MRSware
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MRSware
Blog
Discover best practices, industry conference highlights, technology deep-dives, and feature updates for manufacturers' representative agencies.
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How to Automate Rep Payouts Without the Spreadsheet Headaches
drag emails (and other items) from the message list to the New taskbar to smartly create other entries based on the message contents and sender
Use the AI Paste function to insert a whole spreadsheet of Invoices, completely bypassing the need to type out any individual entries.
When customizing your CRM to match your business workflows, one of the most common decisions is determining how to store new data points. In our CRM database structure,...
There are many paths to get your information recorded without killing your time.
Open and Closed Anticipated Commissions for your Agency
In the fast-paced world of sales agencies and manufacturers’ representatives, staying ahead of the curve means more than just tracking raw sales volume.
Get year-to-date visibility into your anticipated deals, actual invoices, and unscheduled pipeline.
Safely remove duplicate entries while maintaining data consistency.
Updates to the Quick Add dialog in Orders and Invoices. Add an Invoice entry for an existing Order using the Quick Add dialog.
We have several AI options we are looking to make available in MRSware, and we want to know what avenues would make the most sense and have the most traction with you.
An audio review of the MRSware software-as-a-service offering
The default Sales Rep assigned to a Customer is used for Orders/Invoices, but can be overridden to apply credit to another Rep/Territory as needed.
Data Analysis' Commission Due is for showcasing Invoices that have not been paid yet, i.e. do not appear on a Payment Entry. Excellent for diving into overdue commissions by Vendor, Rep, and Products.
Every list in Web -- including things like Customer, Orders, and Opportunities -- all have a Charts button that brings up a variety of metrics visually for easy consumption.
I close out deals every day. Sometimes we don't have a feature an agency is looking for; sometimes we don't have the right price. Instead of just closing out those deals with "Lost", I get specific.
Integrate Constant Contacts bulk mailing, open tracking and link click tracking with your MRSware contacts and activity history.
'Tis the end of the year, and all of the inevitable "2023 wrap-up" emails have started to come in. It reminded me that I used to do this...
Everywhere you look there are discussions around AI, it's potential impact on work, life, and the world in general.
In the same way that we create Contact groups for Companies or Individuals, using Categories, we can filter, sort, and save our lists used to make Maps of our various sales territories. When we do this, it is easy to pull up those entries later, review and add to as necessary.
Pre-Fall Newsletter Promotion
I want to make sure I am not missing any of my customers on a trip through the territory next week... Give me a map of my active customers, ones who have been buying from me in the last year.
All the goodness of Web's Batch Editing, and access from anywhere, now available for the Allowed / Blocked / News Senders List.
Need a little help finding those invalidly formatted emails that have crept into the contacts list over the years? This new view under Individuals filters the list to show you just entries that are suspected to have invalid characters or format in the Business Email or Personal Email fields.
We touched upon the subject of databases versus spreadsheets in a fairly recent blog post, "Databases take your spreadsheet headaches away", and I wanted to expand upon that with some practical examples: Let's take a look at some product sales.
This is a repost from our Newsletter that goes out via email. If you wish to subscribe, fill out any of our forms found here on MRSware.com or send an email to sales@mrsware.com.
Ever notice the underlines entries in a row of a table or card? If you click anywhere else, you open the item for that page -- in this case, you would open the Customer details dialog. If you click the links, however, you get a separate tab direct to the item you clicked on -- in this example, clicking on ABC Paper gets you the ABC details dialog from the Company list; clicking on Diego gets you the Sales Rep entry details from that list.
There has been a lot of talk about, and big bucks being spent on, ChatGPT and AI language models in the recent news. What's it all about, and can it do anything for Manufacturers Reps? Well, let's ask the source -- the following excerpt is from Chat GPT itself:
CRM (customer relationship management) adoption has increased significantly in the past decade due to a combination of factors such as:
Working with a database is generally considered to be easier than working with spreadsheets for several reasons:
Manufacturers reps, also known as independent sales reps or sales agents, typically need software that can help them manage their sales activities and customer relationships.
Manufacturers reps, also known as independent sales reps or sales agents, play a vital role in the sales and marketing of products for manufacturers.
Whether you're entering the data yourself or have a few people in your office who handle your data entry, it's important to know your options for capturing the information that is important to your agency.
Opportunities are an integral part of a company's success. They come in all shapes and sizes, from current customers to new demographics to new products to new markets to...
On September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died and Operation London Bridge, the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II, was set in motion. No other event, in recent times, could have brought home the importance of succession planning more effectively.
Although the Sales Import process is most commonly used when entering orders, invoices, or commission payments, there may be times when they are sent from a manufacturer (one at a time) via fax, email, or mail.
A. More combinations of having and not having PO Number, Order Number, and Invoice Number are now handled by the Sales Importer. When using Update Records, there will...
When you're taking a look at your business' profitability, one of the factors to consider is whether your Principals and/or your Customers are generating a good ROI (return on investment). Being able to track the ratio of earnings to time spent on these partners gives you a general idea of the success of your sales efforts and your profitability.
According to a report from MetLife and the U.S.
New Help pages have been added directly in MRSweb for the MRSweb interface. General Help can still be found on www.mrsware.com, for both Desktop and Web; this change adds inline help directly on the pages you are looking at in the Web app.
While an Order or Invoice is a request to purchase, ship, and pay for something (a product or products), a Line Item represents a single entry on an order or invoice. An Order/Invoice can have multiple Line Items on it.
A while back we introduced the Sales Rep assignments in the Company listing. This is a new capability in Web that allows the Agency to better control access to the larger Company list in the system. Permissions dictate that only Users of the assigned Sales Rep or Territory, as well as the Owners group, have access to those Company entries.
Add the check information at the time of import, so that all Invoices being imported are recorded against that check and statement.
Many new totals columns have been added in various financial screens throughout MRSweb. These columns now all have the capability to aggregate data as well. These aggregates are typically shown as a Sum or Average (as appropriate to the metric) at the bottom of the listing or table views.
MRSweb Orders Orders can be found under the Sales menu in MRSweb. Orders are entered in MRSweb once the manufacturer acknowledges the receipt of the purchase order from the...
The Appointments Sidebar provides Data View Styles similar to the other pages. However with Appointments, the most popular view style is Calendar. In the Calendar View Style there are 5 Tabs:
One of the most robust features in MRSware is the ability to add, edit, or update, at the same time, an attribute or an unique or distinctive component found in any table within MRSware. This saves the User an enormous amount of time and effort.
Perhaps you've run into a situation where a company you do business with decides to change their Email address and that means you have to update all of your records -- not just a company Email address (and there may be branch locations that need to be changed, so not just a single address) -- but also everyone who works for the company (all of the individuals' Email addresses). In some cases this may be 100's, while in others it may be a dozen or so.
The Batch Number field was added to the Sales Import screen, as well as the Order, Order Line Item, Invoice, and Invoice Line Item screens. Assigning a unique Batch Number to a file that is being imported allows the User to easily filter by Batch Number in any of the related screens to find all related items.
When searching for information, you can sort and filter the table column headers or you can use the Search feature found on each page.
Sales Imports - Orders, Invoices, Payments
PO Number, PO Date, Terms and Order Instructions have been added to all of the Sales listings -- Orders, Order Line Items, Invoice, Invoice Line Items, and Payment Line Items -- so that the PO and any notes can be followed all the way through from Order to Commission paid
To help find possible data inconsistencies, 2 more views that will show duplicate entries were added in the same manner as the existing "Duplicate Orders" View under "Orders":
Import any data you get along the sales pipeline into MRSware and have it automatically linked and referenced by its related counterparts.
During the Sales Import process you may find that some of the line items don't import correctly. You have a couple of choices on how to handle these situations:
There may be times when you have started to do a Sales Import and want to save a it for completion at a later date, without having to remove it and start again. For example, in the file you've just imported, you notice:
You may have sales rep entries in your system that are duplicated, either from an error in a file that was imported or from a typing error. The example below shows 2 sales rep entries with the same name, but with a misspelling in the second first name. You can remove the unwanted entry(ies) by using MRSweb's Merge duplicate process.
When you hire a sales rep (for example, Diego Vega), you create a new MRSware User, and enable the sales rep in Sales Rep Management. Diego moves to another part of the country, so you disable him as a User and disable his entry in Sales Rep Management. A year later, Diego moves back and you re-hire him. You once again set Diego up as a MRSware User and re-enable him in Sales Rep Management.
Working remotely isn't new to manufacturers' reps. Most reps have home offices due to, among many reasons, the large distances within their territories, which makes it impractical to...
One of the advantages of using a CRM system is the ability to aggregate data. One of the best ways to form a group is to use terms or attributes to define a company, individual, appointment, journal, or project. In MRSweb, these attributes are called categories.
Commission Rules provides a list of default commission rules that are applied during imports - order reports, shipping reports, or invoice reports/commission statements.
In MRSweb, you can sort and filter in tables to see your data in a variety of ways. Sorting data makes it easier to see and review the data displayed. Filtering data separates out the unwanted information, hiding the information that doesn't meet your filter criteria.
When you want to edit a current Sales Rep or Territory, go to "Sales Reps" under the Contacts menu.
When you want to add a new sales rep or territory, go to "Sales Reps", found under the Contacts menu.
The Sales Rep Management page is the control center for the sales force. Here is where Sales Reps, Territories, and Agency sales entities are assigned. We also create the link between these sales force entities and their corresponding Users in the system. Once a sales rep/territory/agency is created in the system, it can be assigned to Customers and Invoices.
What are the best selling products for a manufacturer? Who's buying a specific product?
In MRSware desktop you can have multiple invoices associated with a single order.
There are several reasons for having duplicate Account numbers in MRSware:
There are a few cases where manufacturers will send out sales and commission reports with Account Numbers that are not unique, with more than one customer or location...
When you have 2 or more people working on a project, you want to have a central location for all activity that's taking place. Knowing how and where to report on project activities keeps everyone in the loop.
Change is the new normal. We're all dealing with the chaos of change brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, and learning to adjust to new rules. For many,...
When disaster strikes, your Disaster Plan kicks in. Depending on the type of disaster, you may have to add or change your employee's responsibilities. If you are adding duties for one person you will want to give them permission to access other areas in MRSware. If you are eliminating an employee you will definitely want to disable their permissions so they cannot access your data.
If you were caught off guard by the Coronavirus and your company disaster plan didn't include how to deal with a health pandemic, you were not alone. Even...
In addition to tracking the new rules, regulations, and guidelines being put in place during the Phased re-openings of business, you will want to track any individual preferences that will make it easier for you, and your customer, to do business together.
The first in the "CRM in the Pandemic Era" blog series, " Tracking New Guidelines ", talked about the challenges facing on-the-road reps now that the economy and...
Companies are setting up new regulations, restrictions, and guidelines to follow when re-opening for business. Every business is different in how they want their employees to interact with the public, including vendors.
Now more than ever you need a great Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database. The way we interact with our customers, prospects, and users has dramatically changed . The...
Pandemic, flatten the curve, essential business, social distancing, Zooming, Zoom-bombing, WFH, doom-scrolling, - these are just a few of the new slang and vocabulary terms that are infecting...
We are always looking for ways to increase our productivity. This example uses IFTTT to make Calendar Appointments for your Incoming and Outgoing calls. Once the appointments are created in your Google Calendar, they will synchronize via MRSware Sync
After the great response to our newest version of the MRSware browser-based interface, MRSweb , we are pleased to release it for everyone. With this release, one in...
The 2019 ISSA/Interclean Show is once again being held in "Glitter Gulch" - Las Vegas. Even with a full schedule of educational sessions, workshops, certification programs, networking events,...
Among the great number of email app for mobile devices and desktop that are compatible with MRSware, one of the most name-recognizable is Outlook. The Outlook app on both iOS and Android devices uses the same IMAP mail settings as all other email programs, using those to connect to the MRSware Mail Servers and synchronize (both download messages and upload changes) with the servers. This process is what allows many email programs and devices to connect and work with mail interchangeably.
During our training sessions we mention, and I often reiterate or hear repeated to me, the comment "there are so many ways to do the same thing in...
iOS update to version 13 has been released. It has come to our attention that a bug was introduced in their update that is causing their Mail app...
When you add your events to your calendar from your mobile devices or Google website, you have the option to select which calendar it goes into. The 2 calendars from Google that we are sync'ing with MRSware are your personal one (usually just shows your gmail email address as the name) and your "Myname's MRSware Appointments" calendar.
Windows 10 Mail is the free, pre-installed email client that comes with Windows 10. Just like you would use your pre-installed email app on your phone or tablet,...
The 47th annual PTRA Conference is being held at the beautiful Marriott Sawgrass Golf Resort and Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL from May 1 - 4, 2019....
MRSware Sync provides Users with the ability to synchronize MRSware and Google Calendars so your Appointments appear in both places. Any changes made in either calendar will be updated in the other.
Synchronization is the process of updating MRSware and Google Calendar so that your Appointments appear in both places, and any changes made in either place will be reflected in the other.
Tracking sales for Distributors with multiple branch locations, Manufacturers who do drop-shipments, and Wholesalers outside your own agency's territory requires that the sales be tracked to their final destination within your territory. This allows for proper credit to the sales rep for the final destination as well as accurately tracking sales by geography.
It's been 21 years since the ISSA Show was last held in Dallas, TX. I was still a manufacturers' rep juggling my time with national sales meetings, booth...
You work for a company, it has resources that you make use of and have to share with other members of your company. You can add those resources...
AIM/R's 46th Annual Conference is being held September 12 - 15, 2018 at the Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, CA. This year promises to be a record breaker...
There are certain areas in MRSware where it makes sense to use industry specific words or terms that are used by your company rather than generic terms. In Opportunity Tracking there are three places to customize MRSware for your company - Type, Opportunity Phase, and Close Reason.
Two new Dimension have been added to the Sales and Commission as well as the Sales Summary Analysis cubes in Data Analysis. Dimensions in Data Analysis allow the User to pivot the analysis cubes in different ways to extract more meaningful data. The addition of these two new fields further the Users' ability to inspect sales and/or commission numbers for greater meaning.
Magento is an e-commerce package with both open-source and hosted options for managing an online marketplace. MRSware can integrate with features of Magento to reduce data entry, monitor new online activity, and improve productivity between the MRSware CRM and Magento's online order system.
The Order Printout report shows the details of an Invoice, Order, Purchase Order, or Quote in the system. Now an additional piece of information can be optionally shown over the Vendor and Sales Rep section of the report, the Payment Date(s).
You may want to find a single invoice among many to be paid. If the invoice numbers are long it can be confusing. The easiest way to find the one invoice is to search for it in the Payment entry table. To do this:
When making a payment in Payment Entry, you can choose to run a Commission Reconciliation report showing the invoices paid. Click the checkbox "Run Commission Payment Reconciliation Report on Save" (see screenshot below left) and click "Save". The report opens automatically (see screenshot below right).
With the new year upon us, a common activity is to send out year end summaries to our customers. In this light, we have made some updates to the ever-popular Customer Snapshot report.
Copy to Salesforce, Update from Salesforce
Sometimes you find that your Agency is doing something different and need some custom reporting, whether it is a very industry-specific type of metric that you are chasing...
The Association for Independent Reps (AIM/R) will be gathering in Seattle October 17 - 20th at the Westin Seattle. Their theme this year - "Disruptive Leadership - Prepare...
When I use my phone or tablet or MRSware Desktop to read, sort, and delete emails, I don't want to them have to go to my other devices...
The ISSA/Interclean Show returns to Las Vegas once again for the latest trends and innovations in cleaning technology. The show floor is open from Tuesday until Thursday, September...
I was noticing delays in retrieving emails, even when my email app on my Android phone was set to grab them every 15 minutes.
If a User wants to keep personal information in the system that no one else can see, they can do that by selecting a "Private" Type for that...
Each kind of entry (Contacts, Appointments, Journals, Tasks, Projects) in MRSware has a "Type" that is assigned. The Type is the major descriptive category for the entry. Here...
From the opening reception to the closing banquet this year's conference was informative and enjoyable. Over 350 attendees of PTRA’s 45th annual conference in La Quinta, CA soaked...
Data Enrichment is the process of entering a piece of information about a Contact or Company and automatically getting back more details about them.
Your iPhone and iPad are indispensable tools used every day on the road, in front of customers, and after hours to record and schedule important information about your customers.
Spring cleaning is a traditional task performed by millions throughout the world. While we've always talked about physical buildings or vehicles when talking about Spring cleaning, today we...
Join the Power-Motion Technology Representatives Association (PTRA) at the La Quinta Resort & Club, May 7 - 10, 2017 for their 45th annual conference. The theme this year...
Did you ever wonder how professional athletes can be so-so players for one team and then when they're traded to another team become stars? It happens over and...
In my post " Are You Ready for Climate Change ", I talked about the assurance of change in our businesses. I wish I could say that all...
In order for a team to get to the NCAA Basketball Tournament they have to have a positive win/loss record. Teams need to know what it takes...
Climate change is a hot topic now (pun intended), but the kind of climate change I’m talking about is not the one that has everyone loudly voicing an opinion...
Don't miss MRA's upcoming Seminar - "Connect by Association" - being held at the Wild Horse Pass Casino in Chandler, AZ - on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 14...
The Home page of MRSware has a panel labeled "News".
A while back we posted an article on integrating MRSware File Share with Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and others.
We've seen the Golden Globes, the People's Choice awards, and the SAG awards, and soon the Academy Awards will be presented. In the category of Best Sales Person...
A manufacturers’ representative agency collects a lot of information. What you do with that information makes a big difference in the growth of your agency. As a multi-line...
MRSware email can be set to automatically check the spelling in a message before sending it.
Do you set yourself New Year's resolutions? Do you have goals at work? Are you more likely to attain your goals or your resolutions? Take a look at...
With the transition from social.MRSware.com to our www.MRSware.com site, one of the features that was missing was the live chat.
As they did last year, the AIM/R (plumbing, heating, and HVAC) rep conference and the ISSA (cleaning industry) tradeshow are running back-to-back. Those mileage points are adding up with...
Updates Update to thread synchronization, particularly to accommodate a change in Windows 10's threading model and increase MRSware screen transition speed and loading times. This update elevates some...
AIM/R is holding it's 44th annual conference at the fabled Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, FL from October 18th thru the 21st. With 3 days jam packed with...
A key way to work with and import/export data with external systems is by using spreadsheets, the most universal format of which is CSV (comma separated values).
We've been looking at a steep rise in ransomware -- the type of malware that infects computers and encrypts the user's personal documents, so that they cannot be accessed without first paying a ransom to the malware distributor.
Have you ever known a successful sales person that was at a loss for words? You can use this gift of gab to easily enter your sales call...
The Spam Filter Portal has some default handling of email attachments that are designed to keep our Users safe from malware, virus, and other type of attachments that are commonly sent by the bad guys.
This report is a list of Students for a selectable Class.
This year's MRA Seminar, held in Chicago prior to the National Restaurant Association trade show, delved into change - the changing rep model, the changes in technology, and...
Updates layout change to Commission Payment Reconciliation report added new columns Order # and PO # to Commission Payment Reconciliation report added Parameter to Order Printout report that...
Updates Home page menus changed, moved to right-side. New buttons added to right-side. Create New items directly from the Home page. Birthdays no longer show by default in...
Updates Home page menus changed, moved to right-side. New buttons added to right-side. Create New items directly from the Home page. Birthdays no longer show by default in...
Updates layout change to Commission Payment Reconciliation report added new columns Order # and PO # to Commission Payment Reconciliation report added Parameter to Order Printout report that...
PTRA hit the Trifecta with their Keynote Presenters: Kyle "Cruiser" Howlin - the Top Gun, Mark Jeffries - the Communicator, and Alan Beaulieu - the Economist. Content was...
MRA is holding it's 38th Annual Seminar May 19 - 20 in Chicago. The 2 day event will continue to explore the trend towards regional and national representative...
PTRA's annual conference is being held on the West Coast of Florida at the Coconut Point Resort & Spa from April 27 through the 30th. PTRA will be...
Be prepared, be professional, have a plan. Don't waste time, yours or your customers, make the most of the opportunity you have to talk with your customer...
New New Order fields are available in Invoice Entry to enable more tracking scenarios and entry of fuller Purchase Order and Order information prior to the receipt of the Invoice.
You're going to the Austin area at the end of the month to make sales calls and want to have a list of Leads, Prospects, and Customers that...
We are often asked about selecting more than one file at a time in Windows programs. There are several ways to select multiple files, folders, or items in...
The best New Year's resolution for your business is implementing Customer Relationship Management. Empower your people by providing them with the technology tools they...
Fixes When selecting Companies to Bulk Mail to, the Recipients Panel now shows a Contact Name if it is a match to the selected email address, instead of just a blank Name.
Tim Morales of Tim Morales & Associates, AIM/R's Conference Chairman, planned and ran a very successful seminar in New Orleans. There was a record turnout of over 400...
With over 16,000 in attendance, this year's International Sanitary Supply Association convention was the largest in years. The show included educational seminars, 3 Key note speakers, and...
Here is the page on LinkedIn that gives you the image options and correct link to use for LinkedIn profile links on your website, in your emails, etc.: ...
AIM/R's 43rd Annual Conference is being held in the Big Easy this year. This year's theme "Get in Tune with a Changing Market" addresses the factors that are...
This October, with two shows back-to-back we're going to be busy, busy, busy. Following closely on the heels of the plumbing, heating, and HVAC rep conference, the ISSA/Interclean...
The Project Printout report -- a report that is run for an individual Project, summarizing that entry and its linked items -- can optionally include some totals from those linked items.
Most of the time, Users will create a Home page icon that opens to the Home page of the MRSweb app. It is a natural starting place to...
Many of you are sending out e-newsletters to your customers and prospects. Here are 3 things you’ll want to do before sending out the newsletter: always comply...
There are a couple of menu items that are useful when working with web apps, which are web pages with application functionality that you view in your web...
April 22 - 25, Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa, Austin, TX The Power-Motion Technology Representative Association (PTRA) is holding it's...
A View file for Data Analysis is a saved arrangements of columns, sort, expansion, filters, etc.
Yes, it's snowing - again! The picture shows the over 6' tall fence outside my home office. I just took the picture today and I know it's hard...
As the old Frank Sinatra lyrics go, “you can’t have one without the other”. At least he says that about a horse and carriage. Could...
Step 1 is to export the contacts from your iCloud account. Step 2 is to run the Contact Import Wizard to import those contacts into MRSware. These are...
Sales compensation plans have changed over the years. When MRSware was developed, the majority of rep agencies used a simple commission split for compensating their sales reps. So,...
MRSware Sync has been around since 2006 or so, providing a way for phones, tablets, and Outlook to synchronize Contacts, Appointments, and Tasks. MRSweb was originally released in...
Bulletins are a new feature introduced with MRSweb, and its a great way to inform your users/colleagues/reps of important company wide information whilst they are out and about.
Each mobile device has the ability to add shortcuts to your favorite web apps to the Home screen of the device. Here are the instructions for some of...
This year's AIM/R conference was held in Squaw Valley, CA - home of the 1960 Winter Olympics - and it did not disappoint anyone. Attendance was high with...
Our final conference of the year will be the STAFDA tradeshow being held at the Charlotte Convention Center, Charlotte, NC from November 9 - 11, 2014. The STAFDA...
We're into the full swing of the conference and trade show season and next up to the plate is the ISSA/Interclean Orlando 2014 tradeshow . It will be...
The Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe, CA September 29 - October 2 Louis and I will be attending our 9th AIM/R conference - our first was...
One of the ongoing topics for manufacturers’ representatives is “why do” and “how to do” succession planning. Indeed the feature article in the August 2014 “Agency Sales” magazine,...
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a free online service that helps automate task flows between multiple apps. In this example, which I use myself, I will...
Q: How do I make it so a disabled User can no longer access email and MRSware information?
First ask yourself the question - what's the goal of my company? Is it to make a profit? Yes, I'm sure that's one of your goals. But is it...
During the MRA Seminar, there was some discussion about whether social media was an effective marketing avenue for manufacturers' reps. I recently came across a video from Tom...
This year's MRA Seminar examined the relevancy of reps today and what they need to do to preserve their competitive advantage. If you weren't there you missed the...
MRSware has the ability to show appointments from other calendar services you may use right along-side your regular MRSware appointments. This can be handy for those of us...
May 15 - 16, 2014 Hotel Palomar, Chicago, IL I am looking forward to seeing you at the 36th annual MRA seminar. Normally we only get to "talk"...
If you missed this year's PTRA conference in Albuquerque, NM, you missed an opportunity to hear great speakers and network with your fellow reps, not to mention learn...
April 23-26 in Albuquerque, New Mexico Nancy and I will be attending the PTRA conference again this year, as we have since 2006. We look forward to a...
When manufacturers are interviewing potential new reps, they ask questions about the internal workings of the rep agency. They may ask obvious questions, but they are reading between...
There has been a lot of discussion on data security these last few months, ever since the release of classified documents describing national security and foreign espionage efforts.
We're often asked about business card scanners and which ones work with MRSware. Here are some sugestions: If you are looking for a dedicated machine for business card...
I’m sure you’ve heard that Microsoft just bought Nokia’s cellphone handset business. With this purchase Microsoft is trying to catch up to the smartphone OS (Operating System) market...
Imagine driving by your exit on a thruway because you were thinking about your next sales call or you were involved in a conversation. Or can you imagine...
In light of the 6.5 million passwords recently breached at LinkedIn, it's probably a good time to revisit how to set up secure passwords. I recently attended the...
Spring cleaning is a traditional task performed by millions throughout the world. When we think about spring cleaning it's normally about a thorough cleaning of the house, car,...
We've been asked if there are any tablets on the market where we could install MRSware and have full functionality? The answer is any tablet that runs Windows...
It's hard to believe that we're already 6 weeks into the New Year. If you've kept any of your New Year's resolutions, you're doing better than most of...
It's the time of year to set up your marketing plans. Throughout the process, MRS WARE 's Campaigns , Opportunities , Projects , Expense Reports , Report Explorer...
The News feature works like spam filtering -- just instead of placing the filtered items into the Spam folder, they are placed into the News folder.
We often run into manufacturers that think (or at least say) the reps they work with lack the technical capability to accept, consume, and work with detailed transaction...
Data Analysis is my preferred choice for reporting in MRSware.
In a fragile economy, like we face today, keeping track of expenses takes on more importance. Everyone is looking for ways to lower their daily, monthly and yearly...
Many of you receive reports from your manufacturers in a .pdf format. As you know this format does not allow you to manipulate the data, thereby rendering the...
In my last post, MRS WARE 's Opportunity Tracking was shown to be a versatile tool used by sales reps and managers for new leads and business opportunities....
New sales leads and opportunities are the life blood of any company. Leads come from many different sources - marketing campaigns, current customers, trade shows, word of mouth,...
As business grows, it's harder to keep track of sales activities. Managers often ask - Is there any way to search by sales rep to see a summary...
It is extremely handy to be able to print things directly to a PDF file, then you can e-mail that file, add it to File Share, or archive...
One of the popular subjects at rep conferences is sales management. Discussions are often focused on what managers are tracking - activities or results? Many of the...
The Customer Touch Points vs Sales Dollars report gives us an insight into the different ways in which Users can link contacts and companies in the system.
Texting has created a new language that you may find hard to learn. Some of these acronyms are already part of our everyday experience, but others are not...
We are often asked if you can use MRSware on a Mac. The short answer is "Yes". The long answer is "You need to either use the Mac...
How do you communicate with your grandparents, your parents, your friends, your children? Do you even stop to think about the various ways you reach out to each...
How to Choose a Tablet Thinking about buying a tablet? These may be some of your reasons: portability – easier on the shoulders and back than a laptop...
Are you taking the necessary precautions to keep your data and identity safe? You may think so, but at a recent conference I listened to a security consultant, John...
A typical thing we might ask Users for when helping them with a technical support question is to get a copy of the screen that they are looking...
Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have the ability to spell check text that you enter on web sites you are using. This is particularly handy when you are...
To capture what is currently being displayed on the screen of an iOS device, commonly referred to as a "screenshot", hold down the power button and press the...
Years ago I read an article by Gina Trapani, of Lifehacker.com, where she discussed a better way to set up high-security passwords and how to remember them. The...
In my previous post I talked about how our behavior is affected by the introduction of a stimulus (ringing or vibrating of a cell phone or mobile device) bringing about...
MRSware has two services that when combined and used in Outlook allow Users to take a good portion of their information offline (work with it when no Internet...
Are you managing your technology tools or are they managing you? You probably remember from your school days reading about Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov ran experiments showing that introducing...
We all know the old adage, "you have 1 mouth and 2 ears, so you should be listening twice as much as talking". Do we practice this as...
Email is a ubiquitous form of communication.
I recently took my father to get new hearing aids. The experience started me thinking about our ability to listen and hear what is being said. The process...
Welcome to our MRS WARE .com blogs. We will be expanding and including much content for the general audience interested in MRS WARE and what is going on...
By now you're all familiar with the term CRM - Contact Relationship Management. But are you really maximizing your CRM application? Most companies using CRM have created a...
I'm editing this post as a Tribute to Jack Berman. Sadly Jack has passed on, but for those of you who knew Jack I'm sure you'll recall his Call...
Every time MRSware starts, it checks several government run atomic clocks via the Internet for the current time and updates the computer appropriately. Users can also run the...
Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have the ability to spell check text that you enter on web sites you are using. This is particularly handy when you...
There are many reasons to use Sales Force Automation. 1. Record and track all the stages in your sales process. 2. Record and track leads from your...
T'is the season for holiday joy, and present buying.
As less leads present themselves, each lead becomes more important.
How do you get to be intimately familiar with a software product?