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What is a trial? A trial is a state that an account can be placed in that allows access to certain features of a higher subscription tier for a limited time. How to initiate a trial From Partner Center (by clicking an in-platform call-to-action and starting a trial with no credit card necessary) This starts a Premium trial for 14 days (for most partners) or 30 days (if referred by an affiliate) By a Vendasta representative Contact a Vendasta representative for assistance setting up a trial What features are limited while on Trial? Some features, even while on a trial, may be limited or unavailable. Typically, these limitations are in place to protect against fraudulent activity.  Feature How is it limited? Vendasta payments Unavailable for Free partners on a trial. Only available on paid subscription tiers.  Start selling 3rd party products in the Marketplace Unavailable for Free or Starter partners on a trial. Publishing email campaigns and sending test emails Unavailable for Free partners on a trial. Only available for paid subscription tiers. Acquisition Widgets Unavailable for Free partners on a trial. Premium Reports Unavailable for Free or Starter partners on a trial. Additional seats Unavailable on a trial. Only the seats available at the subscription tier. Snapshot Reports and Standard Product allotment Only the amount for the current subscription is available (1 for each on Free).

Company fields store information about a company that you work with, such as their name, or the last time you have reached out to one of their contacts. Default properties are created in each company to store some important information. Some of the properties, such as the last engagement date, are automatically populated. Company information ID: Unique identifier assigned to each company. External ID: An identifier used by external systems or databases to reference the company. Company name: The official name of the company. Website: The URL address of the company's website. Street address line 1: First line of the company's physical street address. Street address line 2: Second line of the company's physical street address. City/locality: The city or locality where the company is located. State/province/region: The state, province, or region where the company is located. Zip/postal code: The postal code or ZIP code of the company's location. Country: The country where the company is located. Phone number: The contact phone number for the company. Tags: Keywords or labels used to categorize or classify the company. Fax number: The fax number for the company (if applicable). Number of employees: The total count of employees working in the company. Legal structure: The legal form or structure of the company. Lifecycle stage: The stage of the company in the customer lifecycle (Including Visitors, Lead, Marketing qualified lead, Sales accepted lead, Sales qualified lead, Prospect, Customer, and Former customer). Record Source: This tells you how the records were originally created within your CRM system. It may refer to manual data entry, data import, or capture through web forms, among other sources. Record Source Drill Down 1: This provides a more detailed breakdown of the primary record source, offering additional insights into specific methods or channels within the main source category. Record Source Drill Down 2: This offers even further detail about the record source, giving granular insights into the processes or sub-channels that contribute to the creation of records in the CRM. Original Source: This tells you the source where a contact interacted with your business, such as a website visit, a social media interaction, or a direct contact through email. This is currently not captured automatically, you will need to set up automation to infer this field from the UTM parameters. Original Source Drill Down 1: This provides a more specific look into the original source, detailing the particular platform or medium within the original source where the contact first interacted with your business (e.g., a specific social media platform or search engine). Original Source Drill Down 2: This goes deeper into the specifics of the original source, offering detailed insights about the specific activity or interaction that brought the contact to your business (e.g., a specific campaign or advertisement). Source name: The name of the source or channel through which the company was acquired. Timezone: The timezone in which the company operates or is located. Category IDs: Unique identifiers assigned to categorize the company. Facebook URL: The URL of the company's Facebook page. X URL: The URL of the company's X profile. Instagram URL: The URL of the company's Instagram profile. LinkedIn URL: The URL of the company's LinkedIn page. UTM Campaign: The name or identifier of the campaign associated with the company. UTM Medium: The medium or channel of the campaign associated with the company. UTM Source: The specific source of the campaign associated with the company. UTM Content: The content or variant of the campaign associated with the company. UTM Term: The specific keyword or term associated with the campaign for the company. GCLID: Google Click Identifier associated with the company. FBCLID: Facebook Click Identifier associated with the company. MSCLKID: Microsoft Click Identifier associated with the company. Created date: The date when the company record was created. Google Place ID: The unique identifier assigned to the company on Google Maps. Google review score: The overall review score of the company on Google. This is filled in when the company is created from the “Find nearby businesses” process. Group: Indicates the group to which the company belongs. Next task ID: The identifier of the next task associated with the company. Next task due date: The due date for the next task associated with the company. Owner ID: The unique identifier for the user who created the company record. Parent company: The parent company to which the company belongs. Engagement information Last activity date: The date of the last recorded activity associated with the company. Last campaign email clicked date: The date when the last campaign email was clicked by any of the company’s contact Last campaign email open date: The date when the last campaign email was opened by any of the company’s contact Last campaign email sent date: The date when the last campaign email was sent to any of the company’s contact Last campaign email sent name: The name or identifier of the last campaign email sent to any of the company’s contact Last campaign email bounced date: The date when the last campaign email was bounced by any of the company’s contact Last contact date: The date of the last contact made with any of the company’s contacts by any user. Last sales email received date: The date when the last sales email was sent by any of the company’s contacts to any salesperson in your account. This requires auto-forwarding to be set up. Learn more here. Last sales email sent date: The date when the last email was sent to any of the company’s contacts from your email inbox. This requires auto bcc to be set up. Learn more here. Partner-specific information (Does not exist in the Business App) Platform account group ID: The identifier for the account group. Salesperson: The individual responsible for managing sales activities for the company. Additional salespeople: Other individuals involved in sales activities for the company. Snapshot information (Does not exist in the Business App) Last review data updated date: The date when the last review data was updated for the company. Review performance grade: A grade or rating assigned to evaluate the performance of reviews associated with the company, typically based on criteria such as review quantity and review quality. Average number of reviews per month: The average count of reviews received by the company per month. Average review score: The average score or rating received by the company based on reviews. Number of review sources: The count of distinct sources from which reviews of the company are gathered or collected. Number of reviews: The total count of reviews received by the company across all review sources. Review data updated date: The date when the review data for the company was last updated by the Snapshot Report. Social Performance Grade: A composite rating that assesses the overall effectiveness and engagement of an individual or organization's social media presence based on various metrics like likes, shares, and follower counts. Total Number of Facebook Likes: The number of likes on the company’s Facebook page. Average Number of Facebook Likes per Post: The average number of likes on the company post on Facebook. Average Number of Facebook Posts per Month: The average number of posts published on the company’s Facebook page per month Average Number of Facebook Shares per Post: The average number of times the company’s Facebook post is shared. Total Number of X Posts: The total number of posts made on the social media platform "X". Total Number of Followers on X: The total number of individuals who follow the company’s profile on the social media platform "X". Total Number of Following on X: The total number of profiles that the company follows on the social media platform "X". Total Number of Instagram Followers: The total number of followers on an Instagram account. Total Number of Instagram Posts: The total number of posts published on an Instagram account. Last Social Performance Grade Updated Date: The most recent date when the Social Performance Grade was calculated. Instagram Data Last Updated Date: The most recent date when the data regarding Instagram was updated. Facebook Data Last Updated Date: The most recent date when the data regarding Facebook was updated. X Data Last Updated Date: The most recent date when the data for "X" was updated. Google Business Profile claimed: Indicates whether the company has claimed or verified its Google Business Profile. SEO local search grade: A grade or rating indicating the effectiveness of the company's SEO strategy specifically in local search results, assessing factors like local listings, citations, and geographical relevance. SEO daily organic traffic value: The estimated value of organic traffic received by the company's website daily as a result of SEO efforts. SEO number of organic keywords: The total count of keywords for which the company's website ranks organically in search engine results pages (SERPs), excluding paid advertisements. SEO organic clicks per month: The total number of clicks received by the company's website from organic search results in a given month. SEO organic domain ranking: The ranking or position of the company's domain in organic search engine results, often based on factors like domain authority, relevance, and backlink profile. SEO data updated date: The date when search engine optimization (SEO) data for the company was last updated by the Snapshot Report. Technology IDs: Unique identifiers assigned to categorize or classify the technologies used by the company on its website, such as software platforms, programming languages, or IT infrastructure. Technology IDs updated date: The date when the list of technology identifiers associated with the company was last updated. Snapshot latest expiry date: The expiration date of the most recent Snapshot report created for the company. Snapshot latest created date: The date when the most recent Snapshot report was created for the company. Snapshot latest snapshot ID: The unique identifier assigned to the most recent Snapshot report created for the company. Website data last updated date: The most recent date on which the website's data was updated. Website grade: An overall rating of the website based on various factors by Snapshot. Website mobile speed: The speed at which the website loads and performs on mobile devices. Website desktop speed: The speed at which the website loads and performs on desktop computers. Website is secure: Indicates whether the website has security measures in place, such as an SSL certificate, to protect user data and ensure safe browsing. Website is mobile friendly: Indicates whether the website is optimized for use on mobile devices, ensuring a good user experience on smartphones and tablets. Website has video: Indicates whether the website contains video content. Website has phone number: Indicates whether the website displays a phone number for contact purposes. Website has physical address: Indicates whether the website displays a physical address for contact or location purposes. Website link to Instagram: Indicates whether the website has a link to its Instagram profile. Website links to X (formerly Twitter): Indicates whether the website has a link to its X (formerly Twitter) profile. Website links to Facebook: Indicates whether the website has a link to its Facebook profile.

