Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.

― Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker

While researching my new ebook Accomplishing the Impossible: Lessons from the Apollo Space Program, I made some fascinating discoveries. For example, did you know that at its height the Apollo program employed some 400,000 people?

Think for a moment what it must have taken to manage a project that size. Aside from that sheer number, these people weren’t all located in the same room. Or even the same building. Or even the same city. Or even the same state.

Today, if we were to once again take on a project of this scope, we’d at least have modern communication tools. But during the time of Apollo, we had no internet. We had no cell phones. There was no way all the different individuals and groups could instantly communicate.

Complexity

How complex was this undertaking? Let’s examine just it’s main moving parts. First, there was the rocket: the Saturn V SA-506, the biggest rocket ever built. There was the Lunar Module, the Eagle, which had to be precisely landed on the moon. Then there was the Command Module, the Columbia, which had to be maneuvered so exactly it could meet up with the Eagle when it returned from landing on the moon, so everyone could come home once again.

The Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, housed all the primary ground teams needed for the mission. Every detail was monitored. Just the creation of this center was amazing—look at pictures of it sometime, or visit it in person, and witness the amazing complexity of the dozens of panels and monitoring devices.

Prior to anyone leaving Earth, the Apollo program was the first program to utilize an entire series of prototypes—through which the astronauts learned to pilot and fly the craft.

Of course all the media attention, from all over the world, went on the astronauts. But they were but a small piece of the puzzle, even if a final and very important piece. And the astronauts knew it: When Neil Armstrong was recalling how he came up with his now-famous line, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he said, “I thought, well, when I step off it’s just going to be a little step—a step from there down to there—but then I thought about all those 400,000 people who had given me the opportunity to make that step and thought it’s going to be a big something for all those folks and, indeed for a lot of others that weren’t even involved in the project, so it was kind of a simple correlation.”

Great Management for a Great Undertaking

So how does good management come about? Stated simply, good management is based on sound, proven principles. In my opinion, management principles should be taught from the first day of school—with so many people in the world, we certainly need great management from every quarter possible. Fortunately management is a craft, not an art, and can be taught and learned.

Interestingly, when we look at a project the size of Apollo, we look for the extraordinary people. But in truth, when you’re looking to successfully manage 400,000 people, you’re looking to ordinary people to do extraordinary things. That is done with management principles.

These principles, from the beginning, have been woven in as part of Coevera. So used, they assist users to focus on the real priorities. These management principles, themselves, comprise business. What is business all about? It’s about reducing risk and leveraging opportunities.

And that is what the future is all about: reducing risk and leveraging opportunities to make a healthy business. When a businesses are healthy and thriving, it makes for a stable living environment for the whole culture.

That’s what we’re shooting for.

Get your free trial of Coevera now.

The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.
― Norbert Wiener, The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society

In researching my new ebook Achieving the Impossible, Lessons from the Apollo Space Program I of course ran across much information about the automation of many sectors of society. At the time of the Apollo space program—the 1960s and the 1970s—research was occurring at MIT and elsewhere into the blooming science of cybernetics.

Cybernetics originated with American mathematician and philosopher Norbert Wiener. In 1948 he defined cybernetics as “the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.” Cybernetic pioneer W. Ross Ashby also referred to cybernetics as the “science of simplification.” Today cybernetics have had a profound impact on software, including our own CRM software.

Human Action at the Core

One impact of cybernetics, in modern software application, comes down to algorithms that pull information from a broad system, or from a general data source such as the internet. But it all comes back to humans interacting with a computer. The human acts, the computer gives information back, the human takes further action.

We saw in the moon landing the perfect example of human-computer interaction. During the descent to the moon, a computer error message occurred which, left alone, could have actually resulted in a mission abort. Between the flight and ground crews, they were able to override the error message and land safely on the moon.

If in the future we eliminate the human factor—as has been suggested by some scientific authorities—then everything would come back to only algorithms. But algorithms were created for specific scenarios, and aren’t actually alive, so cannot possibly be a perfect match for the real world in every instance.

On top of that, humans themselves have become more and more complex, and cannot possibly be addressed by algorithms only. As an example, today we have many more intercultural relationships than ever before—which merge varying aspects of 2 different cultures. The child of one of these relationships absorbs characteristics of both cultures into his or her life.

Complexity has certainly found its way into sales, too. Today’s sales landscape is far more complex than that of even 20 years ago. For that reason, we are directly applying cybernetics to Coevera to simplify this complex sales landscape for salespeople and sales managers.

