After CEO and founder, Bill Harrison, hired the first employee in 2008, we have grown significantly in headcount and annual revenue. Year-to-date Epicom has added six new people to the team and we have increased our customer base by 34 percent.

As a new and innovative Austin startup, we strive to provide a great customer experience for clients, and maintain a positive work environment for employees. Epicom’s success as a company is fueled by our collaborative culture and the diversity of our team. We believe the purpose of our business is to provide a growth avenue for employees, have fun, and to try new things. Through our work we aim to not only help make other businesses successful, but strive to build something greater than ourselves.

Attending the event was a great experience for the Epicom team and we are honored to have been acknowledged for our company culture and great employees. We believe in creating a foundation that cultivates growth and inspires motivation, and that foundation begins with our employees.

To learn more about the Epicom team, our culture, and why we love what we do, click here.

Last month, we interviewed Jeremiah about the portal project he is working on. We gave an overview of the project and the underlying frameworks involved, but didn’t go into detail about the different components of the portal. This month I wanted to drill down into the shopping cart Jeremiah built into the portal for one of our customers.

The customer is in the education/non-profit industry. They needed a portal for students to register for courses and buy books online. Epicom built a few custom modules in Sugar to hold information for the different types of classes, schedules, and books needed for each class. The portal enables students to sign in and view certain CRM data without needing a SugarCRM license.

To create a new class, our customer simply creates a new record in their custom “Events” module. In this module there are custom fields for instructor, class name, class description, duration, etc. After saving the event in Sugar, the new class will automatically show in the portal for students to sign up.

When a student clicks “Add to cart”, the course is automatically added to the shopping cart. This works the same way for books. They can then go to the shopping cart to check out or continue shopping.

In the shopping cart the student can adjust the quantity for an item. For example, if they wanted to buy two of the same book instead of one they can make the adjustment from the shopping cart instead of adding the book twice. They can also easily remove an item from the cart. To checkout, the student must have a portal account set up and be logged in, which is easy to create from the portal page. They can then hit the “make payment” button to enter credit card information to complete the order. Epicom integrated SugarCRM with Authorize.Net to handle the transaction. When the initial order goes through, it is stored in the custom “Orders” module Epicom built in Sugar and is related to the student who made the order. Once the actual payment is processed by Authorize.net, the payment amount and status are updated in SugarCRM.

Now, our customer can create and display new classes and add books for students to buy using SugarCRM. Also, they can easily see the number of students who have signed up for a course and how many have successfully paid. Because this information is stored in Sugar, they are able to run real time reports on course registration and book sales.

For more information about Epicom’s custom portal and online shopping cart, email info@epicom.com.

With this year’s SugarCon in New York, one of my end goals cropped up that tied both my love of a good story and one of my bucket list items. With the conference at the famous Waldorf – Astoria and the inclusion of a rooftop “Gala” as one of the events, I had the realization that I needed nicer clothes. In fact, the Waldorf probably realized that there might be a few of us non-stylish dorks out there for a technology conference and they sent out an email “suggesting“ that we look nice for their lobby. It was apparent I was in need of some new clothes. Being the very cheap person that I am (see, another reason I like Sugar!), I went to a local second hand clothing store that specialized in men’s business wear. I knew I was looking for something stellar for the Gala and the app throwdown for which I was to speak at. My goal was to get a nice sports coat with patches on the elbows for the speech (the professor look) and a jacket and ascot for the Gala (a fancy look). The place I went to had no ascots, nor did they have any jackets with patches that were remotely close to my size. However, as I was going over the section that contained jackets in my size, there it was. The most perfect white dinner jacket. It just oozed out class. The lady at the counter said all I needed was a bow tie and a pocket thingy for a pop of color and I would look like James Bond.

While I couldn’t find a jacket with patches for my speech, I did find a nice brown jacket. I completed my influential nerd look with this brown jacket and my red Epicom t-shirt. The practice session was at the grand ballroom at the Waldorf. It was there that I understood I was about to cross off a bucket list item, even though that bucket list item didn’t exist until that day.

I was a kid when TV consisted of three or four channels depending on the current cloud coverage. There wasn’t that much good stuff for us kids back then, but there was one show that was near and dear to my heart. The Muppet Show was always good for high quality laughs back then. It was edgy and fuzzy all at the same time. I think my roots in humor start with the Muppet Show. If Gonzo, Lew Zealand and Animal meshed into one lump of felted fabric, I would be the voice for it. Anyhow, either the Waldorf ripped off the Muppet Show for their grand ballroom or vice versa, but the grand ballroom is the Muppet Show theatre! In fact, one of the old men in the balcony is named “Waldorf”. And here I was about to play the Muppet Show theatre in front of hundreds of people while talking about the FedEx integration for SugarCRM.

