Maximizer and CanDoGo Can Do Mentoring

As part of its Global Business Partner Conference 2007, Maximizer Software today announced a partnership with CanDoGo, a provider of on-demand coaching and mentoring solutions. Under the terms of the exclusive agreement, CanDoGo will provide small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with on-demand sales and professional coaching expertise via Maximizer's CRM interface. The joint offering is scheduled to be generally available beginning in November. With this new relationship, customers of Vancouver, BC-based Maximizer will have the ability to access advice via the Web from leading experts on business or professional topics such as sales coaching, proposal crafting, leadership, and motivation, according to the companies. The agreement also adds a much-needed live component to Maximizer, which has traditionally provided its on-premise product without Web enhancements. "Employees within so many organizations wear multiple hats and are faced with numerous constraints. Immediate access to the right information and guidance is critical," said Dave Batt, chief executive officer of Denver-based CanDoGo, in a statement. "Our new partnership with Maximizer delivers expert advice in a new way for SMBs, helping these organizations and their employees improve business execution." Batt, former general manager of CRM for Sage Software, brings his own SMB expertise to the mix along with Maximizer, a company with offerings tightly focused on that market. CanDoGo has exclusive rights from more than 120 experts to deliver their advice and coaching, including Tom Hopkins, Tony Parinello, and Zig Ziglar, among other authors, speakers, and professional trainers. The company converts traditional long-form material into bite-sized advice, known as "CanDoGo Insights," which are delivered through text, audio, and video. Maximizer customers will be able to access these pearls of wisdom directly through the Maximizer Enterprise CRM software interface. "The real winners in this new partnership are the sales and business professionals who use Maximizer," said Peter Callaghan, Maximizer's chief sales officer, in a statement. "The most significant barrier to a salesperson's productivity is the lack of access to relevant, best-practices information. Now they will have it on-demand, exactly when they need it." The Maximizer-CanDoGo partnership continues a CRM trend of providing capabilities to smaller businesses that don't have the resources or staff to specialize their job functions. "SMBs don't have a lot of IT expertise, or necessarily even business expertise," says Laurie McCabe, vice president for SMB insights and business solutions at AMI-Partners. The addition of CanDoGo's coaching content "definitely fills a gap," she says. "Companies might send people to one-day training sessions, but they don't usually get serious development time." The partnership makes good sense for both companies, according to McCabe. "It's definitely a happy partnership; Maximizer gets to add additional value to its CRM product, and CanDoGo gets a springboard," she says. "This joint offering has great market opportunity, particularly because it's offered in conjunction with a CRM interface that professionals are already using every day."

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