Protecting Ourselves from Ourselves

My dad taught me that when I pointed my finger at someone (or something) I was in fact pointing two fingers back at myself. Think about that the next time something goes wrong with your computer.

I recently corresponded with a very irate ACT user. He had tried in vain to install ACT without success. He had hired a “computer expert” who had tried to help him, again with no success. Of course he pointed his proverbial finger at ACT, not realizing that two fingers were pointing directly back at himself.

The first mistake the user made was not to call Sage’s technical support team for assistance. One benefit that comes with your ACT software purchase is 30 days of “Getting Started” support. This support includes phone, chat, and e-mail support for up to 30 days from the date of product registration. I guarantee that had he called the support line, or taken advantage of the online chat, he would have been up and running in a matter of minutes.

The second finger, or mistake, that the user made was not being aware that all the safety mechanisms he had in place to “protect” himself from intrusions from the outside world were also preventing ACT from installing properly. There are three common safety devices that should be turned off, at least temporarily, during the installation of most any software program:

· Anti-Virus Software
· Firewall Software
· The Vista operating system’s User Account Control (UAC).

Ironically, ACT warns you to turn off your Anti-Virus and Firewall software during the installation process. And, a quick Internet search will explain how tame the UAC warnings that drive many users nuts – and interfere with software installation.

Although I wouldn’t categorize my Dad as a “computer expert,” his common sense would have saved this user from a lot of unnecessary aggravation!

For more information about ACT please visit www.techbenders.com or e-mail me at blog@techbenders.com.

Why Can’t I Just Use Outlook?

I’ve been using ACT for over 20 years and, like most of you, my database needed a bit of Spring Cleaning. Although I routinely rely on Swift Page to help me update contact information, I wanted to get a better understanding of the needs of my contacts. I sent out a simple email to roughly 1600 ACT users that I had added to my database during the years 1999 through 2004 asking them to let me know what software they were currently using for contact management, their reason for using it and how they liked it.

I received over 500 hundred responses to my request – and the responses continue to trickle in two weeks later. If nothing else, users of contact management software love to share their experiences!

I had expected that many of the ACT users from 10 years ago had moved on to other CRM solutions that they perceived to have a better set of bells and whistles than what they found in ACT. Boy, was I wrong! Most of my contacts have remained loyal to ACT.

If I was surprised by the response rate, I was stunned to learn that Outlook was the competitive product that had lured away the most users from ACT. Yikes! Talk about taking one step forward and two steps back!

Outlook is great for emailing to a single contact and for keeping very basic calendars and personal address books. However, if you're running a business and need to keep track of your prospect and customers you'll need to supplement it with another solution.

There are numerous limitations to using Outlook in a business environment including:

• No Account Management: There is no way to “roll up” several contacts into one centralized Account or “Company” record.
• No Sales Process Management: Because Outlook is targeted at a general audience, it does not provide tools for managing sales, projects and customer relations.
• No Reporting: Outlook only allows simple printing of list. It does not include the ability to create custom reports or specific sales reports. ACT! provides many contact reports, all of which are customizable to meet the specific needs of a particular individual.
• Minimal Customization of Contact Data: Outlook offers very minimal customization. ACT! allows user to store the exact information that they need to by easily modifying or deleting existing fields and add unlimited customer fields for each record.
• Lack of Mail merge features: Because Outlook’s users tend to be the general population and use Outlook as an e-mail client, they typically have no need to use templates. On the other hand, ACT! users are sales professionals and small business owners who want to automate as many business processes as possible.
• Inability to create an e-mail merge: You must use a BCC in order to send a mass email in Outlook, and you can’t personalize the body of the e-mail. This means that your e-mail is very likely going to be trapped by your user’s spam filter.

I can only assume that those ACT users who migrated to Outlook are either no longer running businesses or have no need to grow one. For me, not using ACT to manage a business is tantamount to using an abacus to total a long column of numbers.

For more information visit my website at http://www.techbenders.com/ or send an email to blog@techbenders.com

How Do You Rate as a CRM User?

Having written 10 books on CRM and contact management I’m often asked to compare the various products. These questions often come from new or prospective CRM users. For me, this is like asking which car is better: the Lexus or the Infiniti. No doubt Lexus owners prefer the Lexus while the Infiniti owners prefer the Infiniti. The best answer to this question is a simple one: choose the brand you’re most comfortable with.

I like to rank CRM products. Using Excel as a database is better than using a Rolodex system or sifting through mountains of business cards. Using Outlook gives you an added level or organization and provides you with a basic calendar. Outlook’s Business Contact Manager begins to integrate several business processes. I like ACT! because of its flexibility, ease of use and price. Once you’ve outgrown ACT! there are many options available to you; however, many ACT! users only scratch the surface of ACT!’s functionality.

