Distribution Management Software Needed

Without more information it's not easy to answer your question, but I'll give it a fighting try :) The health insurance industry is a commodity industry, they sell the same things at around the same prices and every little competitive edge is something they hang on to dearly. It's not surprising or even unusual for them to wish for exclusive access to your product (whatever it might be) during the pilot period which I assume would then roll into exclusivity if they roll out into a full implementation too. That said, for your business this is a huge risk, it's the proverbial basket in which you put all your eggs and that's a significant risk to a young business, because if that pilot fails, you're 6 months behind in your goals and that's a big set back for a small company. You can do a few things to try to minimize the risk, or maximize the reward from agreeing to their terms (because if they are a major health insurer, you'll eventually capitulate either way). 1. Limit the scope of the exclusivity - If they are concerned about exclusivity in your state, be very clear that it is limited to your state and in other states you're allowed to pursue other clients. 2. Ask them to pay for the privilege - It's not unusual for a company to offer exclusivity in exchange for recompense. You basically tell them, listen that's fine but you're asking me to limit the profitability of my company, I'm happy to give you exclusive rights to the product but the pricing model for that is different. 3. Use exclusivity as a negotiating tool - You can add a condition to the exclusivity that states that if after 3 months they haven't declared their intent to proceed to a full implementation the exclusivity is revoked. 4. Get something in exchange - You may be able to give them exclusivity on the condition that they become a referral customer and give you a case study. They'll be happy to say nice things about you whenever anyone asks if that's all it costs for them to get exclusivity, and for you having someone important at a major health insurer say your product is great might be just what you need to get 2 or 3 more pilots in different states or industries If you're a start up and this is your first big enterprise client, they are going to try to bully you and push you around in the negotiation, they're the big kid in the school yard and you're the runt of the litter and they know it. So look for the way that you can give them what they want, but leverage it to make them more sympathetic to your situation and to invest them in your goals. Most importantly though, make sure that you don't give up your company's ability to grow in the future by signing away something that sounds so innocent. If giving this client exclusivity is going to lock you into a position where you have to pass on other opportunities as a result, maybe they're just not worth it.

As a professional coach the market is smaller but it is geared towards key skills I would love to talk to you about the current market and business plans.

If you're on a PC then Camtasia is great. - but paid for. There are other solutions for Mac

My experience is mostly related to Open Source ERP systems (and eCommerce systems). The two options you have are: 1. Go with an ERP system that has inbuilt eCommerce. There are several ERP systems which have this feature. Netsuite is a popular commercial cloud based system that has a built-in eCommerce system. Tryton and Nereid is an Open source alternative (Disclaimer: I work for a company that works on this stack). At advantages of an integrated system are: - One database to manage everything from sales to gift cards to refunds to shipping - Order updates reflect real time across the customers my account page and your ERP. - No more asking for credit card information when customers want to change orders. - Shipping (fulfilment) status reflects realtime - Pricing updates have to be done only at one place - Possibility to have additional sales channels like a point of sale, a marketplace etc. 2. Go for an eCommerce system that has known integrations with ERP systems. This is a popular approach too and there is a large plugin ecosystem with most ERP systems that provide integrations. The tricky aspect however is that no integration can be a 100% tight. So you need to analyze if the integration covers the features critical to your workflow. For example, most integrations provide importing of orders, but if your business uses gift cards extensively, you might want to make sure that the integration handles gift card and related accounting well. A few disadvantages of the approach is: - Maintaining integrations when either of the softwares change is costly. - Introducing a feature on either systems will need development on the other. For example, if you want to use reward points on webstore, your ERP might need it too. I will be happy to take a call to understand your use case.

In my experience, the longer sales cycle requires more attention. The metrics will be unique to your business, but you can't go wrong with these: Marketing & Sales Metrics Look at metrics that will help you scale and project growth, and then accelerate opportunity to close velocity #s and conversion rates of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of MQLs to sales qualified leads (SQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of SQLs to opportunities #s, time, and conversion rates of opportunities to sales Customer Success Metrics An ARR SaaS business may have a guaranteed 12 month customer lifespan, but that doesn't guarantee the customer actually uses the product and won't churn at renewal time. Measuring product usage will help you discover patterns that cause churn, increase the perceived value of the product, and improve the customer experience. Financial Metrics Each Reporting Period (I'd recommend monthly) look at Values & Rate of Change Customer Acquisition Cost Average Value of a Customer look at Values, % of total, & Rate of Change Revenue from New Subscriptions Revenue from Renewal Subscriptions At the early stage, businesses will see new Subscriptions significantly outpace renewals. As the business matures, the % of total ARR from New Subscriptions will begin to decline, assuming churn rates are good.