An interesting post on the Tectonic blog tells supports something that we’ve known for quite some time. Prepackaged software is not in high demand in the marketplace.

The post quotes Rishab Ayer Ghosh, a free software researcher at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who says that prepackaged software accounts for 16% of software sold while custom software accounts for between 40% and 50% of software purchases.

The reason? From what we’ve seen from our customers, some prepackaged software is great to keep a business running. But when it comes to standing apart from the competition and really managing internal business in a way that is unique to each company, requires a custom solution.

Cookie cutter solutions return cookie cutter results. Even though businesses can normally customize how prepackaged software works, it still forces everyone to operate within certain boundaries. Sometimes, the ‘boundaries’ of the software we use each day starts to become perceived limitations. Users begin to work within the limitations of the software rather than ask – what would be the best way to do accomplish this?

Custom software eliminates those imaginary boundaries and makes it possible to achieve truly unique results than everyone else. It’s nice to a post that affirms that most businesses see the value in thinking ‘outside the box!”

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A lot of people come to us for Sales Force implementation solutions after trying to do it themselves without much luck. I mean, Sales Force seems like a simple enough CRM right? There are tons of tutorials, lots of documentation, a support line—what’s so difficult? That’s what most people think… and then they beat themselves up for not being able to get the seemingly “intuitive” CRM to react the way they envision.

If this sounds like you, don’t think you’re alone! Here’s a real story of a typical Sales Force integration.

The VP of customer service for a mid-sized internet start up company knows they need to do something to organize customer inquiries and has heard about CRMs. After doing some research, he decides on Sales Force.com and gets an annual budget of $24,000 approved to pay for it.

He has no idea how to implement it, but that’s ok, he’s just hired a new Operations Manager, and that will be her job. The Operations Manager knows zilch about Sales Force, but is pretty smart and can normally tackle technical challenges, so they assume everything will be fine.

Armed with copy of “SalesForce for Dummies” the new Operations Manager begins the long learning curve of setting up this new system for a new company. Between reading books and watching video tutorials, there were numerous calls to the Sales Force support line, during which the customer service department staff often overheard a profanity or two.

6 weeks later, the task was accomplished and it was time to test out the results in real time with the companies real customers. Here’s the story from the point of view of the Operations Manager:

“The rollout worked out ok, there were definitely glitches and there were a LOT of things that I kind of rigged up to work right… I found out later that there were more effective ways of doing some of the earlier tasks, but at that point there was no turning back. Oh! And scalability for other departments! I didn’t even think of that!

Once analytics and biz dev saw the cool graphs, they wanted to add user accounts. But because I hadn’t planned it for interdepartmental scalability, we had to do more work-arounds to separate the data. At some point I just felt that the entire CRM was a house of cards that could collapse at any moment. I mean, this was what was housing some of the company’s critical business data and it seemed like it could implode at any moment. Whenever someone from one department would add a user or a new functionality, I would just hold my breath… and that’s when we decided we needed some help!”

So if you’re hiding a dirty little secret about the potential instability of your CRM, rest assured that there are plenty of others out there just like you. It might be uncomfortable to ask for the budget to bring in CRM software experts, but it can be a lot more difficult to explain what happened to all of the company’s data! If anything, getting a second opinion about your architecture and having an xpert poke around for signs of potential future problems is a smart idea.

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I knew a freelance software engineer once that just blew me away—but not for positive reasons.  The guy was smart and could produce masterful code, but watching him run his business was like watching a train wreck.  There was no way to stop the destruction and I just couldn’t help but look over every now and then.

The biggest problem with this guy was that he had no patience whatsoever with his anyone, especially his clients.  Like anyone who is a specialist in a certain area, he could usually foresee problems and more intuitive ways for the software to produce the client’s intended results, but had a terrible way of communicating this.  The ‘advice’ often came across as belittling as was apparent in many of his early client’s defensive tones. 

“Fine,” he eventually said.  “These people think their so smart, I’ll give them exactly what they asked for.”  He’d create a solid contract that covered all of the bases and deliver exactly what the client had asked for. As you may have guessed, “exactly what the client asked for” wasn’t always exactly what was best.  Part of the point of contracting an expert is getting their advice on the project and anticipating any potential problems. 

