More and more businesses are incorporating Facebook into their social media portfolio as a communications and  marketing tool, capitalizing on Facebook’s traffic. It’s another point of presence for your business as Facebook Pages are public and search engines will display them in their results, best of all it’s free.

Facebook has Profiles and Pages, Profiles are used by individuals and Pages are for businesses.  One item to note is that you must have a Facebook Profile to create a Page for your business.  My company recently created a new Facebook Page for our business and we wanted to provide some tips to help avoid some of the pitfalls we discovered when we set up our original business Page. 

Creating a Page is easy, log in to Facebook and navigate to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.   You will need to select a category for your Page; “Local business”, “Brand, product, or organization” or “Artist, band or public figure”.  The selection you make here will determine what information about your business you will be able to display on the Info Tab of your Facebook Page.  When we created our first Page we chose “local business”. This selection has the limitation of only being able to display Website and Parking options for the Detailed Info on the Page’s Info Tab.  Once you make your category selection you cannot change it and why we chose to create a new business Page, this time selecting the “Brand, product, or organization” category.  With this selection we are able to display our Website, Company Overview, Mission, and Products details on the Page’s Info Tab – allowing you to enter a lot more information and searchable content.

Another important item is your Page Name. Unless you are a well known brand, you will want to use your company name and include a description of your products or services, for example ours is “ACTPLATINUM.com – ACT! by Sage CRM Consulting, Training and Software Sales”.  By doing this your Page will display on the Facebook search results for any of the words used in your Page Name.  Once you have at least 25 people “Like” your Page, you will be able to create a custom username to easily access your Facebook presence – for example ours is www.facebook.com/ACTPLATINUM.

Check the box stating you are the official representative and click the Create Official Page button – you have just created the Facebook Page for your business.  Now let everyone know.

The next step should be promoting your company’s Facebook Page and start interacting with your visitors.  Some ideas to generate interest are to offer a special deal, a contest or better yet something of value for free. 

“Like” us on Facebook  and you will receive a free Lookup Bad Email Addresses Utility for ACT! 2010 and ACT! 2009.  With more and more companies using e-mail marketing and with the introduction of ACT!’s new E-marketing feature powered by Swiftpage E-mail the email address field in your database is very important. This is a great tool to quickly clean up the email address field for ACT!.  Be sure to share your experience in using the utility with other ACT! users on our Facebook Page!

I ran a webinar this week on synching smart phones to your ACT database.  Presenting with me was my old friend Rushang Shah of Companion Link software.  Rushang looks like the guy selling replica watches out of the trunk of his car; the last time I saw him he must have had a dozen different cell phones in his brief case.  Although I’ve used Palm, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices in the past, he’s my go-to guy when it comes to cell phones.

We had a great turnout to the webinar.  I was particularly surprised by the number and quality of the questions that we received.  There is indeed a black hole area in the minds of many ACT users.  And, although I’ve been synching my ACT database to my phone for years, I learned a few new tidbits that I thought I’d share with you.

Many of the questions revolved around picking the “best” phone.  The bottom line is to pick the phone that you like best with a few minor concessions:

1. Some phones are dumb.  Literally.  A smart phone by definition is one that contains an operating system such as Blackberry, Apple, Android, and Palm.
2. Only smart phones can synch to a large database such as ACT.  It’s not that dumb phones are really dumb, they’re just not big enough to hold all that data.
3. Your cell phone carrier determines the phones that are available to you.  If you’re lusting for an I-Phone you’ll have to move to AT&T.  If you stick with Verizon you’ll have a huge selection of Androids to choose from. 

The next set of questions involved the synching process itself.  To sum it up, there are three basic scenarios for synching your ACT data to your cell phone:

1. Synchronize using a direct connection between your phone and your computer – your information data will flow directly from your database to your phone.  This requires a piece of software like Companion Link. This is probably the most traditional way of synching ACT data.
2. Synchronize wirelessly using the new free Google service.  This is the coolest way of synching but perhaps the most confusing as it contains two separate parts.  You’ll use Companion Link to synch your ACT database to a free Google account.  From there Google will automatically update your phone with your ACT information.  As complicated as it sounds, you actually only need to click a single button to synchronize your data and you won’t need to hunt for any cable wires.
3. Synchronize wirelessly using a paid monthly service.  This is a great option for folks who want the latest and greatest changes on their phone – but don’t have the time or patience to wrangle with the technology. 

