BrainSell Technologies is please to announce their acquisition of The CRM Connection, the second Colorado acquisition that BrainSell has made this month. The CRM Connection (www.thecrmconnection.com) joins BrainSell with a plethora of CRM expertise, including ACT!, SalesLogix and SugarCRM.  We’re super excited to welcome The CRM Connection into the BrainSell family!

“We are very excited to have joined the BrainSell Technologies team,” said The CRM Connection’s Managing Partner John Kaufman. “Our clients and alliance partners will all benefit from the  additional resources and software solutions they provide.”

Current CRM Connection customers will continue to receive the same caliber of support from their existing contacts. However, customers will also benefit from BrainSell’s extensive team of Sage ACT!, Sage SalesLogix and SugarCRM engineers, as well as ERP and marketing experts if they choose to increase sales with cutting edge technology like Marketing Automation and integrated ERP.

“This is a win-win acquisition,” said BrainSell President and CEO, Jim Ward. “BrainSell brings onboard a top reseller of Sage ACT!.  Heck, they ended 2011 as ACT!’s  11^th largest selling reseller in the U.S. They also have SalesLogix expertise, which is a fantastic added resource to our top SalesLogix team. On top of that, The CRM Connection recently added  SugarCRM into their portfolio, which brings perfect synergies to BrainSell’s portfolio and helps our rapidly growing SugarCRM practice keep up with demand.  Put that together with our two acquisitions of ERP partners this past month in Colorado and we have a fantastic western region team.”

The CRM Connection is based out of Denver, Colorado, but they also have offices in Michigan and New York.

Click here for the full press release.

With all the hype about Cloud Computing, all the benefits of having your data and programs has never been more promising. But what happens when The Cloud goes dark? It certainly does happen!

Unless you have a copy of your data on your computer or handheld device,  you’re cut off from your information.  Users who have experienced this say it feels far worse than a broken computer or cell phone.  Why?  Imagine opening your email to find that it’s all gone. Your contacts? Gone too.  Accounting data and the ability to generate invoices, pay your bills and more?  Gone!  The fear stems from not knowing if you data is gone permanently or temporarily compounded by when the system will be off-line.

I am not suggesting that The Cloud is not a safe and viable way to store your data and use software programs.  I meerly share this with you so you can be prepared before it happens to you and inevitably it will.

This is has happened to Microsoft, Google, SalesForce.com and other “big name” cloud technology providers.  Click here to review The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages of 2011 (so far).

Many business people now own iPads.  Having recently purchased a new laptop, I now have doubts about whether I should I have purchased an iPad instead.  Based on recent testing conducted by The CRM Connection, we have concluded iPads are now ready for prime time mobile computing.

Here are results of our testing:

Our testing began with using a free Remote Desktop Connection app (downloaded to the iPad) to connect to our Terminal Server. The performance was too slow for our testers.

At the suggestion of our client, MiamiPhotoShop, we began testing Logmein.com. A free Logmein.com account was created on a computer in South Florida. We used our client’s iPad which had the Logmein.com iApp installed to connect to the computer. The performance was fast. Taking it a step further, we then used a Remote Desktop connection on the computer in South Florida to connect to our Terminal Server back in Denver. Again the performance was fast. The Logmein iApp has a button that brings up a keyboard that is usable, but we found the external keyboard for the iPad makes using ACT!, Outlook and other applications much easier.

Our conclusion is Logmein.com offers a fast, reasonably easy way to access applications in your office remotely, as long as the iPad has a cellular or Wireless network connection. At $30 for the Logmein.com iApp, this solution is definitely a viable mobile business solution.

Denver, Colorado — SugarCRM, the world’s fastest growing customer relationship management (CRM) company, today announced a new partnership with The CRM Connection, a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management software systems for small and medium-sized businesses and a Top U.S. ACT! Reseller award recipient in 2008 and 2009. The CRM Connection has added SugarCRM’s commercial solutions to its existing portfolio of solutions, resulting in a full complement of cloud-based CRM solutions ranging from $30-$65 per user per month.

“After a careful evaluation of a number of Cloud-based CRM software packages from industry-leading software vendors, we concluded SugarCRM was the ideal company to partner with,” says John Kaufman, managing partner of The CRM Connection. “SugarCRM complements our existing CRM offerings by providing an affordable hosted and/or on-premise solution to the markets we serve.”

The latest release of Sugar 6 set the bar for ease of use, flexibility and openness for CRM. Sugar 6 was developed with the idea that CRM does not have to be complex to deploy or use, nor too expensive for growing companies. Sugar 6 delivers a clean, bold look and empowers users with the ability to view and consume data from nearly any source. Sugar 6 is designed to run on any cloud service platform or on-premise operating system.