Opportunities in Business App allow you to manage potential revenue and track your sales progress, helping you connect opportunities to various CRM records, such as contacts and companies. This streamlined approach keeps your sales pipeline organized and provides a clear overview of your business's potential growth. Where to Find Opportunities To access your Opportunities, go to CRM > Opportunities in Business App. From here, you'll land on the Pipeline View, where opportunities are organized by stage, providing a quick snapshot of your current sales pipeline. Pipeline View Features The Pipeline View offers several ways to manage and visualize your opportunities: Set Up Your Pipeline: If you haven’t created a pipeline yet, click Set up a pipeline to start.  Drag & Drop: Move opportunities between stages to track their progression seamlessly. Search & Filter: Find specific opportunities quickly using search and filter options. List View If you prefer a different layout, switch to List View by clicking on the "List" icon. In this view, you can: Customize Visible Data: Choose which data fields appear in the Table View by configuring columns. Sort, Search & Filter: Sort opportunities by expected close date or apply filters. Bulk Actions: Perform bulk updates for multiple opportunities at once. Opportunity Profile Page Clicking on an opportunity opens its Profile Page, where you can see details such as the opportunity timeline and associated contacts and companies. Activities logged against an opportunity are automatically linked to the associated contacts and companies, keeping your CRM records synchronized. Creating an Opportunity Manually Create an Opportunity Go to CRM > Opportunities. Click Create Opportunity in the top-right corner. Fill in the details and click Create. Automate Opportunity Creation Automatically create opportunities when specific conditions are met using automation. For example, you can set up automation to create a new opportunity whenever a lead is captured. Editing an Opportunity Opportunities can be edited from both the Profile Page and the Table View. From the Profile Page: Go to CRM > Opportunities and select the opportunity. In the left panel, click on the field you want to edit. Make your changes, then click outside the field to save. From the Table View: Go to CRM > Opportunities and switch to Table View. Click the action menu beside the opportunity. Select Edit Opportunity, make your updates, and click Save. Closing an Opportunity There are several ways to close an opportunity: Pipeline View: Drag the opportunity to the Closed Won or Closed Lost column. Profile Page: Select an opportunity, then click Closed Won or Closed Lost at the top. Stage Update: Open the opportunity profile, click on the Stage dropdown, and select Closed Won or Closed Lost.  Q&A Q: What currency is used for opportunity amounts? A: Opportunity amounts follow the currency set in your Business App. Q: How can I create a pipeline for my opportunities? A: Go to CRM > Opportunities and, if needed, click Set up a pipeline to begin. Q: Can I automate the creation of opportunities? A: Yes, automations can create opportunities based on set conditions, such as capturing a new lead. Q: How do I close an opportunity? A: Use the Pipeline View, Profile Page, or Stage dropdown to mark an opportunity as Closed Won or Closed Lost. Q: Can I link an opportunity to multiple contacts or companies? A: Opportunities can be linked to several contacts and companies. Logged activities on the opportunity are automatically associated with these linked records.

You have the option to hide your physical business address in Listing Sync Pro, Citation Builder, and Listings Grade in the Snapshot Report. Clients will be able to list their business as a "Service Area Business" rather than a service in one physical location. This feature is also available as a “Bulk Update” action. Partners will be able to accommodate existing and prospective clients who run service area businesses. These businesses offer local services without a physical location, such as those that offer mobile or online services, operate from home, or use third-party locations. Service area providers will now be able to accurately sync their listings with sources that support a hidden physical address, which will result in a more accurate listing score. This will also improve the accuracy of the listing grade in the snapshot report for these businesses.Certain listing sources do not currently support this feature. This will affect the number of Listing Sync Pro sources that show up as available to sync with, in Local SEO. Though this will reduce the number of sources that are available to sync with, it will not impact your listing score negatively. How Does it Work? When creating a new account in Partner Center > Accounts > Manage Accounts:  Under “Business Profile”, check the box next to Service Area Business (hide physical address). This can be found under the “Zip/Postal Code” field. This option will be set to Off by default. To hide the physical address for an existing account: In Partner Center, select Businesses > Accounts. Select the business you would like to edit. Click on the "View all data" button  Under “Location”, below the “Zip/ Postal Code” field, check the box next to Service Area Business (hide physical address). Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save. To hide physical addresses for multiple existing accounts: In Partner Center: Select Businesses > Accounts Click the menu icon next to Create Account > Select Update Accounts (CSV Upload). Upload a CSV file with the new data, either by first exporting a list to a CSV, or using the provided template.[*Note — The template features a column titled Service Area Business. Include in the template all the accounts that need their address hidden, and write Yes in this column, next to each account.] Upload the CSV file and click Next. Select the box next to Address. Choose if you would like the empty cells to overwrite existing data in the spreadsheet and click Next. 7. Review the updated changes and click Update. The suppressed address update will take 6 to 8 weeks to be synced on all listing platforms.

