Happenings February 9, 2024

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Acumatica Summit
• Amazon Connector
• Leadership 101
• Events, Blogs, Movies
• Webinars, Community
• Point to Ponder

The purpose of a newsletter is an opportunity for the ASWi team to provide you and the rest of our clients with information on all the new ASWi and Acumatica related things (or “happenings”) that you may not otherwise be aware of.

Please feel free to share this newsletter with any/all of your team. Pease let me know if anyone on your team who would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue and removed.

“You can’t make everyone happy. You’re not pizza.” Anonymous

National Pizza Day celebrates one of America’s all-time favorite foods. Whether it’s thin crust, Chicago-style, Detroit-style, New York-style, Neapolitan or another delicious variety, we purchase over 4 billion of them in the US and we also make more than a few at home.

Celebrate today by sharing your favorite ‘zza (or experiment with new toppings, crusts, and sauces) with friends and family. FYI the pictures: My kids enjoying a very delicious 1/2 Taco and 1/2 T-Rex pizza on the rooftop of Rhombus Guys in Fargo, North Dakota.

Dad Jokes | Pizza Edition

Q: What do you call a restaurant that only serves crab and shrimp pizzas?
A: The Crust Station.

Q: What was the most popular pizza makers song in the ‘80s?
A: Slice, slice, Baby.”

Q: What do you call a fake pizza?
A: A pepper-phony pizza.

I have mixed feelings about pizza. On the upside, it has some great toppings.
On the downside, it doesn’t.

Q: Why does Mr. Mushroom get invited to all the pizza parties?
A: Because he’s a fungi.

Yogi Berra: “You better cut the pizza into 4 pieces because I’m not hungry
enough to eat 8 pieces.”

Q: How do make sure you don’t burn a Hawaiian pizza?
A: Bake it at aloha temperature.

Q: What did the Dalai Lama say when he walked into a pizza parlor?
A: “Make me one with everything, please.”

Acumatica Summit 2024 | Session Slide Decks
Couronne Co’.s GlassNow Featured in Customer Showcase
For the second year in a row, Couronne Company’s GlassNow brands’ items were featured in the Summit 2024 Customer Showcase.

I invite you to have a look at the Couronne Co, GlassNow, & Mosaic Birds (my favorite) websites (powered by BigCommerce and integrated to Acumatica Cloud
ERP) to view some amazing items.

FYI the picture: Dana Whitemire, Couronne
Company’s National Sales Manager is next to the GlassNow showcase.

ASWi named 2024 Acumatica True North Partner of the Year

Pictured: John Case, Acumatica CEO; CJ Boguszewski, Acumatica VP – Partner Strategy & Programs; Luke Frey, ASWi Senior Consultant; Rob Kirkey, ASWi
CRO; Nick Knight, ASWi Managing Partner; Eric Barrett, Acumatica Managed Services Manager; Joe Beck, Acumatica Senior Consultant; Sean Chatterjee,
Acumatica SVP – Americas; Sanket Akerkar, Acumatica CRO.

Thank you to our customers, our staff, Acumatica and our other strategic partners for your partnership, trust and relationships with ASWi, we greatly appreciate it!

By the Numbers
• Over 3,100 onsite attendees.
• Over 1,000 livestream viewers of the keynote sessions.
• Over 100 breakout sessions.
• Nearly 100 ISV booths in the Marketplace
• Over 165,000 total impressions across all social channels
• 370 pickups of the Summit press releases

ASWi Customers Who Attended Summit 2024 Sessions
If you would like to get a copy of the slide deck for any of the sessions you attended during Summit 2024, please reach out to our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood (keithw@aswius.com, 717-581-1226).

Prior to Acumatica 2024 R1 a customization package was required to integrate Acumatica with Amazon Seller Central.

Notes
A license for the Amazon Connector is required to enable these features within Acumatica. This includes demo/test environments. If you require a license, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager Keith Wood.

Acumatica requires their Implementation Assist services to be used in conjunction with ASWi’s professional services when implementing the Amazon Connector.
Available Packages
2023 R2
– 2023 R2 Update 2
2023 R1
– 2023 R1 Update 9
– 2023 R1 Update 10
2022 R2
– 2022 R2 Update 15
– 2022 R2 Update 22

By Bri Williams

What are five emerging issues that small business owners are struggling with right now?

That’s what I asked ChatGPT. The unsurprising result: It came back with issues that are NOT in fact emerging. They’re not new. They are not even of this time, specifically.

And that’s because not as much changes as we think. The fundamentals of running a business stay the same. So, what were the five issues ChatGPT listed?

1. Financial management – being able to manage cash flow & budget.
2. Future planning – being able to plan for tomorrow while managing today. Seeing the forest for the trees..
3. Economic shifts & inflation – small businesses are usually more vulnerable to changes in economic conditions & consumer spending.
4. Employee communication – maintaining open and constructive communication.
5. Staff retention – keeping your best people.