SugarCRM’s award winning commercial products are now delivering proven results for thousands of customers in over 80 languages. The CRM Connection clients can now gain all of the competitive advantages of Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise, including:

• Visibility into their sales pipelines, with deep reporting and forecasting features
• A closed loop between sales and marketing teams with strong, yet simple to use marketing automation tools
• The ability to increase customer satisfaction through industry-leading customer service and support tools

“We are looking forward to partnering with The CRM Connection,” said Jeff Campbell, vice president of channel sales at SugarCRM. “Our partnership makes it possible for even more customers to experience the open, flexible solutions SugarCRM has to offer.”

Every successful company I have dealt with invests heavily in systems and processes to insure their customers have a positive experience when dealing with them. These investments include Customer Relationship Management software such as ACT! to extensive customer service training.   It’s not often that I come across one who shoots themselves in the foot repeatedly yet remains in business for a long period of time.  Recently I came across one that I’d like to share with you.

I have been a happy Audi car owner since 2004 and recently traded in my 2007 for a 2010. Over the years, I have relied on a car broker to source my cars since I really can’t stand the process of buying a car from a dealer.  Over the years, I developed a relationship with McDonald Automotives Audi service department in Denver  for warranty work.  The people were always nice, but numerous times the loaner I had reserved wasn’t available when I arrived which cost me about two hours of my working day each time this happened?  It could have easily been avoided had they called me on the morning of the appointments to tell me they were short cars.  Another time they actually crashed my car while fixing it.   

So it’s time to trade in my leased 2007 and I decided I would put the exact model out to bid.  During this process, I heard about the American Express Dealer network.  I received 3 prices from the dealers, including one from McDonald Audi.  I went with the low bidder who made a deal with us, who agreed upon ALL the figures, yet we when the car arrived, they added more costs – and I quote them “there are $489 in undisclosed fees we don’t tell people about” until they sit down to pay for the car. The fee is for Document preperation.  

Then came the insane part of the transaction.  This manager named Christian stated the fee is non-negotiatiable, but that they don’t want to sell me a car unless I’m happy.  He went on to explain how important is was that when I was at a party, picnics, etc and talked about my experience with McDonald, they I tell everyone how great they are and the worst thing that could happen was me giving them negative feedback.   I ordered this car and waited months for it.  I had the money, but was arguing based on the pricinicapl.  Do you think I’d walk away at this point?  

For $489, he bought all the negative feedback in the world. 

I shouldn’t be surprised even though we agreed upon figures that were “all inclusive”.  Despite their constant marketing, occasional calls and nice people, they lost a customer forever.  No wonder McDonald Automotive Audi is one of the worst ranked Audi dealers in the country.

In our business, we’d write off $500 in a minute if we over charged someone after coming to terms with them rather than lose a customer and have them bad mouth us.  

How do you handle this sort of thing?

John Kaufman, Principal
The CRM Connection
Denver, CO

As an ACT! Certified Consultant and reseller, I love it when the product I represent wins awards, so hot off the presses is the latest:

Sage North America announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC)’s TMC Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com) has named the ACT! by Sage contact and customer manager as a 2009 Product of the Year Award winner. ACT! was cited for outstanding innovation based on new user navigation, social media integration and subscription-based E-marketing services introduced in 2009.

ACT! by Sage is the #1 selling Contact and Customer Manager worldwide with over 2.8 million users. ACT! users can organize all the details of their customer relationships in one place to improve marketing effectiveness, attract new customers, and create more value from existing relationships. Complete sales pipeline visibility helps ACT! users identify and take action on the most qualified sales opportunities. ACT! is easy to use and integrates with existing business solutions including Microsoft® Outlook®, Word, Excel® and Lotus Notes®. For more information call 866-903-0006 or visit www.act.com.

Customers, partners and anyone interested in ACT! can connect and discuss on social networking sites including the ACT! Online Community (http://community.act.com), Facebook (www.act.com/facebook), Twitter™ (www.act.com/twitter), LinkedIn® (www.act.com/linkedin), Plaxo (www.act.com/plaxo), and YouTube™ (www.act.com/youtube).

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs more than 4,100 people and supports 3.1 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,400 people and supports 6.1 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.

© 2010 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Do you think ACT!’s award winning? Do you not like the software or find frustrating to use?  Let us know. We want to hear from you.

This article is for those of you who feel they are totally “computer-challenged,” are short on time or just don’t have the desire to monkey under the ACT! hood.

