Infusion, Netsuite, Salesforce – The Right Tool For The Job
It seems a lot of IT people get caught up in “being right”. Or at least that’s the outside perception a lot of people have of IT people. If fact it almost comes with the title. If you’re in IT you almost have to be viewed as an arrogant individual with little patience for why my mouse stopped working. Eeehhh- yea well, I don’t have patience for trying to talk you through why your mouse doesn’t work- my brain hurts to stumble around with simple problems. I think that may be the best light to put the IT crowd into. If their brains aren’t being exercised (like non-IT people’s muscles) then anxiety sets in, which then turns to frustration. So the “being right” or “I already have the answer” mindset tends to come from having to deal with simple problems continuously, hoping for a complex one where they don’t have the immediate answer. However very complex problems turn into “simple ones” because the brain craves more and more so the “I already have the answer” mindset gets applied to more things than it should.
With “I already have the answer” often we find IT professionals becoming not just an advocate of a particular solution or platform but vehemently defending it like a Christian Crusader (cira. 1202 AD) when anyone has an opposing view. That defense is exactly what the companies behind those solutions want- but its not what you want. A closed mindset doesn’t serve your best interests, which may include ideas that their way of thinking simply cannot accommodate. Its the ol’ adage of the square peg and the round hole- some people just want to try and make it fit.
In the online marketing world that we tromp around in its no different. In fact, just today I had a call whereby someone said [paraphrasing here], “Joe Awesome just switched everything over to this tool, he says its the best thing since sliced bread!” And what happens? We see a rush of people swinging from tool A to tool B because of advice, instead of understanding if tool A was the right one for their business they got caught up in the [ahem: marketing] bells and whistles of a shiny new thing. We as humans have a tendency to do that anyways, as there is a certain thrill with picking up a new project or starting a new venture. And its only when that thrill wears off and we find ourselves waking up next to the makeup-less solution every morning while the pit in our stomach gets bigger and bigger do we realize, “whopsies! I made a wrong turn back there.” And the cycle continues with the next shiny object because we’re now MORE pressed to find the right tool because we just wasted a bunch of time going down the wrong path.
Tools are tools are tools. They’re just that, tools. A straight blade [flathead] screwdriver will turn a flathead screw. Sure it can be a prybar, mixing utensil, shovel, you name it- but it wasn’t designed for those jobs, so the level of efficiency isn’t going to be optimized. Swap that flathead screwdriver for a crowbar and boom, you’re in business. The point here is that its critical to know WHEN and WHERE to use WHAT tools. That’s the key piece- any form of loyalty to a technology [tool] is irrelevant, it has to be designed for the job.
Today I received an email from Infusionsoft CRM, a tool that we have a copy of and mainly use for testing (our primary tool is Salesforce.com), speaking about a support Case that was just opened by one of the techs. I just about archived the email by something caught my eye.
The url that I was being redirected to in order to manage my Case wasn’t Infusionsoft CRM, it was Netsuite a “competing” tool! Now wait just a darn minute… why aren’t they using their OWN tool!?
While Infusionsoft is a software company that builds a mighty powerful CRM with a focus on marketing automation, they know when its time to use a more powerful tool. Infusionsoft doesn’t tout itself as the leader of enterprise level software, but its in a business class that requires it to use enterprise level software to deal with all of its business complexities, so- it could either try and add on features to their software in order to accommodate their needs (ie: custom code JUST for them internally) or they could leverage tools that already exist for the job. If you want to build a sustainable business, being careful about created one-off custom code (even if you’re a development firm) is pretty important. It simply takes a lot of time, energy and money to maintain any software applications.
Now if Infusionsoft was claiming to be the leader in enterprise level software and was using Netsuite, I’d have a little trouble with their ethical stance. However in this case I give them a hi-5.
The question to you is, are you using the right tools for the job? Are you not looking at your business objectives and goals to ensure you’re properly equipped? If you haven’t done a proper analysis before jumping on someone’s recommendation I suggest you do two things. 1) Pause and take a close look at what you have setup and determine if it will get you to your goals. 2) If you come back a little unhappy from #1 give us a shout and we’ll see if we can help.
If you have any direct questions or thoughts on this topic, leave a comment below!
– Mike