#stevemo

[youkaiyume]

Will we get more Steve x Memo?!?!

I love them, so possibly!

[joelekm]

How Much Does a Lawyer Cost in Australia? (Hidden Fees Explained)

I watched this video on lawyer costs in Australia—really helpful and easy to understand.

[joelekm]

The $240M ANZ Scandal: Misleading Government, Ignoring Hardship, and Taking Money from the Dead

In this episode, Steve Mo breaks down ANZ’s $240 million penalty for serious breaches, including government bond manipulation and charging fees to deceased customers. Learn about one of the most significant financial misconduct cases in recent Australian history and its potential impact on the banking sector.

[joelekm]

6 Smart Moves to Make After Losing a Litigation: It’s Not the End of the Road

In this episode, Steve Mo shares six essential steps to take after losing a litigation case in Australia. From appeals and asset protection to managing emotional fallout and planning your comeback, this episode provides strategic guidance to help you recover and move forward.

[jimbuchan]

Pretty Vacant

When it comes to the topic of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, the opinions are many when evaluating which is considered the best. For some, the top-rated choice could be a matter of which system their peers are using as the default setting. For others, it could be the flexibility of the reporting & analytical options. Still others may choose based on price alone, but while each of these methods have their merits, how many of us have considered crowd-sourced support as a factor? While likely not a major factor of importance for ranking an enterprise-level tool such as CRM, it should be rated among the top of your criteria with your selection process. Why? First off, by delving into how others use the system, day in and day out, their feedback is a threshold opportunity of getting a feel not only of the professionalism of the parent company, but also the quality of the context from the developers and users themselves. For instance, consider a few questions that you may be pondering, and include this as a search, adding the company’s product at the end. Some ideas may include:

Developer community of <CRM Name>

Which CRM choice is used by <Your Industry>

What are the dashboard types <CRM Name>

Formula convert days to hours <CRM Name>

Industry-standard CRM application for Sales, Service, Marketing

Comparison of  <CRM Name1>  <CRM Name2>  <CRM Name3>

You may also discover how the Vendor’s company, as well as top-rated tech bloggers and industry professionals value the opinions of these contributors, usually in the form of the ’This was chosen as the best answer’ check mark, a practice evident with some of the most professional and well-respected developer sites such as Getsatisfaction.com and StackExchange. While feedback of the ’comparison’ variety should be taken with a grain of salt, be sure to keep a sharp eye on where the information is coming from. Un-biased facts are usually the best and when you have multiples of independent opinions (positive or negative) giving an honest account, it’s a fair bet you are on the right track. While some comparisons are well-founded and deserved, if you discover through your quest that the lion’s share of context is from the vendor itself, it would behoove your time to seek information from others to galvanize their estimation. Without taking this step (which consumes only a small amount of your team’s effort), it may come to pass that the chosen solution may be big on hype, but scant on real opinions. One such example may of us have come across are those from some entertainment-style sites where some ratings and opinions have been created by robots or through paid advisers who are big on influence, but short on facts or assistance. So what are some guide-posts to look for when going about a scientific approach to seeking best-of-breed advice? for your chosen database? Look for repetition of words or phrases used when describing a specific vendor’s CRM. It might even be from the same user themselves, and if you but take the further step by searching their avatar for evidence of a blog or Twitter site, it won’t be long until you will be able to tell heads from tales. Vendors realize that the majority of searchers will not apply this small extra step and in most cases this tiny bit of work can in seconds speak volumes. You would after all apply the same methodology and reasoning when purchasing a big-ticket item, and likewise your CRM selection process should be no different.

This of course is not to be confused with frequency of information from the same persona. Salesforce.com for instance has a well-oiled and widely requested support forum with some individuals who have proven themselves through the years by offering their knowledge in solving problems which include not just ideas but actual code. In so doing, they even have specialists in specific areas of CRM who have legions of followers such as Deepak Anand and Steve ‘Mo’ Molis with their expertise on formulas. If anything else, when factoring all of your decision-metrics, choosing to apply your team’s effort in examining the facts and arguments of others may be the most cost-effective diagnostic tool of all as it consumes only your time. Indeed cost, feature-set, and other key areas will play a major role in your final decision but when you add the additional step of taking on the role of a private detective to ’gumshoe’ your way to the answer, it could be the most important element of all. Why? Same reason why you bought the car you did, or reward the same bank in business year after year… honest advice, and evidence of professionalism from those in their field. The sum total of this exercise (measured only in hours) will be that of a flood of critical information to arrive at a well-documented conclusion… or a collection of uncategorized opinions which may be heavy on sponsorship but shallow on details. Gird your loins, matees.

Title image by Suburban Press, 1972 | Art compilation of SteveMo, Deepak Anand | Quote by Sex Pistols