In the past few months I’ve looked in every nook and cranny of my business for ways to cut costs, especially the “hidden” costs that you don’t realize are adding up. Like inefficient use of time.

Turns out one of our big time sucks is sales quoting. Some of our services are straightforward and easy to quote…maybe take a minute or 2. But our really lucrative opportunities often take a couple of hours to research, price and “pretty up,” so the sales quote “look and feel” matches the value of our work.

In fact, it turns out we have been spending approximately $25 per sales estimate we create. I checked with some of my clients, and plugged in their numbers, and we got a range from $20 – $150. And as we all know, not every estimate turns into a sale. So this seemed like a great place for a re-think on cost savings.

I liked the solution I discovered so much, I decided to resell the quoting software to estimate-intensive, sales-driven organizations. Now instead of one-size-fits-all quotes going to my low-end and high-end opportunities, I can match the quote template to the project.

For example, the image on the top left is the “Celebrity Sales Quote” sales template. It puts your products’ images front and center, almost like a catalog, with complete product descriptions, part numbers, a catchy title–whatever info you have or want to show. But a Quick and Dirty Line Item Sales Estimate may be all you need if need to get something out fast and keep it simple. Finally, a third option is a formal Narrative Sales Proposal, which may be appropriate for responding to an RFP or other situations where the person presenting your products and services is not you. I did one like this years ago that was almost 50 pages. Today, I could create it once in my sales quoting software and use pieces and parts of it for any estimate, and it would only take me a matter of minutes.

On Tuesday, December 20, I’ll be holding a free 60-minute webinar demonstrating how a sales quoting system reduces the cost of calculating estimates and gives the competitive advantage of being first bidder to respond (because you’re so fast!)

Want to find out more? Register here. If you can’t make it live, I’ll be posting the recording here after the holidays.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be complex, but I wanted to break it down into what any software package can do. Watch this brief (2:45 min.) video for a quick overview.

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.

The Sage ACT! 2012 Roadshow will be held on Thursday, July 28, 2011, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Fort Lauderdale Westin Hotel, 400 Corporate Drive, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The event will feature presentations by Karen Fredricks, the woman who wrote the book (actually 7 books) on ACT! and representatives from Sage North America which is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Prior registration is required and includes complimentary hors d’oeuvres. There will be raffles for free ACT! 2012 software, ACT! addon products, books, and training videos. Attendance will be limited to the first 100 who register at http://act2012.eventbrite.com/.

Attendees will have an opportunity to interact with Sage ACT! representatives and have a sneak peak at some of the new ACT! 2012 enhancements.

Karen Fredricks, an ACT! Certified Consultant, Platinum ACT! VAR and Premier ACT! Trainer, will conclude the event with a presentation of her Top 10 Favorite ACT! Tips & Tricks.

Attendees will have the opportunity to network with each other and the Sage representatives as part of the event.

According to Fredricks, “I like to think of the Fort Lauderdale Road Show as an ACT! celebration.  I held a similar event at the Westin in 2002 to launch ACT! 6.  Then, as now, ACT! users eagerly anticipated a look at the new ACT! features.  Ironically, the Scratch Pad feature is a modern version of the old Side ACT! functionality that was so popular in the earliest ACT! versions.”

For further information, contact Karen Fredricks of Tech Benders at 561-470-5450, Ext. 1.  To register for the event go to http://act2012.eventbrite.com/.

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).

Over time I’ve tried various card scanners and integrated software that made them work with CRM applications, including Sage ACT! 2011 Premium. The current scanning solution I recommend is the Scan Shell 800NR from Card Scanning Solutions.

The 800NR hardware appears to be more reliable. With other solutions, I ended up sending the unit back for a replacement every year or so, even though covered under warranty was a pain and motivated me to look for another solution. Other products did not include the integration with ACT that I was looking for, as all I wanted to have to do was scan and review the contact information without any extra steps involved.

The Scan Shell captured most business cards, scanning them successfully, and if a duplicate entry was about to be created you are asked if you want to proceed. One thing I have noticed is that when some business cards do not scan successfully, it has to do with the graphics and font that were used — as a result I have to manually enter these cards. As a professional I would ensure that your business card is actually scannable as more and more people are using automating technology to save time and money.

Here is a link to the Scan Shell 800NR solution and enjoy!

As a technology services provider, we find ourselves repeatedly answering the same question for our customers:  Which Cloud is Right for Me?

Deciding whether or not to move your business into the cloud can be a complex decision – mainly because of all the options available on the market today.  Type the word Cloud in any search engine and you will find a million different possible choices. Trying to sift through all of the options for many business owners can be a difficult task on a good day.  Here are a few pointers that I found to be helpful when taking that first foray out into the wonderful world of Cloud technology.

