Try our latest Glance for Mac (Alpha release)

Great news for all Mac lovers!  The latest version (2.8) of Glance for Mac is now available as an Alpha release.  It includes everything that Glance for PC has today -- and more.

If you are comfortable using pre-release software, we invite you to start using it.

 

DOWNLOAD

1. Download it here:  http://www.glance.net/install/GlanceMac_2.8alpha.zip
   If you are using the Chrome browser, try this link instead:  http://www.glance.net/install/GlanceMac_2.8alpha.pkg
    
2. Find the GlanceMac_2.8alpha.pkg file in your Download folder.  Double-click and install it.

It will replace the old version in your Applications folder.  Its icon includes a b to remind you it's the new "beta" version.

Should you want to revert back to our production version (2.5.6), open your Applications folder and move the 2.8 Glance application to Trash.  Then click the Download link at the top of our home page and re-install 2.5.6.

 

WHAT'S NEW?

Click G > Settings and you'll see lots of cool new stuff!  Read on to learn about each highlighted option:

 

HAVE GUESTS JOIN INSTANTLY (no download!)

Do you use Glance to show your screen to others?  Select Instantly (no download).  That way your viewing guests connect instantly.  No need for any downloads, plug-ins, apps, Flash or Java.

They can use a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device.  It just works.

If you like to show animations or video, you might perfer the high performance plug-in instead. First-time guests will be prompted to install it.  Those with keen eyesight may notice a few more updates per second and crisper looking text.

 

COLLECT GUEST CONTACT INFO

You can have Glance ask guests to provide contact information before joining your session. View or download the info by logging into the My Account area on our website glance.net (top-right corner).

 

KEYLESS SESSIONS

Consider going keyless for sessions where security is not a concern, like sales demos, training and webinars.  Guests will only need your Glance address yourname.glance.net to connect.

 

Tip:  For the fastest possible connect, choose Join Instantly (no download), go keyless and Don't Ask for any guest contact info.  The moment guests browse to your URL, they'll see your live screen.

 

ENCRYPTION

Enabling Encrypt my sessions secures all transmitted data, using the same TLS/SLL technology employed by online banks and merchants.

 

ANYONE CAN SHOW

Any guest can now show their screen during a session.  Guests who already have Glance are all set. Others who want to present should visit http://glance.net/guest to get Glance's free software before joining your session.

This feature will feel very Glance-esque:  fast and lightweight.  We think you'll find it's perfect for remote tech support, training, collaborating and small meetings.  

Whenever you enable Let guests with Glance app show their screen, any guest with a G-icon can click G > Show my screen at any time.  They don't have to "raise" their virtual hand to ask permission.  They just "show".

The current presenter stops showing either when someone else shows their screen or by clicking G > Hide my screen.

 

SHOW YOUR SMILING FACE

If you have a MacBook, try choosing your iSight or other Quicktime video source from the Show drop-down list.  Guests see whichever source you select.

Adjust the Capture and Scale controls to trade off video quality and performance.  Choosing 320x240 at 100% seems to work well for the iSight webcam.

(Upon final release, this feature might not be available on all subscription plans.)

 

KNOWN ISSUES

• If you start a G > View guest screen session and your guest is on a Mac that's running Lion or Mountain Lion, the guest might have trouble connecting.  We are working on a fix.
• When you show a Quicktime video source, you do not have a view of the video being sent.
• Windows Phone 8 cannot join a session today

 

LET US KNOW

Please help us make this another rock-solid release.  

Hammer on it.  Make it jump through all your hoops.  Turn on Instant Join.  Have guests connect from other Macs, PCs (yes, some people still have one), iPads, iPhones and all the Android flavors.  

Then tell us what you think.  Email us at beta@glance.net or give us a ring.  And keep on Glancin'!

 

Glance's Instant Join feature

Glance has a great Instant Join feature that lets all your viewing guests connect instantly. No download.  No plug-in.  No app.  No Flash.  No Java.  No kidding!

Guests use any browser on any PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device.  It just works.

Here's how to enable Instant Join.

 

IF YOU HAVE A PC

1)  Make sure you're using our latest version:  2.7.7.19

    Click G > Settings > About

  
     

    You can get it here:  http://glance.net/download


2)  Enable Instant Join

    Click G > Settings > Options.  Select Instantly (no download).  Click OK.

       



    (Try Don't Ask and No key, for a completely effortless experience.)


3)  Test drive!

    Choose G > Start Session -- Show My Screen

Everyone sees your screen.  Instantly.