Cybernetics smoothly assists the human-computer interaction and also assists users to simplify data and use it.

Data Interpretation and Use

A common complaint about traditional CRM software, in the past, has been that data input was complex or difficult. Today, however, this issue has been solved, especially by CRM solutions such as Coevera.

A much more pertinent issue is what kind of insight the user is gaining from CRM data. This obviously has to do with how the user is interpreting the data—but it also has to do with how intuitive CRM is, and how the data is presented for use.

In the human-computer relationship, it is always the human in charge. Likewise, when it comes to a salesperson or sales manager and sales automation (such as CRM), it is always the salesperson or sales manager that is in charge. Automation assists in the analysis of data, but it must always be a human that draws the conclusions from that analysis. For that reason, at Coevera, we always place the human in charge.

In a similar manner, the sales manager requires data from salespeople, from the team, from the territory—but again the conclusion comes from the sales manager, and not from CRM. CRM can give the sales manager some insight—that’s why we call it insight—but the final decision will always be up to the manager.

The data in Coevera is totally transparent—the sales manager sees the exact same data as the sales rep. The only difference is that the sales manager is able to view all the sales reps’ data, while a sales rep can only view data for that rep, not any of the others.

If a salesperson is well trained, the salesperson will interpret the data just as well as the sales manager. While the salesperson is being trained, the sales manager uses CRM data to mentor the sales rep, and instruct him or her on interpreting the data correctly.

We’re Addressing People

We can see that people are essential to both sides of the sales equation. In the end, the winning human-automation combination is aimed at marketing, selling to and—most importantly—helping people.

And there are a lot of them out there! According to the Population Reference Bureau, every single day Earth’s population expands by a net growth of 250,000 people. That’s basically the population of a small city coming into the world every day.

Where is this growth happening? In some parts of the world, it is happening dramatically, and in other parts, the population is actually declining. For example, Northern Africa currently stands at 229 million. In the next 13 years, that figure is expected to balloon out to 293 million. 30 years beyond that, the population is expected to reach 400 million. Parts of Europe, on the other hand, are declining.

What does this mean for our current world view? Every day, approximately 5,000 – 8,000 people are trying to travel by boat from Africa to Europe. This number, too, will increase. Is Europe ready for this kind of immigration? These people are from a drastically different culture than Europe and are and have often had much less access to education, if at all. This is the real challenge for Europe.

But every single one of these 250,000 people coming into the world every day, at some point, will buy something. They will be somebody’s customer. Today people expect to be treated as individuals, to have their particular needs and wants addressed. For that reason automation, today, has been tailored to keep careful track of buyer profiles.

So from both sides, it’s the humans that matter. As Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer, Accenture, has said: “Humans are at the heart of the digital revolution.”

Coevera software is the perfect automated assistant for sales.  Get your free trial of Coevera now.

In researching my recent ebook Achieving the Impossible, Lessons from the Apollo Space Program  I made a very interesting discovery that very much applies to sales CRM. Along with other history-making factors, the Apollo program, thanks to a person almost never mentioned in the news and history of the time, set the stage for the symbiosis between human and machine.

Margaret Hamilton

If you’ve never heard of Margaret Hamilton, it is because her name was conveniently left out of any historical mention of important people associated with the Apollo programs and lunar landings. It was only in 2003 that Hamilton received an award from NASA for her groundbreaking work, without which the moon landings would not have been possible. Additionally her work had much to do with the actual launching of the software industry.

In the early days of the software industry, software coding was, in fact, mainly a woman’s job simply because coding involved a lot of typing—something that many men eschewed, rather foolishly as we see in hindsight. But today this “background” task (that in fact helped save the moon landings) is very much at the forefront and exploding.

Hamilton was the director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed onboard flight software for the Apollo program. In just one notable example of her work, her design of systems software for the Apollo Guidance Computer included error detection that helped avert an abort of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Symbiosis: Human and Machine

Hamilton’s work made it possible for what has become the symbiosis between human and machine—the computer is the co-pilot, not the pilot. This fit right into the Apollo astronauts’ ethic: they insisted on having control of their craft instead of turning it over to automatic control (autopilot). The necessity of having human involvement became very apparent when Neil Armstrong, instead of following what the computer was telling him to do, changed the landing site for the Apollo 11 LM (Lunar Module) because the original site chosen—and the one the computer program was guiding him to—was too rock-strewn for a safe landing.