It’s Time to Wave the White Flag

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you are just not capable of fixing a problem on your own.  This could be because you don’t have the time to both troubleshoot and resolve your computer-related problems and run your business.  Maybe some of the solutions you researched sounded like they were written in Greek rather than in English.  Once you’ve come to the realization that you’re going to have to call in the reinforcements here are the best places to look for help:

ACT! Tech Support:  ACT! comes with 30 days of free technical support starting from the time you make your first support call.  After that, there is a fee for technical support.  Like I say when I hit a tennis ball off of the frame of my racket – I paid for it, I may as well use it!

An ACT! Certified Consultant (ACC):  When you call ACT!’s technical support line, chances are slim that you’ll speak to the same technician twice.  Without Corporate Edge Support Contract, you’ll most likely end up in an off-shore call center.   For that reason, many users seek out the help of an ACC.  ACC’s have received specialized training in ACT! and are required to stay abreast with all the latest developments in the ACT! world.  Because most ACC’s work with a large number of ACT! users, they are very adept in helping you to customize your database – something that ACT!’s technical support personnel won’t be able to do.

The Wrong Places to Find Help

Now that you know where to seek out expert advice, here are a few people you should stay away from at all costs.  These people are generally terrific human beings, but tend to be lousy ACT! consultants:

Your IT person:  Although your IT person is loyal, trusted and very adept in what he does, it is impossible to learn ACT! by “osmosis.”  Most IT people tend to underestimate ACT!’s power – or overestimate their own knowledge.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – especially when it applies to ACT!.  Since you are presumably paying the IT person by the hour, on the job training becomes an extremely expensive proposition.    They may charge less per hour than an ACT! Certified Consultant, but they typically take longer to solve ACT! related issues.

Your local computer store:  Very often your neighborhood computer store provides ACT! trining and support.  Unfortunately, chances are pretty good that the technician is only one chapter ahead of you in the Dummies book.  Worst of all, some of these “geeks” actually pass along misinformation which will further complicate your issue.

The person who’s been “using ACT! for 10 years”:  You don’t become an ACT! expert simply by using the program.  Unless you are a full-time ACT! consultant, you’re probably only familiar with the parts of ACT! that you use regularly.  Faithful ACT! users generally make the mistake of thinking that all versions of ACT! are created equally; believe me, they’re not!

Yourself, especially when you’re frustrated!  Enough said!

Time to Cut Bait

Not all technicians are created equally.  If you have a gut feeling that your technician isn’t up to the challenge, chances are good that your instinct is correct.  Don’t be afraid to politely extricate yourself from the phone call and try again with another technician.

There are a few warning signs that just might set off a red light in your head:

You are frequently put on hold:  Most tech support has three “tiers” of support.  You’re being put on hold while your Tier One technician researches the issue.  Ask to have your problem escalated (Tier Two) or ask to speak to a supervisor (Tier Three).

You don’t understand a darn thing they’re saying:  There might be an insurmountable language barrier between you and the technician.  Maybe you both speak different native languages, or maybe his “geek speak” is so strong that you can’t understand him.

You seem to be going in circles:  Very often the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  If you seem to be repeating the same instructions again and again, it’s time to terminate the call.

Understanding the Meaning of “Support”

Once you’ve contacted either technical support or an ACT! Certified consultant, you should soon be on the road to recovery.  Hopefully, your problem will be fixed in a jiffy.  If you are working with technical support, however, you’ll need to understand the true meaning of the word “support”:

We don’t support this:   This stock phrase implies that the technician is either unwilling or unable to help you with your specific problem.  It does not mean that someone else might not be able to fix your problem, or that the problem is based on a limitation of the ACT! program.  For example, users of ACT! 2006 and Terminal Services were told by tech support that “ACT! doesn’t support this feature.”  What they meant is that although ACT! works with Terminal Services, they didn’t have enough knowledge to actually support it.

Support is not the same thing as training:  Like just about everything else in life, technical support has become highly specialized.  They will be able to help you with issues such as installing the software or getting your e-mail to work.  They won’t be able to help you to determine why you might want to add new fields to your database or various ways to send out an e-mail blast.

The Care and Feeding of an Outside Consultant

So, now that you’ve waved the white flag and called in the troops – or at least an ACT! consultant – you’ll want to get the most bang for your buck.  Here’s a few tips on how to work with the consultant so that your frustration level and consulting fee, remain as low as possible.