Bucket list item officially checked off.

I have to say, until I got there, I had no idea that being on that stage was such a big deal to me. I now will always feel like my inner muppet has accomplished something. Apparently, having a Roger Moore era James Bond white dinner jacket was something I needed to have as well. Who knew? I love how some things just work out. Which now leads us to this blog’s free answer to a user’s problem.

Q: If we have leads who are kind of kicking tires on our services, then ultimately decide they may not want to purchase right now, is there a way to have an option in their lead record to convert them back to a Target record? We don’t want to Dead Delete them, but then they aren’t going to move up to a Contact at this time. If we can move them back to a Target, we can keep emailing them and touching base with them in one way or another and maybe they will eventually come back as a Lead. Is that something that people normally don’t do? I was looking to keep the lead bucket from getting too cluttered. Thanks.

Much like my previous story, you have an end goal and need to get there, but there can be many ways to get there. In this case you want to separate leads so you can have different marketing efforts out of your campaigns module. We could create code that allows you to revert them to targets, but that would take a few hours of programming. The simpler solution is to have a way to make the leads filterable. There is a field in the leads called “Status”. This is a drop down field that has different statuses like “New”, “In Process”, “Dead” and “Converted”.  All you need to do is go into your studio or drop down editor and fix this drop down to include a custom entry. I’ll use the word “Nurture”, but you can call it whatever you want like “Hibernate”, “Confused”, or “Abalone”. Assigning these types of leads to “Nurture”, now gives you a way to separate your leads with one click when you do reports and more importantly when you do target lists for your campaigns. Even better, you set up a campaign designed just for those types of leads. Remember, I’ll be answering an email in a blog for free. Keep those emails coming to me. Just put blog in the subject and send it to aaron@epicom.com

Let’s tie this all up now. We all have end goals for a bunch of things we would like to get done before the final end goal. Keeping an open mind on problem solving will hopefully allow you to tick off many of those goals and get to a few you might would have overlooked. And now its time for my monthly underground marketing picture.

BrookFerg May 28, 1:27pm 
@uShip increases sales + support efficiency 20% with ‏#sugarcrm Customer Engagement Platform w/ partner @epicomcorpbit.ly/133YuNh

SugarCRMChannel Apr 10, 4:02pm
CTO, Clint Oram extends “Best use of barcodes” award to Epicom! Great way to print labels & track shipping packages. #sugarcon@epicomcorp

JacobArriola Apr 10, 4:00pm
@epicomcorp is showing off a nice @sugarcrm integration with @FedExshipping.

StuartMcIntyre Apr 10, 3:58pm
This is very cool integration from @epicomcorp – seems pretty seamless. Wondering how dynamic it is re: Fedex API integration #SugarCon

lmaugustin Apr 08, 10:50pm
Epicom Accelerates Its SugarCRM Hosting Platform and Partners with Easy Solutions @epicomcorp @follow_bill ow.ly/jS839#sugarcon

roykeely Jan 29, 12:39pm
my first @epicomcorp webcast! Writing customized reports in SugarCRM. So much to learn, so little time.

sugarclint Apr 25, 12:15pm
Need control of your #CRM data? Learn about dedicated #SugarCRM hosting solutions from @epicomcorpepicom.com/services/sugar…

DataEquity Feb 04, 1:41pm
@lmaugustin: Great for #LawFirms and#LegalDepartments: Ship FedEx from within @sugarcrm from @epicomcorp ow.ly/hp5vn

For more information on Epicom’s products and solutions email info@epicom.com, or click here.

Q: What does the asterisk mean for a field?
A: An asterisk next to a field means that it is a required field. You can set certain fields as required in Sugar’s Studio.

Q: How do I know which fields are custom and which came standard with SugarCRM?
A: Anything you create in studio will have a “_c” in the label to show that it is a custom field.

Q: Is it possible to “un-bloat” the module by unchecking the audit checkbox?
A: You won’t be able to remove the previous data from the auditing, but any future changes will not add to the database if you uncheck the checkbox.

Q: Can you save a drop down list that you’d like to use in multiple places?
A: Yes. After you have created a drop down list you can reuse it in any other module or multi-select.