IF YOU HAVE A MAC

You'll want our next version of Glance for Macs (2.8.2).  An Alpha version is available now. 

If you are comfortable using pre-release software, we invite you to try it out.  Contact us and we'll send you the details.

Are Random Websites Providing Better Support than You Are?

We've written many times how Sales 2.0 is actually driven by Customer 2.0 - users that expect to have conversations any time, any place, on any device. Complete access to information is now the rule, not the exception that Sales 1.0 lived on.

While doing some research on co-browsing I came across this article from late last year with some hard data showing that Social Media Users are living up to Customer 2.0 expectations.

Some highlights:

Nearly 1/3 of customers choose a social website over calling the vendor.

Why spend time waiting on the phone when you can see that YouTube video on demand?

More than half of customers expect a 2 hour or less response time.

This raises some simple questions: How can you empower your customer service team to respond faster? How can you make it easier for your customers to connect with your customer service representatives - so easy that they choose that interaction over talking with random strangers over social channels?

Of course you know this is the Glance blog, so fast and easy screen sharing is always the correct answer here, but the real news is we have some very interesting things coming out in the next couple of months on this front so keep your eyes on this space!

Can I offer a survey after my Glance demo?

Many of our customers have taken advantage of the ability to customize the pages their guests see when they come to a Glance demo.  For example this financial firm or these email marketing folks.  After all it's your brand you'd like your business partners to see, not ours. 

But did you know you can also customize the message your guests are left with?  Or even direct them back to your website for more information?

 

Recently we were contacted by our customer Pharma Advisors who provide sales and marketing solutions to the pharmaceutical industry.  They had  a post-demo survey they wanted to offer.  

They'd built the survey using the Salesforce platform, so survey results went directly into Salesforce.com, further extending the integration between CRM and Glance.  

With a simple customization, after the demo ended we could redirect the visitor to the survey. We were also able to pass information like the salesperson who gave the demo.  

You could create a post-demo survey with any Salesforce integrated tool like ClickTools or Survey Force, or using a stand-alone survey provider like SurveyMonkey.

Give us a call if you'd like to set up your own post-demo survey, or if you have any other ideas about what you'd like to leave with your prospects or customers at the end of the conversation!

A Holiday Gift - The Greatest Sales Videos

The holidays are here and we reach the dreaded days between Christmas and New Year's. There's the lucky group taking this week off and maybe going somewhere warm or spending their huge bonus whether it's been paid or not, and everyone else who's working this week, calling on people that are probably looking to sell but not to buy.

It's little surprise that this week tends to get filled with long lunches, long range planning, budgets, complaining about gifts you recieved or complaining about your family in general. There's also the time honored tradition of wasting time surfing the web.

In that vein, instead of doing a holiday email to the house list that everyone would ignore anyway, I've assembled a list of classic videos. A few disclaimers - I was shooting for a 12 days of Christmas, but came up light on the count, so be it. Second, while many of the videos are considered great, and you need to be aware of them as classics as they come up in discussion, they actually tend to make sales look either a.) Sleazy b.)Depressing or c.)Both. But, they are entertaining.

I would normally lead off with David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, featuring the not safe for work f-bomb loaded Alec Baldwin "motivational" speech, but that's been done in every sales video post since the dawn of blogging. If you haven't seen the holiday version you have been missing out. I apologize that you'll probably have to sit through a pre-roll ad, but that's the price of SNL videos that they host themselves.

Anyone even remotely connected with cold calling gets a kick out of Giovanni Ribisi's feedback session (warning, adult language):

 

Door to door has mostly gone the way of the Fuller Brush Man, but this video has generated some action thanks to non-stop patter (and yes, sorry, more adult language):

John Candy's Del Griffith has been on Trains, Planes, and Automobiles and is out of cash. With nothing but a box of shower curtain rings he's going to talk his way to closing enough to get home. Includes classic 80's soundtrack and hairstyles:

 

In an unbridled show of shameless self promotion I'm including this Glance video on how not to cold call. Although this may appear to be humor and holiday cheer, it's really just a stunt to get you to check out Glance for Salesforce.com. If you've ever gone through the hell of being unable to get a prospect to connect to your screen sharing session, or wish you were able to automatically track demos through integration to Salesforce.com, check it out.

