100% Uptime ?!

12/22/2023

'Tis the end of the year, and all of the inevitable "2023 wrap-up" emails have started to come in. It reminded me that I used to do this "Yearly Uptime" on how our servers and datacenters did in the past year, as far as the percentage of offline (downtime) vs online (uptime) they achieved. The goal is typically 5 nines, or 99.999% uptime.

"Five 9s uptime" is a term used to describe a system's reliability level, which is 99.999%. This means that a system is fully operational 99.999% of the time, with an average of less than 6 minutes of downtime per year.

How did we do?

Well, I put the spooler in the title!

For the preceding 365 days, which is the longest our monitoring software keep this particular metric, the network had a 100% uptime. That means the hardware, servers, datacenters were never off at all in the last year. This is actually a little surprising to me as well -- I know we have excellent availability, but usually someone at one of the datacenters misconfigures something to take us offline for a little bit..

Well done, datacenter staff, facility engineers, backup power generators, and redundant Internet connections!

But what does 100% really mean?

It means that the datacenters were up, the servers hardware was up, and the Internet connections were up. On an individual application basis, which we are not reporting here (i.e. your MRSware installation), it may not be 100%. We could have restarted your system for a major MRSware Desktop update, or restarted individual installations if there was a particularly egregious error that need to be cleared.

Of interesting note in that regard, restarting an installation's service for updates only applies to Desktop updates. MRSweb, Web-only update, do not require a restart -- the system just merrily continues to run and get the new code on the fly, as the User is navigating the Web app.

This certainly does maximize uptime, and let's us all enjoy the holiday season without thinking about whether the system will be available when we need it.

Happy Holidays to All, and looking forward to a great 2024!

AI, AI, everywhere you look! Leverage AI for your business

11/28/2023

This is a repost from our Newsletter that goes out via email. If you wish to subscribe, fill out any of our forms found here on MRSware.com or send an email to [email protected].

Everywhere you look there are discussions around AI, it's potential impact on work, life, and the world in general. There is so much discussion around its potential; but what does it actually do now, what can it do for me? We'll take a minute here to explore some of the real-world uses that we are currently doing at EYOND, and outline how those same tools can be leveraged for your business.

AI Chat on MRSware.com

AI Chat on MRSware.com

We enabled the AI chat feature on the little chat widget that lives on our website -- you click it, you are prompted to ask a questions, then a live person connects and answers it. However, sometimes that live person is busy, so you get a "we'll get back to you" kind of message. Now, with AI (artificial intelligence) enabled, the chat bot answers immediately with content from the website --

Visitor: "Does MRSware have a free trial?"
AI: Yes, MRSware does offer a free trial. You can log in to their demo application to explore the features and when you're ready you can ask their support team to provide you with a blank database to continue a free trial with your own data.

Sometime the AI doesn't know though; and will tell you so,

Apologies, but I lack data on the matter you brought up ðŸ˜”. However, I'd be happy to provide information on other topics! ðŸ˜

Having an AI respond is an interesting option, and seems to do a nice job of summarizing small bits of information from various pages on the website (and there are a lot of pages between all the training classes and support documentation).

But What about Search? The Search box is still there at the top of the page, and is still useful! While the AI will give you those short chat-snippets, the Search actually shows you the pages matching your query -- think of it like "here is the long-form instructions for that thing you asked about."

Add AI to your own site / how is this applicable to me? If you are interested in chat on your own site -- whether with a live person, or using the AI with pre-defined answers / trained on your site, or a combination of the all of those -- you can quickly and fairly easily add it using a tool like Tidio. Our 7 year anniversary of using Tidio on MRSware.com is coming up the end of this December, and it has been an effective way to interact with prospects quickly, answering questions efficiently. AI was more recently added to the features, and is free to get started -- the free tier is going to be plenty to handle most manufacturers reps' sites; if you are a distributor or manufacturer, you may run out of the included free interactions, depending on how busy your site is.

AI Sales Import

AI Sales Import

The MRSware Sales Importer has built-in intelligence, with the overall goal to minimize or eliminate any work necessary in the spreadsheets before you import the data. The AI in Sales Import automatically determines if you are importing an Order summary, Invoice shipping report, or a Commission Statement, placing all the relevant data in the correct places.

There is no need to manually create new Customers, or even match up Customer Names, before import. The importer will match to existing entries, create new ones, and allows for grouping entries so that the common practise of each Manufacturer having their own name variation for each Distributor is handled and tracked directly by MRSware.

One of the common things we run into is people spending a lot of time in the spreadsheets before entering them -- removing columns, changing names, adding columns, etc. -- all of which is unnecessary because the importer takes care of that for you.

Here is the challenge I issue to you: Give it a try. The system takes massive files, like those from a well-known master distributor with over 30,000 rows of data in it, crunches it, enter missing customers and item numbers, and captures everything from line item details to End Users. And it does all that for 30k rows in 20 minutes. Have a smaller spreadsheet, or less details? It makes even quicker work of those.

If you are not a current MRSware User and would like to see how the system handles your files, sign-up for a Free Trial and take it for a spin. The time-savings can be quite impressive.

MRSware for Sales and Commission tracking from Order to Commission Payment, Opportunity tracking, Activity reporting, and many integrations with other systems.

Ideas, Enhancements, and Requests
Current MRSware User and have an idea to make the system better? Not a MRSware User and not finding any solution for your company's current data challenges? Open to all, the Ideas site is the place to enter what you need, review what other people are looking for, and rate/rank what you would like to see next.