Automatic pilot has been part of jetliner flight for many years, and many pilots won’t trust it for takeoff and landing. A number of years ago I was allowed to sit behind the pilot, in the cockpit of a jetliner landing in Los Angeles. He informed me he was taking it off of autopilot to land.

This kind of “autopilot” has even made its way into our daily lives. The latest software upgrade to my car allows for fully automatic parking, if I so desire.

But despite arguments and “innovations” to the contrary, automation should always remain the assistant to the person’s operation, as opposed to being given total control.

Relationship to Sales Automation

There has been an effort over the last 20 years to totally automate sales. In fact it was recently predicted that thousands of jobs would be lost as sales became totally automated.

There’s an opposing school of thought formed by myself and many others, that the salesperson will never be “outmoded” or disappear. A machine cannot interact with buyers, and address their specific issues, especially when it comes to complex B2B sales. But even in the B2C world, take a look at Apple: their stores are well-staffed with live salespeople, and those salespeople are an expected part of the buying experience.

Salespeople certainly use automation. But as with the Apollo program and with piloting jet planes, automation is their assistant—it will never replace them.

Coevera-Sales Symbiosis

This school of thought has completely influenced how we designed Coevera. We designed it to be the “co-pilot” for the salesperson. Coevera focuses salespeople, and provides the necessary intuitive and visual tools for them to control and stay on top of their opportunities. But salespeople are clearly the ones in change, and Coevera is there to back them up.

Not only have we made this symbiosis part of the creation of our sales CRM, but also of the way data is stored and synchronized. Coevera is the only CRM system with both online and offline capabilities. We didn’t want a salesperson to have to rely solely on cloud data centers; what would happen if the salesperson, for whatever reason, didn’t have internet access? With Coevera the complete CRM, with all data, is still there. This approach cost us 4 years of programming effort—but for us there was and is no other way.

Automation is the assistant, the co-pilot, and today is a totally necessary one.

Coevera is the best assistant a salesperson or sales manager could have.  Get your free trial of Coevera now.

We discovered long ago that when it comes to CRM, it really matters how data is viewed. That is why Coevera has, from the beginning, been developed to be the most visual CRM on the market. It is instant intelligence, visualized.

But no 2 companies are alike–and neither is no 2 salespeople or sales managers alike. That is why we offer a multitude of views of your CRM data.

Filter Views

Coevera offers you many ways to visualize and instantly filter data so that you can have the precise view you need. Filter options allow you to filter and view tasks based on any field. Views that will be regularly used can be saved.

Pipeline View

Coevera’s Pipeline View is a graphical representation of your sales process. From left to right, opportunities are shown within the sales process stages in which they currently reside. You can hover over them or click on them for further detail.

The Pipeline View also applies to Coevera’s unique Archive, where lost deals are stored complete with all data.

Bubble Chart View

Another very useful view of opportunities is our Bubble Chart View. This view is a 3D map of opportunities which include 3 crucial dimensions: the sales process stage in which the deal resides, the estimated close date and the deal size.

Compact View

With Coevera’s Compact View you can, at a glance, view the last time a prospect was touched, the sales opportunities that involve them, and activity from their running feed (latest internal messages, social CRM updates or emails).

Compact View can be applied to opportunities, leads, accounts, contacts, and opportunities within the archive.

Card View

Coevera’s Card View is the large, detailed view of a lead, account, or contact, showing all relevant data.

List View

With our list view, you can see your leads, opportunities, accounts, contacts or opportunities with the archive in a column/row format, totally customizable for your particular needs.

If you haven’t done so, experience Coevera’s many views for yourself.  Get your free trial of Coevera now.

Sales management is a tough job, but it’s even tougher when your forecasting is done ‘blindfolded,’ using only a spreadsheet, when not using your CRM system properly, or when you have a CRM system without the best forecasting capability.

As an interim sales manager, one of the first things I do, aside from boosting the qualified sales lead count, is get control of the forecast to understand exactly where I am. To get control:

1. I review the pipeline and look at dates, to see how long deals have been in the pipeline. If salespeople aren’t making quota and they have a large, aging pipeline, the reps and entries have to be cleaned up.  The pipeline at this stage is artificially inflated and that hurts everyone.
2. Next I pull a report looking for The Big Three:
   1. This Month? What is forecasted to close this month?
   2. Next month?
   3. In a three-month window?
3. In each window, I look for:
   1. The size of the pipeline vs. the sales required.
   2. The current month’s pipe to be 2-3x the sales required.
   3. Next month’s pipeline to be 3-4x sales required.
   4. The three-month window to be 4-6x sales required.
4. I look at the future pipeline:
   1. I want to see if there is a predictable slow curve downward, indicating future deals, or is there an abrupt decline? An abrupt decline at nine months tells me the pipeline is weak and future revenue flow is in trouble.

