"If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." - Peter Drucker

I think it depends on what you are selling. I have had positions where my product was a "one call close" and currently in my position it much more process driven. That is not to say that occasionally that process does not happen all in one call, but that is not as often as I would like.

There is a huge difference between transaction selling of a commodity and solution selling.

You might get some good ideas from here.

http://www.mistletunes.com/

Any decent hosted CRM would have a knowledge base that you could use for document mgmt, or some collaboration tools for everyone to use.

A GREAT CRM would have both.

We did something like that a while back. Not really custom shape, but more of our logo on a drive type of thing. I will see who we used and see if they can do a custom molding as well.

Dont forget that Hoptoberfest is also going on so you can vote for West Seattle's own Schooner Exact 3-Grid IPA!!

That is one of the biggest benefits to a hosted system like the CRM (client relationship mgmt) that I work with. It is on your local machine for whaen you are off-line, but when you are connected it is doing a constant backup to a web based database. That way if your machine ever crashes, gets lost or stolen, everything is still there. You just download the software to your new machine and you are off and running. I think that a lot more businesses are seeing the benefits of hosted services, especially small businesses without IT departments to handle this sort of thing.

It's official, there WILL be a small keg of Schooner Exact 3-Grid IPA on tap tonight! Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

I would be down for an eastside get together. I'll be out of town Aug 19-25 but otherwise open.