Reps Around the Web

Supply House Times

Rep Council 2023: The bar has been raised

The 51st annual Association of Independent Manufacturers' Representatives (AIM/R) conference drew a record-setting crowd of more than 500...

ACHR News

2 Rep Firms Expand RectorSeal Duties

HOUSTON — RectorSeal, a manufacturer of HVACR and plumbing tools and accessories, has announced a sales territory expansion for...

Gift & Decorative Accessories

Top 12 Sales Representatives in the Gift Industry Named the Best of 2023

New this year, the REAs will recognize four Sales Reps of the Year, one in each of four regions. See why these reps were named the best.

Foodservice Equipment & Supplies

Reps Update Equipment and Supplies Sales Projections

Sales of foodservice equipment and supplies increased by 2.0% during the third quarter of 2023, per data from the Manufacturers' Agents Association for the...

Saving Maps, Grouping Contacts

This article highlights the use of Categories to organize and filter lists for creating sales territories on maps. Users can filter by various criteria such as city, state, sales rep, and company type, and then save these filters as Categories for easy retrieval. The article emphasizes the flexibility of this system, allowing users to efficiently manage and customize their sales efforts based on specific geographic and customer-density considerations.

ChangeLog: In-App Links updates and fixes; Aggregates and Metrics

This update introduces clickable links in table rows, allowing users to open entries either in the current page's details dialog or in a new tab, enhancing navigation efficiency. Notably, company links in the Customer and Account listings now directly lead to the respective company cards on the Companies Page. Additionally, improvements include the ability to edit and update Company Names, the inclusion of Business Address columns in the New Company dialog for easier import, and the incorporation of various aggregates across pages. Metrics enhancements in the Payments details dialog offer insights such as the average commission rate, commission and anticipated commission totals, average split paid to reps, and timelines from shipping to commission payment. Users are encouraged to provide feedback for further feature customization.

ROI with Activity Tracking

The article emphasizes the importance of assessing return on investment (ROI) in sales efforts by tracking the ratio of earnings to time spent with both manufacturers and customers. It encourages users to utilize MRSweb to record and analyze sales activities, including tracking last activity and twelve-month touches, as a reliable indicator of business success and profitability.

5 Minute Pre-Call Sales Planning

The article stresses the importance of preparation, professionalism, and having a plan during face-to-face customer interactions. It highlights the efficiency of MRSware's Contact Printout and Customer Snapshot reports, allowing users to quickly review customer activities and sales results in just five minutes, aiding in setting objectives for productive meetings.

Free Trial

We always offer a Free Trial of MRSware for those that are interested in kicking the tires to see what this is all about. Sign-up on the web, with MRSweb, to take a look at our Demo installation with sample data ready to review. When you are ready to test with your own data, just let us know and we will enable your own blank installation to get started.

Saving Maps, Grouping Contacts

8/28/2023

In the same way that we create Contact groups for Companies or Individuals, using Categories, we can filter, sort, and save our lists used to make Maps of our various sales territories. When we do this, it is easy to pull up those entries later, review and add to as necessary.

Filtering Maps

When you filter the list, the map automatically filters to the matching area. I typically switch over to Grid layout and filter from there, since I find the spreadsheet-style filtering more intuitive (by right-clicking on a column header); but you can actually filter from any screen, using the "..." (3-dots) button in the upper-right... The views are all linked (including Charts), so when you filter in one, the others also filter to match.

Saved Filters

The last filter for each view that each User makes is saved; and Sales Reps when they login would typically only see their own assigned territories anyways, so they kind of take care of themselves. If you would like to see a territory at a time, you would just filter on the Sales Rep column to get their specific list of Customers.

Geographic Filtering

Another nice filtering options is either City, or even partial-Zip Code (to get a metro area, for example). For the Zip Code example, you would filter on the Business Address column, using the "contains" filtering option. For example, contains "787" will get me all of greater Austin, while contains "7874" will get me the lower and west-suburbs.

The kind of filtering you do will mostly depend on customer-density, so it is going to vary from one rep and geography to another. Let me know if there is a specific combo / area you are trying to achieve, and I can probably be more specific with the filters.

Categories are Groups / Keywords

Use Categories to save groups of customers after you do some filtering. Here are the steps as they are now:

Go to Companies, filter by City and/or State, Sales Rep, Company Type, etc.
Click the "Select All" button in the top-left column header of Grid view (checks all the entries you are currently showing).
Use the Batch Edit button to assign a new Category, such as "map: Greater Boston".
Repeat for as many variations as you like. In the future, filter on the Categories column (using contains again) to pull up everyone in a particular group.

I am not sure how much you use Categories now, but the usage of it is as a generic / keyword grouping mechanism for both Companies and Individuals. Here are some that we use, just so you get an idea:

Newsletter: Users
Newsletter: General Audience
Industry: Jan/San
Industry: Automotive
Member: AIM/R
Member: PTRA

We actually have probably 100s of these checkboxes, so that we can easily pull up groups (and combinations of groups) for our various sales efforts. More information on Categories in general, can be found here: https://www.mrsware.com/apps/search?q=categories

You can see all of the Categories you have been using in Web, under the Contacts menu -> Contact Categories. If you haven't been tracking keywords, it does take some setting-up to get running. Buying Groups, Industry segments, even Job Title are all things that you can track, and may be able to import lists of those or use Batch Edit to add multiple contacts to a group all at the same time.

Request for Feedback

We are also planning to do some more features around mapping, so any input you have would be great.

MRSware Pre-Fall Promotion, Customer Mapping, Google Sync, and Sales Importing

8/24/2023

This is a repost from our Newsletter that goes out via email. If you wish to subscribe, fill out any of our forms found here on MRSware.com or send an email to [email protected].