Finally, there were lots of questions about Outlook, multiple databases and multiple users.  Can you synch both ACT and Outlook to your phone?  Yes!  Can each ACT user sync to their own phones even though they are all using the same ACT database?  Yes!  Can I synch just a portion of my ACT database to my phone?  Yes!

If you’d like to listen to the webinar you can access it online by clicking here.  And as always, if you have a comment or a question please feel free to post a reply.

Karen Fredricks
blog@techbenders.com
www.techbenders.com

I’ve lost ten pounds since the holidays!  Having been on the Injured Reserve list with a knee injury for over a year I packed on the extra weight.  I’ve been fortunate enough all my life not to have to deal with weight loss issues so I wasn’t sure what to do.  Quite frankly, the thought of paying hundreds of dollars for artificial meals or drinks wasn’t appealing so I tackled the problem in the same way that I tackle most problems:

• I did a bit of research
• I developed a plan that consisted of a small number of baby steps
• I stayed with the program

My system worked and it got me to thinking how I could apply the same concept to removing some of the “dead weight” often found in databases.  Although I work with a variety of CRM solutions I find that my clients deal with the exact same issues.  Here are a few of my solutions:

• Learn your software.  Every CRM solution contains a category field; in ACT it’s called ID/Status.  This field usually contains values such as Customer, Prospect, or Vendor.  This will help you pinpoint the exact portion of your database that you need to market to.  Learn how to add another choice like “Dead Lead” so you’re sales folks won’t spin their wheels calling companies that aren’t a good fit for your business.
• Have an easy way to find the data that needs updating.  You can’t lose 10 pounds – or slim down your database – in a day.  As you work through your database using baby steps, it’s imperative that you have a quick bookmark to find the contacts you haven’t as yet had a chance to work on.   I set up Dynamic Groups in ACT to keep track of all my contacts that are missing contact information; as I fill in the blanks – or add a new, incomplete contact – my group changes accordingly.
• Have a system for dealing with your duplicates on a timely basis.  Unfortunately, computers aren’t bright enough to understand that William, Bill and Billy are all the same person, and that ABC Co and ABC Company are one and the same.   ACT has the cool Copy/Move Contact Data feature that allows you to merge duplicates as you run across them.  A search on the Internet will help you find addon solutions that will “deal with the dupes” for other CRM products.
• Fill in the blanks. Sometimes it’s not what you know but what you don’t know that can kill you.    I recently looked over my own database and found that I was missing the e-mail addresses for nearly 10% of my prospects.  I found a free solution for finding contact information that worked so well that I was soon able to cut that number in half.  Once I had e-mail addresses I was able to use ACT’s e-marketing tool to send out an e-mail requesting corrected contact information; I then sat back as the replies automatically updated my missing contact information in ACT.
• Link to your accounting software.  I compare this ability to lifting weight in the gym.  Your existing customers are without a doubt the best source of future revenue.  You need to reach out to the folks who spent lots of money with you three years ago, but haven’t called you since.  The ability to query on your accounting information in your CRM solution is crucial.  I’m running a free webinar if you’d like to see how I’ve linked ACT to my QuickBooks information.
• Eliminate unnecessary notes and histories.  I’m a firm believer in keeping accurate notes about my contacts.  However, over a period of time too much information is, well, too much information.   I have a great tool that lets me selectively pick and choose the history data I want to purge from my database.  For example, I recently removed just the histories from 2007 and 2008 showing that I had sent out e-newsletters; that alone eliminated over 50,000 history records from my database!

Although I’m certainly not a weight-loss expert I’d be happy to share my dieting tips if you send me an e-mail.  In the meantime, if you take a few baby steps at a time, you’ll find that your database is soon looking a lot sleeker and healthier.  Good luck with your weight loss program!

Karen Fredricks
blog@techbenders.com
www.techbenders.com

My company is a member of several local chambers of commerce and there seems to be a chamber sponsored networking event every day. Since time and money are limited resources we have to be selective in the events to participate in.  As a B-to-B business, we find that the chamber’s annual tradeshows to be the best investment in that they have high attendance and lots of business owners.  Exhibiting in a trade show is an excellent opportunity for our company to gain exposure and connect with decision makers to generate new business.  

