If every business partner had a current version of this, the momentum would be incredible

March 13 2009

Bruce Elgort pointed me to the customer list page on Elgugi software's website.  In just a eight months, Elgugi has won some really important and recognizable customers for their excellent IdeaJam software.  But what this also says is that major organizations are investing in Domino applications that provide value to their environment.

Imagine if every Domino advocate could point to a list of contemporary, name brand references for companies not just using, but adding more to their use of Notes/Domino today.  It's great to be able to access the IBM customer successes and case studies, and IBMers can provide even more references from our internal database, but our stories tend to be more about the infrastructure and plumbing.  When you can see what actual solutions are being used in a Notes/Domino environment, it's all the more powerful.

Another business partner sent out a newsletter this week.  They were very explicit in describing organizations they've won business with recently, including what product was sold, why the customer chose the IBM Lotus solution, and how it will be implemented.  I learned a heck of a lot about real-world use of my products from that newsletter.  I've since encouraged that partner to publish the newsletter, but they've run into one wall all vendors face -- use of the customer's names in public.

I know many organizations have policies against being public references for vendor solutions.  They consider their internal decisions part of their competitive advantage, or for security or privacy reasons simply don't want to disclose what they use.  But in the age of eBay and web 2.0, where "reputation ranking" is a critical component of the buying experience, getting away from "A major bank" and being specific is crucial to building the collective reputation of a market.

That's why I was surprised by a random sample of Lotus business partner websites.  I found old, obsolete references to decisions made in 2005 for products that don't even exist anymore.  I found quotes from people who no longer work for the entities their quotes represent.  I found one company where I clicked on "case studies" and got a blank page in response.  I clicked on another company's case studies list and found that I would have to give my e-mail address just to read their case studies.  And one very prominent award-winning business partner had no customer references section of their website at all, and not even an updated press release since 2007.

There are some winners out there, too.  Sherpa Software has a page similar to the Elgugi list called "customer successes".  Ytria has a little swagger in their list of customers "Addicted to Ytria" (though I don't learn anything about why they chose Ytria from that page).  But 90% of the sites I just checked failed at promoting customer successes.

Rather than just identify a problem, here are some simple suggestions that will help solve it.  
  • Maintain freshness:  At IBM, we have a review cycle where a reference must be validated every six, or no more than twelve, months to ensure its continued currency.  We publish the date of reference and the validation dates to ensure that the reader knows this isn't some dusty old story.
  • Tie your story to value:  "Your solution is cool" isn't enough to sell another customer on buying it.  You want specific reasons for interest and adoption, and when possible, examples of results.  If they're quantifiable, even better.
  • Make your references identifiable:  Now, not every company you sell to is going to be a household name, but their product or service touches people in some way.  Make the reference personal by tying the referenced client to the real world they service.
  • Differentiate: Have the customer explain why your product or solution is different or unique.
  • Solve a particular pain: In the current economic climate, if you can find a way to tie to a particular challenge businesses are trying to solve, you'll get through the buzzword-bingo evaluation phase much faster.

It would be great to see some real references come out of our partner community in the next 30 days.  This is what working smarter, together is all about. 		Image:If every business partner had a current version of this, the momentum would be incredible

 

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [28]

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  1. 1  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 3/13/2009 5:36:15 PM

    Agreed. Unfortunately some of the customers will not allow it. Especially those still living the industrial espionage paranoia like they're still in the seventies.

  1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/13/2009 5:59:55 PM

    True, and I mentioned that. But there are plenty of organizations that *are* willing to be public references, and it would certainly be enough to give each successful partner a few to choose from.

  1. 3  Colin  | 3/13/2009 7:11:42 PM

    Great idea. The Elguji page is an impressive list indeed.

  1. 4  Andre H http://www.ytria.com | 3/14/2009 4:12:05 AM

    thanks a lot for mentioning Ytria Ed. Very much apreciated. We do have a page where customers explain why they are addicted. This is linked from our homepage called testimonials and it links to here: { Link } There are 36 quotes and 4 Case studies displayed there. What we can learn from your analysis is that we should be using the word Case Studies somewhere on the Homepage.

