Had the amazing experience of going to “The Dreaming Room” in beautiful Sonoma, CA last weekend.
Our founder, Scott Martineau, and our VP of Development, Marc Chesley, and I made a great‚ trip out of it. Personally, I learned new things about myself, my own dreams, and my dreams for Infusionsoft. It was an intimate event with Michael Gerber speaking, sharing, dreaming. Without anesthesia, he cuts‚ open your chest, cracks your rib cage apart, & tears out the sleeping‚ entreprenuer & dreamer‚ within. Seriously! The event had such impact, that I couldn’t return to work for a couple of days until I got all my thoughts down on paper. I met a LOT of wonderful entreprenuers & dreamers at the event. We were also able to forge a great relationship with Michael Gerber & his organization.
 
Most of all, the event helped me clarify what we do here at Infusionsoft. It’s best‚ told through a story‚ a true story, which occurred about three years ago.
It was late afternoon on a Friday at the Infusionsoft office, time to start packing it up for the weekend. Pizza had just been delivered for a late lunch. Just as we were about to tear into the piping-hot pizza, the office phone rang. The temptation to take a bite of that pizza rather than pick up the phone was strong. (TGIF, right? WRONG! What a stupid saying to live by!) But, we put the pizza on hold and picked up the phone with, “Infusion Software”.
Without hesitation, a man blurted out on the phone line, “I HAVE PAIN!!! CAN YOU HELP ME!!!???”
Now, when you receive a call like this, it immediately makes you wonder, “Is this guy nuts?”, “Did WE create the pain?”, “Is this a crank call?”‚ “Who IS this guy?”
Well, the response to his question was, “Ummmmm, can you tell me about your pains?”
The man continued, “Well, I sent out an e-mail to thousands of my prospects about a huge discount I was offering on some products. Not long after, I started getting calls from ticked-off customers insisting they get a refund equal to the huge discount I’m offering now. Turns out I totally screwed up and sent the e-mail to all my existing customers instead of just prospects and it is going to cost me THOUSANDS of dollars!!!
The guy on the other line, Reed, was actually a brilliant man. He was (and still is) a top-rate gentleman, an expert marketer, and an entrepreneur who runs multiple small businesses. He also coaches countless mortgage professionals how to market effectively. He’s a big believer in systematizing the business and had created dozens of systems for lead generation, testimonial and referral capture, lead conversion, client fulfillment, billing, collections, and on & on. However, through years of creating systems, he continued to add more and more databases, technologies, and software to manage the systems. In all, he had over 18 databases & pieces of software to manage all his systems!!! How do you run a small business with 18 different databases to handle your systems?! You can’t. Chaos reigned.
The conversation continued on the phone & we asked, “So, what are you looking for? What do you want us to do?”
He replied, “I need help straightening everything out. I need to keep my customer, prospect, & lead lists organized. I want to be able to segment my lists. I want to know how many leads I generated last week. I want to know where my leads are coming from & which leads sources are most profitable. I want to know which of my sales reps are performing best & which ones are cherry-picking. I need to know where my leads are slipping through the cracks. I gotta know how much money the business made last Tuesday. I want to know which affiliates are producing. I wanna know how profitable the mail piece I sent six weeks ago was. I want to know which of my clients are referring new customers. I want to know how to better manage my complex multi-step follow-up systems. And, I want ONE place where I go to do all of this stuff!
The pain this guy was experiencing was brutally clear. His systems were so successful, they were creating a logistical nightmare and a new level of chaos for him.
To make a long story short, this call was a life-changing event for Infusion. We realized that ALL entrepreneurs and small business owners faced the exact same challenges Reed was facing. Anyone serious about systematizing and growing their business was going to run into this.
At that time, we decided to take on the challenge and find a way, through technology, to help Reed and countless other small businesses.
Fast forward to the present. We did it. We solved Reed’s pains & removed the chaos. His customer & prospect lists are organized. He’s able to slice & dice his lists and perform laser-targeted marketing. His lead acquisition is systemized and automated. He knows exactly where his leads are coming from, which sales reps are responsible, and who his best sales performers are. His leads no longer slip through the cracks because there ARE no cracks. He knows how much revenue the business made on any given day instantly. Product fulfillment has been automated. Each day, customers are being invoiced and charged without any human interaction. He knows how to treat affiliates based on their productivity. His ultra-complex multi-step marketing sequences or drip campaigns are on auto-pilot and send personalized marketing pieces and nobody has to keep track of what to send & to whom. Finally, he has one place to go to monitor the growth & success of his business.
Not only have we done this for Reed, but we’ve also done it for hundreds of other small businesses. As we move forward, we envision tens of thousands of small businesses doing the same thing using our software.
So, what does Infusionsoft do?
WE HELP SMALL BUSINESSES GROW QUICKLY & PROFITABLY
How?
BY ENABLING THEM TO (FINALLY!) CENTRALIZE, ORGANIZE, AUTOMATE, AND MONITOR
THEIR LEAD GENERATION, LEAD CONVERSION, AND CLIENT FULFILLMENT. (Or… MARKETING, SALES, and CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT).
[...] digg_title = ‘The Illusions of Entrepreneurship’; digg_bodytext = ‘The Illusions of Entrepreneurship’; digg_topic = ‘Software’; The Illusions of Entrepreneurship January 30th, 2008 by Dave Lee, VPMarketing A recently released book, The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, has me completely distressed (and I haven’t even read the thing yet!). In the book, economicsprofessor Scott A. Shane shares some of the “less than pleasant†facts about entrepreneurship. As a precursor to the book’s release, a “quiz†circulated the Internet. You can find the quiz here. Although I did poorly on the quiz, it didn’t bother me. I found the information interesting, nothing more. It’s okay that I’m not an “expert†on entrepreneurial statistics. Unfortunately, the quiz alarmed many would-be entrepreneurs. I read several similar blog posts which said, “This quiz/book makes you reconsider owning your own business.†The quiz (and book) focus almost entirely on small business statistics. And, it’s true that most small businesses fail within the first 5 years. But, it is not statistics that cause failure. It is what business owners are doing (or not doing) that makes the difference. Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth (and Infusion Software endorser), exposed many entrepreneurial myths with the same cold, hard facts. However, by the time you finish his book, you feel like business ownership isn’t only possible, but exhilarating as well. And that’s the way it ought to be. If you have a desire to own your own company…DO IT! Just make sure that you know the real causes of small business failure. Study what successful entrepreneurs have done. Read books by the experts. Learn the tricks of the trade, and then jump in with both feet. Don’t be frightened off because you don’t know the ratio of men to women who own their own companies! [...]
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