At this point I’m building a roadmap of increasing demand, cleaning up the forecast, and getting it real again. Everyone in the company wants the forecast to be accurate, but nobody wants to do what it takes to get it done. The salespeople resist reality because if the pipeline is too low they risk being fired or placed on probation. If this has been going on for six months, the sales manager is becoming a victim of the “Stockholm Syndrome,” and he or she is starting to echo the unfounded hopes of the salespeople. As someone once reminded me, “Hope is not a strategy.”

Why it’s important?

Clint Eastwood said it best in the movie Sudden Impact:

It’s just a matter of results. Everyone wants results but nobody wants to do what it takes to get it done.  

Getting a sales pipeline back to reality has the same issue.

I know it takes at least 30-60 days to start increasing the total lead level; qualifying leads take just as long, and there are fewer of them. It’s now a race because sales from the increase in leads won’t materialize for most companies for 3-6 months. This leaves me with my only short-term options:

1. Sell more to current customers
2. Increase the closing rate of what is in the pipeline

If the pipeline is in bad shape from the third month onward, I know the company needs a serious reality check. It took time to degrade to this situation and it will take as much time to climb out of it.  As Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” The only thing I’d add is to do it fast.

1. Create as many qualified leads as fast as you can.
2. Bring the pipeline into reality land as soon as possible.
3. Recruit as many executives, sales managers, marketing managers and sales engineers as possible to assist the salespeople in scheduling as many face-to-face sales closing meetings as possible.
4. Don’t be surprised if the pipeline gets worse before it gets better.
5. Reduce spending, except for marketing, as it will take 6+ months to emerge.

Which brings me to the pipeline tool issue.

Without a proper tool for the salespeople to maintain and use for reports, the sales manager cannot have a firm grasp on forecast or the probability results. Make sure your CRM system can track:

• A timeline view of the future by month, by rep, by product, etc. Most systems can do it; not all do it easily or visually enough. Yes, the C-level likes pretty charts. Charts communicate quickly to all C-level managers.
• Track sales activities by rep: what is each doing with their time?
• View the sales stages, and be sure there are filters to adjust the view based on your specific sales process stages.

Successful sales management within any type of complex organization with more than a few salespeople can’t manage sales without a forecasting tool in their CRM system. Unfortunately, I have seen CRM systems in place where sales managers still rely on Excel.

Digital is the main reason just over half of the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000.

–Pierre Nanterme, CEO of Accenture

Why is it that companies that fail to adopt technology fade away?

Fundamental Transformation

First, there is a fundamental transformation happening—actually one that’s been happening for a number of years now but which has reached mammoth proportions and only continues. That is the evolution of the digital world.

50 years ago who would have thought that a person could type something on a computer keyboard in Bangkok, and an instant later it would show up in Boston? Who would have imagined that you could instantly find out everything you needed to know about a company that was trying to sell you something, so that you could really evaluate their offer? Who would have thought that you could gather a majority of opinions from the world over regarding a product or service, in minutes?

That’s the way it is today. And every kind of entity, from an individual all the way up through the mega-corporation, is having to make plentiful allowances for the digital world.

A primary focus of the digital world is processes. A process is the optimization of a task or a set of tasks, either for humans or for automation. Tasks which can be automated surely will be, as we’re seeing with the continuous advancement in robotics. Other sets of tasks, such as with sales processes, are meant for human interaction and use. Processes are what make it possible to operate at optimum speed so as to compete in today’s business world.

Another very important focus is the harnessing and use of data trends. For example, medical analysts can watch data trends for certain types of medicine being sold in a certain area, and be able to state with certainty that a flu is going around in that region, and act accordingly. With Google Trends anyone can see what is trending near them or in any place throughout the world as regards searches. Businesses take advantage of this kind of functionality for everything from marketing to product development.

Overwhelming Complexity

But there is another, radical change brought about by the digital world that must be dealt with head-on, as it will overrun anyone who doesn’t.

While the whole world has become interconnected, that means that all the information coming from everywhere is literally available to everyone, practically as soon as it is released. What kind of information overload can that lead to?

One might also ask how easy it is to stay abreast of information just in one’s own area of expertise. Several centuries ago, the major information possessed by the entire world was at the fingertips of the leading minds of the day. This was so true that someone like Leonardo da Vinci could be a leading light in many different fields; he was a painter, an inventor, an architect, an astronomer, a scientist, a writer and a number of others.