Through trial and error we’ve learned that a successful trade show takes lots and lots of preparation.  Using ACT! helps us in organizing our trade show activities and marketing the event to our Customers and Prospects.  We make sure to engage our contacts before, during and after any event.
 
Before the Show – Generate the BUZZ
A trade show is a great way to introduce a new product or service, or to demonstrate how existing products or services will benefit an attendee’s business.  Invitations are sent to our contacts encouraging them to attend the event, we always provide show-only promotions as a thank you.  We create a custom Drip Marketing campaign to provide information about the show using our ACT! program and incorporate a variety of communication methods.
 
 -> Create Custom Letter, Postcard and/or E-mail Templates and personalize the invitations and announcements
 -> Send ACT E-marketing and track the interest level (opens & clicks) of the recipients with the built in reporting feature
 -> Make Phone Calls either from a list from ACT! or a Call List created from an ACT E-Marketing and personally invite our contacts to the show
 -> Social Media Updates post announcements on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other channels
 
During the Show - Build Your Database
We draw attendees to our booth by having a live demonstration of ACT! software in action.  Our WOW factor is showing  that ACT! is more than just a place to keep your contacts, it can help you understand your business and solve business problems.  I love to have engaging conversations and share information, I will make it a point to jot down a short comment on what idea, problem or question was the topic of conversation so I can respond to any opportunities.  Knowing that everyone likes to win a prize we incorporate a business card drawing for free software and no-one walks away empty handed as we provide free 30 day trials and other helpful materials as reminders of our business, products and services.  

After the Show – FOLLOW-UP
We always feel great after a show; meet lots of people, have dynamic conversations and receive all of that positive feedback.  However, the show isn’t a success unless we dedicate time to immediately follow-up.  First we take all of those business cards gathered at the show and use ScanIT to import the contacts into our database – what a time saver!  Next is generating the BUZZ after the show by placing phone calls and sending Letter, Postcard and/or Emails to those who attended and those who couldn’t attend the show.  Based on interest level we place the contact in one of our post-show drip marketing campaigns to send reminders of how we can help their business.  Follow-up is a must and an ongoing process for relationship building.

So go showcase your business at your chamber’s next trade show, get involved in your local community. If you’re new to trade show marketing, as ACT! Marketing Experts and Swiftpage Gold Drip Marketing Certified Consultant we can help you with generating your BUZZ.  If you can’t exhibit then attend, we would love you to come to our next tradeshow - stop by and say hello.  You may even catch us sending twitter updates while at the show!

When I conduct ACT training classes, I am always reminded that the Contact List View provides some of the best value to my participants.

With that in mind, here are my Top 6 Tips to getting the most out of the Contact List View in ACT!

1. Turn on Grid Lines – No more scanning through a white field of data. Adjust your Colors and Fonts Preferences (under Tools – Preferences) and give your eyes some assistance.
2. Customize Columns – Right Click and Customize Columns to see just the data you want to see, nothing more and nothing less. But rest assured, the only view you’re customizing is your own. Every computer has manages this separately.
3. Use Windows Shortcuts – Did you know holding down Ctrl allows you to tag and untag various contacts in the list? And holding down shift allows you to select a range of contacts in the list? Don’t believe me? Try it now. I’ll wait.
4. Lookup/Omit Selected – Now that you’ve tagged the contacts you like, you can narrow it down to just what is highlighted (Lookup Selected) or discard them from your lookup (Omit Selected). Sometimes this is much quicker than doing advanced lookups.
5. Work the Column Headers – Click on a column header to sort by that column. Click on it again to reverse the sort. You can do this for any column that’s viewed.
6. Export to Excel – Your list looks perfect. You’ve sorted, tagged, omitted, included all the data you want. Now what? One button does a quick Export to Excel of everything in this view to share with others, print, or do more advanced functions in Excel. Worried about data security? This permission can be controlled on a per user level.

Like these training tips? Want to know more?  Check out our ACT! training opportunities to best meet your needs.