Pre-Fall Newsletter Promotion

Temperatures in Austin are still over 100 on a regular basis, and Fall can't come fast enough! Let's usher it in with a pre-fall promotion exclusively for our newsletter recipients... Feel like you are stuck in your current software because it is too expensive to get your data into a new system? Prepay a year in MRSware and receive FREE data import from your current system. If what you are using can spit out a spreadsheet file, we will import that for free. We'll take up to 4 years of data and put it in the right spots to get you up and running right out of the gate with no downtime. As always, MRSware includes training and support, so we'll also get you productive in your new system from the start.

MRSware for Manufacturers Reps, Sales and Commission tracking from Order to Commission Payment, Opportunity tracking, Activity reporting, and many integrations with other systems available.

Ideas, Enhancements, and Requests
Current MRSware User and have an idea to make the system better? Not a MRSware User and not finding any solution for your company's current data challenges? Open to all, the Ideas site is the place to enter what you need, review what other people are looking for, and rate/rank what you would like to see next.

Reps Around the Web
Security Sales & Integration

Alarm Protect adds LRG as Manufacturer’s Rep

Alarm Protect has announced that it has added Lanier Rep Group (LRG) as its newest manufacturer's rep to cover the southern region.

Gifts & Decorative Accessories

Top 12 Sales Representatives in the Gift Industry Named the Best of 2023

New this year, the REAs will recognize four Sales Reps of the Year, one in each of four regions. See why these reps were named the best.

Supply House Times

2023 Rep of the Year: Signature Sales

Tempted by a robust Riverside, California home construction market in 1989, my wife Beverly and I set out to pursue the American Dream.

Foodservice Equipment & Supplies

Forward Solutions Curating a New Rep Group

The consolidation bug bit the manufacturers' rep community the week of April 17. That's when Forward Solutions merged with both BSE Reps and...

Active Customer Map

When planning your visit to a particular area, make sure you don't miss anyone. Filter Customers by City, State or Zip, sort top-down by year-to-date dollars, see where they are at on the integrated map and set up appointments. Find yourself with a little extra time between calls? See what prospects are in the area and get turn-by-turn navigation directly on your mobile device. When the call is complete, don't forget to leave a note about the visit, to make future calls more productive.

ChangeLog: Invalid Emails view in Individuals

Easily find those addresses that are incorrectly formatted and make corrections. Sometimes those lists we get from shows and other sources are hit-and-miss, use this feature to trim out the misses ahead of time.

Google Multi-Calendar Sync with MRSware

Each team member can synchronize their Google Calendar directly with MRSware, allowing the rest of the team to easily block-out times for meetings and report back to Manufacturers on important touches. Google sync allows for the separation of business and personal calendars as well, so you don't have to mix work and home when you don't want to.

MRSweb Sales Import Process

Sales Import, the video! Watch as we walk through a sales import, which can be any and all of the reports from PO to Order confirmation, Invoice shipping report, and Commission statement. Get importing Manufacturers' spreadsheets done in minutes; large Wholesaler reports in under 20 minutes!

Free Trial

We always offer a Free Trial of MRSware for those that are interested in kicking the tires to see what this is all about. Sign-up on the web, with MRSweb, to take a look at our Demo installation with sample data ready to review. When you are ready to test with your own data, just let us know and we will enable your own blank installation to get started.

No credit cards required to take a look, no hassles to get a feel for what MRSware has to offer.

Active Customer Map

8/7/2023

I want to make sure I am not missing any of my customers on a trip through the territory next week... Give me a map of my active customers, ones who have been buying from me in the last year.

Find Customers under the Contacts menu.
Use one of the pre-defined filters that shows just the Active Customers.
Switch to Maps view.

The addresses for each customer are marked with pins on the map. Zoom using the the buttons on screen, or your mouse cursor and wheel, to view specific areas of interest. Click on the pins to show each Customer's contact information and some sales numbers.

ChangeLog: edit Mail Senders List in Web

7/27/2023

All the goodness of Web's Batch Editing, and access from anywhere, now available for the Allowed / Blocked / News Senders List.

Control Where Mail Gets Delivered

The Mail Senders List controls how your emails get delivered:

Inbox (Allowed List)
Spam (Blocked List)
News (News List)
Inbox (Contacts List)

When Users are out on the road with their mobile devices, sometimes you would like to make sure an email gets through to you in the future (or blocked if a spammer is harassing you). Rather than wait until you return to the office, make the addition or change immediately from your phone or tablet.

Add an email address to the Allowed list, gets future emails from them delivered to the Inbox. That 4th options, "Contacts", is another way to do the same -- add someone to your Contacts list and emails from that address will automatically be delivered to the Inbox as well (no need to add them to the Senders List in this case).

Mail Senders List with duplicate entries selected and ready to delete

ChangeLog: Invalid Emails view in Individuals

6/7/2023

Need a little help finding those invalidly formatted emails that have crept into the contacts list over the years? This new view under Individuals filters the list to show you just entries that are suspected to have invalid characters or format in the Business Email or Personal Email fields.

What's this database all about, and why is it better than a spreadsheet?

5/11/2023

This is a repost from our Newsletter that goes out via email. If you wish to subscribe, fill out any of our forms found here on MRSware.com or send an email to [email protected].