Today, though, simply trying to keep current on the latest information in one of these fields would require more time than the average human has in a day—even if they never slept.

There are 2 drivers to this major problem:

1. The speed of innovation
2. The exponential growth of every area of life

For an example of the mind-boggling complexity that is coming at us every day, let’s return to a discovery made all the way back in 2003. 13 years ago, with the use of the Hubble telescope, calculations took place that demonstrated to us the approximate number of galaxies in the universe.

With the Hubble telescope, the entire visible sky was mapped. Remember, the Hubble telescope is in space, so the “entire visible sky” is the entire sphere of space, visible in every direction. The sky was mapped using Hubble deep field squares. After examination, it was estimated that each of the 65,000 deep field squares contained 10,000 galaxies. Multiplied out, that makes for an estimated 16.5 billion galaxies. That totally boggles the mind! We haven’t discovered a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the universe.

So as you can see, just in our lifetimes things have been discovered that are beyond the ability of us to imagine. There are surely many more to come.

Coevera

Along with the rest of the world, sales has become increasingly complex, too. Where once there was simply a couple basic hats—a “salesman” and the manager—today we have field sales, inside sales, SDR sales, vertical sales, horizontal sales, and much more. Because of the digital age, we also have many more times the sales channels we once had.

In addition to applying sound and proven business principles, at Coevera we have also been searching for a way to address today’s overwhelming complexity. We weren’t going to go the way of many other applications, and display hundreds of charts and graphs (as, for example, financial market applications do). Interestingly, our legacy CRM competitors have always dealt with sales complexity in this way. In so doing they have made sales next to impossible to truly bring under control.

Not long ago I was on an international flight and found myself seated next to a Boeing 747 cargo pilot (traveling as a passenger). I told him that I was fascinated with the cockpit of an airliner, just because there were well over a hundred instruments there. I then asked him what he did under extreme circumstances—how many instruments would he really be paying attention to? He told me, “Not more than 4 or 5.”

The human mind cannot track hundreds or even dozens of indicators—so in day-to-day management, what is the answer?

For that, Coevera turned to cybernetics, the specific science applied in dealing with complexity. Cybernetics pioneer W. Ross Ashby referred to cybernetics as the “science of simplification.” The first application of cybernetics to Coevera came with our last release, in which we added our Navigator feature.

With its breakthrough Navigator functionality, Coevera moves far beyond the standard concept of a CRM dashboard. We have brought more focused and innovative ways of bringing instant intelligence to all users, no matter their function in the organization—intelligence that cuts out the noise for users, allowing them to easily navigate complexity and focus immediately, and in real-time, on what is most important.

We aim to assist sales managers and salespeople navigate the complexity of today’s sales world. And by doing so, we are greatly helping them to master it and succeed.

Coevera is the perfect CRM for competing and succeeding in today’s digital world.  Get your free trial of Coevera now.

LinkedIn recently released its State of Sales in 2016 report—which found that Salespeople rely on a variety of sales technologies, but spend the most time using CRM solutions and social selling tools, and believe both deliver the highest value.

Through our blogs, ebooks and even through our recent product releases, we at Coevera have been, for the last few months, pointing out the crucial need for CRM in addressing the frantic pace and level of confusion in today’s business world. Our most recent release, Automata, actually employs the science of cybernetics to assist salespeople and sales managers in navigating the incredible complexity of today’s sales landscape. Our next release, scheduled for July of this year, brings even more simplifying tools and benefits to salespeople everywhere.

It is evident that LinkedIn, through this report, has come to similar conclusions with regard to the need for CRM.

Specifics

When it came to highlighting the amount of time spent with CRM, the report found that one-third (33 percent) of CRM users spend 3-5 hours per week using CRM tools. Almost one quarter (24 percent) spend more than 10 hours per week using CRM tools.

Sizes of businesses also played a role in CRM usage, at least according to this report. 44 percent of employees at medium-sized companies (100-999 employees) use CRM tools in comparison to only 23 percent of employees of small companies (under 100 employees) and 27 percent at large companies.

The report was based on a survey commissioned by LinkedIn, and conducted on 1,017 sales or business development professionals in the United States in December 2015/January 2016 by Market Cube, a research panel company.

Coevera is the best possible CRM solution for navigating today’s sales complexity. It is Instant Intelligence, Visualized! 