  1. 5  Andre H http://www.ytria.com | 3/14/2009 4:20:01 AM

    forgot to mention in my first comment. Congratulations to Matt, Gayle and Bruce for the momentum they are building with their linkjam and ideajam offerings..!

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/14/2009 4:32:44 PM

    Several hundred pageviews later and we've only heard from one business partner, not even from the ones who were so quick to pounce on my post earlier this week about the relative ease of buying Notes online on ibm.com. I know you all have references...would you rather not demonstrate that success?

  1. 7  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 3/14/2009 5:26:51 PM

    @6 They're all too busy trying to figure out how to download stuff to sell to their customers :-p

    But seriously, an interesting approach. How to win friends and influence people? Hold one BP up (quote rightly) as an example of how it *should* be done, and then tell the others off, both on your site and on twitter.

  1. 8  Jamie Magee http://www.MartinScott.com | 3/14/2009 5:36:04 PM

    @6 Well, you posted at 4:30pm ET on a Friday. Give us until Monday at least, please :)

  1. 9  Bob Balaban http://www.bobzblog.com | 3/14/2009 6:04:08 PM

    I have either been a 1-person BP company, or worked for a larger BP company for almost 10 years. I have yet to sell a single Lotus license, for anything, anywhere.

    I have built product that customers like (I had a "testimonials" page on my now-defunct website), and I've had plenty of comments like, "Thank goodness we found you, now we can use Sametime!"

    It has also been my experience that very few companies want to be publicly referenced, especially the large ones that have general name recognition. Partly it's because they don't want other people to know how they build their infrastructure, and partly they've been afraid of the Microsoft attack kittens, and the retaliation they (rightly or wrongly) thought would ensue from Redmond. Also, there were times when it came down to the customer having the opinion that being a public reference would simply not do them any good whatsoever, so why do it?

  1. 10  Lars Berntrop-Bos http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/ScriptLars/ | 3/14/2009 6:42:04 PM

    I think better marketing of the Lotus brand will bring us much greater momentum then customer lists ever will have. I for one have read many, and over the years grown less impressed.

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/14/2009 7:07:45 PM

    @7 true, it's a "lead by example" approach. I could have gone the approach of screen shots and direct links and comparisons to other vendors, but I didn't think we were at that stage yet.

    @9 I agree that it is sometimes difficult to see how it is beneficial for the customer to *be* a reference. But to me at least it is instinctively obvious. When I was at US Robotics oh those long years ago, I was a public reference for Lotus Organizer network edition 1.1. Why? Because if the product was seen as doing well in the (then) pages of PCWeek, it reflected well on our own IT strategy and direction. It also meant I had better access to my vendor (cc:Mail as part of Lotus at the time) through the interaction of being a reference. For those who were in my Notes 8 deployment reference program at Lotusphere, we threw a nice party, with many IBM executives in attendance -- for several of those customers, the only chance I had to see them all week. There are definitely benefits to being a reference customer, whether the vendor is a big ol' IBM or a small IBM ISV partner.

    @10 actually, I disagree. This isn't a brand issue - it's a peer-pressure issue. At least that's part of what I hear the problem to be on the discussions on the blogs and linkedin etc. Customers want reassurance they are on the right track, and when you see name-brand companies continuing to invest, that seems a pretty solid comfort reassurance to other companies to do the same.

  1. 12  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 3/14/2009 8:07:05 PM

    Elguji has a nice list and way of showing them too.

    I have been trying for 2 years now to get 2 very large customers to let me do any reference to them and get nowhere because of legal or other entities as mentioned by others.

    Smaller customers are easier to reference, no question, and maybe we should spend some more time on that aspect.

    Will engage some of them and pursue this next week.

  1. 13  Graham Dodge  | 3/14/2009 9:28:23 PM

    @6 Ed, I responded privately to you. Did you not get it?