â€‹ We touched upon the subject of databases versus spreadsheets in a fairly recent blog post, "Databases take your spreadsheet headaches away", and I wanted to expand upon that with some practical examples: Let's take a look at some product sales. In this situation, we have a great new line with some cross-selling opportunity with a particular product we've carried for years. I would like to:

Know who has been buying this product, when was their last purchase, and in what quantities have they bought it?
Let's zero-in on our top 3 customers by quantity, and take a look at what other products they are buying already.
Now that we have some top prospects for our cross-sell, let's approach them with the offer to see how receptive they are, and refine our technique before we go wide with a marketing campaign for the other buyers.

A Product's Customers
We have all these beautiful spreadsheets from our manufacturers, listing all sorts of details from last month. Maybe someone bought our product of interest last month? Maybe they bought it in the spreadsheet for the month before that? There is a lot of work in answering a question that is potentially spread across many spreadsheets, even if you only want to go back one year for your answer. You could potentially go back to the manufacturer and ask them to do the legwork to find your answer, but what is the risk here? I wouldn't even want them getting into the thought-cycle of "you don't know who is buying this?".

However, we've been loading all that great detail into our sales system on a regular basis, and now it's time to shine. We click over to the Product Catalog, scroll / filter / or search for our item, and click on it. Metrics light up our screen: quantities Ordered and Shipped, total dollars spent, high/avg/low prices and the average discount given. Click over to the Customers tab, and there it is, the list of Customers who have purchased this item.

I can take a look at the full list, or sort by recent orders; in this case, I am interested in a top-down look at the Quantity column to see who are my top buyers.

A Customer's Products
Let's look into the purchasing habits of our top three customers. Right from this same screen, we can click the underlined Customer Name to pop up that Customer's entry in our Customers list. Boom, once again we are presented with some great metrics for our customer -- year-to-date numbers, last year numbers, growth percentage, and 12-month variations of those. Click over to the Products tab and visit a similar view to what we had in the Product Catalog, this time covering all the items being purchased. Do we have some synergy? This answer doesn't come from the metrics, but from some salesperson knowledge (with a side of our sales call notes in the Activities section).

The Approach
Now we make some decisions on next steps. Do we set up a Project for our marketing campaign, linking Opportunities that we pursue or responses we get from our broader emails or touches during visits? Projects helps us group our various entries from around the system to track what is going on, especially between multiple sales people executing on our marketing. Opportunities allows us to track Close Reasons and Win/Loss -- if we get a lot of losses like "price" or "missing feature", then we have some avenues to report back to the manufacturer and perhaps follow back up on those.

Trending over time, aggregating data at different levels, isolating opportunities, and surfacing details in a digestible format. These are some of the things that databases, and products like MRSware, do for us. Take a look at MRSware for your Sales and Commissions, and Customer Relationship Management needs.

For a visual look at what is described in this article, login to our Demo installation, complete with sample data that highlights these use cases. Would you like to see the same with your own data? Sign-up for the MRSware Free Trial (no credit card required, no time limit to your evaluation).

In addition to the Free Trial, which is always available, we have been offering a promotion for existing MRSware Users that would like to pay yearly. Pre-pay a year and get 1 month free.

This offer is also open to new members; however, we thought we might offer an alternative to help agencies make a quicker decision to move on to new software, by lowering the barrier to entry significantly:

New MRSware Subscribers: Pay 1 Year Upfront, get 1 Year Data Imported for Free

This offer is for those of you coming from an existing system, and worried about not having access to data from your old system, or just concerned about the cost of getting that data into a new system. We want you to feel comfortable in MRSware, and part of that is seeing your customers, sales rep assignments, lines you represent, and some sales history leading up to today. We will import a spreadsheet that your existing system exports for you, to make sure you are up and running quickly -- and now, at no additional cost!

Creating one company-wide, "master" database of contact and companies One of the typical challenges/projects we see when a new customer comes on board with MRSware is the creation of one company-wide company and ...

The Power of the "R" in CRM ...maximizing your CRM application? Most companies using CRM have created a master list (database ...

Activities or Results - Which Are You Tracking? ..., campaigns, and e-mails. Building and sharing a Relationship Database is part of what makes a CRM ...

MRSware is software for Manufacturer Reps, Independent Reps, and Brokers. We serve many industries, each performing the Rep function for their manufacturers in very similar ways. Our system works equally well on Desktop, Tablet, and Phone, making it ideal for office staff and field rep alike. Take a look at our website for a Free Trial, to schedule a Web Conference Demo, or just to find out more about our offering.

www.MRSware.com [email protected] (866)795-8386

ChangeLog: In-App Links updates and fixes; Aggregates and Metrics

4/25/2023

Ever notice the underlines entries in a row of a table or card? If you click anywhere else, you open the item for that page -- in this case, you would open the Customer details dialog. If you click the links, however, you get a separate tab direct to the item you clicked on -- in this example, clicking on ABC Paper gets you the ABC details dialog from the Company list; clicking on Diego gets you the Sales Rep entry details from that list.

You'll find these links throughout the app, from Orders to Activities. The usefulness is that you can both (a) jump directly to an entry, without having to click through to it from the details dialog; and (b) open entries in new tabs, so you don't move away from what you are working on and can flip back-and-forth to reference information.

How can ChatGPT benefit Reps?

2/23/2023

There has been a lot of talk about, and big bucks being spent on, ChatGPT and AI language models in the recent news. What's it all about, and can it do anything for Manufacturers Reps? Well, let's ask the source -- the following excerpt is from Chat GPT itself:

What can ChatGPT do for Manufacturers Reps?

2/23/2023

This is a repost of our newsletter that goes out via email. If you wish to subscribe, fill out one of our forms on this site, or send an email to [email protected].

