Happenings March 22, 2024

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Customer Spotlight
• ASWi IT Services
•  Acumatica User Tip
•  Sales 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.

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” Charles Schulz

Be prepared for an overload of cuteness on National Puppy Day! This is the perfect day for dog lovers around the world to show their love and affection for their fluffy friends, although we are sure that most of you do this on a daily basis anyway!

Of course, this is a day for puppies, but you can celebrate a dog of any age on this day! After all, dogs are always really considered puppies in our hearts, aren’t they?

Celebrate today with your doggie(s), by walking the pups at your local shelter or by adopting a new best friend to join your family. About the picture: A couple of “panda dog” puppies (actually Chow Chows).

Q: What is the difference between a puppy and a marine biologist?
A: One wages a tail and the other tags a whale.

Q: What’s more amazing than a talking puppy?
A: A spelling bee.

Q: What kind of puppy does Dracula have?
A: A bloodhound.

Q: Why are puppies so clumsy?
A: They have two left feet.

Q: What did the puppy say when it accidently sat on sandpaper?
A: Ruff! Ruff!.

Q: Why do puppies run around in circles when they’re excited?
A: They don’t have the coordination yet to run in squares.

Q: What did the Dalmation puppy say after he finished off his kibble?
A: “That really hit the spot!”

Q: How did the little Scottish puppy feel when he watched “Alien”?
A: Terrier-fied.

ASWi is very humbled, privileged, and proud to be able to serve some of the most innovative organizations in the country as their ERP and/or IT Services provider and trusted business advisor.

Today, I would like to spotlight and introduce the University of Arkansas – Sam M. Walton College of Business to the rest of the ASWi community.

Students and faculty are drawn to Walton College at University of Arkansas by its long-standing track record for student success, and its deeply collaborative industry partnerships. They’re also inspired by the vibrant communities of Northwest Arkansas and natural beauty of the region, with opportunities for outdoor recreation.

The College faculty and leadership team understand that the key to producing job-ready graduates lies in providing real-world experience. That’s why their program has taken steps to establish industry partnerships that offer students unparalleled access to industry experts, executives, and cutting-edge technology.

Two of these partnerships are with ASWi and Acumatica, respectively.

Walton College will be providing their students access to Acumatica Cloud ERP in a classroom setting to expose them to one of the leading mission critical ERP solutions they will have at their disposal when they begin their business careers.

ASWi will be assisting the university faculty to implement and configure an Acumatica Cloud ERP instance that will be used in the classroom, as well be a subject matter expert to assist the faculty in their development of curriculum that integrates the use of Acumatica Cloud ERP.

What is an MSP (Managed Services Provider)?
A managed service provider delivers and manages IT services for businesses and organizations, often for a flat monthly fee, in order to help them operate securely, efficiently, and without the burden of managing day to day IT challenges.

Benefits to Outsourcing to an MSP
Access to Expertise
Outsourcing to an MSP provides access to a diverse team of experts that span across a wide range of technology from data security, cloud solutions, network management, desktop support and more. An established MSP has professionals dedicated to each aspect.

IT Cost Savings / Budgeting
Outsourcing eliminates the need to hire, manage and train internal IT staff. Instead, you pay a predictable flat monthly fee for your IT services, many times less than the cost of maintaining an in-house IT engineer.

Proactive Approach
Many IT issues can be identified and addressed before they can escalate and cause interruption or negative impact to your business via proactive monitoring and alerting.

Enhanced Security Posture
Patch management, keeping systems up-to-date, security monitoring and scanning, managed endpoint-protection, managed back-up and disaster recovery, along with other services MSPs can provide can keep businesses safe and provide peace of mind that their systems and data are protected.

Wildcard characters can be used at the column filter level of generic inquiries throughout Acumatica Cloud ERP.

Note: wildcard characters are not allowed at the parameter level.

Want to Know More?
If you would like to schedule time for some “tune up” training regarding your Acumatica Cloud ERP instance, please feel free to reach out to our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood (keithw@aswius.com; 717-581-1226) for more information.

This year, I put together (much too late) our first attempt at having an ASWi ecosystem shared online competitive event: a NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket challenge.

For those of you who have registered, good luck, I hope you picked the right upsets (there seems to be a bunch this year!). My apologies to those who tried but were unsuccessful in getting registered. I will try to get things organized a LOT sooner next year to ensure that everyone who would like to participate is able to do so.

By Mike Brooks

What’s the number one blow off prospects use these days?

“Can you email that to me?”

If you think about it, that’s the perfect stall. They aren’t saying no, and it implies they might be interested. But face it, they rarely are. Not only is it hard to get prospects back on the phone, when you do, you usually lead off with the ineffective opening line of:

“Did you have a chance to review that email I sent you?”

And you know how that goes:
“What email? Can you send it again?”

The solution? Be prepared with a good script and a good strategy.

Try this:
Be prepared with an initial email template written in advance (it can be generic or it can include an initial quote of services) and have it ready to send at a moment’s notice. And then when a prospect blows you off with “Can you email that to me?” use the following script:

“I’d be more than happy to do that, where would you like me to email that?”

[Take their email down and then email them your info right now.]

“Okay, it’s on the way to you. What I’d like to do right now is take a minute to get an idea of what’s important to you, and then I can direct you to that part of the information when you get around to it. Let me ask you: How do you get involved in ordering XYZ?

OR

“From a needs standpoint, how motivated is your to buy XYZ right now?”

OR

“What would you need to see in the information I just sent you for you to become seriously interested in making a change in how you’re handling XYZ now?”
If you follow this strategy, then you’ll be ready to side step the email stall and get right back into qualifying!

How great will that be?
Try this technique yourself and watch as you begin qualifying real buyers, or disqualifying those who just want to get you off the phone…

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.
• “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. Dr. Seuss

• “Hope is not a strategy.” Mission Impossible: Fallout

• “Look at things another way.” Elphaba – Wicked

• “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.” Tom Peters

• “Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions.” Jim Collins