What you should not do, quite simply, is to waste anyone’s time discussing anything that won’t get the problem fixed.  The more you say, the more you risk confusing, or insulting the technician.  Remember, the clock is running.  Under no circumstances should you:

• Bash the Program
• Bash the Techie
• Belly ache about the price
• Curse, swear or make references to the Techie’s Mother
• Jump ahead of the technician
• Ignore the technician’s instructions
• Assume that if the technician is a non-native English speaker that he is hard of hearing
• Assume that if the technician is a non-native English speaker that he is dumb
• Refuse to try something that the technician suggests

Finally, here are a few things that you should do to make your experience with the consultant as painless as possible:

• Trust that the consultant knows what he is doing.
• Listen to instructions.  If you’re not sure about an instruction, ask that it be repeated.
• Avoid the urge to jump ahead of the consultant.
• Keep an Open Mind.

Although good help may be hard to find, believe me, it’s out there!  Don’t give up until you’ve found the perfect solution.  I recently had a client who spent more than a week trying to share an ACT! 2010 on their network.  They were told by Technical Support that the ACT! database had to be located in the My Document folder on a Windows server in order for it to be shared.   It took more time to convince the client that Tech Support was wrong than it did to make the database sharable from an ACT! directory on the server.   There are two lessons here:   (1) You get what you pay for; (2) Price and Cost are two different things since lower priced products and services often cost more in the long run.

To find an ACT! Certified Consultant near you, please visit http://www.act.com/partners/acc/find/index.cfm

As a Customer Relationship Management Consultant who provides software solutions using ACT!, Sage CRM and SalesLogix, I compete with Salesforce.com.  While I think their solution can be a good fit for company’s with limited capital, those that lack a network infrastructure or IT support or have disparate workers, what I find disappointing is they disparage the competition rather than focusing on their strengths.  I have heard many of the negative and/or erroneous statements they make from prospects as well as read the competitive emails they send to prospects.  Call me old school, but that’s not the way I sell. 

So how and why does ACT! 2010 software compete with Salesforce.com?

Pricing
First let’s look at the Salesforce.com editions that compete with ACT!

Contact Manager Edition – priced at $9 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 2 users. Provides contact and lead management, and integration with Outlook / Google Mail. 
Group Edition – priced at $35 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 5 users. Provides same capabilities as Contact Manager plus opportunity management, Google Ad Words integration and basic case
management.
Professional Edition – Priced at $65 per person per month. No limit on the number users. Similar capabilities to Group Edition plus extended marketing and customer service capabilities, as well as analytical dashboards.

ACT by Sage 2010 – Priced at $199 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $59 per person.   Limited to 10 users.  Has same features as the Premium and Corporate editions except for the following licenses or features:  no ACT! for Web license, Dashboard views by team, enhanced remote synchronization services, activity reports by user,  secured contacts, notes, history and opportunities and no field level,  group and company record security.
ACT by Sage 2010 Premium – Priced at $369 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person.   Generally limited to 30 users.  Has same features as the  Corporate editions except for the lack of ACT! for Web licenses.
ACT by Sage 2010 Corporate - The SQL Express edition is priced at $399 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person and is generally limited to 30 users.   The SQL Server 2008 edition is priced at $479 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $164 per person and is scalable to 100′s of users.  The Corporate edition is our most scalable solution.

Feature Comparison

1. ACT! provides considerable ease-of-use advantages over Salesforce.com when it comes to accomplishing simple tasks such as:

• Lookups
• Searches
• Working with groups
• Mail merges
• Personalization
• Contextual right-clicks
• Pick lists and data quality
• Duplicate checking
• Offline

1. Salesforce.com costs 2.5 times more than ACT! after 3 years  1
2. Despite what they say, software must be installed on your computer to use Salesforce.com with Microsoft Word or Outlook
3. Sending a letter in Salesforce.com takes 17 clicks – in ACT! 2010 it’s a 2 click process
4. Salesforce.com Professional offers limited email broadcasting – only 500 per day per user. With ACT! E-Marketing, you can send up to 100,000 per day 2
5. ACT! offers complete full online and offline access to data
6. ACT! can be installed on a PC, Network, Web, Terminal and/or Citrix Server for whatever type of access you prefer
7. Recent Keystroke Level Modeling (KLM)* testing carried out under lab conditions has revealed that it takes 37% longer on average to complete a range of common user tasks in Salesforce.com compared to ACT! 2010
   REMEMBER:  Usability drives user adoption and ultimately determines the overall success of a CRM project
8. Contact Manager Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 2 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No dashboards, email marketing, list management or opportunity management
9. Group Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 5 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No email marketing or list management
   •  Significant upgrade cost to add a 6th user or more since you have to upgrade to the Professional Edition.  Essentially, you’ll go from $35 per user per month to the $65.00 per user per month—that’s an 86% increase.  
10. Professional Edition Weaknesses
    •  Significant higher Total Cost of Ownership over the lifetime of the system
    •  Offline access is significant extra cost.
    •  Storage allocation is very low for the price

