 base salary, 108 job openings
Data Architect: $ 101,900 base salary, 1,472 job openings
Strategy Manager: $ 101,754 base salary, 2,641 job openings
Systems Architect: $ 100,984 base salary, 1,146 job openings
Scrum Master: $ 98,239 base salary, 1,876 job openings
Consulting Manager: $ 97,154 base salary, 1,536 job openings
Attorney: $ 96,678 base salary, 903 job openings
Cloud Engineer: $ 96,449 base salary, 1,077 job openings
Tax Manager: $ 96,175 base salary, 3,690 job openings
Data Scientist: $ 96,116 base salary, 4,986 job openings

It won’t be long before the whole list is making six figures.

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Big Data – VentureBeat

Curve fitting with variable number of Gaussian curve

August 15, 2018 BI News and Info

I have the data which appears like

And I decided to use three Gaussian curves to fit it.

(This code allows me to manipulate all three curves and put in best guesses for peak positions. Using these guesses, Mathematica will find a set of three gaussian curves that are the closest match.)

\[Lambda]min=340;
\[Lambda]max=380;
model = height + amp1*Exp[-(x - x01)^2/sigma1^2] + amp2*Exp[-(x - x02)^2/sigma2^2] + amp3*Exp[-(x - x03)^2/sigma3^2]

findBestFitFromValues[{amp1guess_, x01guess_, sigma1guess_, 
amp2guess_, x02guess_, sigma2guess_, amp3guess_, x03guess_, 
sigma3guess_, heightguess_}] :=
FindFit[
rowData(*change this*), {model, {sigma1 > 0, sigma2 > 0, sigma3 > 0}}, {{amp1,
  amp1guess}, {x01, x01guess}, {sigma1, sigma1guess}, {amp2, 
 amp2guess}, {x02, x02guess}, {sigma2, sigma2guess}, {amp3, 
 amp3guess}, {x03, x03guess}, {sigma3, sigma3guess}, {height, 
 heightguess}}, x];
With[
 {
  localModel =
   model /.
    {
     amp1 -> amp1Var, amp2 -> amp2Var, amp3 -> amp3Var,
     sigma1 -> sigma1Var, sigma2 -> sigma2Var, sigma3 -> sigma3Var,
     x01 -> x01Var, x02 -> x02Var, x03 -> x03Var,
     height -> heightVar
     }},
 Manipulate[
  Column[{
    Style["Match to Data", 12, Bold],
    Show[rowDataPlot(*change this*), 
     Plot[localModel, {x, 1240/\[Lambda]max, 1240/\[Lambda]min}, 
      PlotRange -> All, PlotStyle -> Black] ,Graphics[
     {
     Orange,Line[{{x01Var,0}, {x01Var,500}}],
     Blue,Line[{{x02Var,0}, {x02Var,500}}],
     Red,Line[{{x03Var,0}, {x03Var,500}}]
     }
     ]],
    Style["Chosen Curve", 12, Bold],
    Plot[localModel, {x, 1240/\[Lambda]max, 1240/\[Lambda]min}, 
     PlotRange -> All, PlotStyle -> Black, ImageSize -> 400]}
   ],
  Delimiter, Style["Peak 1", 12, Bold],
  {{amp1Var, 2000, Style["Amplitude 1", Orange]}, 0, 40000},
  {{x01Var, 
    1240/\[Lambda]min - (1240/\[Lambda]min - 1240/\[Lambda]max) 1/5, 
    Style["center 1", Orange]}, 1.95, 3.6},
  {{sigma1Var, 0.01, Style["sigma 1", Orange]}, 0.01, 0.3},
  Delimiter, Style["Peak 2", 12, Bold],
  {{amp2Var, 1660, Style["Amplitude 2", Blue]}, 0, 15000},
  {{x02Var, 
    1240/\[Lambda]min - (1240/\[Lambda]min - 1240/\[Lambda]max) 2/5, 
    Style["center 2", Blue]}, 1.95, 3.6},
  {{sigma2Var, 0.01, Style["sigma 2", Blue]}, 0.01, 0.3},
  Delimiter, Style["Peak 3", 12, Bold],
  {{amp3Var, 1445, Style["Amplitude 3", Red]}, 0, 10000},
  {{x03Var, 
    1240/\[Lambda]min - (1240/\[Lambda]min - 1240/\[Lambda]max) 4/5, 
    Style["center 3", Red]}, 1.95, 3.6},
  {{sigma3Var, 0.01, Style["sigma 3", Red]}, 0.01, 0.3},
  Delimiter, Style["Height", 12, Bold],
  {{heightVar, 15, Style["Height"]}, 0, 1000},
  Delimiter,
  Control[Button["click find nearest solution",
    vals =
     {amp1Var, x01Var, sigma1Var, amp2Var, x02Var, sigma2Var, amp3Var,
        x03Var, sigma3Var, 
       heightVar} = {amp1, x01, sigma1, amp2, x02, sigma2, amp3, x03, 
        sigma3, height} /.
       findBestFitFromValues[
        {amp1Var, x01Var, sigma1Var, amp2Var, x02Var, sigma2Var, 
         amp3Var, x03Var, sigma3Var, heightVar}]]],
  SaveDefinitions -> True
  ]
 ]