In this article I rank ACT! users based on their experience with both CRM software and ACT!. You’ll notice that I do not take into consideration the actual years a user has spent working with ACT! but rather your true mastery of the software.

Level 1: The Apprentice: Focus on organization
Hands down, the majority of ACT! users are “Apprentices.” These folks are using ACT! as an electronic rolodex.

• Data entry is typically inconsistent. For example, a variety of abbreviations is used to record city information.
• They probably still have multiple databases and are duplicating their data entry.
• Apprentice users are still struggling to add structure to the ever-increasing amount of data in ACT! and have no idea how to tame the chaos.
• Apprentice users typically feel that they should be using more of ACT!’s functionality.
• Apprentice users often put the CRM decision making in the wrong hands. For example, an admin assistant or IT person determines the structure of the database rather than the company’s main decision maker.

The key benefit for the Apprentice user is organization. In general, the biggest obstacle to better contact management is the users themselves; the Apprentices know that they need to change their CRM implementation but they are afraid to make any changes.

Level 2: The Professional: Focus on Productivity
Becoming an ACT! professional is all about integrating your processes, increasing your productivity and increasing your profit margin.

• Professional users avoid duplicate entry by integrating their various software programs including Outlook, QuickBooks and even their smart phones to ACT!
• Professionals use ACT! for all facets of contact management; it is used equally for sales, marketing and customer service purposes.
• The database is universally accessible; a user can access his information from wherever his travels take him.
• If necessary, the database can be shared by a team of users.

The key here is knowing why to use functionality rather than just knowing how to use it. Your reward for raising your usage level to Professional will be the increase in productivity seen throughout your organization.

Level 3: The Expert: Focus on Profits
The key word here is processes. An Expert user of contact management is one whose software runs like a finely-tuned clock.

• There is a systematic approach to contacting prospects in order to determine those that are qualified leads.
• There is a pipeline in use to identify both qualified leads and existing customers.
  The methodology used for qualifying leads is based on proven, successful strategies.
• Your successes can be measured and, more importantly, be reproduced by both existing and new staff members.
• You have a system in place for identifying important customer milestones such as contract renewal dates.
• You reserve your calendar for meetings and appointments and don’t rely on it to remind you of critical milestones such as contract renewal dates.
• Groups, when used, are dynamic; contacts are placed in a group based on specific queries and not just a random selection.

25% of a typical database consists of “dead wood.” The Expert knows how to prevent contacts from “falling through the cracks.” More importantly, the Expert can quickly focus on the events that product the greatest profits.

Level 4: The Master: Focus on Growth
Very few database users – if any – achieve true Mastery of a database but there’s no harm in aiming for perfection. Database Masters notice improvements in their organization’s efficiency, productivity, and ultimately profits.

• You can easily monitor performance, and are continuously improving the system.
• You have the ability to forecast upcoming revenues.
• You can easily find – and resolve – problems such as customer service issues, lost leads or abandoned deals.
• You can use your data to create future strategies.

Those of you who truly become masters of your database will undoubtedly experience an increase in your company’s efficiency, productivity and profits. In addition, you will be able to document dramatic growth in your business. Customer retention will increase, your closing rate will improve and your lead generation efforts will be much more successful.

Saying Good-Bye to the E-mail Blues

People very rarely call me when everything is going well. As much as I’d like to hear from one of my clients that all systems are go, I’m more likely to hear from the frazzled person who took a wrong turn in the maze of technology – and is looking for my help to bail him or her out!

A rather large cruise ship company recently needed just such a lifesaver. The CEO decided to embark on a journey into Cyberspace by emailing any and everyone he could think of about his wonderful tours and great pricing. Unfortunately, like the Titanic, his ship soon struck an obstacle – and left very few survivors.

Mr. CEO started the ill-fated trip by assigning the job to his assistant. She was fairly young and seemed to pick up on technology rather quickly; after all, she had been able to show him how to set up his new phone. She created a great looking marketing piece, and pasted it into an Outlook message. She then found an Excel spreadsheet containing hundreds of e-mail addresses and pasted them into the BCC field. Fortunately, she knew enough not to paste the e-mail addresses into the To field; she reserved that honor for the CEO’s e-mail address. She hit the Send button and the message hurtled through Cyberspace.

The assistant received a number of bounced messages. Undeterred, she was soon sending out e-mailings on a weekly basis. Her list grew and she found more and more e-mail address to send to from old spreadsheets and various employee address books. She received more and more bounces which she attributed to the fact that many of the e-mail addresses were old. Soon her Inbox was flooded with bounces – as was the Boss’s. Mr. CEO determined that many of his own messages to users of AOL and Yahoo were bouncing; when messages to his own family members began to bounce he became a bit worried. Eventually, everyone in the organization was having trouble with their e-mail. He called in an expert who advised him that his company had been blacklisted and that his ISP had removed his emailing privileges.