All that helps today is that we have a better idea, and the better idea is a fight against the bad idea. The weapons that we have are not armored. We have no hymns, we have no flags, we have no rifles. The only thing we have is our idea, and we bring that idea into the light. And when people understand it, the better idea will one day succeed.

– Ludwig von Mises
Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

Here at Coevera, we have taken what von Mises says totally to heart. We believe that education with ideas is the most important activity in which we are engaged. We believe that if we keep pushing out a great idea, one day people will say, “That makes sense! 2 plus 2 is 4!”

Once more, you can see that we’re not just about the Coevera solution only.

Education and Sales

Why would the developer of a sales tool believe so much in education? And why do we believe education is so closely tied to sales?

The original purpose of sales—though it may not be so obvious today—was education. The salesperson educated the potential buyer about a product or service. Once that education was complete, the buyer would either say, “You’ve educated me for nothing! I see no value!” or “You have educated me on something that will help me, and that is why I will buy your product.” Education clearly showed the buyer the inherent value of the product or service.

Education in Sales Still Needed?

Today there is an enormous amount being written about the changes in buyer behavior. The gist of it is, buyers are educating themselves online about products, and by the time they contact a salesperson they’ve already made 70- 80% of their decision. Therefore a salesperson is no longer in the business of educating prospects.

As someone engaged in the business of sales, as well as being engaged in the business of providing a software product for salespeople, I politely beg to differ.

For one thing, as products move up the scale of complexity, there is much that cannot be quickly or adequately described in web pages or online materials. Where are prospects going to turn for information on these? Sales reps, who are today’s product experts.

But even with products that aren’t so complex, for a full understanding of how they might be applied within that prospect’s business or with their particular application, it would still be very beneficial for a prospect to be educated by a salesperson.

Empathy

A noteworthy point is that, whenever a salesperson is educating a prospect, the salesperson should remain at “eye level” with the prospect. In other words, not “looking down” at the prospect or being condescending.

This is where empathy comes into the sales process. In order to really empathize with a prospect and fully understand what they are going through, a salesperson must do everything they can to put themselves in the place of the prospect—that’s what empathy actually is.

Interestingly, that is also where empathy comes into education itself.

Coevera and Education

If you look through our web site, you’ll see we have created a tremendous number of educational materials. These include blog articles, tips and tricks, ebooks and ebooklets, videos, white papers, infographics and much more. We have even built education into the Coevera product itself.

To say the least, we are big believers in education—not just about our product, but about sales, leadership and anything else relevant to the world of business in which we can help. Most of our materials are provided free of charge—we really want to help educate and change the business world for the better.

Education and Application

In looking through our educational materials, you’ll see that they are totally geared toward application. If you read or learn something, we believe you should be able to turn around and apply it. Otherwise, why learn it?

I personally believe that this is the future of education in general—it will move away from being so theory-oriented and will be completely structured around applicability.

At Coevera we believe in having data arranged around a goal, just as we have done in our product. The goal is that you do something that brings you a benefit, and you learn because the data is proven on principles. And it’s not theoretical, it’s practical.

That is where the Coevera Knowledge Factory enters in.

Coevera Knowledge Factory

This issue of theoretical versus practical instruction might be best expressed in this humorous quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Never let schooling interfere with your education.”

In keeping with our commitment to practically applicable education, we have begun the Coevera Knowledge Factory. We have given our educational division this name because sales—the main subject of our works—is a production activity, not a theoretical one.

Why didn’t we call it a school? Because when people speak of school, you find that many didn’t like it. Many had bad experiences there—most weren’t returning home from school every day and saying, “Wow! That’s fantastic!” For them it was boring and even sometimes tragic. This attitude has certainly been expressed in music throughout the years, a classic example being 1979’s The Logical Song by Supertramp:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

We also didn’t call our educational effort a university, because the university in the real world has a different agenda—one that is more theoretical and reflective. And while we feel it is important that people receive a university education, most of what is taught there is not immediately applicable. For similar reasons, we didn’t use the word academy.

In a factory, you can learn a craft, which has specific steps and can be precisely taught, as opposed to an art, which is far more instinctive and nebulous. Sales, as we’ve said many times, is a craft.

The focus of the Coevera Knowledge Factory is to produce information that can be instantly used. While the knowledge we are imparting comes out of business principles, it is practical in its application. It assists in business success by helping minimize risk and leverage opportunities.

Coevera is the only CRM solution based in such sound principles—not simply and only on a list of features we think salespeople and sales managers need.