If I want to fit another data with four or more Gaussian curves, how can I re-write my code to obtain the curve fitting that I can specify the number of Gaussian curves? Not the above one where I constrain the number to be three.

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Recent Questions – Mathematica Stack Exchange

Application Fraud – Pre-Book and Post-Book Controls (Video)

August 15, 2018 FICO

Stopping fraudsters at the front door is a priority, and layered controls are essential to stopping fraud attacks rapidly, agilely, and efficiently. Identifying fraud early requires enterprise-level vigilance and context around an individual’s behavior. Technology can facilitate bilateral sharing of intelligence, such that what you learn at point of application can inform your post-book control strategies as you manage your member base, detect transactional fraud, or prioritize collections on your bad debt book.

Similarly, what is learned downstream, such as information about compromised identities and charge-off information, can be invaluable in upstream decisions such as application fraud via a feedback loop. However, where in your fraud controls should you be considering post-book controls? And where can you work better with your partners in risk to mitigate losses?

In this clip, I share some insights into ongoing customer monitoring for identity-based fraud.

[embedded content]

Want to learn more? Check out the full webinar “Layered Defenses in the Fight Against Application Fraud”.

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FICO

How to Turn Finance into a True Business Partner to Help Drive Growth

August 15, 2018 NetSuite

Posted by Thomas Sutter, Financial Centre of Excellence

The term business partnering has been in the finance lexicon for a number of years now.

It’s one of those phrases that you might associate with the most sophisticated organisations – with lots of resources to invest in developing accountants to support the business and supplemented with all the bells and whistles of the latest data mining, analytics and dashboard tools.

Thankfully, the cloud – along with automation and burgeoning consciousness of AI – means that the opportunities for finance to truly partner with the rest of the organisation are now in reach for lots of businesses.

And that’s not even just the next rung of corporates. Nascent, growing businesses’ finance teams can easily use business development and support-focused technology.

Before we move into the whys and hows, there’s a fundamental question that, as a CFO, you might be asking: Is this finance’s responsibility?

The short answer, is yes. The longer version takes in finance’s evolution.

The finance function has traditionally focused on gathering historic information, then auditing and verifying this data for use in either management and financial reporting, or to pay tax and payroll. Finance has also helped produce budgets and forecasts, though often to limited success. It has also, of course, managed cash flow.

The resource-intensive processes around ‘tidying up’ financial information, plus making sure all the relevant parties then gain access to that information, created a compliance-focused and backwards-facing department.

But new technology has enabled many finance processes to be automated. The verification of data can be reduced to checking exceptions. The information can also be manipulated more and moulded as required. And this all takes place more rapidly.

Ultimately, the answer is that highly-qualified and curious by nature, finance staff are brilliantly placed to be able to understand how different teams and units work – and then match their requirements with the information being produced in their systems.

High-growth organisations typically focus on making sales, generating cash flow, developing products, expanding market reach – so finance professionals can provide clear, level-headed advice on the financial implications of strategic and operational decisions in a fast-moving and stressful environment.

