I’ve often heard people say: “I’d rather be lucky than good.” Well, being who I am, I’d rather be good and lucky ─ at the same time.

One of Prolifiq’s newest investors decided to do some field research recently. At a very large international trade show, he walked into the booth of one of our larger customers and searched his way through those staffing the booth to find a direct salesperson for the company (this company’s employee count is measured in the tens of thousands). Once he confirmed he was speaking with a direct salesperson, he informed her he had a question—a one word question.

She hesitated for a moment and said: “I don’t know; but I’ll give it a try.” So he asked: “Prolifiq?”

Her response: “I LOVE those guys!”

It’s really great to know that our whole team is doing their jobs—well. This just proves that you never know….

In March of 2008, we began an initiative I called: “It’s the channel stupid!” It was one of our five initiatives for the year. We intended not to construct a sales channel for ourselves; but, rather we sought to apply our application across our customer’s sales channel. The idea was to allow a company to “syndicate” its’ selling and marketing content so that all of its employees could use it to communicate to and through the distribution channel. We formulated the idea, and shared it with one of our larger customers ─ they asked us to get started, and our “serving the extended enterprise” use case was off and running.

Flash forward 15 months, and now our Media, Entertainment and Technology (MET) business unit is seeing a large uptick in inbound lead activity. And these are not small companies. I am surprised by this as we have done almost no marketing around this initiative. So, we ask all inquirers where they heard about us. The answer: “…a salesperson from ___________told me about how they are using you.”

The why part is something I can only surmise. The economic recovery is underway (may not be broad-based or universal) and insightful companies realize they need to do things better, faster, smarter, and more effectively to grow their top-line revenues. A consistent theme we are hearing is: “…we want to find better ways to help our distribution channel be more effective. We want to help them sell.”

June 3-5, 2009, TechAmerica is sponsoring the Channels 2.0 event in San Jose. The focus of the conference is the distribution of On-Demand applications. I have been asked to join a panel to talk about the nature of sales channels for SaaS companies, and to provide some insight into how we support our customer’s sales channels. I hope you can make it; I will be writing about my experience and what else I learned at the event.

It’s a funny concept to talk about a company managing a relationship with a customer. It is not like we have a human connection with one another as the term “relationship” would imply. We don’t text each other silly messages and make plans for the weekend, but I would argue that the relationship between a company and a customer shares many of the same qualities of a human relationship - and is no less complicated to manage. Think of the company as the suitor and the customer as the eligible bachelorette.

The fairy tale begins: Most of the time, the company pursues us in some way (through acquisition efforts, SEM, ads and marketing, rather than buying us a drink at the local bar); Other times, we meet through friends and mutual acquaintances (via referrals rather than blind dates); Inevitably, the company spends an awful lot of time and money trying to get to know us (through surveys and profiling rather than flowers and chocolate); when we lose interest, the company sends us treats and incentives to encourage us to stay engaged (loyalty programs and promotions rather than expensive jewelry); if we leave, the company (should) do everything they can to get us back (lapsed/lost programs); In the end, if we like said company, we tell our friends; if we hate said company…we also tell our friends. Either way, the reputation of the company rests in our hands – just like in a human relationship. And now, with social networking, all of this can happen even quicker, which is great for companies who have healthy relationships but very bad for companies who do not.

That is why managing the customer relationship is so critical to the success of a business. The company many believe that they have what the client wants, but if they don’t treat them the right way, it’s a moot point. As an example, a few months back, my friend and I walked into a designer shoe store fully intending to spend our bonuses on a pair of shoes (name not to be revealed, but think red soles). We were ready to seal the deal. We were walking down the aisle with this company. We loved them (irrationally so). BUT, we got into the store and were treated miserably by the sales associate. The relationship ended. No shoes were purchased that day. They managed the relationship well up to that point, but it broke down at the most important moment, and for a customer relationship to be successful, the management process must be consistent and unyielding.

What I can say is that there is no one right way to manage customer relationships, however, if a company applies the same guiding principles to their customer relationships that they would to their human relationships and remembers to pay attention (track activities or lack thereof), react appropriately to different behaviors (lifecycle marketing) and do everything they can to keep their customers happy (relevant communications, loyalty programs, incentives), they will be much closer to “happily ever after”.

So, how do companies find their soul mates? That topic is for the second date…

There is a scene in the 1981 Bill Murray classic “Stripes” where John Winger (Bill Murray) loses his: job, his car, his apartment and his girlfriend in one afternoon. Just after she leaves, Winger laments: “…and then, reality set in.”

I was thinking about this line while attending the recent SIIA event in San Francisco last week. Much of the conference focused on the “new” realities of the software business, especially the software as a service (SaaS) sector. Sessions included: “What is your software company worth?; “How much transparency is enough?”; “Firing and cleaning house”; “Raising money and liquidity events”; and “Managing in a recession”. The basic underlying theme – operating profits and cash flow matter. Big time. They are the ultimate drivers of company valuation, availability of capital and cost of capital.

What I find most surprising is how human beings never seem to learn lessons from the past. This feels a lot like the post-dot com meltdown years (the period where revenues didn’t matter – it was all about eyeballs). I heard a CFO say at the time: “…profits – what an ‘80s concept!” I don’t know how business owners and managers ever get seduced into thinking cash flow and operating profits don’t matter.

