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Energise Enterprise is an annual small business month comprising an extensive program of events aimed at providing inspiration, ideas and information to build your business.
Presented by Small Business Victoria, the festival is expected to reach 42,000 people this year with both online and physical events.
Software Shortlist is proud to be participating as an event host at Energise Enterprise this year. We’ll be offering the following two webinars aimed at helping firms choose the right software:
- How to Choose the Right Software for Your Business: Learn a practical methodology to select software effectively, including case studies of how it can be applied.
- Software for Your Professional Services Firm: Be inspired by the potential of web-based software including timesheets, email marketing, CRM, and accounting solutions to improve your services firm.
If you’re interested in attending, please book through the Business Victoria website on the links above. Please note there are only 50 places available at each webinar so get in early to make sure you don’t miss out.
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“While the ability to choose is generally a good thing, too much freedom of choice is crippling us with indecision and making us unhappy.”
This snippet caught me eye in a recent news article recently called “Too much choice: variety the strife of life“. The article talks about key findings from a new study soon to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research by Professor Hazel Rose Markus from Stanford University.
Although their focus was broad (i.e. the study is called “Does choice mean freedom and wellbeing?” ), the study’s findings resonated with what we’ve seen at Software Shortlist in terms of how people feel about choosing software. Excessive choice can be a real problem.
Does the following sound familiar to you?
“People can become paralysed by too much variety, or racked with uncertainty and regret about whether they have made the right decision. Ultimately, these people can be less satisfied by the choices they have made.”
Our experience at Software Shortlist is that people want to know that all software options have been looked at, but doing the full research and evaluation process themselves can be frustrating and even counter-productive. This is why we do the detailed legwork for you – and present you with a manageable shortlist, so you can make an effective choice from the best and most relevant options.
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Having just spent the past week here in Silicon Valley, we’ve had plenty of practice describing what Software Shortlist is, the customer need it serves, and how we deliver value. One thing that comes across loud and clear is that people understand the pain that small businesses face in choosing business software.
As a result, their questions were typically things like ‘will people pay enough to fund your service?’, ’how do you create the content cost effectively?’, and ‘how will you reach your customers?’
After all that, it was interesting yesterday to see a question posted on a LinkedIn discussion group that really captures the essence of the customer need we solve:
Wanted: online CRM program
Our business uses both a desktop CRM program and an online email marketing software program. Time to get “one-does-all” online program I think so we can create and follow the opportunities pipeline better.
Have been trawling the Internet but one after the other promises a lot, but don’t really feel like having to do xxx free trials to find the one that would suit us best.
Is anyone using an online CRM program they can recommend to a small business?
In our view, this quote really captures the essence of why customers need a service like Software Shortlist. Now we just need to expand the range of software we cover so we can help more people like this…