ChatGPT Recent Archives MRSware

ChatGPT has been dominating the news cycle of late. It is a natural language model, an artificial intelligence trained to give human-like responses to regular questions. The interesting part is that questions can build on previous answers, so you end up progressing and refining the conversation to distill information until you get what you are after.

I recently explored on the MRSware.com Blog what ChatGPT itself thought it could do for independent reps. We had a little chat and ended up focused on sales rep training, both in generic sales training offerings available, and diving specifically into the Jan/San industry to see if I could get a couple of references that I recognized (MRSware has a lot of users in that industry, so I was bound to recognize some of the names, and indeed was not let down. Take a look at the article on the Blog to see where we left off; then circle back here for a follow-up for Newsletter subscribers:

How can ChatGPT help me prospect leads?

This time, let's just start with the industry-specific query, to see if we can generate some actionable names to pursue right from go... Our example rep agency has been calling on Distributors in our industry for quite some time, but is now being asked to facilitate more pull-through sales from the End Users. Let's call on the local school districts first:

Me: What are the local school districts around the Hanover, NH area?
ChatGPT: The Hanover, NH area is served by several school districts. Here are some of the local school districts in the area:

Dresden School District: The Dresden School District serves the towns of Hanover, Norwich, and Dresden, and includes Hanover High School, Frances C. Richmond Middle School, and several elementary schools.

SAU 70 School District: The SAU 70 School District serves the towns of Hanover and Norwich, and includes Marion Cross School, Bernice A. Ray School, and several other schools.

Mascoma Valley Regional School District: The Mascoma Valley Regional School District serves the towns of Enfield, Canaan, Dorchester, Grafton, and Orange, and includes Mascoma Valley Regional High School, Indian River School, and several elementary schools.

Lebanon School District: The Lebanon School District serves the city of Lebanon, and includes Lebanon High School, Lebanon Middle School, and several elementary schools.

Hartford School District: The Hartford School District serves the town of Hartford, VT, which is located just across the Connecticut River from Hanover, NH. The district includes Hartford High School, Hartford Memorial Middle School, and several elementary schools.

These are just a few of the school districts in the Hanover, NH area.

That's a good start. I probably could have found the names through other means as well, but this was certainly quick, and I like the added detail about which towns they are serving. That's one of the interesting parts about what you are getting with ChatGPT -- you never know what additional info it might spit out, perhaps some things you didn't even think to explore yet.

All you need to know about ChatGPT, the A.I. chatbot that’s got the world talking and tech giants clashing -CNBC
Catch up on where ChatGPT came from with a little history of AI, and why this implementation is particularly popular.

ChatGPT launches boom in AI-written e-books on Amazon -Reuters
Create a book and sell it online in a matter of hours.

Wall Street Banks Are Cracking Down on AI-Powered ChatGPT -Bloomberg
The big-name banks are blocking access to ChatGPT specifically, as the unknown of what the technology can do and what it might get wrong is being explored in the financial world.

ChangeLog: MRSweb general updates for working with Sales Imports

A list of some recent changes to the MRSweb Sales Importer, focused on refining the import of manufacturers spreadsheets from any stage they are received, from Order Confirmation reports to Commission Statements. 8/29/2022

The Importance of Timely Commission Tracking
A general conversationally piece around some of the key benefits of keeping up to date records of your commissioned earned, with an emphasis of using available software and generating your own multi-line reports. 1/13/2023

Creating one company-wide, "master" database of contact and companies

Some of the keys features that make organizing and keeping track of your Customer and Prospect list among the team, including tools like Conflict Detection and Duplicate Removal. 6/16/2008

Track Customer Preferences
A How To article with steps to record miscellaneous or personal information in MRSware -- it's all about the Relationship part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). 6/2/2020

MRSware is software for Manufacturer Reps, Independent Reps, and Brokers. We serve many industries, each performing the Rep function for their manufacturers in very similar ways. Our system works equally well on Desktop, Tablet, and Phone, making it ideal for office staff and field rep alike. Take a look at our website for a Free Trial, to schedule a Web Conference Demo, or just to find out more about our offering.

www.MRSware.com [email protected] (866)795-8386

Increasing CRM Adoption

2/10/2023

CRM (customer relationship management) adoption has increased significantly in the past decade due to a combination of factors such as:

Advancements in technology: The advancements in technology in the past decade, such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and social media, have made CRM systems more accessible and user-friendly. This has made it easier for companies of all sizes to adopt CRM systems and to access customer data from anywhere, at any time.
Increased focus on customer engagement: Companies have become increasingly focused on improving customer engagement in the past decade, and CRM systems provide the tools and insights needed to do so. This has led to a greater adoption of CRM systems as a way to manage and analyze customer interactions.
Greater awareness of the benefits of CRM: Companies have become more aware of the benefits of CRM systems, such as increased sales and customer retention, improved customer service, and better insights into customer behavior. This has led to a greater adoption of CRM systems as a way to improve business performance.
The rise of SaaS CRM: The rise of software as a service (SaaS) CRM systems in the past decade has made it more affordable and easier to implement CRM systems. This is because SaaS CRM systems are typically subscription-based and can be accessed over the internet, eliminating the need for expensive IT infrastructure.
The growth of e-commerce and online marketplaces: The growth of e-commerce and online marketplaces has led to an increase in customer data, which in turn has led to an increase in the adoption of CRM systems as a way to manage and analyze this data.

In summary, the past decade has seen a significant increase in CRM adoption due to advancements in technology, increased focus on customer engagement, greater awareness of the benefits of CRM, the rise of SaaS CRM and the growth of e-commerce and online marketplaces. These factors have led to a greater adoption of CRM systems as a way to improve business performance and customer engagement.

