Wow! You’d be surprised how fast you can get a solid streak going. Seems like just yesterday I started on this (ok so it wasn’t THAT long ago but still) and already we’re on the 5th video. I also completed day 11 of my fitness streak today too. There’s definitely something to be said for just starting where you are, and taking massive action. Before you know it you’ll have some serious momentum to continue building off of.
Today we talk about the CRM ABC’s. This is the next step you want to take whether you’re just starting out or have an existing database. It can be overwhelming trying to clean up a massive database of thousands of contact records. So we’re going to start with your A players. As they say 80% of your business is generated from 20% of your clients (I’m paraphrasing to make a point). Rather than trying to maintain the whole database right off the bat we’re going to focus on your top clients and prospects and making sure that their records are dialed in, up to date, accurate, and that all appropriate context is in the system.
The number of A’s is going to vary based on your situation. It could be 10, 25, 50, 100, etc. It’s mostly arbitrary but you want it to be the people who really matter. Whether they’re existing clients, or companies on your “wish/hit list” that’s up to you to decide.
After you make that decision, get to work making sure the necessary and relevant data is in the system. This will include contact information for the specific people/decision makers you want to track, prior communications (if applicable), potential referral sources or champions who can help, insight into their problems/needs that you can help solve, etc. Anything that might be helpful with continuing to serve them well, or to help you close the deal should be included.
Once you get these done you’ll have some serious momentum to continue charging through the rest. But no matter what, these should always remain your priority.
The WIMS Guide Video Edition will focus on business topics such as Entrepreneurship, CRM, Marketing, Sales, B2B, Business Development, Web Design, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and much much more. To learn more about Mike Simmons and his company WIMS Consulting, click here.
Today we’re going to cover a brief intro to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for those who don’t know what it is, and for those that do, I just go into some quick initial steps to consider taking if you’ve been apprehensive thus far. I know it can be tedious to set up and maintain but the ROI is incredible if deployed correctly.
It’s really mind blowing to me how much resistance there still is out there. Frankly, it’s like turning down a superpower. If you want a little help or guidance please reach out! Whether you’re starting from scratch, converting an Excel File/Google Sheet, or you’ve been using a CRM for a while but are stuck in a rut, WIMS Consulting can help you take it to the next level.
In summary, my favorite/recommended platforms are:
Track your leads and prospects from website/marketing, intros from referral sources, lead generation, sales cycle, your existing customers and deal flow, etc.
Sync email, whether Outlook/Gmail
Sync Email Marketing: MailChimp/Constant Contact
Sync Social Media Accounts
Card Scanner app to streamline uploading business cards and converting them directly into contacts.
I’ll make sure to keep adding more and more value on how to continue leveling up your CRM and sales game throughout the year. Much more to come!
-Mike
The WIMS Guide Video Edition will focus on business topics such as Entrepreneurship, CRM, Marketing, Sales, B2B, Business Development, Web Design, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and much much more. To learn more about Mike Simmons and his company WIMS Consulting, click here.
It’s Friday! Already got day 7 of my gym streak knocked out, got it in early today as opposed to the 10pm sessions I’ve been pulling off lately.
Today’s client work was mostly related to government/military contracting as well as the legal industry. Fascinating stuff. I try to bunch project work together by themes/industries as much as I can in order to maintain a consistent and appropriate mindset. It doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does I find it helps create more efficiency as you don’t have to transition from say a law firm to a restaurant instantaneously.
Most important however, I wanted to use today’s post as more of a call to action to all of you. If you’ve got the goal of creating more written and video content surrounding your business I’d love to do some guest posts/collaborations moving forward. I just have a few small stipulations that I list on here. So please reach out to me so we can make this happen!
PS, yes I’m a pacer, rocker, fidget-er even (again media training on the way), it comes out especially when running on pure adrenaline after a wild week too haha. (Man watching these playbacks is awkward…)
Enjoy the weekend everyone!
-Mike
The WIMS Guide Video Edition will focus on business topics such as Entrepreneurship, CRM, Marketing, Sales, B2B, Business Development, Web Design, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and much much more. To learn more about Mike Simmons and his company WIMS Consulting, click here.
First of all, thank you for the feedback from Day 1, it means a lot and I appreciate it! There were a lot of you savages still grinding long into the night of January 1st checking LinkedIn/YouTube and I love to see it. Secondly, my wife has agreed to give me that media training refresher after all. So, when that happens, I’ll record it for you all as she’s a legit pro – and talk about META AF content am I right?!
For today’s message I went in a bit of a different direction as I wanted to highlight some of the other content I launched. I wrote a blog post specifically about Charlotte and offered some tips for how to grow your business here in 2020. Then I also wanted to highlight the newsletter we launched today that goes out to the company list and includes a ton of content. It’s the original The WIMS Guide that typically pairs with the blog and includes some additional content such as event calendar and travel advisory. Check the blog site (wimsguide.com) if you’d like to subscribe and get it, or you can email/text me or comment and I can add you to the list.