There is work to do to make this all possible. For starters, you could describe this blog as the older sibling of my previous article – which discussed how you get to grips with structuring your systems and teams prior to developing business partnering.

And once this path is set out, it’s vital to ensure you have the right team members who will venture forth from behind their finance desk.

I strongly believe that most finance professionals will leap at the opportunity to develop both their soft skills and broaden their operational experience. And with many basic tasks being automated it’s a sensible move.

Becoming a business partner requires development and experience. As a CFO, the planning effort you have put into setting up your systems and processes must be matched by how you approach talent management.

When recruiting finance professionals for high-growth companies, soft skills and attitude are as important as technical know-how. Then you will need to plan their development through finance before moving into other business roles.

But it is an exciting prospect. To ‘turn’ finance around from looking backwards to looking forwards. From compliance function, to integral business support. From bean counter to strategic advisor.

Learn more about NetSuite’s financial management.

Posted on Tue, August 14, 2018
by NetSuite filed under

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The NetSuite Blog

5 Strategies for Collecting, Creating and Circulating Customer Testimonials

August 15, 2018 CRM News and Info

Most of us understand how overwhelming it can be moving to a new city. Surrounded by a host of options for dining, shopping, daycare, leisure time, auto mechanics and everything else under the sun, making an educated decision on where to go involves some groundwork. So what is there to do?

While many of us will start by going online and checking out reviews for businesses on popular aggregate sites, our choices more likely may stem from a conversation with a new coworker or neighbor for recommendations ranging from a great dentist to the best gelato in the area.

The fact is that we hold social proof from our friends, family and even complete strangers with incredibly high regard.

Based on a Nielsen research poll, “92 percent of people will trust a recommendation from a peer, and a remarkable 70 percent of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know.”

The words of a peer are understandable; there’s an unspoken social contract involved. When you make a recommendation to a friend, you’re doing it based on trust in your relationship and with the implication that you will see each other again, so a poor recommendation inevitably will resurface in future meetings.

Why do we value the personal opinions of relative strangers so highly? A big part of it is visual evidence, which takes social proof one step further. Customers place far more trust in a review when they can see another customer speak, feel the emotion and sincerity in their words, and determine from body language and context clues the extent to which they’re being genuine.

This is what makes video testimonials such a critical facet of any business marketing plan. There’s incredible brand value to be found in sharing real customer documentation of an experience with your product and service. With the explosion of social media branding, quick testimonials that clock in at under a minute are ready-made for sharing on social media platforms and can attract a wide audience of potential customers.

So how do you manage to find customers that are willing to sit down and record a video of them selling your product for you? Sure there’s greater finesse to it, but ultimately for this to work you need passionate customers that really are willing to preach the virtues of your brand.

Fortunately, it’s not quite as big of marketing hill to climb as it may seem. Following are five awesome strategies to take advantage of when obtaining and circulating real-life, genuine customer testimonials.

1. Find the Faithful

Before you can think about creating or distributing customer testimonials, you have to find customers who are loyal to the brand. This won’t be as hard as you think. One option is through creating social media contests, which are a great way to get customer-created content on the fly through the use of an entire campaign — more on that below.

If you’re looking to create a testimonial to display on the front page of your site, producing in-house is a great way to go.

Reach out to large-scale buyers of your products and send a request asking if they’d like to take part in testing an upcoming product, or if they’d like to tour your facilities. Offer a discount on their next purchase in exchange for them coming to a lunch at your office and having a quick on-video conversation about your products.

Be up front about creating the testimonial and try to find a customer that really would appreciate you taking notice of them. (This can lead to both a great testimonial and to your sales team being thrilled with the stronger connection.)

Remember to have all the technical side set up beforehand. Do a quick trial run with a colleague to make sure your camera, memory and mics are good to go. If everything goes to plan, all it should take is a lunch meeting to get a fantastic, shareable customer testimonial for your business.

2. Skip the Scripting

Once it’s time to record, it’s completely OK to have some semblance of a plan in place. Maybe you want to touch on a few points of concern, like price versus competitors or quality. Maybe there are a few things you don’t want to talk about, like mentioning specific competitor names or special rates that are negotiated on a per-contract basis. These are all completely acceptable terms to run through prior to shooting the video.