Salesforce.com Gotcha’s
According to research conducted by Sage Software, storage allocations are very storage is extremely expensive ($3000 per additional GB of storage space) and is not available as an option in the Contact Manager Editions.
Offline access is not available in lower editions and is only available at a significant extra cost in the Professional Edition.
The Master Subscription Agreement with Salesforce.com controls customer data access – that’s your data they’re holding!

Here are some other observations:

1. Without express, prior approval from a senior Salesforce.com executive, all subscriptions must be paid in advance for a minimum of 1 year generally, and the average contract term is now 2 or 3 years.
2. They reserve the right to modify its fees and charges and introduce new charges at any time.
3. Companies are deemed to have accepted Salesforce.com’s terms and conditions when they click on the ‘I agree’ button during sign up to a trial subscription.
4. Your contract is automatically renew for the same period again unless the customer expressly notifies Salesforce.com of its intention to discontinue the service.
5. If a you don’t cancel in time, it will be liable for the full cost of the renewed contract.
6. Salesforce.com subscriptions number cannot be reduced in number until the expiry of the contract period.
7. Salesforce.com reserves the right to block a customer’s access to their data in the event of a commercial dispute. 
8. Outside of any dispute, it is generally difficult to get customer data out of Salesforce.com in any meaningful format unless you have the Professional or Enterprise Editions.
9. Apart from the very largest organizations, Salesforce.com customers do not benefit from any service level agreement in relation to the availability of their application. They have no recourse in the event of service outages.

In conclusion:

ACT! is easy to use and provides a simple pricing structure so there are no nasty surprises down the line. Before signing up with Salesforce.com, know what you’re committing to and get it in writing.  ACT! customers benefit from a low total cost of ownership with most paying the equivalent of between $20 and $30 per user per month over the lifetime of the solution.  I am happy to speak with you about how CRM and specifically ACT! can help your business.  Just click here to contact me.

1  Comparison based on 20 users of ACT! 2010 Corporate with annual ACT! Platinum Care software maintenance with $3,000 of implementation services versus Salesforce.com Professional edition as of 8/26/2009.

2  ACT! E-Marketing powered by Swiftpage is a monthly subscription service.  I am a Swiftpage Gold Drip Marketing consultant and help businesses turn their ACT! database in to a money making machine with this software solution.  Monthly pricing is available for review by clicking here.

As the managing partner of The CRM Connection, I am proud to announce we have earned the Top US Sage Software Business Partner and Sage Software President’s Circle award for the second consecutive year!

Our company is a national Sage Software business partner specializing in the sales, installation, and support of ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM, has been named one of Sage Software’s Top Business Partners in the Business Management Division for the fiscal year October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009.

“It gives me great pleasure to, once again, recognize The CRM Connection as a Sage President’s Circle Award Winner. Despite the most challenging economic conditions in recent memory, The CRM Connection’s continues to demonstrate success. We are fortunate to have The CRM Connection as a partner and we congratulate the entire team.” says Jeffrey Gregorec, Vice President, Sales, CRM Division at Sage Software.

This award means a lot to me personally since I am the companies primary sales and marketing professional.    How’d we do it in this economy? 

The short answer is not easily, though I know that we couldn’t have done it without the collective effort of  our entire team.   The key is marketing and networking. All of our sales come from the Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click strategy for our website, www.thecrmconnection.com, blogging at blog.thecrmalliance.com, e-mail broadcasting, the ACT! corporate license team ACT!, and the relationships we have with our clients and the computer, sales and marketing consultants who refer their clients to us.

Our sales process has continued to evolve over the past several years, but that’s not it.  Ultimately, I think the key to success is doing what we say we’ll do when we say we’ll do it.

About The CRM Connection The CRM Connection helps businesses in North America do what they do even better using customer relationship management software developed exclusively by Sage Software. By leveraging the capabilities of ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM software, The CRM Connection provides customized solutions focusing on the needs of sales, marketing, and customer service and management teams. The CRM Connection is a full service consulting firm providing design, installation, customization, training, and support services. Our solutions support small and medium-sized businesses as well as teams within large businesses. The CRM Connection was founded in 2002 in Denver, Colorado, and has offices in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. For more information, please visit the web site at www.thecrmconnection.com or call 866-456-7808.