On here I give a rundown of some of the content from the newsletter, and rather than be redundant here I’ll just throw some links and let you listen to the rest. If there’s anything I can elaborate on or something you’d like me to talk about in the future, please let me know. Onward!
-Mike Simmons
The WIMS Guide Video Edition will focus on business topics such as Entrepreneurship, CRM, Marketing, Sales, B2B, Business Development, Web Design, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and much much more. To learn more about Mike Simmons and his company WIMS Consulting, click here.
Happy New Year and welcome to the new decade! After about 50 takes I figured what the heck, let’s just launch this thing. It’s raw and vulnerable, warts and all. Clearly I need a media training refresher from my wife who is a former TV reporter. But that’s ok, the polish will come later with practice and reps.
Without further ado, coming to you from the WIMS, Inc. War Room it’s The WIMS Guide video edition! I’ve procrastinated for years now on doing video content as surprisingly, it may be the one area I’m a little self-conscious. But that’s also why I needed to just put myself out there and DO it already. So here we are.
I definitely cringed a little (ok a lot) watching the play back, but I will absolutely get better. I’ll begin conveying my thoughts my clearly and concisely. But if you could give your boy a little grace here in the beginning, I’d appreciate it. Or don’t, feel free to roast me too I can take it.
As the blog this is meant to be about the never ending/ongoing journey of business, entrepreneurship, professional development and much more. I’m going to try to provide you with as much value as I can through the insights gained from running my companies, WIMS Consulting, EolianVR, and ARRE (along with perspective and experience gleaned from dozens of clients across a variety of industries and sizes). But I also want to learn more from you too, and even build a community around our shared insights and experiences.
My goal isn’t to build a Gary V or Grant Cardone or Ed Mylett style vlog. It’s to just force myself to get better, get out of my comfort zone, and try to serve my community in any way I can. That’s really all I can hope for. It could last a week, or a decade, we’ll see…
Here goes nothing!
The WIMS Guide Video Edition will focus on business topics such as Entrepreneurship, CRM, Marketing, Sales, B2B, Business Development, Web Design, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and much much more. To learn more about Mike Simmons and his company WIMS Consulting, click here.
We at EolianVR know that the health care industry is fascinatingly complex, multifaceted, and one of the most vital pillars that holds society together. The implications of its direction, evolution, improvement, are paramount to us all.
Regardless of how quickly firms, researchers, scientists, and front-line providers can innovate, the inevitable counter-punch strikes as new diseases emerge, political and administrative bureaucracy bogs down progress, or the sheer volume of humanity’s growth tips the scales in the other direction. Nevertheless, we must persist and never relent in this noble pursuit of progress.
Absolute magic is performed every single day, in countless ways, across the entire globe as professionals in the space manifest modern miracles on demand to save lives and treat their patients. However, the magnitude of how far we’ve come is often diminished and unappreciated as there simultaneously is still so far yet to go.
Just because the road ahead is difficult, and at times downright overwhelming, doesn’t mean that we should simply accept the status quo and settle for the way things are. On the contrary, the hard problems are the ones truly worth solving.
These ideals and sense of duty are what inspired our team at EolianVR to make the commitment to the health care industry. We want to do anything and everything we can to help contribute, even if just in a small way, to our firm’s primary mission: to help save lives.
We pursue this mission by leveraging technology to build customized software platforms for our clients in the health care industry. Specifically, we build these new worlds primarily using augmented reality/virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Then, we maximize the value and exposure of these platforms by ensuring that they interface with the more prevalent and widely available technology of today, such as mobile/tablet devices and personal computers.
We are currently working with some of the most world-renowned and innovative health care organizations on the planet on a variety of use cases ranging from patient treatment, clinical research, training and education, surgical demonstrations, to even creating a virtual walk through of a children’s hospital to make it less intimidating for future patients before they arrive.
Not only do we have a vast amount of experience in the health care industry, but our patent pending platform is being built for several other high level industries as well (more to come!). Again, our mission of saving lives was the motivation and inspiration that lead to its creation and we’re only just beginning to perceive the widespread implications of its potential
Due to the fact that the sky is the limit with respect to what we can assist organizations with, we typically try to start by identifying one or two of the primary objectives that exist and use those as an initial pilot project. We work with the appropriate stakeholders to determine the most appropriate problems that need solved and build a project plan around the desired outcome. We lay out key goals and metrics, establish the appropriate budget and deadlines, and collaborate to track progress along the way. Each engagement is customized in this way and ensures that at the end our clients are pleased with the result.
As a firm we make sure to stay on top of the latest technological innovations in our space and remain device agnostic in our development so that we can always make sure our platforms and software work on the best hardware that the industry gets to market. This agile and dynamic approach allows our clients to remain confident that the solutions they invest in will always maintain value and effective regardless of what comes out next.