MRSware was created in 2002 with all of the features and benefit of what would become "cloud", "software as a service", and a subscription model. We may have been too early to market with some of these new concepts, but the benefits have proven out and flourished in the marketplace. Sign-up for our Demo installation or a Free Trial of your own, and find out what you have been missing.

Why Offer a Free Community Plan?

2/3/2023

Having a pricing plan that is zero dollars, also known as a freemium model, can be an effective strategy for a number of reasons:

Increased adoption: Offering a free version of a product or service can increase the number of people who are willing to try it out. This can lead to increased adoption and a larger customer base.
Increased engagement: Once a customer is using a free version of a product or service, they are more likely to become engaged and invested in it. This can lead to increased loyalty and advocacy.
Upsell opportunities: Freemium models often include upsell opportunities, where customers are offered additional features or services for a fee. This can be an effective way to generate revenue from customers who are already engaged with the product or service.
Low barrier to entry: A free pricing plan can be a low-risk way for customers to try out a product or service, which can be a more effective way to attract new customers than charging upfront fees.
Cost-effective: Freemium models can be cost-effective, as they allow customers to try out the product or service before they commit to paying for it. This can reduce the risk of customers regretting their purchase.

However, there are also potential downsides to a freemium model, such as:

Limited features: The free community version does lack a few of the bells and whistles that are more attractive to larger rep agencies. Our goal is to provide a starting point to get your agency more productive, and then provide a path to further your goals as you grow.
Limited scalability: Freemium models can be less scalable than traditional pricing models, as they may not generate as much revenue per customer. Offering a more self-help options for MRSware keeps our costs low and allows us to offer the free plan, but if you need us we are here with paid training and support options.
Can be difficult to monetize: Freemium models can be difficult to monetize, as customers who use the free version may not be as likely to upgrade to a paid version. However, we have the desire to make an offering to an underserved market of manufacturers reps, in particular, those smaller agencies that just don't have cost effective options. Having 20 years experience in the industry has provided us the know-how to deliver a solid starting point to any agency.

In conclusion, having a pricing plan that is zero dollars can be an effective strategy for increasing adoption and engagement, and providing low-barrier entry to the product or service. However, it's important to balance the pros and cons of this model, necessitating we keep support time investment with free members lower than the fanatical level of support we offer our Business and Plus plan subscribers.

We want you to become part of the MRSware Community. Make use of our Free Community tier for as long as you like, and if you need more features or technical support, we have options for those too. Sign Up to our Demo installation to see what MRSware can do for you, or request your own private Free Trial.

Databases Take Your Spreadsheet Headaches Away

1/27/2023

Working with a database is generally considered to be easier than working with spreadsheets for several reasons:

Data organization: A database allows data to be organized in a logical and structured manner, making it easy to find and retrieve specific information. In contrast, spreadsheets can become cluttered and disorganized as the amount of data grows, making it difficult to find the information you need.
Data validation: A database allows you to set rules for data entry, such as data types and constraints, which can help to ensure that the data entered is accurate and consistent. Spreadsheets, on the other hand, rely on manual data validation, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Data integrity: A database ensures data integrity by enforcing relationships between tables, enforcing referential integrity, and providing transactional consistency. This can prevent data inconsistencies and errors from arising. Spreadsheets, on the other hand, can easily become inconsistent and error-prone.
Data sharing: A database allows multiple users to access and update the data simultaneously, whereas spreadsheets are typically limited to a single user at a time.
Data scalability: A database can handle large amounts of data, whereas spreadsheets tend to become slow and unwieldy as the number of rows and columns increases.
Data security: A database allows you to set permissions and access controls, which can help to ensure that sensitive data is protected. Spreadsheets, on the other hand, are typically less secure and can be easily shared or copied.
Data Reporting and analysis: A database can make it easier to extract, transform and load data, to use it for reporting and analysis, it can handle large and complex data sets, and can be integrated with other software tools for advanced analysis. Spreadsheets require manual manipulation of data and can be limited in the amount of data that can be handled.

In summary, a database provides a more robust and efficient way to store, manage, and analyze large amounts of data, it also allows for multiple users to access and update the data simultaneously, and it provides better security and data integrity compared to spreadsheets.

Make the move from spreadsheets to MRSware, increasing productivity, accuracy, and reporting. Sign-up for our Demo or request a Free Trial today.

What to Look for in your Rep CRM

1/20/2023

Manufacturers reps, also known as independent sales reps or sales agents, typically need software that can help them manage their sales activities and customer relationships. This can include:

Contact management software: to store and organize information about their customers, including contact details, purchasing history, and communication history.
Sales tracking and forecasting software: to help reps stay on top of their sales activities, set goals, and predict future sales.
Product management software: to help reps stay up-to-date on their manufacturers' products, including product information, pricing, and inventory levels.
Commission tracking software: to keep track of commissions earned and ensure that reps are paid accurately and on time.
Marketing and promotional materials software: to create marketing materials, such as brochures and product sheets, and to track their effectiveness.
Expense tracking software: to keep track of expenses incurred while on the job and make sure they are reimbursed.
Mobile apps: to access their information and perform their tasks on-the-go.

It's worth to mention that many of this software can be integrated in a CRM (customer relationship management) software which can streamline the process and help reps to be more efficient.

MRSware provides the features you need to accurately track activity and measure results. Sign-up for our Demo or request a Free Trial today.