 

Bonus Round 1:

In 2013 you'll be hearing a lot about co-browsing - applying Glance's innovative solution to customer service, so here's something for your friends in Support:

Bonus Round 2:

Although the old joke is "Humor at IBM has always been no laughing matter", I opted against putting one of my favorite tech videos, "The Universal Adapter" here since it's not directly sales. As I was checking out some others in the series I found  one that's now a lot more interesting. The first one to correctly identify the "Yes Man" gets something from the Glance Marketing Closet of cool stuff. If you have any favorite sales videos please let me know in the comments.

Happy Holidays, and all the best to you in 2013!

The Non-Conformist Seller.

I've been to a bunch of sales conferences, they're all the same.

There's some promoter who nervously laughs and shakes your hand in hopes that you won't see through the shell game which they have once again sucked you and 500 (their count) into.

Then there's the speakers, a mix of big company folks who are no smarter than anyone else in the crowd but because they work for mammoth company inc, we're certain they must be. 

We sit on the edge of our seats awaiting clarity and direction, only to find we are doing much of the same. (and in many cases we're the more progressive thinkers)

Of course you have the "consultants" and "industry experts" who chase after mammoth company execs like teenagers after Beiber.

And then there's the vendors, the hair-styled-suit-coated-carbon-copies of one another, ready to pounce as soon as you reach for a cup of coffee.

They hit you with the most predictable lines ever created, yet are certain of their originality.

I sit back and look at the whole charade and realize why the outside world looks down upon so many of  us.

We're a predictable lot.

It's hard to be a nonconformist amongst this peer group, but I believe that's what it takes to be truly successful as a seller or marketeer these days.

It takes courage and intellect to understand that if you approach customers from the non-traditional perspective you have a much greater chance of being successful.

Why do such a foolish thing?

Because customers actually have brains, they know your shtick and the next guys and the gal after that, and they put up with our disingenuous bullshit constantly- so when the real deal, the honest human comes into their over pitched world, it's like a breath of fresh air.

I'll never understand why 99.9 percent of us engage conversations so wrapped around our corporate scripts that we refuse to listen to our human instinct and just engage in a straight forward conversation? 

I think it's because down deep we're afraid to fail, and know if we remain inside our programmed robotic sales shell, well then, it's easier to take. 

I mean we're just supposed to follow "the program" - right?

Wrong, very wrong. Don't follow the program.

Here's a news flash, in todays real time, social-mobile-world, the program doesn't work. In fact, tell your boss his program sucks.

Once you free "your creative seller" from the box its trapped within, you'll be amazed with the result. 

But don't trust me - just do me a favor - trust you.

We're looking for a software QA Engineer

Glance (www.glance.net) is looking for a QA Engineer.  We're a small Internet company located in Arlington between Mass Ave and the Minuteman Bike Trail.  We provide a simple, quick screen-sharing service for remote demos and presentations.  We’re a bootstrapped company, cash-flow positive and growing.  We have thousands of customers world-wide, including well-known names in the technology industry. 

We’re looking to expand our QA team, particularly to support some new and existing web services. We’re looking for someone who wants a challenge and always likes to learn the latest technologies; who takes pride in shipping a polished, reliable product but also understands the urgency of getting something out the door.

Needed:

• Experience in QA for a consumer or B2B SAAS product or web application, preferably on a small team in a small company.
• Expert at testing web sites and web applications, particularly web application security, stress testing and UI/UX testing.
• Familiarity with web testing tools, especially lower end or open source security and load testing tools is desired
• Experience with Windows and Windows application testing
• Experience with Macs and Mac application testing
• Familiarity with bug and defect tracking systems and QA/Release procedures
• Ability to create and write test plans
• Should be willing to interact with customers on escalated support calls or to reproduce or diagnose problems
• Familiarity with web and Internet technologies, TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, proxy servers, firewalls, various browsers and settings, cookies
•  Some experience with HTML/CSS, modern web site technologies

Any of these would be a plus:

• Familiarity with mobile operating systems (iOS, Android) and mobile web sites.
• Salesforce.com and Salesforce AppExchange applications
• Wordpress
• Experience using FreeBSD or other Unix variant
• Photoshop or other graphics tools, video, Javascript, AJAX, HTML-5, other web technologies
• SQL-Server database and SQL queries

Interested? 
Write us at devjobs@glance.net with your thoughts on this position and links to your LinkedIn profile/resume/blog/twitter/whatever-you-got about you!

This is a full-time, on-site position, local candidates only please.  We would only consider a contract if you’d be seriously interested in a contract-to-perm, no contract agencies please.