With that said, don’t play director too much during the recording process. If you create a script, or specify lines or phrases to include, you risk calling into question the sincerity of the video. This defeats the whole purpose of a testimonial, which is meant to demonstrate a customer’s genuine satisfaction and feelings about a product.

Have a general plan for how you’d like the meeting to go. Don’t start with the video. Give a tour of your offices, chat for a while. Warm up your customer, both to you and to your product line. Then, when the time seems right, invite your customer to sit down for the interview portion.

Make it a conversation. You’re not running this live and can edit afterward (though you want to be up front about what you edit, and consider sending a copy of the final product to the customer before sharing it publicly).

You can prepare a few questions to guide things along a narrative path in an interview format, but don’t fret about time or direction. What’s most important is to capture genuine thoughts and reactions to your brand.

Customers viewing a testimonial know in a matter of seconds when something feels contrived and immediately will tune out. Grab the genuine moments of excitement that occurred during your recording. Don’t create a script or checklist and just check your way down.

Keep things relaxed and conversational and you’ll be delighted with your results; sometimes a 5-second frame is all it takes to put your video over.

3. Keep It Short and Sweet, but Record… Record… Record…

Piggybacking off the idea of maintaining a free-flow conversation, keep the camera running. In all likelihood, 30 minutes of recording will produce 5 minutes or less of content. That’s just how it goes, and it’s not a bad thing.

Statistics show you have 10 seconds to grab a viewer’s attention, and you’ll lose one-third of your viewers by the 30-second mark. This number continues to climb to 60 percent of viewers tuning out by the 2-minute mark, meaning that delivering testimonials in short spurts of minute-long clips can be the most effective way to share your content. Put another way, you will be doing some editing.

With that said, don’t rush the interviewee! Record everything. If you have the capability, even consider recording the whole day, including the tour of your facility. Capture the moments of your customer meeting team members or viewing your manufacturing process. There are gems of content to be found around every corner!

Let your customer elaborate on thoughts in the video. Don’t worry about the good and the bad, all of that can be taken care of later on. Just keep it moving and remember: Everything can be edited, but authenticity cannot be created.

4. Use Social Media Contests to Generate Testimonials

Call it killing two birds with one stone. Using social media to generate testimonials is an easy way to connect directly with your customers, improve your brand image, and generate content for pennies on the dollar.

The simplest format for a social media testimonial contest is to create a call to action on your social media platform, announcing a giveaway for a free product to the customer who posts a video using one of your products or services, espousing love for your product, whatever you want! You can have fun with it by asking your customers to post a video of the most creative way to use your product beyond its intended purpose. Run with it!

On the surface, you’re getting testimonial videos from actual customers or would-be customers from a minimal cost and time investment. However, these contests run much deeper than that by creating followers. For instance, asking your customers to include a specific hashtag in their post has the potential to get your brand trending on social media before a whole new set of eyes.

By posting the video content, your customers are not only getting your attention, but also that of their own followers. Think about it this way: Let’s say you’re a growing company with just 1,000 followers on social media, but looking to grow. You create a social media testimonial contest and only 10 of your followers post a video. You might have some content to reuse, but you also might feel discouraged. Well, don’t be.

The average Facebook user has about 338 friends. The median number of Instagram followers is just shy of 200. If just 10 users post a video testimonial for your contest, you’ve suddenly reached a potential audience of between 2,000-3,000 users, depending on the platform! For a company with 1,000 followers, these are hardly numbers to scoff at and can lead to real growth.

Add another layer by creating a raffle-based contest. For one week, post the best testimonial as it pertains to a theme. Then, at the end of the week, either enter the entrants into a raffle or have a vote on your platform for the best overall video.

This will create an entire week’s worth of content and a ton of back-and-forth via social media engagements, possibly with customers creating their own calls to action to get their friends to vote for them. It’s a low-cost way to run an engaging campaign that, in the end, will produce a ton of genuine, customer-created content.

5. Unboxing: The Christmas of Testimonials

This last strategy for collecting customer testimonials is a whole lot of fun for everyone. In recent years, “unboxing” videos have trended on YouTube, taking the video marketing industry by storm. After all, doesn’t everyone remember that feeling of complete joy at the holiday season when you sit down and get ready to tear into your presents? Why not harness that youthful exuberance inside all of us?