The Importance of Timely Commission Tracking

1/13/2023

Manufacturers reps, also known as independent sales reps or sales agents, play a vital role in the sales and marketing of products for manufacturers. One of the key challenges that reps face is tracking their commissions accurately and efficiently. Without effective commission tracking, reps may miss out on earning the money they are entitled to, which can lead to dissatisfaction and turnover.

One of the best ways to track commissions is by using commission tracking software. This software typically allows reps to enter their sales data, set their commission rates, and track their progress towards earning their commissions. It can also provide reps with detailed reports on their sales and commissions, which can help them to better understand their performance and identify areas for improvement.

Another important feature of commission tracking software is the ability to automatically calculate commissions earned. This eliminates the need for manual calculations and reduces the risk of errors. It also allows reps to see their commissions in real-time, which can help them to stay motivated and focused on their sales goals.

In addition to commission tracking software, manufacturers can also implement commission policies and procedures that are clear and transparent. This includes clearly communicating the commission rates and terms, providing regular reports on sales and commissions, and addressing any commission-related issues or concerns in a timely manner.

Communication is key, regular meetings with the reps to review their commissions and discussing any issues they may have will help to build trust and transparency in the process. Providing an interface for reps to review their sales and objectives on a regular basis builds confidence in and motivation for the sales process.

Effective commission tracking is not only beneficial for the reps, but also for manufacturers. It helps to ensure that reps are paid accurately and on time, which can lead to increased satisfaction and retention. It can also provide manufacturers with valuable insights into their sales performance and identify areas for improvement.

Overall, effective commission tracking is essential for manufacturers reps to stay motivated and focused on their sales goals, and it's crucial for manufacturers to have a clear and transparent commission policies and procedures, and to provide the necessary tools and support to make the process as smooth as possible.

MRSware provides the features you need to accurately track and deliver commission results. Sign-up for our Demo or request a Free Trial today.

Opportunities in MRSweb

11/11/2022

Opportunities are an integral part of a company's success. They come in all shapes and sizes, from current customers to new demographics to new products to new markets to new lines. They come from a variety of sources, manufacturers' marketing campaigns, trade shows, and social media. How you guide these opportunities through your sales funnel will determine the results of your sales efforts.

Being able to keep track of your activities during the sales process helps the sales team register more wins:

Sort and filter by name, manufacturer, prospect, campaign, type, sales phase, dollar volume, projected closed date, or close reason. Know specifics when reporting to your manufacturers.
Update, in bulk, all designs waiting on a backordered part. Easily let your prospects know the latest time frame for delays or shipments.
Use the Chart view to see, at a glance, numbers and dollars in each Sales Phase, over time, and Won/Lost ratios. Click "Show Data" to see the same metrics in a data table.
Use the Calendar view to see deals in an Agenda/Month/Week/etc., based on Opened Date, Projected Closed Date, or any other date Know what you have to follow-up on this week or by the next due Opportunity.

Using Opportunities in MRSweb helps your team focus when call planning, while in-the-field, and when following up; helps you to manage your projects, deals, jobs, and bids more effectively; makes reporting to your manufacturers easier.

Succession Planning

10/31/2022

On September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died and Operation London Bridge, the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II, was set in motion. No other event, in recent times, could have brought home the importance of succession planning more effectively.

The key takeaway from this event is that Operation London Bridge was planned well in advance of the Queen's death and was revised over the years to keep it current and relevant. The plan was comprehensive, including all details from the death announcement to the details of the State Funeral to the duration of the mourning period. They even included a plan outlining actions to be taken should her death occur in Scotland (Operation Unicorn).

How can we learn from this event? The first and most important lesson is that a succession plan is an essential part of any business. The plan must also be looked at frequently, revised when needed to keep it up-to-date, and include implementation and communication details for all affected parties.

ChangeLog: MRSweb general updates for working with Sales Imports

8/29/2022

A. More combinations of having and not having PO Number, Order Number, and Invoice Number are now handled by the Sales Importer. When using Update Records, there will be reduced change of missing Orders based on not having any information about an Order in the source import spreadsheet.

B. Deleting a Payment in MRSweb will now confirm the action and delete all of the Payment's Line Items as well. This behaviour matches what takes place in Desktop. Deleting a Payment will not delete any Invoices or their commission amounts from Invoices that were confirmed on the Payment, it just deletes that Payment and checked items that were marked as paid on it.

C. Batch Import Summary now has direct links to related items throughout the system, to make it easier to jump from the Batch Import Summary page to the pages of those items, without having to find and filter for the items yourself. These links open the related page in a new tab, filtered to the Batch Number used.

Number of Import Rows: brings the User to the Sales Import page
Number of Order Line Items: brings the User to the Order Line Items page
Number of Orders: brings the User to the Orders page
Number of Invoice Line Items: brings the User to the Invoice Line Items page
Number of Invoices: brings the User to the Invoices page

When navigating between Pages in MRSweb, each Page remembers where you left off. This is extremely helpful in going back and forth between sections and not losing filters, sorts, and Views that were used last (and having to set them up again). However, this does also apply to the links directing you to other pages -- for example, you may need to change the View in Sales Import to the "Imported" list if you were last looking in one of the other filtered Views.

D. The label for Discount Amount has been changed to Unit Discount, to better reflect that the Discount being records here is per-unit-item, just like the Unit Price. The math that is being performed related to this column is:
(Unit Price - Unit Discount) * Quantity = Sales Amount

E. With the Unit Discount label change, the order of the columns has also been changed to better reflect the order or calculation related to the equation used above. I.e. the column order is now Unit Price, Unit Discount, Quantity, Sales Amount.

F. The Item Description field will now take up to 80 characters of text as the description. This is up from 50, which was the previous limit.