Overview Once you start an email marketing campaign, Vendasta tracks how recipients engage with the campaign to help you make insightful decisions. When you open a campaign, you can view how many recipients received, opened, and clicked through each email in the campaign. You can also view how many times an email bounced, or how many recipients unsubscribed from an email.All activity is always attributed to the original recipient, even though external processes and systems can sometimes initiate the activity. There are no clear indicators to differentiate if these activities are initiated by a human or an automated program, resulting in some Open Rates or Click-Through Rates (CTRs) being falsely registered on behalf of the recipient. Here are some common reasons why that may happen: Third-party unsubscribe links: Our email campaigns contain an unsubscribe link. When this link is clicked, it only registers as an “unsubscribe” and not as a click. However, many email clients nowadays have the option to ask the recipient to unsubscribe from suspected spam/newsletter emails. If the recipient unsubscribes using these third-party links, it registers with a click. Recipient email client settings: An email's open rate is recorded with a single tracking pixel embedded into the email. Usually, this tracking pixel is associated with an image. A recipient’s email client may block loading images to protect the recipient from spammers. If the email client blocks loading images, the open rate is not tracked. Spam and virus scanners: Some internet service providers (ISP) click on links within an email to check for security risks. When this happens, the clicks are recorded on behalf of the recipient.Unfortunately, these external initiations are out of our control. To maintain accurate email metrics, we recommend identifying domains that skew campaign metrics and segmenting those domains from your analysis. Export Campaign Activity After starting an email campaign, you can export a list of users who interacted with the campaign. Then, you can use that exported data to create a new user list and retarget those users with another campaign.To export campaign activity: Go to Marketing > Campaigns. Go to the Campaign Activity page.  At the end of a row in the campaigns table, click the three dots next to the Campaign, then click View History. Why is this important? The Email Builder streamlines the process of creating emails, offering an easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality. This empowers you to save time and craft effective emails that engage prospects and drive conversions. How to create custom email campaigns Go to Marketing in the left navigation menu > Campaigns. Click Create Campaign in the upper right. Enter a descriptive name for the campaign that your salespeople will recognize. Click Create. Depending on what you want to do, click Add existing email, Create new email, or Add Snapshot Report.  If you select Create new email, you will immediately enter the Email Builder where you can build your email campaign. If you selected Add Snapshot Report, the campaign will automatically create or refresh a Snapshot Report for your prospect. If any of the emails in the campaign link to the Snapshot Report, this event ensures the information in the report is up-to-date. Continue adding events until you have finished creating the campaign Adjust the days before starting or days after previous event. We recommend the following email frequencies: Customer Acquisition: lower frequency (1 email/week) Product Adoption: higher frequency (3 emails/week) Product Upsell: lower frequency (1 email/week) Configure your campaign to bring in the right number of leads on the right days. Learn more. Before publishing your campaign, preview and test your emails. Click the ⋮ icon menu and select Preview > Send test email.

The Review Grade is a letter grade given to your clients’ businesses to evaluate their online review presence. The Review Grade is currently used in our Sales intelligence report, Snapshot Report, to evaluate the business’s online reputation before partnering with your company. The Review Grade in the Executive Report enhances reporting transparency for your clients and shows proof of performance over time. Recommended Reading: Know Exactly How to Improve Your Clients' Reputations with the Review Grade How is the Review Grade calculated? The Review Grade is calculated based on the business’ performance in four categories: Average review score Number of review sources Reviews found Number of reviews found per month Scores in the four categories are then combined and compared to the industry average to get the final letter grade using this percentile grading system: A = 90 - 100th percentile B = 75 - 89th percentile C = 50 - 74th percentile D = 30 - 49th percentile F = 0 - 29th percentile For example, if a business has an average review score of 3.5. This puts the business in the 10th percentile compared to the industry average (4.32) and industry leader (5). This category receives an F. The same calculations are done for the other three categories and a combined score results in a Review Grade of C. The Review Grade is turned on by default.   How do I disable the Review Grade? We do not recommend disabling the Review Grade from your clients' Executive Reports, however, you may do so from a setting in Partner Center. Follow these steps if you'd like to turn off the Review Grade for all markets (if applicable): 1. Log in to Partner Center  2.  Administration > Customize Business App > Executive Report > Review Grade 3. Uncheck the box beside Show Review Grade Card in Executive Report for SMBs. All markets will abide by these Partner settings. If you wish to enable the Review Grade for select markets, follow the steps below, but ensure the setting is set to Enable. Follow these steps if you'd like to turn off the Review Grade for select markets: 1. Log in to Partner Center > Administration > Customize Business App > Executive Report > Review Grade 2. Click the tab 'Markets'. 3. Uncheck the box beside Show Review Grade Card in Executive Report for SMBs.

You can use dynamic content to personalize your emails and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns. How does dynamic content work? Once your email is sent, the platform automatically replaces dynamic content with real information about your prospect/customer, products, and more depending on the content you chose. That means you only have to build one campaign, and the content in your emails will automatically be personalized! To add dynamic content from the Create Content or Edit Content page: You can access the Create Content or Edit Content page by creating a custom campaign or editing an existing campaign. Add Dynamic Components to the Email Builder 1. Navigate to Partner Center > Marketing > Campaigns > Create Campaign > Name your new campaign > Create new email. 2. From here, you can add Dynamic Components to your Subject Line and Inbox Preview Text. Once you have added a new block of text for the body of your email, you can also insert Dynamic Components: Options for dynamic components include Account details Partner details Salesperson details  Business App details  Snapshot Report Product details  Once a category is selected, further options to add specific details will become available: 

Email marketing campaigns can be paused or unpaused from Partner Center. Currently, pausing and then unpausing a campaign will not preserve buffering recipients. Pausing a campaign will move all recipients to Stopped, including those that were buffering before the campaign was paused. Unpausing a campaign will move all Stopped recipients to In Progress, including those that had been buffering before the campaign was paused.When a campaign is paused, all preset email drip timing will be reset. For example, if a campaign is paused, each recipient will be reset to wait the full duration between the step they last received and the next step they should receive. To pause/unpause an email campaign: Go to Partner Center > Marketing > Campaigns. Search for the campaign you want to pause. Click the three dots  at the end of the campaign row. Click Pause Campaign or Resume Campaign. You can also pause/unpause the campaign from the campaign page. Click Actions in the upper right corner of the screen, then click Pause Campaign or Resume Campaign.  Issues with unpausing email campaigns If a campaign will not unpause, it is likely due to one of the following reasons: Account(s) on the campaign is missing a Snapshot Report when a Snapshot is required for the campaign. Retry after ensuring that all accounts have a Snapshot Report. See this article for more details on how to leverage the Snapshot Creation campaign step within your email campaign. Account(s) on the campaign are missing a specific product or add-on when a specific product or add-on is required for the campaign. Retry after ensuring that the required product—according to the campaign’s content—is active on all accounts. If the mailing address information is missing, an unsubscribe option will not be available. Check your email settings under Partner Center > Administration > Customize > Email Settings for more details. The loading deadline may have been exceeded. If this is the case, ensure that you are connected to the internet and try again.

Use forms to collect information from your visitors, and capture them as leads. With Vendasta, you can effortlessly create forms to integrate into your websites. Create a form In Partner Center, navigate to Marketing > Forms. In the upper right, click Create form. Enter a name for your form. Click Create. Adding and editing form fields Adding form fields on your form to gather data from visitors. You have the option to add a rich text area among the fields, which allows for the addition of customizable text, headers, or space within your form. By default, Email is required for a form submission to generate a contact, and Company name is required to generate a company. We verify the validity of an email address before allowing submissions. Additionally, company details are automatically captured when a company is selected from Google-powered search boxes in the company name field. To add a form field: In the “Build” tab, use the search bar to find an existing contact or company field that you would like to collect from your visitor and drag and drop the field into the main panel. Repeat and add all the contact and company fields you would like to collect from your web visitors. Editing a form field: There are a few different settings you can have on each form field For all field types You can set a default value, which will be submitted when the user submits an empty field. You can mark the field as required, and the user can’t submit the form without filling in the required field. You can make the field hidden, so users won’t see the field and can’t edit it when they fill out the form. You can also populate the specific form field dynamically, which will take the query parameter from the URL to fill in the field. For example, if you have a form that’s put on this link: https://www.example.com/form?campaign=spring-promotion If you put “campaign” on this setting, it will pre-fill the form field with “spring-promotion” when the user submits the form. For the string field You can switch it to an open text field, drop-down, or provide a radio button option Styling the form In the “Design” tab, you can style the form’s container, font, and button. Embedding the form In the upper right corner, Click “Embed”. In the “Embed Form” pop-up, click “Copy Code”. Paste it on the website you want to embed the form on as a HTML snippet. Use automation with forms For any contact and company created from form submission, they will have their record source captured as “Form”. With this, you can leverage automation to automate different processes, including generating a Snapshot Report, sending a follow-up email, adding them to a drip campaign, or creating sales task. Here are two automation templates that you can get started with: Create a Snapshot Report when a form is submitted. Send a follow-up email when a form is submitted. Spam prevention You can set up reCAPTCHA in the form to prevent Spam. In the form builder, under “Setting”, you can find a section called “reCAPTCHA settings”, and it will be set up automatically after you generate the site key and secret key. The generation process takes several minutes and you can learn how to generate your site key and a secret key for free here.

