"My German partner, he does exactly what you recommended".
Oli
2022
Business process, ERP implementation, e-commerce, interfaces, online marketing.
SAL-Consulting supplied only the B2B market. These customers are personally advised and supported. Excel, Word and Outlook can handle many tasks. But if to the B2B market the B2C market is to be handled with its own brand, then it would be desirable if the processes that can be automated run automatically, with or without Excel.
"I know you're not a fan of theories. But we still need a battle plan."
Rodi
SAL-Consulting imports high quality parquet and distributes it through the intermediary trade. Some building guides and architects are also supplied directly. With the new brand Belmondo, the market for end customers is now to be handled professionally. For this to work, processes such as customer e-mails, inventory reconciliations or transport orders must be created and sent automatically.
A flexible virtual project organization consisting of three freelancers (design, IT, technical) starts the project with teams and OneDrive. We are all in location-independent offices and define regular status meetings. The task management in Teams is sufficient for project management in the first step.
When defining the tasks for implementation, however, without a concept one quickly gets into stressed doing without any recognizable success. The idea and the target state are quickly told and understood. For the necessary overview we make a diagram with the representation of the desired target state. From this, the necessary steps can be derived and prioritized.
The process makes a number of things clear; B2B and B2C are different markets and there are a number of sales platforms in the B2C market. However, the fulfillment processes do not change much. A system will need to connect all inbound sales processes to the appropriate points in the fulfillment process. We check cloud ERP systems for their interfaces and automation possibilities.
In view of possibilities like Etsy, Amazon, Tutti and Instagram, the own web store seems superfluous at first glance. But Belmondo has to get a home. Besides, platforms like Instagram, Google and Co. are much more powerful in cooperation with an own store. The exchange of information between the platforms perfects their accuracy in targeting the target group.
"Can we get started posting?"
Erik
Ideally, each of us would have liked to start marketing right away. But as we all know, the free skate comes after the duty, and there's a reason for that. None of us, nor the professionals, could tell us how much feedback a campaign would generate. In this respect, and for everyone's blessing, it's advantageous to let Google's and Meta's AI machines loose only when the processes are working.
When it came to choosing an e-commerce platform, we came to a decision more quickly than with any other tool. With the no-code platform from Webflow, we found a tool that gives us the necessary freedom in design and keeps interfaces to all possible tools open. This gave us the security of being able to connect sales platforms, if not via the ERP, then via Webflow. In addition, own code can be inserted in a simple way. Something we needed for the area calculator.
What we liked so much about Webflow with the Webflow University, we found again at Xentral with the Xentral Academy. Self-learning at its best; you configure and do as much as you can and want to by yourself. In the demo version, we were able to implement core functionalities (automations, company-specific documents) ourselves. We had a salesperson show us the remaining features. An onboarding team then guided us to our goal via Teams and Asana.
It also works directly, but you need add-ons. These are not available for all systems, must always be kept up to date, and you have to make do with the fields and functionalities that are available. Since all our systems have extensive API interfaces, we came to the conclusion to handle the interfaces via an interface server. The idea of "Make" came from Xentral and we liked it immediately. From Make, we serve Xentral, Google, Facebook and whatever else comes along.
"You increase the advertising budget as long as the overall return goes up. But that's contingent on you being able to measure it."
Rodi
A manager once wrote the following in his book; "Business is easy, you just have to take in more than you spend". I don't know when he wrote that, but in marketing that phrase has never been more true than it is today. Google tracks your spending and knows not only who clicks on your ads, but if you want it to, who buys your products. This allows Google to target your ads more effectively using AI. Google's data is immense, as we all know. Recently, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter and others have also started playing this game.
"I don't need an ad agency, I have you and Erik." That's how Ray Marketing came about. If additional skills are needed, then we can get them on the freelancer market.
"Do you know how much our colleagues from Germany put into Google Ads every month? You can't imagine that." As long as it's profitable, then it makes sense. The thing is, you have to track it. Otherwise, the exercise makes little sense. Since 90% of the German colleague's sales are via Google, it was clear to us; first Google then Insta.
It may be that sales via Instagram will not be as great as via Google. Nevertheless, for brand building we can't neglect this market. Here, too, Facebook Pixel can be used to set up communication between our store and Meta.