The concept is really pretty simple: Reach out to a few of your most valued customers, or maybe even your most lively customers. Offer to send them a free package with one of your products in exchange for sitting in front of their webcam and recording a video opening the product and testing it out. It’s low-effort for everyone involved, but creates some spot-on content.

Many customers will be thrilled to participate, and knowing that they’re in front of a camera by themselves, they’re likely to get into the spirit of things. These videos are awesome at accomplishing a few different marketing goals.

One of the reasons viewers enjoy unboxing videos so much is that they elicit nostalgia and a general feeling of wanting to share in the experience. It also is bound to generate a natural excitement, as your customer will be narrating the experience throughout the video.

The process also pushes you to think about your product from the customer experience point of view. You want the video to be great; you want to avoid any awkward moments during the unboxing. You’ll work to make sure the packaging is easy and that getting started is a piece of cake.

In the end, you’ll have yet another trusted outlet of customer testimonials that will create buzz about your business. Work with all of these approaches and experiment with your own tactics and strategies along the way! The key to this process is staying creative and exploring new ways to capture the thrill of your customers on video. So what are you waiting for?

Sean%20Gordon 5 Strategies for Collecting, Creating and Circulating Customer Testimonials
Sean Gordon is chief executive officer of
HireNami. His experience recruiting, hiring, training and building teams inspired him to found HireNami to convert these challenges from painful, inefficient and time consuming to quick and effective.

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CRM Buyer

Journey to P3: Krissy Dyess

August 14, 2018 Self-Service BI

Well, it looks like I’m up next to share my PowerPivot and P3 story!

I really enjoyed Ryan’s story, and I took away from it that you must make time for what you what to achieve in life and with HARD WORK and DETERMINATION anything IS possible!

https://powerpivotpro.com/2018/04/journey-to-powerpivotpro-ryan-bergstrom/

And Nar’s journey has similarities to my own – a very EARLY interest in technology, a natural CURIOSITY, and applied LIFE EXPERIENCES.

https://powerpivotpro.com/2018/06/journey-to-powerpivotpro-narayana-windenberger/

I was also moved by Reid’s story and how he was able to overcome MANY challenges… leading up to his position here at P3. It was very INSPIRING!

https://powerpivotpro.com/2018/01/my-journey-to-powerpivotpro/

After having read these stories and having the opportunity to meet and work together with this AMAZING team of people, it’s easy to see how we have come together to share this life-changing opportunity.

I believe that we ALL need inspiration, we NEED other PEOPLE and that we ARE all CONNECTED in this UNIVERSE!

For me, I would say it was CURIOUSITY, HARD WORK, and BELIEVING in the connection that I had to the P3 Blog Post and the community that lead me to the idea, a thought and a dream of joining P3. If you’ve seen the Disney movie called Moana, it was like the Universe and the Blog Post “called” out to me just like the sea called out to Moana.

Sound crazy. Anyone intrigued? Anyone checking out from continuing to read this blog? I mean if you didn’t check out after the cat meme blog https://powerpivotpro.com/2018/01/consecutive-days-back/> then you might as well keep reading, lol!

RE: Cat memes; Life is TOO short, and you need to have some FUN!

Okay, so back to my P3 story! … And depending on how long this blog post is going to be, I need to decide WHERE to start my story. (Note to self: Share most relevant info!)

Well, I believe that my journey started a long time ago! All events leading up to this point have prepared and led me to this chapter of my life. And EVERYONE that I have met along my life journey has impacted me in some way!

Living in the City

It was nice living in the city because I had all my FAMILY living close by and got to see them often.
One of my earliest memories that shaped who I am was when I made my first FRIEND! A girl from across the street was twirling around in her front yard, and I yelled across “Hello”! Her name was Jessica, and she was my very first friend. We didn’t stay in the city too long, and Jessica moved away too, but the excitement of making a new friend and the bond with my family while living in the city is something that has stuck with me for the rest of my life!