ROI with Activity Tracking

7/13/2022

When you're taking a look at your business' profitability, one of the factors to consider is whether your Principals and/or your Customers are generating a good ROI (return on investment). Being able to track the ratio of earnings to time spent on these partners gives you a general idea of the success of your sales efforts and your profitability.

We all have our favorites - favorite manufacturers and favorite customers. These are the people who we feel most comfortable with, who appreciate us, and who we spend most of our time working for (manufacturer) or selling to (customer). What we don't often do is check to make sure that the time spent is worth it - i.e. a good ROI.

Fighting Inflation in Your Business

7/5/2022

According to a report from MetLife and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, at the end of March 2022, small business owners feel good about the health of their businesses, while at the same time 85% are concerned about inflation. Closely following inflation these owners are also troubled about ongoing supply chain disruptions, persistent COVID challenges, and worker shortages.

While there's little you can do to control supply chain issues, COVID, or worker shortages, you can address inflation in your business. Here are 6 ways to handle inflation and improve your bottom line:

Analyze your business' profitability
Maximize line synergy
Prepare for new customers
Cut expenses
Automate processes
Improve productivity

ChangeLog: Inline Help

6/21/2022

New Help pages have been added directly in MRSweb for the MRSweb interface. General Help can still be found on www.mrsware.com, for both Desktop and Web; this change adds inline help directly on the pages you are looking at in the Web app.

To access Help for the page you are on, click the 3-dot menu (...) in the upper-right of MRSweb and select Help in the menu. The Help page specific to the page you are on will appear.

Help pages have an overview of what the page is used for, its major or unique columns, and links to more information in the www.mrsware.com Documentation and Training materials.

ChangeLog: Updating Sales Rep on a Customer entry will also update the Sales Rep assigned to the Company

5/29/2022

A while back we introduced the Sales Rep assignments in the Company listing. This is a new capability in Web that allows the Agency to better control access to the larger Company list in the system. Permissions dictate that only Users of the assigned Sales Rep or Territory, as well as the Owners group, have access to those Company entries.

Now, when a Sales Rep assignment is updates in the Customer list, that same change will be reflected in the Company list, to better keep those lists up-to-date with each other. As such, updated to the assignments should be primarily done in the Customer list (as they always have been), so that the updates propagate down to their respective Company and Individual entries.

If it is desirable to have a different Sales Rep assignment on the Company than on the Customer entry -- for example, in the cases where an Agency shares all the Companies, but not all the Customers with their Users -- then change the Sales Rep assignment in the Company, and the existing assignment will NOT be changed in the Customer.

Update Sales Rep Assignments

Sales Rep assignments can continue to be updated in Desktop or Web, with no changes to how it is done in either place. Bulk Updates in Desktop and Batch Edit in Web take on this new function to update their corresponding Company entries. Direct updates to Company assigned Sales Rep needs to be done in Web, and that is where the permission to view Companies takes place... I.e. if you would like your Agency to have tighter restrictions on which Companies a User can see, Web is where you want them to login.

Bulk Assign Sales Rep in Desktop has no limit to the number of entries that can be changed in one go. In Web, the Batch Update feature is limited to 1000 entries at a time. If you have more than a 1000 entries to change in the Companies list, please feel free to get in contact with us to see if we can make your initial setup go faster!

Being Successful with Assignments

For those Agencies that desire to remain open, with all Users seeing the full Company list, we recommend setting up a Sales Rep Management entry for this purpose:

In Sales Reps, create a new "Agency" Type entry, call it something like "Everyone".
Assign all the Users in the system to this new entry.
Go to the Company list and assign the "Everyone" entry to all Companies.

This same idea can be combined with regular Sales Rep assignments as well... Have some entries (like the Lead-lists) accessible to Everyone, while leaving existing Customers assigned and viewable by their regular Sales Rep.

Permissions Summary

In summary, who is allowed to see each entry depends on their Sales Rep assignment:

Unassigned: only the Owners group can see these
Assigned: all Users who are assigned to the corresponding Sales Rep Management entry

ChangeLog: Aggregates Everywhere

4/15/2022

Many new totals columns have been added in various financial screens throughout MRSweb. These columns now all have the capability to aggregate data as well. These aggregates are typically shown as a Sum or Average (as appropriate to the metric) at the bottom of the listing or table views.

Aggregation: The collection of unit parts into a grouping or whole. Totaling Sales by Invoice at the individual level is an aggregate, as is totaling all the Invoices in a listing to get a total for the month, Customer, Manufacturer, etc.

ChangeLog: Batch Number added for Easy Filtering of Imports

12/27/2021

The Batch Number field was added to the Sales Import screen, as well as the Order, Order Line Item, Invoice, and Invoice Line Item screens. Assigning a unique Batch Number to a file that is being imported allows the User to easily filter by Batch Number in any of the related screens to find all related items.

Think of the case where there is a Commission Statement being imported, and that statement includes Invoices across multiple months. To otherwise filter in the Invoices screen after import, the Created On date range would have to be used to pull up all the entries. Using the Batch Number instead, all entries, regardless of input time or occurrence date, can be pulled up with a simple text filter.

Unique Batch Numbers

Users will want to make sure that Batch Numbers are unique -- don't use the same name for multiple imports. When the same name is used, the filtering purpose of the field is eliminated.

To help keep the entries unique, an empty Batch Number field will automatically be filled in with a unique Number. In this way, it is not necessary for the User to enter anything at all in this field and still make use of it. If the User chooses to enter their own number, a combination of the file name and date with time of the import is usually sufficient to make the entry unique.