  1. 14  Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 3/15/2009 8:51:38 AM

    { Link } and there are a few more (non IBM/Lotus related) { Link } As it has been over 12 months since the last one I guess we need to get this ball rolling again. Thanks for bring this up Ed.

    Like @12 mentioned, it is far easier to get the smaller customers to do this.

  1. 15  Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 3/15/2009 10:08:00 AM

    @11 re @10: Ed, there is certainly a distinction between Lotus brand marketing driven by IBM and the so-called "peer pressure" marketing you are focused on here. But Lars' point wasn't so much that we shouldn't do customer testimonial stuff, but that brand marketing will yield a bigger payoff (and I agree). I would go so far as to say the lack of a sustained and *noticeable* brand marketing campaign is suffocating this and all other forms of positive buzz.

    Simply put, the kind of momentum you envisioned when you titled this post needs the right atmosphere in which to flourish. Forget the "air cover" metaphor. I'd like to introduce the "air" metaphor:

    "No matter how loud you scream, if there's no air in the room, you won't make a sound."

  1. 16  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 3/15/2009 11:17:06 AM

    Wow, I didn't expect the type of comments I've read so far. Not that they are invalid, but possibly misplaced in this thread.

    I saw this post and thought that's great, especially for Bruce and his product. I honestly didn't know ideajam had made those types of inroads and thought that was good to know. It pretty much says if you build the right product and market it appropriately, which I assume Bruce does via his podcast, you can succeed. It's a good lessons learned.

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/15/2009 11:44:32 AM

    @13 I did but haven't yet been answering mail this weekend. It came in after my comment.

  1. 18  Pete McPhedran  | 3/15/2009 2:10:58 PM

    Ed,

    We made a conscious descision a long time ago to not put customer tetimonials on our web site. It was the result of most of the things already pointed out here especially that the customer can't do it for legal reason, etc.. i.e. ACME Corp. can't even endorse the "partner" as it would imply support of the product, which they don't want/can't do for any of a bazillion reasons, valid or otherwise.

    There is the keeping your hands close to the chest aspect as well, despite mentions earlier, this does happen today and customers have told me they had been approached by competitors after learning we were providing them with services.

    Also don't forget Ed, not all IBM partners are exclusively IBM partners, in order to give fair representation a great deal of effort would be required, some BP's don't want to be labelled as an "X" Partner if someone skims their "Testimonials" page and see only references to "Notes" because they didn't scroll down or click "Next" to see that they also provide the product or servce they are looking for.

    Lastly, unless you can reference your big customers, it might not look good to list your smaller ones. Even if the smaller ones are a good size, but not National or Internationally recognized. A potential customer could peruse your list of "little" customers and deduce that you are a small player.

    Often you need to give enough about what you do to get a prospect to contact you so that you can properly express your capabilities and rhyme off your customer list and provide direct references. All but one of my customers are OK with this, it just can't be pushed out to the world + dog.

    Believe me, I wish we could list our customers, it's incredibly impressive, but we can't.

    I am also using LinkedIn specifically for references, this way any prospective customer can quickly and easily look up references and those giving the reference have some control over the process as well.

    --Pete

  1. 19  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 3/15/2009 2:29:24 PM

    @16 Totally agree. Bruce and co. have done fabulous work and have marketed it really , REALLY well. They deserve the spotlight.

    On a basic level, Ed is asking what the rest of us have been doing. And it's a good question to ask, don't get me wrong. But for the same reason that IBM don't feel able to comment / move / whatever on a whole raft of issues, some BPs feel the same: for some us, customer testimonials are a no-go. End of story.

    But to pick on BPs in the context of us beating up on IBM re shitty marketing / website / downloads process / take-yer-pick… Well, let's just say that that's being disingenuous.

  1. 20  TR  | 3/15/2009 3:07:02 PM

    IBM criticising website content is a bit rich. If I had a pound for every hour of my time (my employers time really!) I've wasted on IBM's website trying to download something, find documentation etc. I'd be very rich. It's not just Domino/Notes. Try finding firmware updates / drivers for Xseries servers - it's nigh on impossible and if you do find what you're looking for 25% of the time it leads to a 404 and you have to start all over again.