The following List actions are available from Partner Center > Accounts > Lists by clicking the Menu icon  next to the List. Export Account Data Add Tags Add to Campaign Pause Campaigns Create Multi-Location Group Create/Refresh Snapshot Trigger Automation Activate Product Activate Addon Change Market Delete Export Account Data Creates a downloadable CSV with the current data of all accounts in the List. This export contains the following information: Company Name Address City State Country Code Zip/Postal Code Work Number(s) Website Salesperson Email Customer Identifier Active Products (Listing Builder, Social Marketing, Reputation Management) Account Identifier Tags Toll-free Number Description Short Description Landmark Payment Methods Services Brands Hours of Operation Healthcare fields (if applicable) After selecting Export Account Data, you will be taken to the List’s History page. Once the export has finished, you will be able to download the CSV by clicking the Menu icon , then Account NAP/Product CSV. Add Tags Allows you to add tags to every account in the List. This is useful should you wish to use tags to filter accounts later. Add To Campaign Allows you to add the List to an email marketing campaign. This will add all the users and contacts that are assigned to the accounts in the List to that campaign. Learn more Pause Campaigns Allows you to pause a currently active campaign for all the users and contacts that are assigned to the accounts in the List. It's little confusing with the status when it's paused. "Paused" will not appear as a separate status, but if there is a campaign in "ongoing" status, pausing it will change the status to "published". Create Multi-Location Group Allows you to create a Multi-location group based on the List. After selecting this option, you will be given the choice of how you would like to segment the group. Here, you can choose either Geographic Region or Account Tag(s). Create/Refresh Snapshot Depending on the state of the account, one of three things will happen: If there has never been a Snapshot Report created for the account, a new Snapshot Report will be created. If an account has previously had a Snapshot Report that has expired, that Snapshot Report will be refreshed. If an account currently has an active Snapshot Report (created in the last 7 days), that account will be skipped. Trigger Automation Allows you to trigger a specific automation for each account within the List. There are a number of useful ways you can utilize automations within Lists. To learn more about this click here.  Activate Product Allows you to activate a single product on each account within the List. If an account already has the selected product active, that account will be skipped. However, you can do a fresh activation and not and edition change with this functionality. Please be aware that activating a product will result in a charge appearing on your next bill. For this reason, please be sure that only accounts you wish to activate the product for are in the List. Activate Add-On Allows you to activate a single addon on each account within the List. If an account already has the selected addon active, that account will be skipped. Please be aware that activating an addon will result in a charge appearing on your next bill. For this reason, please be sure that only accounts you wish to activate the addon for are in the List. Change Market Allows you to change the market the accounts in the List are assigned to. This is useful if you have created a new market and are looking to move accounts to it. Delete Allows you to delete the List. Please be aware that the accounts in the List itself will not be removed; only the List the accounts are assigned to will be deleted. This action is irreversible, so please be sure you wish to fully remove the List before selecting.

The Industry Average represents the average performance of businesses listed under the same category in our system. Here’s how review grades are determined: Snapshot Report: The grade is calculated based on specific criteria related to reviews. You can learn more about how these grades are determined in the Snapshot Report Grade Calculations. Executive Report: Review grades in the Executive Report are based on a different set of factors and are explained in detail in the Executive Report Review Grades.  

Within the Vendasta platform, the terms "Accounts" and "Companies" are foundational elements, each serving a distinct role in how you interact with the platform. Understanding the differences between them can enhance your experience and streamline your operations. Accounts: Billing relationship An Account in Vendasta is a legacy entity that has been the backbone of our platform for many years. It is the administrative record that encompasses the billing, service provisioning, and historical data for our clients. Key Aspects of Accounts Billing Center: Accounts are tightly integrated with our billing systems. They are where all financial transactions, product activation, invoices, and billing details are managed. Back-end Foundation: While not directly visible in the front end, Accounts support numerous essential functions behind the scenes. Legacy Features: Many of the platform's original features and processes are designed around the Account structure, such as Opportunities, Orders, and Snapshot Reports. Companies: Customer relationship A Company is a newer concept introduced with our updated CRM system, designed to serve as the primary interface for managing client relationships. They focus on customer interaction, sales management, and operational details that support the growth and maintenance of your business connections. They contain the majority of data you would typically find within the accounts.  Benefits of Companies CRM-focused: Companies center on managing your interactions and opportunities with clients. Visibility and Access: Provide a more intuitive and streamlined user experience for relationship management activities, such as engagement and keeping information up to date. Future vision: While already capture most of the information from accounts, the goal is for Companies to become your 'Single Source of Truth' for business representation on our platform. The Distinct Roles Accounts: These are mainly used for handling your financial dealings on Vendasta. This covers billing details, product activations, and payment histories. To initiate these processes, you will need to create an account from the company if not already created. When the business information for an account is changed, it will sync with the Company details and vice versa.  Companies: These are centered on building and maintaining customer relationships. They help you track potential leads and manage ongoing client interactions through the activity timeline. This is the interface you’ll engage with the most. Currently, you can perform some actions, like generating Snapshot Reports, managing opportunities, and processing orders on the company page via the company’s associated account. We're in the process of expanding this to include automation, product activation, project tracking, and invoice management in the same manner, which will consolidate your workflow into one convenient page. For any further clarification or assistance, our Support team is always ready to ensure your Vendasta experience is both proficient and pleasant.

