Charles Laughlin

Posts by Charles Laughlin

April 16, 2018

Podcast: Talking SMB Sales with Cisco’s Jenn Allen

Jenn Allen believes most tech companies are getting it wrong when selling to “cloud native” small businesses. And getting it right is important, given we’re looking at a pretty rapid transition from older to younger business owners in the coming years as Baby Boomers set to hit retirement age at a 10,000 per day clip…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

April 11, 2018

Six Principles Driving the Tech Adoption Index

About a year and a half ago we developed a set of six principles that served as the foundation for what would become the Tech Adoption Index. These principles were the reasons we believed the small business shift to the cloud would become the biggest game changer since SMBs started building websites and shifting their media spend…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

February 13, 2018

On Target: Zoho’s Raju Vegesna on Keeping it Simple for SMBs

Zoho is something of a anomaly in the cloud software space. Privately held, India-based Zoho has never raised a dime of outside money and it competes with some of the giants of the cloud, think Salesforce, Google, GoDaddy, etc. So how does Zoho break through and set itself apart? Part of the answer comes from Zoho’s embrace of the “business…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

February 5, 2018

What’s Hot & What’s Not in Hyperlocal

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Cracking the online to offline attribution code remains a primary focus for local marketers in 2018, while booking platforms, loyalty programs, chatbots and beacons will be at the back of the line for investment this year, according to a survey of local marketers conducted by StreetFight. These findings were presented in a “State of Hyperlocal”…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

February 2, 2018

Tech Adoption Index: SMB Market Defined by Galaxies, not Ecosystems

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The collection of companies offering digital tools to small businesses either directly or via resellers is better described as a collection of galaxies than as an interconnected ecosystem. Such is the conclusion of Lorren Elkins, an executive with the software company Camilyo who is his spare time has amassed an impressive database of companies serving…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

January 30, 2018

Tech Adoption Index: Zoho Releases Bolster its “Business Operating System” Platform

Cloud software provider Zoho rolled out two product releases and one update today that advance its strategy of being a one-stop resource for businesses to run their operations entirely in the cloud. Today the company rolled out ZohoFlow, a drag and drop application that allows businesses to create workflows between business applications, which enables businesses to eliminate manual tasked from…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

January 29, 2018

Tech Adoption Index: Do SMBs Want All-in-One Cloud Solutions?

Companies selling digital solutions to small-businesses have long chased the notion that SMBs want sellers to “make it easy for them” and wrap up the media products they need into one turnkey solution. One payment and one dashboard where they can see how it’s all working. Ostensibly this is a win-win proposition. The seller gets a bigger sale…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

January 19, 2018

On Target: Irana Wasti Details SMB Opportunity for GoDaddy

Many companies selling tech to small businesses target larger and more established merchants. Not GoDaddy. The hosting and domain provider sees “nascent” businesses as its big opportunity. These “nascents” are the businesses that may only exist as a freelancing side hustle for a graphic designer with a day job, for example, or perhaps is just a business…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

January 11, 2018

On Target: The #CloudSummit and the State of SMB SaaS

Do small businesses really want all in one solutions for their small business apps? Or is this concept more for the benefit of SMB sellers looking to boost margins and reduce churn? Will AI/machine learning be the catalysts for development of a self-service sales platform that small businesses will actually use. Are Internet service providers like Comcast going…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin

December 14, 2017

Tech Adoption Index: New Study Points to Growing SMB MarTech Adoption

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A new study on SMB adoption of marketing automation tools, commissioned by marketing automation firm ActiveCampaign, describes the progress from using email marketing (a requirement to participate in the survey) through CRM to marketing automation. The report of the survey’s findings asserts that marketing automation is the next area where SMBs will invest in marketing technology, based on…

Contributed by: Charles Laughlin