    A concrete example would be this from the Smart Upgrade instructions.

    "Download an update kit, also known as an incremental installer, from the Lotus Developer Domain Web site ({ Link }

    I've never been able to find these as the page is out of date and irrelevant - 8.5 came out nearly two months ago and it's still not listed. I'm not alone - search on notes.net and you will find many other people looking for the same thing.

    </rant>

    If anybody can put me out of my misery and tell me if these mythical smart upgrade kits actually exist I will be eternally grateful.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/15/2009 3:31:18 PM

    Yes, TR you're right - and I'll even allow your anonymous comment. It is a bit rich, as Mr. Poole seems intent to also point out, for me to criticize anyone's website when IBM's has its challenges. I'm working in the background on ways to improve mine. Doesn't it seem reasonable that I simultaneously help my *partners* in this endeavor as well?

  1. 22  David Jakelic http://www.swingsoftware.com | 3/15/2009 5:31:10 PM

    I have never thought that we ISV BPs underestimate the value of customer stories, and how case studies build our credibility. Here you can find SWING Software's case studies (the most recent ones are on top), as well as the partial customer list and testimonials:

    { Link }

    Of course, we have also experienced the pain: the bigger the customer is, the harder it is to get through their legal departments' approval to publish anything. But we have got used to it.

  1. 23  Bruce http://elguji.com | 3/15/2009 6:41:49 PM

    @22 - love your website. Was it designed by Extendis?

  1. 24  David Jakelic http://www.swingsoftware.com/ | 3/16/2009 3:42:13 AM

    @23: Thanks, Bruce. Yes, the site was recently designed by Extendis, and we are more than happy with their work.

    { Link }

  1. 25  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 3/16/2009 11:20:45 AM

    As much as we want to kick IBM over their website, I think public references are key to business. And I am pushing for more measurement by IBM for key initiatives to be based on references vs licenses sold. Claiming licenses and the whole influence model is so grey. Customer references are less grey (I understand they are a sales tool and can never be pure black). I have found that most companies will let you reference them, even if you can not talk about the specific solution. Those that will not let you reference them by name will let you talk about the general solution. Everyone should be making the effort to have more references on their websites.

  1. 26  Joshua Horwitz http://www.referencesuccess.com | 3/16/2009 3:40:16 PM

    Hi Ed - Maybe you'll remember me from Lotus days in Product Marketing under Sean L. I'm in Colorado now. I founded a business related to customer reference management, so I was excited to see your post. Anyway, hope you are doing well. Drop me a line. Best wishes! Josh

  1. 27  TR  | 3/17/2009 8:09:29 AM

    @21 - Doesn't it seem reasonable that I simultaneously help my *partners* in this endeavour as well?

    It's perfectly reasonable to suggest it and I wasn't being entirely serious in my reply as I'm 100% sure you are well aware of the limitations of the IBM website.

    My complaint re: smart upgrade kits still stands though as this:-

    "Download an update kit, also known as an incremental installer, from the Lotus Developer Domain Web site ({ Link }

    is a direct quote from the 8.0.2 Domino Administrator help. The kits are not there - if they are not there then the documentation should be changed.

  1. 28  Carl Tyler http://www.iminstant.com | 3/18/2009 6:19:07 PM

    So following on from this post, I decided to approach our largest customer last year for a reference. They are large company with a HQ in New York state and are fully committed to IBM and Lotus Technologies, I believe they are the worlds largest Sametime user cough cough. The client we did the work for at the company was very pleased with our work and has recently approached us to do more work. They were pleased to look into being a reference and contacted the powers that be to get the ball rolling...Here is the response they got back in an email from the client...

    I got word back for "the authority" ...

    "A quote endorsement is not something we would approve. ... especially

    member level ones. Our IBM PartnerWorld stamp serves as our endorsement."

    Can I mention anything we did for this large customer nope, can I mention their name in a reference nope, so I am in total agreement reference stories and case studies really help, some companies are just very difficult to get them from.