Q: Can you define the difference between Reportable and Audit?
A: When you are creating fields you have the option of excluding certain fields from the reports. These fields will still exist, but will not show up in your final reports. The audits field however will provide a change log where you can track data history and previous changes made to a field.

Q: What is the advantage of not selecting reportable? It seems like that would be good to have for all fields?
A: If you are storing important information such as salary details or pin numbers you may not want that to show up in a report. It really just depends on the material you are storing and the type of report you would like.

Q: When creating a drop down field, do you need to add a character or space to make a blank line, or is just a “non-entry” sufficient?
A: It is recommended to create a blank option in your drop down field in the event that none of the options apply. Also, this will enable you to select blank as the default. To create this you simply click the add button without typing anything in the label.

Q: Can a drop down list be data from another table or module?
A: Out of the box, no. But we can do some customizations that would make this possible.

Q: How is that different than creating a relationship?
A: Relate fields will show up in the detail and edit area of the module, and normally consist of a 1:1 relationship where the parent record will have only one value. Relationships on the other hand can have multiple values and become a subpanel.

Q: Is there a way to delete a field in studio if you create one and later find it is not necessary?
A: Yes. You can delete a field in Studio, although it is not advised. If there is any record with the data in the field you create, the data will be deleted as well. You can however remove/hide a field from the display and edit views so that it will not show in your records.

Q: What are the differences among the licensed editions for version 7.0? Are the new features included in all editions?
A: Many of the new features of Sugar 7 are included in all of the licensed editions of Sugar, but there are still a few differences. There will be a sales forecasting module in the 7.0 version of all licensed editions that is similar in functionality to the forecasting module in Sugar 6.5. But there will also be a Enterprise and Ultimate forecasting module that is significantly more sophisticated and gives you a bit more analytics and intelligence in your opportunity forecasting. The portal and advanced reporting are still only part of the Enterprise and Ultimate editions.

Q: Is the Pipeline management available in 6.6 or 6.7, or must we wait for 7.0?
A: The new forecasting is available in 6.7.

Q: Do you know if there will be inline editing?
A: Yes, there will be.

Q: How easy is it to migrate from 6.x to 7 and what’s the cost?
A: The difficulty of your migration depends on what customizations you currently have. Logic hooks or any studio and module modifications will transfer without any problems. However, if you have code that has been customized and is actually echoing out data, that won’t be compatible with the standard Sugar 7 interface. But Sugar has developed a backward compatibility mode that can be turned on for each individual module and should allow the old code to work fine.

Q: When is the release planned for?
A: There will be a series of three different release dates for Sugar 7. The first one, Sugar 7.0, will be around August and will be for new customers using the Sugar OnDemand platform. The second, Sugar 7.1, will be released six weeks later for customers who are already using Sugar OnDemand and want to upgrade, as well as customers hosted on premise or with a third party hosting provider. Sugar 7.2 will be released six weeks following Sugar 7.1.

To watch the recording of the webcast on Sugar Studio and new features of Sugar 7, click here. To register for the next SugarCRM User Group, click here.

If you have any additional questions about Studio in Sugar or Sugar 7, email info@epicom.com.

Q: So Jeremiah, can you tell us more about portals and why they are used?
A: There are a lot of clients that want a portal…a portal is a site where people can access Sugar data without logging into the CRM directly or having a Sugar license. Portals are created for already existing Sugar users and are primarily used by their customers for specific reasons, such as purchasing products or signing up for courses.

Q: Who determines how much access is given to individuals using the portal?
A: It’s a combination of the company requesting the portal and the engineer designing it. While there is only limited information available in the portal, we can still design and customize them to include vital functions.

Q: So who are you designing a portal for and what kind of access does it allow?
A: Right now, I am designing a portal for an academic organization. They approached Epicom in need of a site to act as a knowledge center where members could access their academic history while they are recorded in Sugar. That idea grew from its original scope and has now become a place where each customer can view their customer history, register for courses, and make purchases.

Q: Was this project difficult? 
A: Yes and no. This project wasn’t extremely difficult, however it did include a lot of effort both internally and externally. When we create portals for our customers we use a base template. Because of the customizations needed for this project, we had to update our template and refresh our existing sources. We rebuilt our base portal from the ground up using Laravel, which is a new and popular PHP framework, and Bootstrap, which was designed by Twitter.

Q: What did you enjoy about this project?
A: I enjoyed using Laravel because it’s an interesting framework that uses a lot of the modern PHP innovations. Normally we concentrate on customization and integrations for Sugar, and even though I love Sugar, it’s nice to learn more about other frameworks as well. This project was similar to building a website from the ground up, it let us be creative and get our hands dirty.