To be fair, there are times when profits and cash flow are not top priorities (like when first building a product); however, every business must have a clear path to both operating profits and positive cash flow. You can never get too far away from the fundamental basics of business; otherwise reality will set in.

One evening over a steak dinner, Jeff Gaus, the CEO of Prolifiq Software, offered me a job. Out of the blue. Without an interview. Did I mention I wasn’t job hunting? And, never mind that I had never worked in the software or IT industry. Or, that the last time I did any software programming was in the mid-80s when I was using Fortran for Fourier analysis. In fact, all I remember about software programming now is receiving extra credit for the inadvertent spillage of perfume on the program print-out I turned in (+3 points for “best scented code” as I recall).

On the other hand, I was a huge believer in Prolifiq. My two most recent companies were Prolifiq’s first and second medical device customers. At AtriCure®, we had been hunting for a solution that provided compliant distribution of promotional materials for the sales force. Coming up empty-handed, we built our own software-validated, digital distribution system. A year later, we found Prolifiq. Prolifiq had a more thoughtful and integrated SaaS solution which allowed a sales rep speaking to a cardiac surgeon to send materials immediately from his mobile phone, all while abiding by the rules. This was exactly what we needed.

As each new rule governing promotion of medical devices emerged (and there were many), I found myself summarizing the key points and emailing it to Jeff as another valuable opportunity for Prolifiq. I knew the rules were changing and wanted to ensure it was robust for the regulatory folks yet easy for sales – so I could focus on what I did best, marketing. 

In retrospect, perhaps I should not have been surprised after all.

Jeff explained that Prolifiq was hunting for deep domain expertise in a new business vertical (tech lingo for focusing on one industry). By now, you must have guessed why he was talking to me.   Their new initiative was medical devices where I had spent the last 20 years comfortably ensconced.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." (Robert Frost)

Next…My First Day of Kindergarten, at 44.

So this is my second post inspired by a song; today’s post is inspired by Tom Petty. I composed this blog thinking about “Free Fallin'” (John Mayer does a really nice cover as well).

We went to LA for a school break last fall, and while on the Universal City Walk, my one son decided to “free fall” in the inverted wind tunnel. This is the same child who has had many physical fears (swimming, roller coasters, etc.), yet here he was, wanting to do something completely un-natural.

Before he went into the “tube”, his heart was pounding, he was sweating and he was hyperventilating. He floated in air, he rose up to 40 feet several times, and you can see he had a “coach” with him. When he came out he was ecstatic; he was vibrating.

Throughout my career, I have helped people to transform their careers. I have turned service dispatchers, nurses, and administrative assistants into salespeople. I have turned a tech writer into a web master, and a sales engineer into a marketer. In almost every case, the conversation started with: “…but, I am not a _______” and ended with: “I’ll give it a try…” or “I can do this.”

We Americans tend to define ourselves by our occupation as opposed to us defining our occupation. However, if a person is willing to take some financial or emotional risks, there really is no limit to what they can do. And if you really think about it, everything we currently do, we had never done before. So, at what age are we so conditioned we become reluctant to try new things.

We have several team members who are going through role shifts right now. I really enjoy watching them grow and expand as they venture into new areas. What I like best is the fresh perspective they bring to the new roles – it provides a level of authenticity that is very apparent to all involved, especially our customers. And, I believe a person who is entering a new role tends to be a little more humble and diligent about their work – so the work product tends to be much better. Ultimately, I think the outcome of these transitions is determined by three things:

1. The person’s belief in themselves (see: “If versus when”)
2. The coach’s and team’s belief in the person
3. The constructive feedback cycle.

If #1 is present, the rest is pretty easy. Success is almost always assured if the proper feedback cycle is developed, nurtured and listened to. For many managers, developing and maintaining a constructive and effective feedback process is difficult.

I would love to hear how you made a major role shift and what feedback cycle worked best for you; I’d like to incorporate some best practices so that my team mates thrive in their new roles.

I like to follow unusual paths.  After four years of hard work earning a biomedical engineering degree at Duke and one year at Cordis in engineering, I lobbied my way into the Marketing department.  Why?  I wanted to be closer to the customer – the physicians, the patients and the clinical aspects of technology. And, I was very lucky that Bill Schwartz and Stan Rowe were willing to take a chance on a young engineer who wanted to use both sides of her brain. 

Over the twenty years since, I stayed the course in medical device marketing. In mid-2008, a friend and former colleague and I started to brainstorm regularly about unmet needs and possible new medical device technologies to develop – he said that he had “one last start up in him”. One day I suggested that there had to be an opportunity in the growing breadth and depth of complex regulatory requirements surrounding promotional (sales) and educational materials in medical device companies, including Advamed Code of Ethics and the new FDA Good Reprint Practices. 

Because of the increasing legislation and its influence on promotions and promotional materials, I started to joke in my last few medical device companies that I didn’t need an MBA to advance; I needed to go to law school. Ultimately, we were unable to conceive of a viable product solution to the increasing legal and regulatory hurdles faced by medical device manufacturers, and we moved on in our thinking. 

Meanwhile, the answer was right in front of me.

Next…The Road Less Traveled

Read more about Maureen
Press release: Prolifiq Further Expands into Medical Markets with New Hire Maureen A. Shaffer