<p><strong>Scenario:</strong> <em>"Dude, we have so many repetitive things to do. That means we must hire more people to do those repetitive things. Yay!"</em> Thriving businesses focus on repeatability; that's the easiest/fastest/sweetest way to grow their revenues. <span class="highlight">Yet, with repetitive tasks -- comes tedious time-wasters.</span></p> <ol> <li>Now, what if your company could increase its productivity by <strong>40%</strong>?</li> <li>What if you gave your salespeople of <strong>30%</strong> more time to sell?</li> <li>What if you freed <strong>50%</strong> more time for other creative tasks?</li> </ol> <p>How much would your profits increase? <span class="highlight"><strong>Good sign? Consider automating your business with software built to the soul of your company.</strong></span></p> <h2>Why Off-The-Shelf Software Sucks</h2> <p>Off-the-shelfers make your business run according to the software -- instead of having the software complementing your already-fab business. <span class="highlight">That is, instead of accelerating your profits by making your company more agile, you start impeding its momentum by working around software built for different agendas.</span> Like a billion personalities in this world, your company is unique to you -- and you need something that improves how well you already run your business.</p> <h2>Why Custom Software Rocks</h2> <p><span class="highlight"><strong>Custom software helps you increase productivity by automating those uniquely-repetitive tasks catered to your business's needs.</strong></span> For instance, instead of:</p> <ol> <li>Hiring a team to send a hundred invoices a day.</li> <li>Sending informational email to every single lead.</li> <li>Manually organizing your appointment times.</li> <li>Upselling a thousand customers on Product X.</li> </ol> <p><span class="highlight"><strong>You automate the process where you decrease/eliminate labor.</strong></span> <span class="highlight">Instead of taking hours, you now take minutes (or nothing) doing the same task.</span> <span class="highlight"><strong>That saves you resources, energy, money, sanity, and your business's creativity juices for other -- more lucrative -- opportunities.</strong></span> Beautiful. Growth. Ahead.</p> <h2>But Do You Really Need the Thang?</h2> <p>Two drawbacks to a custom software:</p> <ol> <li> <h3>It's costly.</h3> <span class="highlight">If you're just starting -- unless you see tremendous/concrete signs of growth -- hold off on it.</span> You could always get by with off-the-shelfers (e.g. Excel, Quickbooks, etc.) Remember: you only want custom software to accelerate your already promising results, not build something that you speculate you might need. </li> <li> <h3>It rarely comes to fruition.</h3> <span class="highlight">Most software projects never get built because of: (1) incompetent programmers, and (2) enormously-big ambitions.</span> Be cautious if a software team promises a 500-day completion. Those long project cycles rarely get built competently -- and in the unlikely scenario that it does, your needs will have already changed. </li> </ol> <p>The type of software your business gets depends on the adaptability, smarts, and experience of your software team. <span class="highlight">Get those who have proven track records, and can help you build a releasable Version 0.1 within weeks.</span></p> <h2>Growth Like a Beast</h2> <p>If you can overcome the barriers, a custom-built application will grow your revenues astronomically. Just don't let it run your business. Instead:</p> <h2>Make your software your company's b!@ch.</h2> <p>&nbsp;</p> 2007-05-16T21:11:54-07:00 false 543 when-your-company-needs-custom-software 0 2009-11-03T18:00:55-08:00