Automation triggers are specific actions that start your workflows. There are numerous triggers to choose from, and we're frequently adding more.  Some triggers are simple and are ready out-of-the-box, while other triggers may require specifying trigger options. Learn more about triggers here. Below is a full list of all currently available Automations Triggers: what the trigger is, an overview of what it does, any special cases, and example use cases. For some triggers, we may have a linked article with more detail on how the trigger works Trigger Overview Special Cases Example Use Cases Businesses       An account is created Starts the workflow when an account is created. The trigger is not able to detect likely duplicates (e.g. Jim’s Mowing and Jim’s mowing) When an account in Quebec is added, tag the account as possibly needing a salesperson fluent in French. An account is added to a list Starts the workflow when an account is added to a specified list. The trigger will not fire if the account begins on a list. When an SMB is added to the High Touch Client list, assign an experienced salesperson. An account is charged for a product Starts the workflow when a client account has been charged for a product   When a product, for instance, Reputation Management, is added to an account, an invoice is sent to the client. A user is active in Business App Starts the workflow when a user logs into Business App   When a user logs into Business App, a notification is sent to the assigned Salesperson A customer asked a question Starts the workflow when someone sends a message through here in the Business App. This was an original hot lead that has been migrated into built-in automation. When a user clicks the help button, assign a fulfillment agent to follow up. A user is added to an account Starts the workflow when a user is added to an account. If a user is removed from the account and then re-added, the automation may fire a second time. An SMB wanted a staff member added to their account to help administrate purchased products. When the partner adds the staff member to the account, an email campaign with helpful information is started. A company is created  Starts the workflow when a company is created.   When a company is created with missing data, assign a task to a salesperson to reach out and acquire that information. A contact is created Starts the workflow when a contact is created.   When a contact is created with missing data, assign a task to a salesperson to reach out and acquire that information. Get the associated account Given a company, get the account associated with it. If there’s no account, it will create one. I have a company and I want to start a campaign on it, so I get the account first since campaign actions are only available on accounts currently. Campaigns       There’s activity on a campaign email Starts the workflow when a campaign email is opened or clicked. Open and click can be differentiated. Only CTA clicks are counted. It is not possible to differentiate which link is clicked. There may be multiple users within the account, but the trigger only fires for the first user to click (unless the “run multiple times per account” setting is checked).  Learn more about click tracking A campaign has been sent to prospective leads. When a lead clicks the email, assign a task, a salesperson, and mark as a hot lead.  Fulfillment       A fulfillment project status is changed Starts the workflow when a user changes the status on a fulfillment project.   A fulfillment manager changes the status of a client fulfillment project from 'open' to 'in progress'; the assigned Salesperson receives an email updating them on the project status. A fulfillment project for an order changes status Starts the workflow when a user changes the status on a fulfillment project order.     A fulfillment task status is changed Starts the workflow when a user changes the status of a fulfillment task.   A fulfillment manager changes the status of a client fulfillment task from 'in progress' to 'complete'; the assigned Salesperson receives an email updating them on the task status. Products       A user on the account views a package Starts the workflow when an SMB views a package in the store in Business App. This was an original hot lead that has been migrated into built-in automation. When an SMB shows interest in Website Pro, send a promotional email with a discount. A product is activated Starts the workflow when a product is activated. (This includes custom products enabled by the partner) A product may be activated multiple times, but automation settings may mean the trigger is fired only once. When a website trial product is activated, send an email advertising web development services.  A product is deactivated Starts the workflow when a product is deactivated. (This includes custom products enabled by the partner) A product may be deactivated multiple times, but automation settings may mean the trigger is fired only once. When a high-profit product is canceled, notify a salesperson to follow up and investigate. A shopping cart is updated Starts the workflow when someone updates a shopping cart in the marketplace. The shopping cart only includes the product marketplace. When a shopping cart is updated, wait until an order is placed. If no order is placed after three days, send a follow-up email. Sales       An opportunity is created or status changed Starts the workflow when an opportunity is created, moves into a new pipeline stage and/or is closed. If an opportunity begins in the indicated pipeline stage the automation won’t run. When an opportunity is identified, upgrade the hotness level of an account. A sales order status is changed Starts the workflow when a sales order status changes. The sales order may originate from one or any source. If the sales order begins with the indicated status, the automation may not fire.  When an order is drafted, wait up to 24 hours for the order status to move to pending. If it hasn’t been issued after this time, create a task to investigate why the order wasn’t completed.  A user on an account makes a payment Starts the workflow when a customer makes a payment. The payment can succeed or fail. None When a payment fails, begin a Dunning process (i.e. using multiple actions) to ensure payment is collected. A sales task status is changed Starts the workflow when a sales task has its status changed to a specified status. The task’s assignee and task name can also be specified for the event. The corresponding “Delay until an event happens” action that uses this trigger doesn’t currently allow assignee and task name filters, due to the task event being a resource that is fetched and used as output data on the trigger but similar infrastructure doesn’t currently exist on the “delay” action. When a task named “follow up” and assigned to “Joe Smith” changes its status to waiting on the customer, send an email letting the customer know. A Snapshot Report is created Starts the workflow when a Snapshot Report is created All snapshots generally start as F ratings. This is because web scraping takes time. Users are advised to add delay steps after this trigger to ensure more accurate ratings are available. When a Snapshot Report is created, create a task to schedule a follow-up call. Assign a fulfillment agent to that task. Manual        Triggerd Manually Automations can also be triggered manually, much like shortcuts, whenever needed. Currently, manual automation triggers are available for Account Groups, Companies, Contacts, and Orders. When managing customer interactions and data, users need a way to quickly initiate automations for specific accounts, companies, contacts, or orders on demand, so they can streamline repetitive tasks without waiting for scheduled triggers, allowing for greater flexibility and efficiency in managing their workflows. When managing orders, I need the ability to manually add and remove tags through automation, so I can quickly update order information and keep it organized in real-time. When a new order is created, I need a manual automation to check the order status and, based on an inputted number of days, automatically add a tag if the order remains in drafts and archive it if it exceeds the specified timeline, ensuring timely follow-up and efficient order management. Advanced       It’s triggered via API for an account   API Documentation   A webhook is received  Starts the automation when the user POSTs to the given URL with the user-defined payload.   I want to integrate Vendasta into a third party system. Triggered via Zapier Starts the automation when the “Run Automation“ action is used in our Zapier app. Trigger an automation using Zapier. I want to make an automation that I can trigger from Zapier, to update contacts in the CRM, and send along the data as Zapier provides it. Contacts       When a contact is created or modified Automations can be triggered when a CRM contact is created or modified.   When a contact has their email updated, send them a new email confirming their email. A contact is created via Web Chat Automations can be triggered when the AI Web Chat creates a contact.   When a potential prospect is captured by the AI Web Chat on your website, notify a Salesperson to reach out to them. Companies Automations can be triggered when a CRM company is created or modified.   When a company has their salespeople updated, alert the salespeople they are assigned to a new company.

How does Reputation Management determine if a listing belongs to a business? We use Best Match—an algorithm that compares the business name, address, phone number, and website to the information found on the listing—to determine if a listing is relevant to a business. Should this process find a potential listing that is relevant to the business, it will appear in Reputation Management. How does it work? All sources with enough information to match the anchor data will be ranked and considered as “potential listings.” This means that some listings may be pulled in that do not belong to that given business. The unrelated listings will be considered relevant until they have been reviewed and selected as “not mine,” by the user. This can be done in the Listings tab of Reputation Management. This is why it is important to audit the listings before sending or sharing Snapshot Reports and before walking a new client through the Reputation Management dashboard. You can read more about this process here: How Best Match compares business information to potential listings. How can incorrect listings or reviews affect the business profile? An incorrect listing or a review from an unrelated business may show up in the Snapshot Report A review for an unrelated business is pulled into Reviews in Reputation Management An unrelated business listing is pulled into Listings in Reputation Management What you can do: Open the Reputation Management account. Go to the Listings tab. Review all of the listings. If you find a listing that doesn't belong to the business, click the menu and click Remove this match. What you can expect: The Snapshot Report, if still active, will update within 24 hours If the Snapshot Report needs to be viewed before the update takes place, you can manually remove the particular source with the incorrect listing from the report. Learn how to edit the Snapshot Report here: How to Customize a Snapshot Report Unrelated reviews in Reputation Management will be immediately removed The unrelated listing will no longer be monitored.

When a Snapshot Report is created, a demo version of Reputation Management is activated for 7 days. When a client decides to purchase Reputation Management Standard/Pro/Premium, you will need to convert that trial product to the new edition by following these steps: Visit Partner Center at partners.vendasta.com Click the Accounts tab > Manage Accounts. Search for the account in question. Once you have located the account you would like to upgrade, click on the account name. Select the three dots menu to the right of the Reputation Management Trial product and click Upgrade from Trial. 6. Choose a version of the Reputation Management product. 7. Check the box to consent to charges, then click on Upgrade to Paid.

When creating a Snapshot Report for a prospect, the Reputation Management trial will be activated. This allows your prospects with access to Business App the ability to work in Reputation Management unrestricted for seven days after the Snapshot Report has been created. Once the trial has expired, Business App users will still have access to a limited version of Reputation Management. This will allow them to view any data that had been entered previously, but Reputation Management will not check for changes to listings, look for new listings, or pull in any new reviews. This feature can be toggled on or off via the "Allow users to access 7-day trial and limited preview" option in Administration > Customize > General Product Settings > Reputation Management section within Partner Center.   With the feature toggled on anyone with access to Business App will be able to interact with the trial version of Reputation Management, and if the feature is toggled off Reputation Management will not appear. In addition, under Marketplace > Products, "Offer Free Trial" has to be turned on.