This horror story could have been easily avoided. For the novice business, e-mail marketing seems simple: fire up Outlook, create some wording, paste in a graphic and hit Send. In this case a little knowledge is a dangerous – and scary – thing. However, by following a few basic rules you’ll be able to escape the emailing blues.

• Don’t use Outlook. Ever. Outlook was not designed for bulk e-mailing. Most modern spam filters can detect that your message is going out to hundreds of names – even if you place those names in the “BCC” field. Add that to the fact that the name in the message’s “TO” field is not the name of the intended recipient and your message will be quickly gobbled by spam filters.
  
• Respect your ISP and know your limitations. If you host your own e-mail server, sending thousands of e-mails at the same time can cripple it. If you use an ISP you are typically limited to sending a certain number of messages at one time. Break that limit and you’ll be looking for a new ISP.
  
• Pick a reputable E-mail Service Provider (ESP). Sending out an E-Blast is not as easy as it looks. If you aren’t conversant in HTML your graphics may come across as attachments or your message might have large blank gaps where the graphics should be. There are Can Spam laws in place; break those laws and you might be looking at a fine. ESP’s help you by keeping you compliant with Spam laws and providing you with easily editable templates. In addition, they include tracking mechanisms to help you monitor the success of your mailings.
  
• Don’t buy a list. Good e-mail lists are hard to come by. The success rate of purchased lists is abysmal. If you do feel inclined to purchase a list, make sure that you’ll only be charged for the people who actually respond to your message. Developing your own e-mail is time consuming but effective. Remember, quality, not quantity, is the key.
  
• Consolidate your databases. Many potential e-marketeers have an abundance of lists which they keep in multiple formats. These databases generally come in the form of multiple Excel or Outlook files. This can lead to a lot of confusion not to mention needless duplication. Consider consolidating all this information into one CRM or contact management solution such as ACT!.
  
• Consider Opt-down options. All too often businesses apply an “all or nothing” approach to e-marketing. Consider using an “opt-down” methodology so that you can still reach your contacts when necessary. For example, just because a prospect doesn’t want to receive your sales pitches doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to take part in your webinars or receive your e-newsletter. Give people options.
  
• Target a specific audience. Unless you’re William Tell, you probably wouldn’t shoot an arrow without having a clear target in mind. The same holds true with your attempts at mass e-mail. Your marketing should focus on specific segments of your entire database. Marketing to someone who just purchased your product is annoying at best. You’ll achieve better results by targeting your message to a specific audience.
  
• Deliver a good message. If your Inbox is like mine your faced with the endless challenge of clearing away the clutter. And, once one message gets marked as spam chances are good that all your messages will be marked as spam. Messages that contain relevant information have a much higher chance of being read than standard sales pitches.
  
• Develop a great subject line. Your subject line is every bit as important as the body of your actual message. After all, if your message doesn’t catch your recipient’s attention your mail has little chance of being read.
  
• Plant a Seed. Consider sending out separate but equal mailings to small portions of your targeted audience to measure your mailing’s impact. For example, you might find that more people respond to plain text e-mail rather than graphical HTML messages. Or perhaps a subject line containing the words “last chance” produce a better result than “final.”
  
• Timing is everything. Sending out an important product announcement right before a holiday weekend isn’t a great idea nor is sending a thank you note months after a product was purchased.
  
• Track your progress. Your ESP can provide you with statistics show you open rates; however the real measurement of an e-marketing campaign comes from being able to see an increase in your revenue. If your phone starts to ring and/or you receive an increased influx of e-mail then you’re doing something right!

This Isn’t Your Granddaddy’s ACT!

ACT! has been around for over 20 years. That may not seem like a big deal to you but in the fast-paced volatile world of computing that’s an incredible accomplishment. It’s not uncommon for an ACT! user to tell me that he or she has been using ACT! for 10, 15 or even 20 years.

Things change – and in the computer world change is extremely rapid. Think of what computing looked like in 1988:

* You were using DOS – or considering the new-fangled Windows 3.0 operating system.

* If you were using a word processor it was probably Word Perfect which dominated the market through the mid-90’s.

* You weren’t using the Internet. Graphical browsers didn’t appear until the mid-90’s. At that point your access was provided by one of the “Big Three” online services (AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe); Internet Explorer didn’t appear on the scene until 1998. Connection was by “dial-up” only and extremely unreliable.

You probably wouldn’t want to go back to the computer you used in 1988 yet some ACT! users are less than happy with the numerous changes that have transformed ACT! over the last several years. Personally, as a full-time CRM consultant, I am thrilled with ACT!’s evolution and view these changes as one of the reasons that ACT! has continued to thrive for the last 20 years. Granted, the newer versions of ACT! might be perceived as a bit more complicated; after all, it’s hard to add in new features without adding in new commands to run them. However, the “core” features have remained pretty much the same as they were. For example, you still add, find, edit and delete contacts in exactly the same way you did 20 years ago.

