In the late 80s, I was Regional Sales Manager for a national database company that sold business intelligence and mailing lists primarily through onsite seminars and inbound marketing (pre-Internet marketing!)
The company invested more than $50,000 in a contact management system that was programmed to spit out follow-up drip marketing letters every 7 days once a prospect identified himself.
The daily routine worked like this: Arrive at the office. Grab coffee. Data enter all the contacts we didn’t have time to enter yesterday. Code them by product interest (Check out my blog post on the 14 Ways To Segment Your Database – Part 1 and Part 2).
Hand off our notes and slips of paper with only partial contact info to our Admin who looked up missing info in the phone book. Next we’d press the “today’s letters” button on the computer keyboard. Kerchunk! Kerchunk! Kerchunk! The CRM software queued up the three-tray printer with… [click to continue…]
You’ve just returned from a successful tradeshow – unlike previous trips, you’re not returning with a stack of business cards, scribbled with hand written notes. No, this time you used ACT! and Scan IT to capture your business card sales leads. So, now that you have all these new prospects captured and recorded in ACT!what do you do? The next step in the cycle is one that many fear – the follow up.
Sales leads are dead within 72 hours. Following up with all of your prospects immediately, no matter how quick or simple the message, is essential to building a relationship. Don’t be duped into thinking you know which of your leads will be a ‘real’ sale and which of them may just be ‘window shopping’ – every lead most be followed up on. Many believe that sales follow up is dirty work – it’s tedious, time consuming, and boring – however, it doesn’t have to be. With a few adjustments and additions, sales follow up can be easy, simple and quick – bringing you closer to what we all want – closing the sale!
There are three ways to follow up on sales leads. Each method has options to make it less stressful.
Email: This is perhaps the quickest, easiest way to follow up with a large group of leads. A short, generic note sent to a group of leads can get the job done. Outreach IT for ACT! allows you to send templated emails to ACT! contacts or groups.
Phone: The most personal of all follow up options. A simple follow up script – :30 to a minute – can be very effective. Utilizing Dial IT for ACT!will greatly increase your call completion ratio, as well as give you a chance to associate the history and any notes from the call with the contact.
Print: A very impressive method (as most choose not to go this route). ACT! has a library of templates available for this very purpose and a creative, signed letter can go a long way with a prospect.
Each one of these options has their positives and negatives – if possible, a combination of all three is the best option. At the end of the day (literally, by the end of your first day back from your tradeshow) make sure you choose at least one option and just do it.
That CRM projects are successful and remain successful, depends greatly on the CRM users in the enterprise. This is a well-known wisdom.
Especially in the daily business a CRM solution has to prove itself – and failes much too often.
Contact details are recorded in its sole discretion, opportunities are assed with a high degree of subjectivity and imagination and so the work with the CRM system does not make much sense and the main idea of a CRM system fails due to a missing of the CRM success.
The additional work with the system produces no benefit for the individual user – the user feels only as data collector. Furthermore many user have fear – especially in the distribution section – to be controlled and / or to surrender their own knowledge. These two facts do not conducive their enthusiasm when it comes to CRM. For them the benefits of CRM don’t seem significantly greater than the investment of time and effort required to use the system each day.
CRM is what it is and it can be useful to sales people. The problem isn’t with the solution; it’s with the packaging. So the question is what can we do to make it more ‘tasty’ to our sales people?
I´m sure this is a well-known scenario for you as well:
As an exhibitor you were successful at the trade fair and you had many interesting contacts. The moment you are back in the office, the daily business has caught up with you again.
Your folder with the contacts you met on the trade will stay in the corner, because you have no time to follow-up with them.
The reworking of the trade is just as important as the trade itself
You are sitting in your office, your desk littered with hundreds of contact forms which you should manually enter into your ACT! database. For this you need hours, if you assume that each contact takes around 12 minutes of your time, which means on one day you would create just 40 contacts – and that only if you would concentrate only on this task. That is a whole day when you can not deal with your normal business activities.
Just compare right now
Time effort
without Scan IT
with Scan IT
Before the trade
Draft of the contact form
á 1 hoursPrint of the form
á 1 hours
not applicable
During the trade
time-consuming filling
of the form
á ~ 4 minutes per contact
Scanning,
Creating a History & Activity
~ 1 minute per contact
After the trade
Manual entry á ~ 12 minutes per contact
not applicable, ⇒ instead: professional and prompt contact management with trade show contacts
Conclusion
~ 16 minutes/contact
~ 1 minute/Contact
With a single mouse-click into your database
With Scan IT this belongs to the past.
