Having spent the past week or 2 with 9 spread sheets full of supplier, customer and all our past order data and no where for them to go. I set about selecting a new piece of software for us to use as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

The term CRM is used very broardly in the tech world to describe a whole maner of things.  Usually anything to do with tasks and opportunities and project management etc is scooped into the term CRM.

Something we have been careful not to do with our new order process system is bulk it out with loads of features that go beyond what we originally designed it for.

ProMart is brilliant for managing orders start to finish and knowing where everything is upto.  However we needed to look at a database system that could look after customer interactions and was fast and easy to search for contacts and viewing all the extra information about a client that can be stored. 

Over the Past 3 Months Promo Gifts has moved onto a custom built order system, we have developed ProMart specifically for our company and the way in which we work.

It’s so far taken us 3 years to get to this point and the project has snowballed into a highly automated user friendly system that can provide quotes to our clients far faster than we have ever been able to do before.  

Christmas is a time when families across the UK come together to celebrate and in their own unique and special ways. Every family has their own traditions and tend to stick to them year on year.

Some will go to church, others won’t, most will eat turkey, but others will sit down to a plate of beef, fish or nut roast.

Each will think that their own way of celebrating the festive season is the best, but it might surprise you to learn that a lot of us have much more in common than you might think.

For example how many of you have roast potatoes as a part of your Christmas dinner? According to the official statistics the answer is more than 90%.

As a nation the United Kingdom will also drink 250 million pints of beer of beer and 35 million bottles of wine. If you want to express your individuality you’re going to have to do it with a glass of eggnog…

With Christmas just around the corner!

And its not too late to spread some Christmas cheer to your customers with some promotional items they won’t forget.

Christmas is a time when people are out spending money and looking at different products so why not market your business using some simple promotional items.

I just had to share this…  How amazing.  I love stuff like this.  Starts off awseome and gets even more awesome.  This is a definate Cirque du Soleil act.  Maybe it was…  if not it should be.

Now I just need to get the wife to but me a big tesla coil some special suits and a set of POI’s and I’ll be busy all christmas!

A new craze has hit London underground – one that few people will notice but those that do are sure to chuckle.

Stickers are being put up all over the underground in an attempt to add some humour to the somewhat dullness of a typical underground journey.  They can be purchased online for as little as £2 each and come in many shapes and sizes.

And they are starting to get peoples attention.

They use the same font and branding as TFL but turn the typical warning sign or underground map into something a bit more fun.  

The Euro is in crisis, England is in a recession, so what are Bristol traders doing about this? Creating their own currency.

Businesses local in Bristol have started trading in Bristol Pounds, which has been set up as an online currency as well.

By having their own currency, Bristol is encouraging money circulation within Bristol itself.

If someone walks into a shop and pays for something in Bristol Pounds, they cannot go and pay a national supplier using this as it won’t be accepted. Instead they will have to use it to pay local suppliers or pay staff.

By doing this they are keeping money circulating within Bristol and promoting the use of local traders and suppliers.

Whenever something ‘big’ happens in the world that could be used as part of a marketing campaign, its a race between the big players to become a part of it.

The Olympics was one of the recent events which saw many businesses use to their advantage despite the tight advertising control Locog insisted on.

The latest so called scandel to be used is the current sensation around naked Prince Harry pictures. 

Somewhere inbetween working full time and blogging I’m also a Mum to a 1 year old.

So I’m always on the lookout for innovative and fun things for little ones to enjoy or things to make my life easier.

One item i found the other day was personalised soothers by Mam.

I recently had a bit of a rant on linkedin that I though would make an interesting blog post.  Some names have been removed to protect peoples identity. And some extra bits added for theatrical effect.  My intention is not to degrade what was an amazing olympic games.

I loved the Games.

What a fantastic display of British Hospitality. What an amazing buzz around London. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. I was glued to the TV for most of the events we were competing in and my fingers were regularly hopping to that red button.

But seriously… good for our industry?

Why are Locog so intent on stopping anyone from printing or displaying the olympic rings? It’s ridiculous. How do they even own the rights to this? It was originally designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. I’m sure he would have not been happy with the way the logo is guarded. Particularly as he designed it as the coming together of continents.  Hardly sounds like the “olympic spirit” we hear so much about.