Here’s what’s interesting about this list, though: Managing each of those five issues is complex, frustrating, challenging, rewarding, confusing, exciting, exhausting and enriching.

What they are not is sexy. They are wallpaper. Vanilla. Barely worth talking about, right?

Well, I think it’s time to shelve the myriad puff pieces on how to keep staff and set your goals and instead really get to the heart of why running a small business is difficult. Get to the heart of what underpins each of those five perennial issues.

It’s people. I don’t mean ‘difficult’ people, I mean virtual and real- life interactions with humans to achieve your objectives.

It’s influencing:
• Your team to stay with you and perform.
• Customers to find, buy and recommend you.
• Your suppliers to do business with you and deliver.
• The bank to give you a line of credit.
• Yourself to do the right things at the right time in the right way.

The beauty of seeing your business as a series of behavioral influence challenges is that these skills can apply to any issue you are grappling with, through any means. From a highly converting website, writing a compelling job ad, negotiating favourable supply terms and incentivising your team in the best way, to constructing a pitch, introducing price rises and getting yourself to do the books, it’s all about influence.

So where to start?
Three questions to ask yourself to ensure you are able to favorably influence outcomes:
1. What’s my Behavioral Objective?
Before drafting an email, picking up the phone, crafting a pitch or creating a new campaign, ask “what’s my behavioral objective?” In other words, what do I want them (your customer, team member, supplier, yourself) to do? For example, I want them to buy, click, or turn up on time, etc.
2. What are they doing instead?
By asking what they are doing instead of what you want them to do, you will shift from your perspective to theirs. For example, they are not buying or clicking, and they are currently late most days.

By asking these two simple questions you will now have clarity on what you want the outcome to be (your objective) and what behavior you need to change to get there (their current behavior).
3. Effort Versus Reward equation
Once you’ve identified the gap between current and desired behavior, then it’s a matter of devising ways to bridge the divide.

While there’s a lot more to it, the best place to start is what I call the “effort vs. reward equation”.

In short, how can you reduce the effort they need to go to do what you want them to do (for example, reducing the number of fields on a form) while maximizing the (real or perceived) reward for bothering (like saving money or time, jumping the queue, gaining status amongst peers).

Has this ever happened to you:
You are in an important meeting and, 10-15 minutes before it is scheduled to conclude, one of the attendees cuts into the conversation and blurts out “I have another meeting coming up, so I need to leave now to prepare for it.”

Uh, what?!

It can be infuriating when others do this to you and embarrassing when you have to be the one committing this meeting faux pas because you have back-to-back meetings in your schedule. Here are some ways to prevent these situations from occurring to you:

1.) Create Meeting Buffer in Your Outlook Calendar
Add a 15 minute “meeting buffer” Microsoft Outlook Appointment before and after each of the meetings in your Microsoft Outlook Calendar. This gives you time to prepare for an upcoming meeting, overcome any login/dial-in issues for remote meetings and join the meeting a couple of minutes early so that you can “hit the ground running” once it starts.

2. Configure Automated Buffers for Your “Book a Meeting” option
Microsoft Office 365 has a great feature that enables you to allow others view when you are available for a meeting and then book the meeting with you.
You can either share the link with others or you can embed the link your email signature block as I do (see below).

Within the Bookings configuration of your Microsoft Office 365, you have the ability to assign a buffer ranging from 5 minutes to 3 hours before and after a meeting to ensure that others do not inadvertently book a meeting with you that is abutting another existing meeting.

3. Share These Tips with People You Frequently Meet With
Following these tips will enable both you and those that you meet with

By Mike Brooks

I don’t know why sales reps still have trouble handing this typical blow off. They know it’s coming; they get it daily or weekly, yet many still struggle to handle it effectively…

The way to not only handle it, but to overcome it is to be prepared in advance with a proven, scripted approach. Like this:

“I’m sure you do, and that’s why I’m calling you today. I know it makes sense to have several vendors you can check pricing and availability with, and having another supplier in your back pocket is only going to help you, right?”

[Get buy in here before you continue…] “So let me email you some information so you’ll have it in case you need it. What’s a good email address to send this to?”

[Now take it down, and then move into qualifying!] “Just so I’m prepared in case you do need another option, what kind of…“

Now ask questions, try to engage, and take your prospect as far as they’ll let you!

You see, the value of having a proven response in your back pocket is that it allows you to move past a prospect’s initial resistance. That’s what most blow offs are!

The next time you get this objection, use the script above and watch how much more effective you become as a sales rep.

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.

• “Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength .” Sigmund Freud
• “The best way to start is to start.” Gil Penchina
• “Businesses and people who accept truth soar.” Germany Kant
• “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” John Wooden