You can now allow your clients to invite other businesses to Business App, helping you acquire new leads and grow your customer base.  To turn on this setting: Create a landing page on your website to attract new customers. It's best if this page contains an Acquisition Widget so prospects can sign up, receive a Snapshot Report, or try free products. Go to Partner Center > Administration > Customize Business App > Add Your Clients Copy and paste the link to your landing page in the Invitation Landing Page URL field. Click Save.     Once the link is provided, an Invite a business button will appear in the profile section of the Business App.      When one of your clients clicks this button, they'll see this page (below) where they can copy the link to your landing page. They can then share this link with other businesses.     When a new business clicks on the link, it'll go to your landing page. If you've embedded an Acquisition Widget on the page, they can submit their contact information there. Want businesses to self sign-up for Business App? Configure the Acquisition Widget to create a Snapshot Report. New businesses will receive an email with the Report, and when they open the Report, they'll see a button to preview Business App. From there, they'll see the option to Sign up for the app. Configure the Acquisition Widget to send a campaign that includes a link to preview Business App (use the Business App Preview dynamic component). This button will allow businesses to preview Business App, where they'll see the option to Sign up for the app.   Start acquiring new customers 

Account Lists are a great way to group and organize your customer accounts. Account Lists allow you to perform bulk actions that affect each account in the list, including: Exporting account data Adding account tags Sending email campaigns Pausing email campaigns Creating Brand Reports Creating and refreshing Snapshot Reports Activating products and add-ons Changing the Market the accounts are assigned to For more information on creating and managing account Lists, please refer to these articles: Create account Lists Import account Lists Add accounts to Lists List actions Remove accounts from Lists  

Our dedicated team of product and platform experts known as Onboarding Specialists are assigned to your account for 90 days when you purchase an onboarding package. They will assist you in getting your agency set up for success in our platform by providing comprehensive training on:  Adding accounts Building your store Building email marketing campaigns  Setting up automations Running, customizing, and sending Snapshot Reports Adding your team  Building sales and customer onboarding processes  And so much more!  To learn more about our Onboarding packages, please contact us at onboarding@vendasta.com.