To learn more about Jeremiah’s portal project, email us at info@epicom.com.

Efficiency
Whether automating the process of tracking new sales leads or standardizing customer support, gaining efficiency in their business is one of the top reasons our customers deploy a CRM system. All businesses have processes for getting things done and CRM systems are a great way to standardize and automate these processes to make sure that everyone in the organization is completing their work as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Visibility
As organizations grow, it becomes more and more difficult to keep on top of all the moving parts. Individuals within departments need to be aware of the projects their co-workers are completing. Managers need visibility into all aspects of the business to keep projects on track and to ensure overall business goals are met. CRM systems are great at storing, synthesizing, and presenting information from a wide array of sources within the enterprise. Properly deployed, a company’s CRM system becomes the go-to source for information when employees need to know what’s happening with a project, prospect, or customer.

Decision Making
While efficiency and visibility are great reasons to deploy CRM, most companies realize the highest value in their CRM investment through better decision making. A CRM system that gathers business performance information, combined with a reporting or business analytics package, creates a powerful tool for answering strategic questions that can determine the success or failure of the business. Should we invest in a new online marketing campaign? Is it time to hire more customer service representatives? With a CRM system these questions can be answered confidently using historical data rather than speculatively using guesses and conjecture.

Efficiency, visibility, and better decision making are the benefits of any properly deployed CRM system. Yet, most companies purchase a CRM system to solve a specific problem. For example, a customer might ask us:

• How can I track where my leads are coming from, automate which salesperson gets assigned to which lead, and determine which of my lead sources is most productive?
• Can you help me figure out how to track all of my sales opportunities, develop more accurate sales forecasts, and determine which of my sales reps is most effective?
• What’s the best way to standardize the way we respond to customer service inquiries so that customers get a high quality experience regardless of who answers the phone?
• How can we track all our customer projects so that everyone in the organization can see the status of active projects and tasks can be assigned to everyone on the team?

These questions are the initial pain points that motivate the CRM implementation. But once the system is deployed and the customer’s initial pain has been relieved, many other opportunities arise to increase efficiency, improve visibility, and make better business decisions. When companies embark on a journey of continuous improvement utilizing a CRM system to automate and track business results, they realize the ultimate value of their CRM system investment.

Have any additional CRM questions? Email us at info@epicom.com.

1.) Consistently Follow Up with Phone Calls
Be persistent. This doesn’t make you seem desperate, but rather confident in what you have to offer your customer. Be excited and show them how much you believe in your product or service. Your enthusiasm and confidence will rub off on them and help motivate their decision.

2.) Offer Discounts, Deals, and Upgrades to Create a Sense of Urgency
Sometimes your customer is interested in buying, but the timing is not as important to them as it may be to you. Because of this, you want to create a sense of urgency in order to speed up the process. This may include offering certain discounts or bonuses for signing the deal sooner.

3.) Present an Opportunity Cost Scenario
If the lead is hesitant to buy, explain the opportunity cost at hand. Give them specific scenarios for what not buying now could do to their business. By giving valid examples, you can show them how necessary your product or service really is and what they could lose without it.

4.) Utilize your Resources and Credible Sources
If your CEO has more experience and knowledge on a product or service, don’t hesitate to bring them into the equation to help boost your credibility. This will give you a stronger platform and help sway the customer’s faith in your product or service.

5.) Do your Research
Learn about the company you are trying to do business with. By knowing their strengths and weaknesses, you can help promote your product in a way that will fill the gaps and solve their business problems. This method of solution selling, with extensive knowledge on the company, will make you appear credible in the client’s eyes and can lower the barrier in order to close the deal faster.

It is important to always recognize your window of opportunity with each client, and proceed when the timing is right. Speeding up your sales cycle may not always be possible, but these are just a few tips to help motivate your leads and customers. For more information on this blog post or Epicom, email info@epicom.com.

The goal of the company was to build something greater than ourselves and to help companies be successful through the tools and technology we equipped them with. As the engineering team grew, a decision had to be made. Who are we, what projects do we want to work on, and what do we want to claim expertise in? After evaluating the major CRM products on the market, Epicom was confident that SugarCRM was the right solution to build engineering expertise around, and to recommend for our clients. So why Sugar?