Videos can be a great marketing tool to engage your prospects and customers. As examples, you can create videos that can capture your products or services in use, show off your amazing team, advantages over your competition, and provide testimonials of your business by your customers. With the widespread availability of video capturing tools, videos can be created on any budget size.

Using YouTube to host your videos will allow you to upload and share your videos, generating traffic to your website. YouTube is the leader in online video sharing sites and according to Alexa, the authority in website statistics, YouTube has the 3rd highest traffic rank for the entire web – capitalize on their traffic. YouTube is free and they also offer pay per click video promotion services.

Get Started – Sign up and create your YouTube account. As you enter the registration information keep in mind the most important item will be your User Name, this is used as your channel name. Be identifiable and make the User Name your company name, your brand or your website domain, for example our user name is ACTPLATINUM, our website domain, and our YouTube channel URL is www.youtube.com/ACTPLATINUM. (TIP: Use the same identifier for all of your social media pages.) Enter a Title for your channel, add tags – key words for people to find your channel, a profile description of your business, and your company website to link back and encourage visitors. You can upload your logo, change the background and use colors to match your business identity.

Upload Your Videos – Click the bright yellow Upload button, then optimize the video by entering the Title, Description and Tags loaded with key words that are important for searchers to find your videos and business. Place your company’s website somewhere in the beginning of the Description to generate traffic to your site. YouTube allows you to embed videos on other websites, so be sure to place a key video or two on your website’s homepage (we did on our homepage at www.actplatinum.com).

Join the Conversation – Start networking by subscribing to channels of your vendors, suppliers, associations, referral partners or customers and “Favorite” their videos that have relative content to your business. Your Favorites List can be displayed to your channel viewers. Link your Facebook and Twitter social media accounts with your channel that will send notifications to your Friends and Followers of new video uploads or favorites. We recently started our channel www.youtube.com/ACTPLATINUM featuring some of our great customers, add-ons for ACT! by Sage Software and Napkin Mike- please join the conversation!

Ann Clarke of Gr8IdeasAtWork is a Professional Speaker and veteran ACT! Software User

Ann Clarke cracked the code on maximizing IGAs (Income Generating Activities) when she discovered ACT! Sage Software.

As a long-time professional speaker plus acting chief cook and bottle washer on the business side of www.Gr8IdeasAtWork.com, Ann knew the importance of simplifying her business processes so she could book more speaking gigs and do what she loves most: speaking to and helping women balance successful lives.

So years ago she invested time and resources into learning every feature in her ACT! contact manager to help her run her business more efficiently. Today she uses the new ACT! Sage 2010 to…

1. Manage her email communication with clients and prospects by attaching incoming and outgoing messages to client records–which eliminates wasted time searching in her inbox
2. Create and track each speaking contract iteration so she always knows which version she sent out last
3. Track all notes and activities with each client for finger-tip access during subsequent conversations
4. Earn thousands of dollars of extra income by mining her database for booking agents near her keynote speaking gigs and offering them one-hour breakfast presentations while she’s “in the neighborhood.”

Because ACT! has been around for more than 20 years, it has a dedicated app developer base that creates special programs to augment ACT!’s contact management features. Ann’s 2 favorite ACT! add-ons are:

• CardScan Executive – which she uses to quickly enter all her business cards the same day she collects them and
• AddressGrabber – which copies electronic contact information from email addresses, websites, and directories, then imports it into her ACT! database for follow up.

Both utilities eliminate time-consuming data entry.

Ann says there’s a big difference between professional speakers who use Outlook to manage their contacts and those who’ve discovered ACT! Software. “I’ve eliminated all my file folders!” she says.

More About Ann Clarke…

Ann Clarke’s lifelong vision has been to help women become successful in business. “When women are financially successful, they have better choices.”

Thirty years ago selling houses was one way women could make a lot of money. So in 1978, as a professional writer and photographer, Ann began creating marketing programs for women in real estate. Through “personal promotion marketing” she taught her clients to create bonds with people they had never met. Her reputation grew with her clients’ successes, and she became nationally known as THE expert in “personal promotion marketing.”

