Genius Notes

How To Get A Seriously Fat Wallet

Here’s something that's almost better than Genius: a Seriously Fat Wallet stuffed with $10,000 in cash!

Sound good?  You bet.

"We’re so confident that SalesGenius will increase your sales and fatten your wallet that we're giving away $10,000 in cash for some lucky person who takes advantage of our free 15-day SalesGenius trial.  It takes all of a minute to get started, and you could win a butt-bulging accessory jammed with cash, not to mention getting to use a great product. Remember, it’s free; there’s no obligation. So there’s no downside--perhaps a little to your backside--with plenty of upside potential.

No “ands”, “ifs”, “butts” or “fors”.

Wanna find out more?  Go here. 

"Sales Nirvana" + "Marketing Nirvana" = Genius

The news about SalesGenius keeps coming and the word is good. You might even describe it as “nirvana.”  (Looking for a definition?  Here it is: any place of complete bliss and delight and peace.)

Lori MacVittie of Network Computing did a blissful review of the product and was impressed. She noted in her May 31^st article that SalesGenius is “well on its way” to a “sales organization’s nirvana.”
 
Describing this lofty place, she continues, “In SalesGenius 1.0, the vendor lays the foundation for interactive, personalized communication between customers and sales representatives over the Internet.”

Meanwhile, in Marketing Nirvana, Mario Sundar’s posting of June 1^st delighted his readers with an introduction to SalesGenius. He writes, “We do have a tons of web analytics tools that empower you to track-and-measure your website's activity but none of them, thus far, had been able to match that to your prospecting and sales cycle. Sales Genius would change all that with just the power of a plug-in. What's better is that it requires no IT integration whatsoever.”

What more can we say? We humbly suggest this: check back here for more heavenly references.

 

Prospect insight. No I.T. hassles.

Any salesperson who has ventured down to the I.T. department trying to get e-mail or web visit reports to try to identify sales prospects understands the meaning of "payback".  After years of having their lunch money stolen, and their books dumped in the school hallway (stop smiling) by people like you, the nerd patrol in I.T. now has the upper hand.  You might get an incomprehensible barrage of comp-sci geek-speak, but unless you arrive in a Tardis, you are probably not going to get any information that can help with your sales efforts.

Well, fortunately for you its 2006.  Products like SalesGenius run on our servers, not yours.  So you don’t need any involvement from I.T. (or anyone else).  SalesGenius can help you ID your best prospects, and get all the info you need. No Sign Off.  No web site "instrumentation".  No 13-week implementation cycles.

As soon as you sign up, you'll know which of your prospects are reading your e-mails, who is actually following the links you send out, and what pages they are visiting on your site.  You close more deals, because SalesGenius also tells you when a prospect is ready to buy. No, SalesGenius does not dial the phone for you. 

You can sign up and start using SalesGenius faster than an I.T. help desk employee can e-mail "I’ll get back to you".  Let’s us know how it's working for you.

Celebrating a Milestone

News organizations (BusinessWeek, CBS, CNet, NetworkWorld, more), bloggers (TechCrunch, CRM Mastery, WebAnalytique, カテゴリ, more), and wanna-be industry pundits have been buzzing about Genius since our product came out of its successful beta at its release party.   [party photos]

If you are interested in how we announce these things here in San Francisco, we have a photo album showing some of the 500+ industry luminaries, VCs, Genius employees, left-coast partiers, and various hangers-on enjoying a product unveiling, a private showing of the Calder exhibit at the SFMOMA, and an admittedly glamourous party -- complete with branded drinks (Smirnoff Orange Twist™ vodka and an as-yet unreleased but interesting José Cuervo Orange Tequilla).  You will notice in the photos that all Genius employees wore orange dress shirts, and some wore green ties. There were no green drinks (there is a limit to branding). 

Right now the press is spending a lot of tv-air-time and copy-space talking about whether or not Genius and a handful of other Bay Area internet companies represent a coming "Web 2.0" internet boom.  Yes, we have a very popular new product and we do hold events to promote it ... but the real (and less controversial) story is that we have a good product that is becoming very popular because it is useful and helps sales and marketing people be more effective.  So people use SalesGenius because it works.  We do appreciate the press anyway though.

Our Director of Marketing Communications (here on the right) has pointedly asked me to put a "Call-to-Action" here: Try It Now.  You get 30 days to use it.  After that it's $49/month (sorry, no more open-ended free beta).

The Beta

Who's Online Now?

SalesGenius has just launched but has been out in beta for a few months, and its 120+ current users ─ mostly salespeople ─ have been using it to gauge customer interest.   

These new SalesGenius users generally watch for signs of new purchasing interest from their customers with the "Genius Tracker" -- a small IM-like app that detects which of a salesperson's prospects are accepting, reading, and browsing e-mail and web site content offered by the salesperson -- and to what degree.

Send Less, Sell More

So far, sales people love it because they can send less e-mail, make fewer calls, and make more sales -- as they now can figure out and contact people who are really interested in buying, and not bother (and waste time on) those who are not.

Of course, this is a win for recipients of SalesGenius e-mails as well. By ignoring or deleting unwanted e-mails, they signal busy salespeople to not bother contacting them again.

And that how we want to keep it:  less annoying and unwanted e-mail for uninterested prospects, less wasted time for sales people, and better information for interested buyers.

Working in the Trenches

What's most exciting is that it seems to really be working.  Our beta customers actually have numbers to back it up.  Sales are up for those using SalesGenius ─ and in some cases salespeople have closed prospects that would not have been contacted without SalesGenius noticing the prospect's interest.  Want to learn more about SalesGenius success stories? Click here.

Here at Genius we'll be busy helping customers who want good service from sales and support reps, and want to communicate with them directly when, where, and how they choose.  Welcome to "Web 2.0".