There are many reasons why I could never go back to an ACT! “classic” (prior to 2004) database, and why I encourage my clients to upgrade:

* SQL: ACT! “classic” databases were written in FoxPro, a database design developed in the mid-80’s. Without being too technical, I view database size as the main difference the older FoxPro and newer SQL databases. In ACT! classic, the only cure for a slow database was to literally chip away at the data; with SQL I can cure the database speed bump blues with new and improved hardware.

* Opportunities: This is by far my favorite “new” ACT! feature. Although designed for your sales pipeline, the Opportunities module can be easily adapted for project management as well. The Opportunities List provides you with numerous ways to view and analyze your data; if that’s not enough, click a button and send all your opportunity information directly to Excel.

* Dashboards: Reports are great, but Dashboards offer you an immediate, graphical way to analyze your data and keep your finger on the pulse of your business.

* Improved customizations: For many users, the ability to easily customize an ACT! database is what set ACT! apart from other CRM solutions. The SQL versions of ACT! include many more options for creating new fields and viewing them on a layout.
More options for remote users: Synchronization was the only method remote users had of accessing a company’s database. ACT! classic synchronization was complicated to setup, and almost impossible to maintain. The newer versions of ACT! offer better methods of communicating remotely. In addition to the new, improved synchronization method, remote users can now access the company database directly from their web browser. In addition, larger companies will find that ACT! is now both Citrix and Terminal Server “friendly.”

* Better security: If you were using ACT! twenty years ago you probably didn’t share your database. Today, the majority of ACT! users share their database with at least one other user; many ACT! databases are shared with dozens of users. The SQL versions of ACT! offer five levels of user access as well as the ability to limit various user tasks. For example, you can prevent a standard ACT! user from deleting records, notes and/or histories. In addition, we can limit access to specific contact, group and company records and fields to specific users or teams of users.

For more information on ACT take a look at my website. You’ll find links to the system requirements, comparisons between ACT! and ACT! Premium and a chart showing new features. And, should you decide to upgrade, I'm offering some really great pricing!

Should I upgrade to ACT 2009/11?

It’s here – ACT! 2009 - right on schedule. So, do you need to race out and upgrade? Here are my thoughts:

• ACT! Classic Users: By “classic” I mean versions 6 (2004), 5 (2000), 4 or even 3. Your version of ACT! won’t work with a new computer that has Vista, or even with most versions of Microsoft Outlook. You can’t use ACT! for your e-mail – at least not easily. Most importantly you’re missing out on all that great new functionality: advanced queries, dynamic groups, company records, secondary contacts, dashboards, and the opportunities list to name a few.
• ACT! 2005 – 2007 Users: If you’re using one of these versions you already know about the cool new features in ACT!. Significant additions have been added along the way. More importantly you’ll notice a huge difference in performance – as well as tighter integration with Outlook.
• ACT! 2008 Users: You’re probably thinking that there’s no compelling reason to upgrade to 2009. Wrong! I can think of 2 right off the bat – Sage is practically giving this software away. And, if you’re using a Premium version you’ll get both the web and desktop versions for the same price.
  
  The bad news with this release is that it doesn’t offer any great bells and whistles. The good news is that ACT! has tightened up several key components. For example, the Outlook integration just keeps getting better and better; this release has built more ACT! features into Outlook itself.
  
  For more information on this upgrade take a look at my website. You’ll find links to the system requirements, comparisons between ACT! and ACT! Premium and a chart showing new features. And, should you decide to upgrade, I'm offering some really great pricing!

Virtual ACT Users Group

For 5 years I ran an ACT Users Group in my hometown of Boca Raton, FL. It was a fun - although time intensive - endeavor. The meetings were typically attended by 25-50 "ACT Fanatics" who welcomed the chance to learn more about ACT as they munched on cookies.

As much as I enjoyed the personal interaction with ACT Users, last year I decided to move the Users Group to a Virtual location for a variety of reasons:

• Virtual meetings allow me to invite speakers from across the country
• Users can attend the meetings from any location; they do not have to be located in South Florida
• By spending less time carting equipment and I have more time to focus on content that will benefit the attendees.

The response to the Virtual ACT Users Group has been great. Attendees log into the meeting from their computers, and hear the presentation using the conference call number that I provide. I try to provide ample time for general questions at the end of each meeting which I think is a highlight for many of the ACT Users in attendance.

I wrack my brain coming up with topics of general interest for the ACT population. Recent topics included linking ACT to a PDA, upgrading to a newer version of ACT, and methods for keeping your ACT contact information up to date.

If you'd like more information about the Virtual ACT Users Group, please contact us or visit the User Group website!