It’s truly our honor to do our part in helping the health care industry continue to innovate. We would love the opportunity to partner with your organization and build new worlds together to help save lives. Just reach out to [email protected]!
As business has continued growing rapidly for WIMS Consulting, the preexisting business model of leveraging elite independent contractors to assist with client projects has needed to evolve. So, we’ve begun growing more in-house as well in order to focus on enhancing client service by way of emphasizing project management and streamlining operations. Simultaneously, we’re more focused on continuing to grow and take on new challenges as well.
What’s been happening with my company’s EolianVR and Augmented Reality Real Estate (ARRE) either which have been exploding with growth recently too. We’ve landed deals with government entities, major health care companies, and are closing in on major real estate companies from brokers to developers to architects as we’ve refocused on improving development. We’ve also just filed a full patent to further expand on our provisional patent. It’s been an insane year and it’s not even halfway through yet. By the way we’re also hiring (Unity Developers particularly, and front end even more specifically).
Just wanted to take a few moments to update those that may be interested on some of latest developments in our world.
We’ve had Craig Oliver on as a project manager for a while now yet his role is continuing to evolve and grow with experience.
Tom Schaefer, Jr. has been brought on as a strategic partner to head up our business development efforts in both Charlotte and Miami (and beyond).
We’ve got interns Evan Shirreffs and Taisha Johnson who are helping with marketing, CRM, finance, and additional projects as well. Their roles will continue to expand as well heading into the summer.
Further, we’ll soon be announcing new partnerships as they’re formalized within the next month or two with people/firms in Los Angeles/San Diego, Atlanta, and New York in addition to more in Charlotte/Miami to go with our existing ones.
We are committed to working with the best and brightest team to ensure we bring the greatest possible solutions to our clients, maximize the value we bring to them, and to ensure they grow their revenue to unprecedented levels.
ARRE (Augmented Reality Real Estate) recently launched a new website (still in development but the landing page is ready to rock and live). Check it out here.
At ARRE our mission is to help you “Close Faster” by helping you “Streamline Deals from Concept to Capacity.” We provide a complete, firm-branded solution, and act as your partner with a relatively quick on-boarding process, to allow you to begin using augmented reality to accelerate the rate at which you convert your commercial real estate asset into revenue.
Have you seen the ARRE 2.0 Launch Preview Video yet? Let your imagination run wild as you see just the tip of the iceberg of what ARRE can do. The immense collaboration possibilities demonstrated by Debra (the Real Estate Developer), Brock (the Broker), Gena (the General Contractor), and Archie (the architect) alone are incredible. Couple that with the ability to walk prospective tenants through your building before a shovel strikes the ground (whether they’re a local firm, or a company based in Europe, China,, or anywhere else in the world) and you’ll start to see how we’re really onto something that just might disrupt the Commercial Real Estate industry for the better.
ARRE is hardware agnostic, meaning we work with just about any device our clients are using. While we prefer the HoloLens (and soon to launch HoloLens 2), Magic Leap, or the HP Mixed Reality Headset, we also understand that some aren’t quite ready to fully dive into the world of augmented reality and virtual reality just yet. Therefore, we also deploy our tech on web based platforms, as well as the phones/tablets such as the iPhone/iPad.
ARRE includes the hardware, software, setup, support, storage, and ongoing rendering services you need to start using AR to accelerate sales and development within 48 hours from signing up.
Whether you’re a commercial/industrial/mixed use real estate broker, developer, architect, general contractor, engineer, or otherwise let us show you what we can do to help bring you and your company into the future. Visit https://www.augmentedrealityre.com/ or send an email to [email protected] to schedule a demo.
Industry altering advancements in the augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning space continue to be released at a rapid clip. It’s almost impossible to keep up, even for tech nerds like ourselves. Because of this, the team at Eolian decided it would be worth taking the time to highlight some of the most earth-shattering updates, curate those that are the most relevant in our area of expertise, and even add a little insightful context so you can convert them into action items when appropriate. We’re calling it “The Eolian Report”. This is the first of hopefully many editions and we hope you find tremendous value out of it.
The industry is moving so fast and adoption along with it. It won’t be long before you look around and notice how widespread and rampant AR, VR, AI, and ML use cases are being implemented all around you. Don’t blink or you might get left behind. We would love to convert everyone into believers but for the purpose of this we will do our best to remain objective and hope that the facts and trends will speak for themselves.
Full disclosure: we are also working on developing some incredible applications and have launched a few in our core verticals of military/defense, healthcare, and real estate. So, we may share some of our major milestones as well.