Already during the trade you can now scan the business card of your conversation partner into your database and additionaly add all the essential content as history – all while you are talking to your potential customer!
In seconds you can create more contacts with Scan IT, as you can type in hours! Time-consuming, manual entry of contact details was yesterday! Typos are excluded and Scan IT automatically checkes for duplicates, with the option to update them.
After the trade, when normally the collected contact forms / business cards are stacked on your desktop, you have the time to professionally and promptly follow up with your trade contacts – first come, first served!
I tend to reflect on the past year each December and to look forward to an
even better next year (that way, I’m free to relax on December 31). What
went well, this year and where I can improve my business practice next year.
Since I use ACT! 2010 software to manage my relationships, calendar and
activities, I think of ways to better use the software.
Here’s my “top ten” for next year (starting today!):
Clean out my old contacts. I have over 4200 names in my database, many
are no longer valid. I use $120 Duplicate Record Removal Software to merge
the duplicates.
Clean out my unused Groups. Groups have a life of their own – I should
delete the ones I don’t use.
Stay in touch with the people you do business with by sending newsletters
on a regular basis. I do
Clean the antiques out of my task list. There are tasks from over a year
ago that I’ll never get to.
Stop rolling over my calls, to-dos and meetings (I don’t currently
roll-over activities, and neither should you!).
Call one day ahead of time to confirm all my appointments (Not really an
“ACT!” thing, but I’m going to do it anyway).
When someone hands me a business card, I will write a few words on the
card to remind me about this person (How many times have you looked at a
card and not remembered who the person is, or where you met?).
I will put every business card I have in ACT! (Why leave it to mold on my
desk?)
When I make an unscheduled call I will ALWAYS record it in ACT! (And
schedule a follow-up.)
When I clear an activity I will ALWAYS schedule a follow up call.
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 2010Premium – 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 2010Corporate - 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
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
Salesforce.com costs 2.5 times more than ACT! after 3 years 1
Despite what they say, software must be installed on your computer to use Salesforce.com with Microsoft Word or Outlook
Sending a letter in Salesforce.com takes 17 clicks – in ACT! 2010 it’s a 2 click process
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
ACT! offers complete full online and offline access to data
ACT! can be installed on a PC, Network, Web, Terminal and/or Citrix Server for whatever type of access you prefer
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
Contact Manager Edition Weaknesses • Limited to 2 users
• No offline option
• No dashboards, email marketing, list management or opportunity management
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.
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:
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.
They reserve the right to modify its fees and charges and introduce new charges at any time.
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.
Your contract is automatically renew for the same period again unless the customer expressly notifies Salesforce.com of its intention to discontinue the service.
If a you don’t cancel in time, it will be liable for the full cost of the renewed contract.
Salesforce.com subscriptions number cannot be reduced in number until the expiry of the contract period.
Salesforce.com reserves the right to block a customer’s access to their data in the event of a commercial dispute.
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.
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.
Got a Droid, or any other Android-based device? With CompanionLink, you have two options to sync ACT! data with your Android-based phone.
1. Wireless sync with Android-based phones
One of the features of CompanionLink is its ability to sync ACT! data with Google, which automatically feeds the address book and calendar apps on Android-based phones. Customers can use CompanionLink Express or CompanionLink Professional to sync their ACT! contacts, calendar activities, notes, and history data.
2. Wired (USB) sync with Android-based phones
CompanionLink will launch a direct USB sync solution between ACT! and Android-based phones by January 1, 2010. The PC solution will work with a free Android app on the device that will include a custom calendar, tasks and notes/memos apps that support categories, priorities, and search.
This direct USB sync solution will avoid the need to sync through Google or host sensitive ACT! data on Google. Because the sync occurs locally via the USB cable that shipped with the Android-based phone, data is transmitted through a secure and closed connection between PC and phone.
Update 12/21/2009: CompanionLink launched this direct sync solution. You can more information here.
CompanionLink will sync ACT! data with your iPhone using the USB cable that came with your device. This requires Outlook and iTunes installed on the PC.
iTunes and Outlook
All iPhone devices come with iTunes, which has the capability to sync Outlook contacts and calendar with iPhone. It does this when you dock the iPhone with your PC using a USB cable.
ACT! to iPhone, via Outlook and iTunes
CompanionLink adds ACT! to this process. It will sync ACT! data via Outlook/iTunes to the iPhone. Simply dock your iPhone, hit the “Sync” button in CompanionLink, and watch your data synchronize.