Going beyond product peddling by proving performance. This week, George chats with Jed Williams, Chief Innovation Officer of the Local Media Association to discuss how personalized, business-specific data can help you drive sales in 2018. Tune in to hear them discuss how to execute a better customer needs assessment, the post-sale quarterback strategy... and something about a #blowything. If you don't want to miss an episode, subscribe now. Join in the discussion on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter! Guest: Jed Williams Jed Williams is the Chief Innovation Officer at the Local Media Association, where he leads industry wide digital revenue and business transformation initiatives for newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters, digital publishers, and R&D partners. These programs include Innovation Missions, Chief Digital Club executive networking groups, and LMA’s strategic consulting practice. Previously, Williams was a Senior Analyst and Vice President of Strategic Consulting at BIA/Kelsey, where he managed the company’s consulting division. He has led projects for AT&T, Constant Contact, Google, Time-Warner Cable, and Yahoo!. He has also advised local media companies such as GateHouse Media, Advance Digital, CNHI, Raycom, and Valpak. He previously also helped lead business development and strategy for two venture-backed technology companies, Vendasta and Main Street Hub. Williams’ insights have been cited by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Digiday, Bloomberg, FOX Business, and the BBC, among others. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and corporate meetings. He has written extensively on creative destruction and disruptive media and his work has been published and taught by the Columbia Journalism School and the Yale School of Management. > Connect with Jed Williams on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for more industry insights. — Coming up on this week's edition of the Conquer Local Podcast, we speak to Jed Williams, the Chief Innovation Officer of the Local Media Association, working with media organizations all over North America. You'll learn why you need to be thinking about a CNA 2.0, and what is it. If you're going to do this job, you've got to get really serious about consultive selling. And Jed will talk about process, structure, and data from his work with hundreds of media organizations. It's all coming up next on the Conquer Local Podcast. George: Jed Williams is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Local Media Association. He's joining us today on the Conquer Local Podcast. My friend, thanks for coming on board. Jed: Mighty George Leith, it's a delight and pleasure to be on your podcast and I'm so excited that you guys have launched us. George: Well, it's been a long time in the making, and it's a huge commitment when you say you're gonna do a podcast every week. I'm not regretting it yet because I get to talk to fantastic people like you. And when I was looking at the list of who I'm going to talk to first, Jed Williams was on that list. You and I had the privilege of working together for a period of time and then you went off to your calling at the LMA. Can you fill people in a little bit about what you do on a day-to-day basis? Jed: I'm happy to do it. And actually the time I spent in Vendasta with you is one of the best times in my career. You know, as you know, I'm very passionate about the cause of local media and the challenges of local media and what they need to do to forge sustainable and profitable paths forward, and that's what the Local Media Association is all about. So our mission statement at a high level, and I think it's worth underscoring this, is we work with local media companies of every shape and size, color, and dimension, whether it's radio, TV, newspaper, digital peer play, whatever it might be, to help them discover and develop new and sustainable business models. So it's a very heavy and important charge. And my task there, you know, I like to joke, the Chief Innovation Officer sounds on a business card. It's fancy and pretentious, but what the heck does it mean day-to-day? What it means is I've got to work with these members day-to-day at an executive level and on the ground floor with sales managers, sales teams, product managers, etc., to figure out what are they investing in to transform their businesses? Where are the new digital business models? How do they build more effective sales structures? So my job, my charge, is to design programs, initiatives, strategies for them that help them achieve exactly that. George: I like to think that... I talk to a lot of salespeople and sales managers and chief revenue offices in my travels, but I think that hands down, Jed, you talk to more. So we're looking to get some of those insights back from some of those discussions to us so that we can start to understand what an account executive needs to do when they're dealing with their customers to provide the most value and to make sure that they're that trusted local expert. So, you know, first thing I wanna dig into is some of the things that you're seeing in the last 24 months, and what's that pace of change? What's it like right now out there in the street? Jed: I mean, in a word, it's unbelievable. Maybe another word would be dramatic, would be existential. I mean, I know I'm using big words here, George, but I'm using them on purpose. I mean, that's the culture of change and disruption that we're in in media and particularly in sales. What's happening with advertisers, what's happening with digital advertising, what's happening with digital marketing services, who are the competitors, the flattening of the space. I mean, let me give you a number to put these into context, because we all here this number about the number of phone calls that a local business and SMB gets on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, right? And you and I, you know, we've seen the stat, oh, it's 39 or it's 40, it's something like that, which, by the way, is a ton. So I was talking to "The Dallas Morning News" not that long ago. Pretty successful local media company transforming itself, big digital agency presence. And they were talking to several of their auto partners, and they asked them, "How many phone calls about marketing and advertising do you get in a month?" You know what that answer was George? George: I'm interested to find out. Jed: Eighty nine, 89 phone calls in one month about advertising and marketing. That is... Now, granted this is Dallas, fifth biggest market in the country. I get it. It's not Dubuque, Iowa or Tucson, Arizon, but this is what our sales forces are up against. And I don't mean that as a fear tactic, I just mean that to say, if we're not rethinking every part of the operation, every part of the organization from the talent that we're bringing in, the professional development and the training and education that we're giving them, the support that we're providing them and fulfillment on the backend, the cultural buy-in in an executive level around the important of what they're doing in digital sales, data, and systems to help them have smarter conversations from the very first moment that they touched that client or prospect, and, by the way, sales manager and coach that really gets them and is there to promote them and help their path forward, then you don't have a chance in digital. It takes all of those things, and it now takes all of those things to breakthrough, because of the number of competitors that are out there, whether it's SaaS companies, whether it's vertical providers, whether it's the dominant platforms like Facebook and Google, whether it's Pure Play digital agencies. If you're a media company, you are up against all of that. You need to be reexamining every part of sales infrastructure. George: You know, and I will say to you that there's always been a lot of calls happening on the prospect, especially if you're an auto dealer, you're low hanging fruit for every sales organization out there that's trying to sell even the blowy thing that goes on in the parking lot that attracts people that are driving by or the guy in the gorilla suit. But the difference being today, and I'd like you to really dig into that, is the quality of the sales rep that is on those 89 calls, they're top shelf. Jed: They are, and I think they are for a couple of reasons. One is you're dealing with a different generation and a different sort of quality of salesperson that was raised digitally, that is very fluent digitally. Like this is all they know and all they do. You're not teaching that 25-year-old about digital platforms and digital tools, like this is how they were raised. It's innate to their DNA. So a lot of traditional media companies have that challenge. They're trying to reeducate or educate from scratch a traditional seller versus, you know, that very savvy 25-year-old coming out of the school, whatever the case might be, that really knows digital. I think the other thing is when you look at so many of these organizations, so I'll give you example. And I know we're gonna talk more about this in a little bit. But at LMA we lead these trips called innovation missions, and we'll go see progressive media companies but we'll also go and meet with disruptive technology companies. Those might be platforms, those might be software providers, etc. An example of one that we went to visit last year is HubSpot, up in Boston. You know, a fascinating company. They've had a great story. They had their public IPO. They're incredibly, as you know, George, I mean, incredibly metrics driven. Everything about that organization is fueled by data. I mean, it dictates every single decision that every sales reps and every person in that organization makes in every minute of every day. And so data is fuel. Data is oxygen. Data is power in your sales force, in understanding what the key sales activity should be, who you should be calling on, why, what you should be offering them, where they are in the journey and in the sales process. And I think that is something that media companies are up against more than ever, is not just thinking through your talent, but really thinking through how data-driven and how metrics-driven are you as an organization. And the answer is you better not just be driven, you better be obsessed by that. George: So I've got a great relationship. I'm the rep that's been calling on a client for 20-some odd years of knowing the owner of the business, now I might dealing with the son or daughter that's taken over the business on a day-to-day operations. I've been relying on my relationship. I haven't really been training myself too much on new products and services, although my organization is starting to sell new products and services. These are the sales reps that are really being disrupted by these data-driven organizations that get it, because the client is starting to look really deep into the offering saying, "Am I really getting the value that, you know, Old George has been professing that he's been giving me?" So that's where we're seeing that disruption, isn't it? Jed: That's exactly, yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, look, if you're a traditional media rep, you're a tea seller, you're a newspaper seller, you have a relationship with that furniture store, auto dealer, hospital, whatever it might be for 10 years or 15 years. That's nice. Maybe that gets you the first conversation. But if you can't actually solve specific problems for them, I mean, I always come back to, in any part of our business, but particularly in sales, the jobs to be done framework, if you don't really understand their jobs to be done as a business and you can't deliver on those with absolutely clear discernible ROI and attribution on what they're spending and why and what they're getting back in return, in the long term, you're going to lose because you're going up against organizations that understand products and understand solutions that can do that and have data and have trained their sales people to be able to have that conversation. So, you know, that all... just handshake and "I'll be back next month," I mean, none of that stuff works anymore, and so I think that there's such a focus on ROI with the SMB, with the advertiser... Look, they are, as you know, George, like they are as lost as the traditional media salesperson that I'm talking about. So they're looking for an advisor more than ever, and I think they're pretty ruthless and pretty objective about the person that walks through that door and truly understands their jobs to be done, gives them elegant, great customer service, and then delivers on that promise with products and services that deliver clear ROI. They're going to be the winners. And they aren't just the traditional advertising products that we've all known about for 50 years and they aren't even traditional digital advertising products. If you look at the digital advertising market, George, it's growing, but a lot of that growth is gobbled up by Google and Facebook. The digital marketing services opportunity, that is twice the size of digital advertising. According to Burrell, that's a $1 billion market and, you know...or, you know, excuse me, it's a $700 billion market and digital advertising opportunities are $350 billion market. So you've really got to understand all the options that are out there for a business and where the money is moving and be able to move in these directions. George: So then previous episodes of the podcasts we talked about the proof-of-performance layer to the sales process. And you've just touched right there with some really good data that you better be showing ROI. When do you think in the sales process should we be setting the stage for looking at the proof of performance and "Did the things that I sold to the customer start to work or not?" When do you set that stage? Jed: I think you set it pretty early. I don't think you set in the first touch point because I think you're learning in that first touch point. But I also want to talk about that for a second, George, before we get into reporting and managing client expectations, and that is sort of the era of the customer needs analysis. I really believe we're moving from CNA 1.0 to CAN 2.0. CNA 1.0 was "I got my little form and I wanna walk in there and take 30 minutes of your time and ask you a bunch of questions about your business." Well, here is the challenge. Every one of those 39 or 89 or whatever the number is you wanna believe, every one of those people that's making the phone call and asking to come in there wants to do the exact same thing. How much time does the business have to explain themselves and answer the same set of CNA questions for every single person knocking on their door? It is really much more about do you have data and information about them where you can come in from the first touch point