Salesforce.com Acquisition of GoInstant: What it Says About The Cloud and Customer Support

All of us at Glance were excited to hear yesterday the announcement that GoInstant is being acquired by Salesforce.com. Today's Wall Street Journal puts the deal at north of $70 million, while All Things D pegs it at $76 million. We've been watching several big changes in the market over the years and it's great to see our vision for social selling trends and the future of B2B sales and marketing validated by this news.

Marc Benioff's latest move underscores two big shifts happening in today's sales and support space:

1. Companies large and small are realizing the value of migrating management of their entire customer lifecycle to the cloud -- not just the sales process. We're excited to see the Salesforce juggernaut double down on this trend, both in terms of what it means for the customer service market as a whole and (selfishly?) for ourselves as an AppExchange partner.
2. Pairing next-generation screen sharing and co-browsing technologies with traditional voice and chat takes customer sales and support to a whole new level of productivity. Instead of wrestling with a heavy-duty web meeting tool like WebEx or GoToMeeting, which can take minutes to download and still not connect, innovative companies realize huge productivity gains by instantly seeing what's being discussed.

The first point is no surprise.  As Salesforce.com continues its push towards enabling "The Social Enterprise," adding screen sharing and co-browsing to customer interactions is a no-brainer.  An instant web demo tool can help companies shorten their sales cycle and boost close rates, sharply reducing their sales and marketing cost-per-close.

Obviously all of us at Glance have a biased opinion on the second point -- the inherent power of super-simple screen sharing and co-browsing. We applaud seeing these services becoming a standard in many enterprises. GoInstant's acquisition proves that regardless of what's happening with "commodity" web meeting services, innovative approaches to lightweight screen sharing and co-browsing can deliver huge value. Eliminating downloads, connecting instantly, and making a service easy to integrate with enterprise tools in the sales and service clouds is the next wave of opportunity in our space.

Looking forward, we see two major verticals where we anticipate more M&A activity. The first is other CRM vendors, like Oracle, Microsoft and SAP.  (Actually, you could say Oracle struck first, with its acquisition of RightNow.)  As Salesforce.com races to roll out new features built from its GoInstant acqusition, competitors will need to respond.  

The second is the call center vertical:  players like Cisco, Avaya and Genesys Labs, who need to move their agent desktops beyond traditional voice and chat, so their customers can also "speak" the rich media language of online sales and support to the world of mobile devices.

Then there are companies like Apple, which has already been testing innovative new ways to engage customers in their online store.  Check them out (from a browser in Europe or Brazil) to experience the future, today.

It's exciting to watch innovations like these disrupt the market. Here at Glance we look forward to being a part of it, providing fast, dependable and secure screen sharing and co-browsing for all.

Rich Baker is the CEO & Founder of Glance

What can sales professionals learn from teens?

Jill Konrath talks about today's "crazy busy buyers". At a recent conference, one enlightened speaker leveraged his 16-year old's cell phone bill as justification for future business strategy. What's the connection?

The 16-year old's cell phone bill has a minutes usage of 0. Nada, zip, nil. When was the last time you were able to hold much of a conversation on the phone with a teenager? They don't talk on the phone. They text, they update their facebook status, they tweet, they don't talk (at least not on a device!)

Why not? Because they're doing other stuff, and when something crosses their mind, they take action, on their time. And then, because their friends think exactly the same way, they get answers at their FRIENDS' convenience. Immediacy occurs face to face, the majority of other interactions are time-shifted.

Jill's crazy busy buyers share similar characteristics. They don't answer the phone.  You have to find them on their time, at their convenience. When you do have their attention, you've got to make the most of every second:  be well-versed in their business, understand and articulate your value proposition, be relevant and address their issues, bring value not distraction.
People think in 3's;  remember SSR:

• Simplify your message, your value and your interaction with customers
• Speed nobody has enough time, and nothing is more frustrating than wasted minutes even "just a few".
• Results: enough said.

What If I Could Show You?

Recently, I’ve tuned into a number of articles about the “millennials” and “Generation Y” sales reps. They’re being measured and categorized and studied as if they were a product being launched into the market. Well, in a way, they are.

One thing is clear… they will do what works. And they’re not afraid to try new things to figure out what works. At a division of Reed Business, one such young sales rep has transformed a whole sales process, and all he was looking to do was close more business and improve his own performance! Click the video below for the full story as told by his Chief Customer Officer, who describes the transformation as bringing the ability to "really understand what was going on when we demonstrated our.. service."
Could you improve YOUR sales process if you knew:

• How long are the sales demos?
• Who’s doing the most?
• Map that to their sales performance… AND
• Understand the drivers of success