First, evaluate your current business environment and decide what actually needs to be in the cloud. Knowing what information you want to be in the Cloud is a critical step in determining the type of technology you will need. Listed below are a few examples of what you may want to put into the Cloud:

• Regular backups of your critical data.
• Web access/hosting of software applications you may use such as ACT!, Outlook, QuickBooks etc.
• Files you want to be able to share with other users in your organization or trusted business partner.

Once you have decided what information you want in the Cloud, the next step is to decide what type of Cloud works best for you. Common types of Cloud (i.e. hosted solutions) include:

• Hosted data services – This form of hosting is great for off-site backups or hosting of a particular software application (like ACT!, Outlook or QuickBooks).  A hosted data service enables you to pick and choose what areas of your business need to be in the cloud.
• Hosted servers – This is a great option to consider if you looking to share files, share multiple applications or possibly put your entire company’s data and computing power in the cloud.  Due to the multitude of options in this area, our term “hosted servers”  is a generic term and for the purposes of this article, serves as a guide rather than an exact type of service.

A third area to consider relates to some of the logistics of Cloud computing:

• Who within your company will need access to what’s in the Cloud?
• What additional hardware or software will you need to make your data easily accessible once it’s in the Cloud?
• How much space will you need to have hosted? This is particularly important when addressing the need for an online backup solution or the renting of server space.

By carefully considering the questions listed above, you have now armed yourself with enough information to start narrowing your focus for the type of Cloud that will best work for your business.

At least once a week, we receive a call from one of our ACT! customers saying that their calendar – which use to load in 2 seconds or less, is now taking 2 minutes to load.  Depending on the age of the database involved and how heavily the calendar is currently being used, we often find that there is an easy fix to this frustrating problem.

Here are 4 quick tips to help keep your calendar and ultimately you, working at optimum speed.

1. When using recurring activities, be sure to put an end date for when you want the activity to stop recurring. Recurring activities without an end date means that ACT! is working extra hard to load all the instances of that appointment for as far out as ACT! calendar can see.
2. Make sure you are clearing activities as you do them.
3. Purge cleared activities once you no longer need to see them on the calendar. I had one customer who had 10 years of activities still loading on their calendar. ACT! has a built-in utility that helps remove all cleared activities after a certain point.
4. Set your calendar filters for what you actually want to see on your calendar. If you do not need to set to do items on your calendar, set the filter to ignore them. This will help the calendar load faster as well as cut back on the clutter.

Following these few quick tips can help keep your calendar moving right along.

I took a vacation recently…like a real, true vacation…not something that I have really done since my days before entering in the ACT!, SalesLogix, Wired Contact and MAS consultant profession, 14 years ago.

As usual when planning to take time off from work, I contacted my clients via phone and emails, letting them know of the dates that I would be unavailable. I made arrangements with The CRM Alliance to cover any client emergencies…nothing different as in past years…

Everything was in order: passports, travel itinerary, bags packed, sunscreen purchased, making sure my carry-on bag did not violate any of the liquids, flammables, sharp-object regulations…but something kept nagging at me on the ride to the Harrisburg International Airport…

Thankfully, we got through security, experienced two uneventful flights and an enlightening bus ride through Jamaica…so what was nagging me all this time?

It was not until we got settled in our hotel that I realized what the problem was…

Simple, I took off for the week and did not bring my laptop. I kinda sorta experienced a moment of panic, not true panic, after all I had purposely left my trusty laptop at home. But it did not ‘hit’ me until I looked around the room and there was no means to access the internet. I felt disconnected, out of touch and ultimately, outside my comfort zone..

I knew this fact when we made the reservations. I disabled my Work and Personal email, as well as, gasp, my Facebook notifications on my beloved Blackberry before we left for vacation. The only reason I brought my Blackberry was in case there was an emergency back home and my grown kids needed to contact me, and I stressed the word ‘emergency’ to them…needing money transferred to their bank account does not constitute an emergency.

I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing in the sun, eating way too much and taking long walks for an entire week…I even played volleyball in the pool and got spiked in the nose by some overzealous sport-dude.

You may ask why is this such a big deal that I felt I needed to write about this? Surely, professionals take vacations all the time without their computers and other means of ‘outside’ communication.

The reason is that I felt completely energized upon my return. I had a fresh new attitude, bold, if you will. I realized that even though I love my job as a consultant, I can actually take some time for myself and not think like a consultant 24/7. I returned from my vacation, well, a new person.

I entered my office Monday morning, booted up my 3 computers and went to work, with a smile on my face and in my heart.