1. Sync using CompanionLink’s wireless sync service
2. Sync using Google and Google Sync
ACT! to iPhone sync using CompanionLink’s wireless sync service
For $9.95/month, you can use CompanionLink’s wireless sync service to sync data two-ways between ACT! and iPhone. Sync ACT! contacts, calendar activities, to-dos, opportunities, notes and histories with iPhone.
Contacts and their associated notes and histories sync to the built-in address book on the iPhone. Calendar activities, to-dos, and opportunities sync to an iPhone app (available for free from iTunes) called iClink. The iClink app adds a custom calendar and tasks/to-do list with enhanced business features such as linked contacts and priorities.
You’ll need CompanionLink Professional installed on your PC, and iClink on your iPhone. CompanionLink does not host your ACT! data; they simply mediate the transfer of data.
Total one-time cost: $99.95
Monthly service charge: $9.95
You can use a Google account and the free Google Sync service to sync ACT! data to iPhone. CompanionLink will sync ACT! data to your Google account. Then, you can set up the Google Sync service to sync your Google data to the built-in address book and calendar on your iPhone, over-the-air.
Contacts, calendar activities, notes and histories sync to the iPhone and are editable on the device.
You’ll need either CompanionLink Express or CompanionLink Professional installed on your PC. The Professional version has everything the Express version has, plus the Auto Synchronization feature which lets you set a timer to automatically sync ACT! with Google in the background.
Google will host your data. That’s required for Google Sync to work. If this is a security issue for you or your client, use CompanionLink’s wireless sync service.
Total one-time cost: $49.95 (Express) or $99.95 (Professional)
If you don’t already have a Twitter Account you need to signup. You can’t search for people on Twitter without a Twitter account. The “Twitter UserName” link will be useful once you know a contact’s “Twitter Username”. I called my Web Info Tab link the “Twitter UserName”. I also named the new Act Contact Field “Twitter UserName” field (no quotes), to be consistent with why I created the field. This link will automatically focus on the Tweets of your currently displayed Act Contact, by automatically inserting the “Twitter Username” into the Twitter URL link from the Act WebInfo Tab.
Adding Twitter UserName URL to the Web Info Tab in ACT! 2010 will take several steps. First, defining a new Act Contact Field, then editing your Contact Layout so you can view and use the new Act field. A very useful tutorial is provided in Act 2010, demonstrating creating a drop down list, creating a new Act field, and editing a contact layout. Please note, you will not need a drop down list for the TwitterUserName Field. If you have not customized your Act database or an Act Layout, now would be a good time to view the Customization Tour. From the Act menu click Help, then Features Tour, and then Customization. The Customization Tour takes about 10 minutes to view.
Create a new Contact field called “Twitter UserName”.
Define a new Act Contact field called “Twitter UserName” (no quotes necessary), and then add the field to an Act Contact Layout so you can see the field. By the way you don’t have to name your Act Contact Field the same as mine, just trying to be consistent. After you create the new field, close the define fields window, a popup will ask if you want to add the new field to your Contact Layout, say yes. The Contact Layout is how the Act fields are displayed on your monitor. After you have added the new Act field and customized the Act layout, go to you’re contact record(My Record), and insert your Twitter User Name in the new field. Stay on your contact record, and now proceed to creating the Web Info Tab Link below.
Create the “Twitter UserName” link on the Web Info Tab. Start Act and click the Web Info tab. The Web Info Tab in Act 2010 has several default links that were automatically created when Act was installed. Some of the Act WebInfo Tab default links are for use with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Maps, and Yahoo People, etc. Click the “Edit Links” button, your now viewing the “Edit Links Window”. Now click the “Add Button”. In the “Site Name” box name the link “Twitter UserName”. Twitter URL is http://twitter.com . Click on the “Advanced Edit” button. Now your viewing the “Advanced Edit” window, which shows a list of the Act Contact Fields in your Act database. Scroll the list until you find the “Twitter UserName” field, or what ever you named your Twitter Field, left click to highlight. Click the Add button. Please observe the complete url will look like this http://twitter.com/{Contact.Twitter UserName} there will be an example value displaying the current Act contact’s TwitterUserName in your database. Please note the result URL field be automatically filled in also.PS – Don’t forget to populate your contact’s “Twitter UserName” field with data. No data nothing to pass to the “Twitter UserName” link. Click the link and you will be viewing Tweets from your current contact.