The Pre-Teen Years out in the Country

I spent my pre-teen years out in the country! For Christmas one year, we got a Commodore 64 from Santa! My BROTHER taught me some simple basic programming: I learned about the FOR LOOPS where I could have the computer print my name across the screen in randomly generated colors! I also learned how to break the technology – with infinite FOR LOOPS. And I learned that Cyan is a blueish green color! Oh, the excitement of technology growing up in the 80’s – it’s nothing like it is today!

High School Rocks!

In high school, I only had only two computer classes, which were split into one semester and taught but two different TEACHERS. One computer class was Word Processing – back when you had to use DOS commands like \Dir, \Tree, etc. The other class was a Basic Programming class where we used floppy disks to write our programs. I’m pretty sure that I was the only one in my class that was SUPER excited to write a whole GO TO LINE program that took the user along on a journey starting by entering an answer to the question “What Is Your Name?” into a $ variable. It then took the end user on a trip through space with ASCII characters that were used to make and launch a rocket “up the screen.” My inspiration was those early computer math games that my PARENTS had got for me. You know, the ones when you answer a question correct or wrong you get a random message and picture – the idea and graphics were so cool! (not really, but at the time that’s all we had!)

Interning… in the Real World

Let me just say, my internship was the most STRESSFUL and HARDEST internship EVER! After a super fun week in Alexandria, VA getting settled in, meeting people, learning where everything is, finding a desk location for me… then there was the project assignment!

Assignment: Here’s s a giant stack of paper with code for an application written in dbase – the application crashed, and we need a new one built. What?! Okay, step 1… well, I don’t really know dbase!!!

So, onto gathering requirements from a human, learning a new application called FoxPro 2.6, developing an application, testing, getting end-user reviews & feedback, building reports (for printing out the reports on paper – I know, so weird), documenting and my favorite part, which was creating an image for the icon used to start the application – so fancy and official!

So, what was super hard about this project was that there was NO GOOGLE! Yes, that’s right! And it was a summer internship – so not a whole lot of time for reading technology books. I had to just jump in and go! Good old fashion trial and error with slow and steady forward progress and learnings. And I did get a tiny bit of help from a COWORKER who thought it was quite amusing watching me struggle with technology & application development. But I did it! In fact, once I learned the hard way, how to build the first application, I was able to complete a second application for the company before heading back to college for my final year!

Graduation!

So, as it turns out a Computer Science degree requires lots of Math – my nemesis! But where there’s a will, there’s a way and that way was to get a tutor (PEOPLE) to help me with the Math classes.

In the end, I took so many Math courses that I ended up with a BS in Mathematics and a Minor in Computer Science. Well, that was unexpected, but I did it!

First Job… in the Real World

Onto my first “real” job out of College! The position was hiring a FoxPro programmer. I was not a FoxPro programmer by any means. But since I had worked with FoxPro as part of the MOST stressful summer internship that you could ever imagine, I was able to land an interview which led to the company creating a position for me! I would have to say that this TEAM set the bar of how a manager should lead a team and the foundation of best practices for application development, testing and production environments.

Time to Relocate! Need to be Warm!

Now, when I was growing up, my favorite time of year was vacation time at the beach. I always wondered why we didn’t just LIVE somewhere warmer all year. I had an opportunity to head out west to San Diego and while there (with a paper road map acquired from a gas station) I headed on a road trip to Phoenix, Sedona, Las Vegas and then back to San Diego. It was March, and the weather in Phoenix was sunny and warm! That was it! Time to relocate to Phoenix… and that’s exactly what I did!

Working in Arizona at Direct Alliance, Teletech, Revana, TTEC …

I took a job with as a Marketing Database Analysts with a BPO company in Tempe that was called Direct Alliance. And here again, I ran into FoxPro! The Marketing team was using Visual FoxPro for data storage and analysis. The Reporting team was using Access. And the DB team was using IMS Basic. Fast forward a few years, and the organization decided we should all use the same data and we should have a SQL Server Data Warehouse. So long FoxPro… time to use GOOGLE plus trial and error to convert existing FoxPro work to SQL – using the self-teaching method.

I started with this company in my 20’s, worked there all through my 30’s and into my 40’s! It was very insightful to stay with the same but ever-changing organization for 16.5 years! I progressed through 3 decades of my life, many roles in the company (always working with the data), through 3 company name changes and many different client datasets, business rules, logic, and technologies!