While we are biased on the subject and feel that everyone should at least be exploring the potential implications and use cases for their own businesses we completely understand the delay and skepticism. Because of this we’d love to hear from you all to see where your mindset is on the matter, whether positive or negative. Perhaps you’re a hardcore skeptic. Or maybe you have tried launching an AR strategy and it fell flat or never made it off the ground. Maybe you have been thinking long and hard about it but have yet to pull the trigger. Better yet, hopefully you’ve built and launched a program and it’s been achieving a lot of success and on the way to massive ROI. Either way please reach out and let us know!
-Mike Simmons, CMO
Now without further ado, time to check out some of the latest developments in the space:
General Business
Tesla Patent Application Mentions Augmented Reality Safety Glasses
Healthcare Augmented & Virtual Reality Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 2018–2026
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/4060124
Global Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in Healthcare Market Extensive Study of Future Value Chain on Regional, Drivers and Technological Advancements Outlook 2018–2027
Technology Innovation in Virtual Reality in Healthcare Market to See Rapid Growth in Coming Year — Leading Players Are Google, Microsoft, Daqri, Psious Industry Analysis
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/4053337/
Commercial Real Estate
With Augmented and Virtual Reality, Tour Your Office Before It’s Built [We have a platform called ARRE (Augmented Reality Real Estate) out that can help you do just this and so much more!]
Landlords Look To Curate Tenant Mix So Companies Can Financially Benefit One Another
There has been significant traction and growth in the augmented reality and virtual reality industry over the past few years, that’s undeniable and obvious. However, neither has yet to make that inevitable quantum leap to mass adoption by individuals and enterprises. At Eolian, we believe that augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality, are the next wave of computing, and will have an impact that far exceeds even that of the mobile one that we’re currently in. Some of the challenges that have been holding the industry back from that type of breakthrough are being overcome rapidly and as a company we are at the forefront of leading the charge.
VR Applications from the User Perspective
Three of the most common barriers to entry that cause hesitation with VR adoption from a user perspective are:
The uneasiness/motion sickness that can occur from too much “teleportation.”
The inaccurate destination area while teleporting with the current controller method is also a little cumbersome and frustrating at times when it sends you somewhere that you weren’t looking to go.
The controllers themselves can be a burden as well, not to mention having your actual hands mimic real-life movements in a realistic fashion is what you’re training someone to do via the educational use-case.
To fix these issues we partnered with a company called Leap Motion which developed a hand tracking sensor that eliminates these issues and allows you to more seamlessly embrace the VR world.
The Constant Evolution of Hardware
A lot of businesses don’t want to invest a significant amount of resources into a project if by the time it’s completed there is already another better piece of hardware coming out. This could render a project obsolete, or require significant and expensive updates late in the game to make sure the application is compatible. In some cases, companies simply refrain from even trying to build something altogether rather than make that type of mistake. They’d rather wait it out to see which piece of hardware “wins” before diving in. That could be a big mistake if/when their competitors get a head start.
Even a six-month to one-year long software development project could experience multiple hardware changes, so agility and adaptability are crucial. This shouldn’t be seen or approached as a burden, but rather an opportunity. A great Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality company shouldn’t need to react or be caught off guard either, they should anticipate these changes and plan accordingly. Build with the next version in mind at all times, without breaking what was built for the previous hardware in case delays in that next thing happen (which is also just as inevitable).
We’re already able to create applications that can sync with multiple pieces of hardware, and even from various manufacturers too. While we have our preferences, there’s no room for romanticism in this business. You don’t have time to wait to see what users adopt and then start building for that. By the time you do they’re likely on to the next thing.
Supply Chain Disruption
When working with cutting-edge technologies supply chain issues can arise leading to unpredictability and volatility. We’ve already experienced them too many times, so we now work with various forms of hardware in conjunction to mitigate these macro level issues that can arise while implementing an Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality initiative at the enterprise level. It won’t always be perfect (even Apple must outsource some of their parts to Samsung after all) so planning ahead to make sure you have all the right components is crucial.
Would Companies Really Use AR/VR to Train Their Employees?!
Yes. They would, do, and will continue to do so even more so. One of the most widely used, and highest revenue grossing VR application’s right now is “Job Simulator.” Think about that for a second, kids and adults are going out of their way to pay for a game that simulates what it’s like to have a job rather than getting an actual job and getting paid to do it. Quite the contradiction, no?
Not only are they using this application, but it’s now the “most popular VR title to date” after surpassing $3 million in sales. So anyone that says, “but our employees would never want to receive virtual reality training…” you may want to re-evaluate your stance on the matter.
The Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality industry is still in the wild, wild, west phase but the opportunities and use-case applications are astounding. You may have dismissed it altogether after trying one silly headset and phone application, but we’d urge you to give it another look and keep an open mind as that’s not what Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are truly meant to be. But don’t just take my word for it, soon enough this technology will have infiltrated just about every aspect of your life as it is so don’t miss the opportunity to be an early adopter.
