adapted By Brian Kelly

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
My software’s not working, not even the mouse;
I need an online solution, to manage my sales,
And a company that ensures that there’s nothing that fails;
“It has to be Salespulse” their customers say,
to bring the solutions that will make your day;
So to manage your Sales, your Learners or Grants
Choose Salespulse, relax and start the New Year enhanced !

All at Salespulse wish you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Are offices are closed on Wed 23rd Dec and will reopen on Mon 4th Jan 2010.
Emergency support will be monitored through support@salespulse.com

Delighted to sell our online CRM system to two customers this week. Feedback from both of them was that the system was very clear and easy to use. Both would see it as a way of helping to manage their sales process, help their business process and in turn increase sales.

We had been recommended to both of them by existing customers which goes to show the benefit of referrals or word of mouth.

We are very grateful to count 25 of the countries Vocational Education Committees (VECs) as our customers. Bearing in mind the financial situation (for both VECs & ourselves !) we are offering discounts of between 33% and 50% on 10 of the key products we have developed for this sector.

Full details available Christmas 2009 Salespulse special offers.

We would welcome any enquiries relating to these offerings. Closing date for offers is Friday 18th December.

Sounds very grand but it was an interesting morning in Dublin on 3rd Dec.

It was a high powered delegation of 100 Chinese companies. The Chinese Assistant Minister of Commerce, Mme Qiu Hong and the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland Liu Biwei both spoke.

The event was managed by Ireland China Association and was chaired by Brendan Waldron, its chairman.

Enterprise Ireland & the IDA spoke of their offerings.

This was followed by a business matching event betwen Irish & Chinese companies.

I spoke with one Chamber of Commerce who represented 9,000 companies.

Here is Salespulse’s own Guang Yao Yu who attended the event with me and was certainly able to help with the communications with the Chinese companies.

We would call it networking but our partners would probably call it a night out !

The group of Irish companies who recently travelled to China together were all invited to the Seanachai outside Dungarvan by Johnny Hurley who had also travelled to China. Check out their website. A great nights “networking” was had by all who turned up.

It is a hidden treasure that is just a couple of miles outside Dungarvan on the main Waterford Cork road. The Seanachai has been lovingly restored by Johnny & Mags Hurley and the complex comprises a traditional bar, a restaurant, an outdoor bar and 10 holiday homes.

Johnny had arranged some traditional Irish music and just to show how open minded he is, he didn’t even throw them out when they sang  The Rose of Mooncoin for Brian or Slievenamon for Martin (in a Waterford pub)

When the tourism industry in Ireland is going through such a bad patch you would have to admire Johnny’s entrepreneurial spirit. Heading as far as China to arrange tours to his great premises. And to ensure there is no drink driving issues, at the end of the night his barman piles the punters into the car to drop them home.

A slideshow was presented relating to business done in China ! For those not present, here is a flavour of what was shown.

Here is a news article showing how the Heritage Council is “Embracing the future”  through our online Grants System.

Update 21st November.

Closing date for submission of applications was yesterday 20th November and we were delighted that nearly 600 people applied online for grants with less than 100 applying offline.  A great endorsement of the new system.

We recently launched our Grants Administration system for the Heritage Council.

How it works

You fill in all your information online. There is an help facility for every screen to guide you through the application and also a ready reckoner to help you summarise your project costs.

 The system will check that you have filled in all the information that the Heritage Council need. You can print off your completed application so you have a record of what you submitted and you will get an email acknowledgement when it is received.

 If you have photographs or reports that need to accompany your application, these can be submitted electronically.

Bi-Lingual

The system is available in both English & Irish.  The applicant can switch between Irish & English at any stage during the application process. As we knew from the beginning that the Grants system was required in both languages, we were able to build in this facility into the software for the Heritage Council at no additional cost.

Cost Saving

The Heritage Council hope to make cost savings through reduced printing costs, reduction in administration time and time saved in generation letters to applicants.

You can apply directly at www.heritagecouncil.ie/grants/

Returned from the 5 day trip to Chengdu in western China and have to say very impressed with my first visit.

 The biggest impression I took from the country was the friendliness of the people and the genuine enthusiasm to do business and speak English.

Another impression was the huge contrasts. You see the new large BMWs and also the people in their rickshaws.

You have a five star hotel and in the street behind you have some run down houses.

 Eating out was an experience. 3 of us got a taxi into the middle of Chengdu. Over a few hours we found no-one that could speak English or didn’t even see another foreigner. We had a great experience in a restaurant. For 7 euro each we got a set meal and drinks. We counted the number of plates of food brought out and it came to 55 !

Of course the Irish group would find the Irish bar, 1,500 miles from Beijing – the Shamrock ! They had a signed Kilkenny jersey. I asked the Chinese girl behind the counter and she said she though it was from a team called Manchester !

Shopping has the local bargain shops & markets where you should bargain but also the Nike, Adidas & Armani shops.

 It wasn’t all work. We got to visit the world famous Chengdu Panda Breeding & Research Centre.

11 companies travelled, mostly first time visits to China. The companies covered Software, Travel, Engineering & business development. Most of them were going to see what opportunities there were for business development in China.

 The trip was co-ordinated by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Enterprise Board.

Before the vist, the Enterprise Board organised a number of talks to be given by Deirdre Walsh of China Green. I found these talks to be very informative & helpful. Deirdre gave very good background and suggestions for visiting China and attending meetings in China.

 We met with the minister for Trade, Mr. Billy Kelleher, one of the heads of Enterprise Ireland in Asia and the Irish ambassador to China. Having such a delegation gave a very good impression to companies that we were meeting.

 Here I am presenting Minister Billy Kelleher (from Cork) with a replica Kilkenny hurl and the history of hurling in English & Chinese. These gifts went down much better with the Chinese companies I gave them to than they did with the Cork minister !

The Business Matching.

The main point of the trip was a business matching event between EU & Chinese companies. There were companies there from all 27 EU countries. Altogether 400 Chinese companies & 200 EU companies. We were able to pick out companies that might have a good fit with our own companies. I had meetings with 10 companies and am following up with 3 or 4 of them.

The opening ceremony for the event. Just to show the sheer scale of business activity, we were attending this business conference but within 10 minutes walk there were two other equally big international conferences taking place in Chengdu.

Some of the business people we met had good English but we were each assigned an interpreter. I had just a few words of Chinese but even that helped.

 There were huge differences in scale of the companies I met, from small start ups to a company with €50 million turnover and 700 employees. The fact that such companies would attend such an event shows the merit they place on partnering and doing business with companies from the west.

 After one interview I was asked to do an interview on CCTV, the Chinese main television station. The interview lasted around 5 minutes. I haven’t been able to find it on YouTube yet !

Yours truly, taking the podium !

The intention would be to partner with a Chinese company to sell our software into the Chinese market.

 Will update the blog with progress on this.

Finally heading to Chengdu in China on Wednesday morning along with 12 other companies.  There is a business matching event and 10 Chinese companies have booked meetings for Salespulse.

In keeping with Chinese tradition I am bringing along a small gift for each of the companies – An embossed page with pictures of Kilkenny hurlers and a history of hurling in English & Chinese along with a minature hurley. We might import a few Chinese hurlers to Ireland to take on the Kilkenny team.

Well no Irish counties seem to be able to manage it !

We have given our website a makeover. We have cleared out a huge amount of data that was giving internal information about ourselves and instead we have concentrated for the timebeing on a product promotion focus. We will be adding more customer focussed features over time but for now it hopefully gives a better picture of what we do.