It wasn’t long until she was invited to speak at seminars, workshops and conferences across the U.S. and Canada. Her how-to articles appeared frequently in national and regional business publications in print and on the web. Eventually she sold her marketing company to become a full-time speaker. Ann says, “It’s more fun to preach to a crowd than nag one person at a time!”

Ann also draws from her stories in Chicken Soup for the Father & Daughter Soul and Chicken Soup for the Caregiver’s Soul to include tips to help women balance the successful lives she has helped them to create. Quick to recognize that women in business love to learn, Ann created conferences, symposiums and retreats to put other women in the spotlight and showcase their knowledge. She is also the Founder and CEO of Colorado Women of Influence, LLC, a CEO-level mastermind group for highly successful women in business.

Are you a professional speaker who uses ACT! Software? Please share some of your tips with us in the comments below.

Many years ago my husband and I attempted to wallpaper our dining room.  Of course it didn’t help that we began work on this DIY project two weeks before Thanksgiving and were under a time crunch.  I carefully set up a table in the garage where we applied the paste and carried the soggy paper through the house and into the dining room.  Needless to say by the end of the trip the paper was in shreds.  After we had pretty much mangled the project we called in a professional who just looked at us and shook his head.  He finally managed to ask why we hadn’t simply set up our table in the dining room.  Quite frankly the thought never occurred to either one of us, nor had the concept of purchasing pre-glued paper.

I consider myself a fairly smart person.  However, I also know my limitations, and know when I need to call in the experts.  I’ve learned over the years that money I spend on a consultant, book or course is well worth its price when I compare it to the time it might take me to eventually wave the white flag and concede defeat. 

To paraphrase Ben Franklin, “he who teaches himself is taught by a fool.” 

I run into folks all the time who prefer the DIY route when it comes to software.  I understand the desire to tinker with software; after all, I do it myself.  Unfortunately, many of those folks who teach themselves usually make the same mistake that I did when I tried my hand at wallpapering:   they didn’t keep it simple.  As I work to untangle the convoluted system that they created – which, by the way, doesn’t provide them with the functionality that they had initially hoped for – they often mutter something like, “Gee, that was easy!”  It’s amazing how simple tasks become when we actually know what we’re doing!

My suggestion is that if you really want to master a software title, learn from a pro.  There are a number of avenues available to you.  I write for Wiley Publishing who have created For Dummies titles on over 2,000 topics; they even have a book that covers wallpapering!  I recently created and recorded training videos for lynda.com; for a yearly subscription you have access to online learning courses on hundreds of software titles.  If you prefer that up close and personal approach hire a good consultant; just make sure that the consultant specializes in the specific area you need help with.  Don’t settle for a computer guy who “is really good;” it’s your time, your money and your business.  Get help from an expert who will be able to simplify the learning process.

Karen Fredricks
www.techbenders.com
blog@techbenders.com

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.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen an increasing number of customer calls and problems stemming from trying to save ACT! templates on the network. The error message indicates that the template is in use.  This error occurs whether you are trying to create a new template, save changes to an existing template or saving an existing template with a new name. Unfortunately, the error message is misleading in the fact that rarely, if ever, is the document in use by someone else.

In doing research, we found this issue is actually a common problem with saving Microsoft Word documents to a network.  The error occurs when trying to save a file to a server using uniform naming convention (UNC) as opposed to using a mapped network drive. In layman’s terms, when saving the file with a format similar to \\actserver\act -database files\templates\template.doc, the UNC format is being used. When saving a file using a mapped network drive, the location may look something like this M:\act-database files\templates\template.doc where the M drive replaces the \\actserver.  The frustrating part of the error is that it does not occur all the time and can result in the document throwing the error not to be saved. 

The best way to prevent the error from is to launch the ACT! template folder through a mapped drive as opposed to using ACT!’s default opening method which is UNC. One simply way to do this is to create a shortcut on the computer desktop to where the ACT! templates folder exists out on the network. The key is to make sure that the shortcut is using a mapped network drive as opposed to using the UNC location. Whenever opening or savings these templates, always browse out to the desktop shortcut as opposed to using the default location ACT! provides. This will ensure that the mapped drive is used and avoid the untimely “template is in use” error message. 

Want some help doing this?   If so, please email me at tmm@stewarttechnologies.com and I’d be happy to provide you with screen shots to follow the steps listed above.