1) FLEXIBILITY

From a technical standpoint, it is a lot easier to work on Sugar because it is open source. If a customer needs something customized, our team can modify the core code of the application so that the end result is exactly what they need. Our engineers are better able to focus on the business solution knowing that the technical design would always be possible. We never have to tell a customer to change their business process to work with SugarCRM. The application can work the way the company needs it to.

Our engineering team enjoys this flexibility because it allows them to be creative with anything from modifications to the user interface to complex SugarCRM integrations with third party applications.

2) DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS

With Sugar, companies have the option to host with Sugar OnDemand, in house, or with a third party hosting provider, such as Epicom’s SugarCRM hosting platform. The freedom to store your data anywhere is a huge advantage to companies. The data is yours, so why would you be forced to pay to get your data out of the CRM or be forced to pay more if your database size grew? Also, it gives companies the freedom to run the application on a hosting platform of their choosing to give them the security and speed their business demands.

3) PRICE

SugarCRM is priced lower than competing CRMs on the market. Not only is the price of Sugar lower to start, but users also won’t get hit with additional fees as the company grows. For instance, with Salesforce.com, a company might start out at a reasonable price, but if they grow beyond 5 users, the price jumps 160%. Then if you ever decided to integrate Salesforce with any of your other business applications, you would have to jump to the Enterprise edition, which is $125/user/month! Yikes!

4) SCALABILITY

Because SugarCRM is so flexible and is at a lower price point, it can easily scale with your business. This is a major benefit to our customers. They are able to implement a CRM solution that fits their budget and immediate business needs. As they grow, they can easily integrate or customize the application to fit their changing business, while maintaining their license rate per user. With Sugar, they are able to grow their business using the same licensed edition that they started with.

Consulting is in our roots and ingrained in the way we sell and do business. As a company, we knew we wanted to recommend a product that not only delivered value and benefit to the business, but was affordable and scaled with the company. To learn more about SugarCRM and how it can benefit your business, email info@epicom.com.

1. Referrals
Once or twice a year, email your client base and ask if they have at least one business contact who may be interested in speaking with you about your business. By only asking for one referral you won’t overwhelm them and they will be more inclined to assist you.

2. Become an Industry Expert
Become a go-to person for all questions and concerns within your industry. By becoming a reliable source, your window of opportunity expands and you are able to meet additional prospects through appreciative customers.

3. Set up a Contest
Setting up a contest for a free service or product is a creative way to bring new traffic your way. By having the contestants enter their information in order to qualify, you are able to touch base with new potential clients as well as promote your product or service. Be sure to pick a prize that is distinct, helpful and motivating in order to assure that contestants apply.

4. Offer Free Trials, Free Webcasts, and Free Webinars
When giving away free information, make sure it’s valuable. Nowadays it’s harder to give free information away, so make sure that what you’re offering is re-usable and useful.

5. Join at Least Four User Group Forums
By joining numerous forums you can see what people are talking about, including the good and the bad about products and services in your industry. You can also get a feel for the competition, and stay updated on new features, products, and improvements.

The initial goal is to stay informed on developments in your industry, not to meet potential customers. But if you know the ups and downs of your industry and your competition, you can guide unsatisfied customers towards your company and your products.

6. Use Social Media to Help Advertise to Your Industry
Social media is a useful tool that companies too often ignore or neglect. Advertise your work, your products, and your goals so that everyone can see how passionate you are about what you do. Whether you’re using LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, people will be able to see how active and committed you are.

Also, separate the message for each medium. For some companies, it may not make sense to advertise products and services through Facebook. Instead, use Facebook to show off your company culture, new hires, and company outings.

7. Join Networking Groups in Similar Industries
Concentrate on finding individuals to work “With” and not work “For.” By attending numerous functions and events you are given a chance to network with many different individuals. Get your name out there and meet people who may later refer you and your company.

8. Don’t Forget your Local Community
Because of the World Wide Web, people often forget how influential working locally can be. People prefer to do business with local companies. So advertise and promote your business at local events, and in newspapers, magazines, and directories.

9. Host Live Seminars
This works hand-in-hand with being a go-to person. By hosting live seminars you are able to display your knowledge of your industry. Actively sharing information on your field and industry can help you engage with new leads.

10. Create Partnerships
This is a great way for you to consistently meet new leads. By partnering with a company, you can solve numerous problems for clients as well as market yourself twice as much. Find a company or product that compliments your existing business and create a way to market your products and services. This will offer more to each customer and create a larger audience for you to reach out to.

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These are just a few ideas we found to help diversify and freshen-up your lead generation. What other methods have you found useful in your business? Let us know by leaving a comment or email info@epicom.com.