and be helpful to them and provide information that they didn't know and help further their business as a result. So that, you know, that old era of "Let me come in and do a capabilities assessment," I think we're moving way beyond that. So I think there's a different kind of CNA required upfront to be a truly effective multi-platform seller. But then I think after you do that, to answer your question directly, pretty early in that process, when you're coming back and you're putting in solutions, and notice I don't say products, I say solutions, when you're putting solutions in front of that business, you need to be framing expectations around that early on. You know, "Here's what happens first and next, and after that, here's how we're gonna tell you about that, here's typically how long it takes for something to take effect and for you to see results, here's what the first results might be, here's the second results. We're gonna come back and calibrate with you on those on a recurring basis." I think you've got to be upfront with people. If not, particularly with products that are new to them and they don't know... Let's take something like SEO, search engine optimization, if you don't set those kind of expectations on strategy, tactics, and what they can expect to see by when, they will draw their own conclusions. And if you allow the business to draw their own conclusions, you are asking for trouble. And so I think it starts very early, but I think it also gets back to this notion of customer success as important as sales is and data in informing sales, customer success and service are a real differentiator for media companies or any successful sales organization. And that means that you're constantly coming back and delivering results. But you're not just showing them a dashboard, you're not sending them a 20-page report, you're doing real analysis, putting it in context, creating prescription on what's happening next or what you encourage next and why, and you're doing that on human touch point. You're not sending them an email with the PowerPoint saying, "Take a look. We'll see you next month." Like that, in this era, none of that is good enough. So I believe, to, you know, kind of tie it together, I believe that that expectation setting happens early, George, but it doesn't happen once. You are constantly calibrating with the customer on that. George: You know, what you're leading me to believe here and you're making very compelling point, it is that an annual sales cadence where I go see the customer once a year just isn't gonna cut it. And even that I'm going to have to see that customer on a regular basis. So we go back to a couple of episodes ago, we were talking about the monthly cadence but not just sending the report in an email, not expecting them to log into your multi-million dollar dashboard that you built, you're going to have to sit down with the customer and relate it back to that original presentation and start to adapt the tactics that you're using because the change is there and I don't know if everybody knows 100% when they set out on a marketing strategy if it's gonna work or not. You've got to see what's happened over the last month and make that adjustment, and that's what the prospect is actually looking for. If, you know, you've got 89 people calling on them, what is going to put you into the top three or the top two that they think about when it comes solving these problems? Jed: Amen. And also, to your point, what's gonna get you there and what's gonna keep you there, right? How are you constantly aligned with them where they know, "Hey, this guy is in communication with me. If something is not working, he's telling me that. If something is working, he or she is telling me that." Like we are always building and refining this strategy. And I think what's interesting about it is, if you think about it, you know, George, in the first part of this podcast we talked a lot about the role that technology can play in economizing and improving the sales process, you know, using data to figure out your key selling activities or learn more about your prospects and build digital audience and snapshots and things like that. And all of that is great. But in some ways, what we're talking about here is as manual as you can get or it's certainly more manual. We're talking about old fashioned...you know, I mean, sweat equity, building and maintain rapport with the customer, getting in front of them, taking the time, walking them through them, this taking the time to build an executive summary for them to give them context to build prescription. You know, these are old-fashioned things. But I think in this competitive flattened environment, they're more important than ever. And I'll give you an anecdote here to make this a little more specific. George: Sure. Jed: There's a company that we work with that's a midsized radio group. And I think, you know, they built their own digital agency,, it's got its own brand, I think it's done really well overall for the market that they're running and who they're up against, and they have a really...they have done a great job of saying, "Okay, we wanna be in front of the client this way in this very..." you know, how do I wanna put it, "...sort of customer touchpoint, you know, in front of them, at least once a month. And for the clients that we do that with and we do it in a sort of standardized form with certain guidelines, our retention on them is X. And if we don't do that, if we go see them every six weeks instead of every four weeks or every eight weeks instead of every four weeks, our retention on them is Y." And I don't know exactly what the difference is, but I can tell you there is a delta. And they have found that four weeks or under, George, is their inflection point. They've got to be in front of the client every four weeks at minimum or less. If they go beyond that, that churn, you'll hear the leaky bucket problem starts picking up for them. George: Jed, I've got an interesting stat for you from 20-some years ago when I actually started hitting budget as a rookie salesperson. It was when I started seeing my customer more than once every eight weeks. You know, it hasn't changed. But there are organizations that think you can just go in once a year and make the sale and then send them a report and you're gonna be fine. Those are the people that we will gobble up, 'we' being the greater 'we' on this call, we'll gobble up because we're going to start to adopt a monthly sales cadence and that's where you're going to talk about what you've delivered to the customer. What I found when you have that monthly cadence is also where you identify all sorts of cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Jed: Absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the bigger points here is when you say 'the collective we'...and I really like that. We as an organization are a company, we're going to do this. It's going to be a standard. If you're gonna be on our sales team and you're gonna win on our sales team, you're gonna do this, you know, by gosh and there are no ifs, ands, or buts, there no exceptions to it. And you know what that comes back to, that means the managers have to be bought in, and that means the executives of that media company have to champion this. And there can't be exceptions or it can't be, "Well, that guy or gal has been in my organization for 10 years and they're really good at selling TV or they've only missed one month." When you start doing that, you start bending rules, you start making exceptions. You gotta have buy-in at manager level on this. You gotta have buy-in and championing of this at the executive level, and then you have to have process around it. And the process means, "Okay, who's doing what here? Is the sales rep doing everything after the sale to go in and look at results and build that report?" Probably not because we want to focus on selling. But we also want them to be the one that has the touch point with the client out in the field. But if they don't have the time to do all of this, then who is? Well, you better have some sort of dedicated role that does this. Maybe it's a digital specialist for each product, maybe it's an account manager, maybe there's some sort of streamlined quarterback roll on the back end in your sales organization that brings all this together and then builds that report and then sits down with the rep to explain to the rep what's happening so that the rep is communicating this the right way, because you know there is a break in the chain there too, George. If you leave the reps to their own devices, you can have some mismanaged expectations and miscommunication. George: Jed, I wanna jump in there, though, let's talk about the crutch, because what we've noticed, and there's a lot of media people at that are listening to the podcast, what we've noticed in these media organizations is if you bring in a digital specialist, that doesn't mean that the legacy sales reps starts to learn digital, it's just, "I'm gonna bring Brent along in the call because he's my digital specialist." Jed: Yeah. Well, I'm with you. I totally agree with that and we can't buy into those crutches because at best, it's incremental improvement. But it's not transformative improvement in sales forces. What I'm really talking about, George, is on the back end. After the sale, who owns the customer after the sale or at least who owns the reporting? Who's building that report? Who's making sure that's put together in a consistent fashion that everybody is meeting their responsibilities? I mean, if you're the social media specialist and you're the SEM specialists, and you're the website specialist, how are we making sure that all that data is brought together in the right way? And then who is sitting down with the sales rep and going, "Okay, you know, you don't gonna get a 'get out of jail free' card. Like you got to go out and talk to your customer about this." You know, you're responsible for their results and that includes their digital results. But we need to make sure that you're telling the story the right way and here's what we found and here's what to focus on. I'm really getting it. What is that dedicated post-sale role that brings all this together and then gets it back in the hands of the sales people with that expectation of they're going to go back out and touch the client? George: Jed, we can go on for days and days and days I'm sure on this and we will get a chance to do that as we head into the convention season and the conference circuit. And you do more of that speaking than anybody I've met and I'm looking forward to spending some time face to face. I'm gonna ask you the question that I ask all of our guests. How do you see in the next 12 months is sales transitioning away from a guy or a gal with a bag? Jed: Well, I mean, we've hit on a little bit of this. I think if you are a product peddler and a product pusher in 2019, a year from now, you're more in danger than ever. So I think, you know, one of the things we talked about, you know, as to how do you get beyond pedaling products and particularly pedaling your own, you know, traditional products or your sales blitz and we're gonna focus on this this month? I think the answer is you gotta be really serious about consultative selling, and I know that gets talked about a lot. But what I mean is... Let's talk about that CNA 2.0 that I mentioned a little while ago, George. Are organizations doing that? Are you training relentlessly to that? Are you holding your reps to account for the fact that that is a standard part of their sales process now the minute that they touched that customer or that prospect? Are you actually tracking? How many of those sort of new age CNAs are being done to make sure that the right questions are being asked and the right inputs are being gleaned to then build the right solutions? I think it starts right there with the redefining the CNA, holding the reps accountable, tracking their every single activity, and then to the other point we made, then being absolutely consistent and present about how you're, you know, maintaining that cadence with that customer, how you're calibrating on their needs, how you're managing their expectations, and then, obviously, how you're adapting the campaign or the solution to continue to drive the best results for them. It's the whole sales continuum. And if you're not doing all of those things, there are people out there that are putting process, and structure, and data, and talent, and leadership in place to do it in your place. So that's the challenge you're up against. George: Jed Williams, Chief Innovation Officer from the LMA, and we're gonna put all of your links for your LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile. Jed produces a ton of content throughout the year, and we'll give you some links if you wanna learn more from the awesomeness that is Jed Williams. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us from Austin, Texas. Look forward to seeing you out on the conference circuits this spring.   – I've worked with Jed for about a year or so and he always says some really good insights, and I actually think his insights are getting even better because you can tell that he's spending a lot of time in the field working with sales organizations. But let's just go over what Jed covered here in the last 20 or so minutes. CNA 2.0. You don't just take out a questionnaire and ask the client questions because everybody is doing that. You've got to come up with a better way to do the customer needs analysis. Inside media organizations, you really need to understand what jobs need to be done because after that sale is made, there needs to be somebody that fulfills the sale and then prepares the report to show the client that proof of performance. So who is on the backend of the sale? Who is the person doing the work to make sure that all the things that the account executive talked about come true? And then we've got this 89 number, the 89 people that are calling trying to eat your lunch. It's way bigger than the number I gave you back in the day when we started the podcast on how many, but it just...I don't really care what the number is, it's just there is a lot of people out there that are trying to do the same thing that you're doing and what's going to set you apart. So that's what all this thing is all about. That's what the podcast is all about is to give you the skills and to dig deep into that what that sales process looks like so you can stand apart. I did also mention about a blowy thing that does come out of your marketing budget, by the way. Anything that you do to promote a business comes out of the marketing budget, and I love the blowy thing. I always throw that... Put that in a hashtag, that'll be great. More coming up in the Conquer Local Podcast next week as we continue to make sales great again. I'll see you when I see you.