In 2013, our Excel was upgraded to Excel 2010, and this is when I found PowerPivot In Excel. I also began GOOGLING… and came across PowerPivotPro. Very early on, I reached out directly to Rob to inquire about formal training – but our company never had any budget for training. So, I self-taught once again but this time with GOOGLE and YOUTUBE… and what I discovered was that the SQL queries that I would create, modify and export to Excel or use in SSRS could be directly connected to Excel in a way that I could create an application that continued to grow versus re-creating SQL queries and SSRS reports repeatedly! From that moment on, ALL my work was output through PowerPivot In Excel!

I subscribed to the P3 Blog, and I would get articles maybe twice a month – this community was amazing, and I was learning so much. I watched as the Blog grew and the frequency of articles increased. I watched as Rob blogged about Matt Allington leaving Coca-Cola in Australia to do PowerPivot work. I shared emails from the Blog with my peers in the organization, but no one quite understood, and most people told me there were better BI tools… even after seeing and using the solutions I was providing to the team.

There was one person though, my BOSS at the time, who said: “Krissy, if you BELIEVE in this tool, then learn it and become the EXPERT.” So, with that bit of advice, I kept learning, growing and that is when the idea, the thought and the dream of joining P3 began.

I attended free webinars and was learning from the online communities, AND I also learned from the Phoenix SQL PASS Group. As I learned more, I tried to help others at my job, and I also tried to help others by answering questions on the P3 Blog post. I just kept learning.

I replied to a questionnaire post on P3 when they were looking for help. However, at the time they were looking for part-time 9-5 availability which conflicted with my current position. Then, one day in Feb. 2017, I got an email saying that P3 was hiring for full-time consultants… all my energy shifted on getting my resume updated and applying for the position.

Power Pivot and P3

Through the power of the UNIVERSE, I was coincidentally able to meet with ROB COLLIE in person, here in Phoenix, before making my final decision to accept the position with P3.

When I met with Rob, one thing we really connected on what the idea of the “Universe” is putting things into motion that were meant to be.

And so, with much joy and excitement, with the support of my MOM, HUSBAND, KIDS, and COWORKERS, I accepted the position of Principal Consultant with POWER PIVOT PRO and have continued my Power Pivot journey with P3 – where I’ve been able to:

· Create a new FAMILY of COWORKERS & BOSSES and work together as a TEAM

· Make many new FRIENDS and be a TEACHER to help them on their own Power BI journey!

It’s been an AWESOME and AMAZING experience being able to share my knowledge of Power Pivot in Excel, Power Query and Power BI with our P3 clients and to be a part of this P3 family.

THANK YOU to ROB COLLIE for starting his journey… which has led me to my journey…and many others to start and continue their journies. I’m excited to see how far we all will go on this journey together!

And THANK YOU to ALL that have helped me along the way!

It takes a special kind of mindset to “bend” data (and software!) to the human will. As this article demonstrates, we at PowerPivotPro can twist Power BI into a pretzel if that’s what an organization needs. (A robust, trustworthy, industrial-strength pretzel of course).

The data-oriented challenges facing your business require BOTH a nimble toolset like Power BI AND a nimble mindset to go with it. And as Val Kilmer / Doc Holladay once said, we’re your huckleberry.

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Journey to P3: Krissy Dyess

Living in the City

The Pre-Teen Years out in the Country

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Graduation!

First Job… in the Real World

Time to Relocate! Need to be Warm!

Working in Arizona at Direct Alliance, Teletech, Revana, TTEC …

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About QuantaCRM

Like this:

About Krisgo

1. Find the Faithful

2. Skip the Scripting

3. Keep It Short and Sweet, but Record… Record… Record…

4. Use Social Media Contests to Generate Testimonials

5. Unboxing: The Christmas of Testimonials

Living in the City

The Pre-Teen Years out in the Country

High School Rocks!

Interning… in the Real World

Graduation!

First Job… in the Real World

Time to Relocate! Need to be Warm!

Working in Arizona at Direct Alliance, Teletech, Revana, TTEC …

Power Pivot and P3

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives