The Spring ’19 release of Salesforce is less than a month away. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to browse through the official release notes, here’s a quick rundown of the most important new items for this first update of 2019.

Quick Wins for the Last Quarter

Welcome to 4Q, where we’re planning for 2019 while trying to close out 2018 strong. Especially in sales and marketing for manufacturing, where we’re balancing capacity, booked revenue and shipped revenue targets, it’s a challenging time. For better sales and marketing alignment and a stronger close to the year, here are some key questions to ask your team:

You may have seen our recent announcement that Launch Team has acquired One Down Consulting Group. It has come together fast, but was a long time in the making.

I often hear from companies that their marketing team collects data for data's sake—that they are mired in the minutia of marketing analytics, which have little to no impact on the sales team. The marketing team in turn complains that the sales team doesn't take the time to put the data into the CRM, nor do they learn to use the CRM well enough to make use of the available data. The finger pointing is cyclical and can leave leadership in a quandary. In this case, I believe it is up to the marketer to prove the value of the data to the sales team.

One of the main decisions an Executive has to make regarding Salesforce.com is who is going to implement and support your solution. I have been in this space since 2001 and, in general, I see two different types of implementation partners: firms that lead with tech and firms that lead with consulting. The question is, which is right for you?

Salesforce.com has been talking about Lightning for over a year. It is on the way, and now is the time to start planning for it. 

When Salesforce began in a San Francisco apartment 18 years ago, who would have imagined that today more than 150,000 customers would trust Salesforce to drive sales, service, marketing, and more every single day? In fact, every month, our customers facilitate more than 50 billion interactions powered by Salesforce.

In growing small and mid-sized companies, the CEO is often the company’s best salesperson. As the company grows, so does the sales team, but the CEO seldom is able to totally abdicate a role in sales.

At a recent panel discussion, I was asked to share experiences in sales and marketing with an audience of Entrepreneurs’ Organization accelerator founders, along with fellow panelists Don Davis of Empire Automation Systems and Ron Valentine of ITX.

Opportunities and Challenges

For optics and other component manufacturers, medical devices represent a strong opportunity—especially for those who need to diversify their revenue base from DoD.

The US medical device market growth rate has slowed in recent years; it’s projected at 6.1% for 2017. There are several factors slowing growth and innovation in US healthcare, including:

• The repeal and reform of the Affordable Care Act, and post-election uncertainty
• Iterative product innovation to speed product launch, reduce FDA hurdles, and reduce risk

Occasionally we hear companies say that attending or exhibiting at trade shows brought them little ROI. The first question we ask is, “How many appointments with prospects did you have set up beforehand?” Frequently the answer is none. Hoping that prospects with a need will drop by your booth during the show, whether or not they are familiar with your company beforehand, is simply not enough.

Tom McManus, CEO of KegWorks, has worked to build a global, multi-channel, multi-brand corporation committed to “everything in the bar except the alcohol,” including their Line Logic and Behind the Bar brands.