It would be like me, who knows nothing about aqua-engineering or home building, to request from a contractor a cod pond in the middle of my living room.  But when I find out that because I didn’t mention a filtration system I’m stuck with a pool of stagnant water and no way to drain it without making a huge mess, I’m going to be pretty bummed.  That’s because all I saw was myself enjoying or “using” the cod pond from a users perspective.

It is the client’s role to explain their desires from the user’s perspective and the engineer’s job to get down to the user’s real goal and do the tough stuff that makes the perfect vision possible—even if it means that some of the original requests need to be altered to achieve the intended results.

“Well, that’s what you asked for,” he would say when they complained.  The moral of this story is that when hiring a professional, be wary if they don’t come back with some critical thoughts to your original requests.  Sometimes exactly what you thought you wanted is exactly what you definitely don’t want.    

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Though it’s a term that many SEO’s and internet marketers say they don’t like, “link bait” is a smart way to gain the important backlinks necessary for moving your website higher on the search engine rankings. But what is ‘link bait’ and how can you use it to create massive amounts of valuable backlinks to your website?

The concept of link bait is nothing new. Creating link bait is simply creating something useful that people truly want to share with the others. This is something that publishers and advertisers have known for years—in order to be successful, you’ve got to produce content that other people want, not just something that pushes your agenda.

But what do other people want? That’s the million dollar question. First of all, successful link bait must be useful to other people—it must provide others with some sort of value.

One extremely successful way of attracting a ton of backlinks today is to develop small Firefox extensions and WordPress plug-ins.

Creating Firefox extensions and WordPress plug-ins for distribution is effective for a variety of reasons:

• They lend themselves very well to being included in online lists and directories (valuable backlinks)
• They are genuinely useful for audiences
• Their usefulness and uniqueness promotes highly valuable word of mouth promotion
• Gives your company the esteem of authorship

Browsing through the directories of Firefox extensions and WordPress plug-ins is a great way to get the creative juices flowing about new and useful extensions and plug-ins you could create.

These web apps can be generalized for a massive audience, or solve a problem for your particular industry. The sky’s the limit. There are virtually no boundaries when it comes to creating these small apps. The more useful the app, the more backlinks and publicity you’ll enjoy.

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We get quite a few inquiries from clients who have had terrible experiences with software developers in the past—and we listen carefully to every one of these complaints. In fact, these complaints have paved the foundation of much of our development process and our guarantees.

In hopes to help others avoid the expensive headache of software development gone wrong, we felt compelled to compile a list of 5 critical things to look for and evaluate before signing a contract for the development of custom software:

#1: Will your software be built by a team or by just one individual?

Building most kinds of software, especially complex software, is a lot like building a house—it requires the knowledge of individuals with multiple areas of expertise. If you’re contracting a single person to build your software, make sure that they have trusted people to consult with and contract for any portions that aren’t in their area of expertise.

#2: Did you get a guaranteed price quote?

It’s not uncommon to hear stories of software developers who got halfway through the project and then decided that the project required more time or resources than originally anticipated and then ask for more money. A company with a systematic planning and development process will have a fairly accurate idea of the cost of the project and be able to quote you a firm rate and will accept any oversights as their own error. Ask about the company’s process for determining price and their policy for holding true to the original quote.

#3: What do past clients think of their experience?

Before signing on the dotted line, get the contact information for 3 to 5 past clients. Contact the person who worked with the software development firm and ask candid questions about how the software compared with their expectations and how smooth the development process was.

#4: Does the company offer support and maintenance of the software?

When a company builds a piece of custom software, they are ideally the best suited for handling support and maintenance of the software. A freelancer hired from Craigslist or a project post may not have the capability to handle ongoing support requests. Find out if the company will handle support and if this is included in the price or if the cost of support is an added monthly or yearly fee.

#5: Will you retain all intellectual property rights?

You might be surprised at how many freelancers or companies will accept payment for creation of a piece of customized software and then attempt to sell it to your competitors at a lower price once it’s complete. This is completely inappropriate and you must be absolutely certain that you will retain all intellectual rights to the software upon completion. Absolutely get a guarantee of this in writing.

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