Subtitled “Getting your ACT! together.”
Part 4 – What opportunities am I working on?
So my boss calls (sticks his head in my cubicle, e-mails or even sends a text message [im?] ) asking “What’s in your pipeline?” or “How many deals are you working on for next month?” or “…year-end?”
Good question. I used to get out my Excel® spreadsheet and ponder it for a while. Then I’d harness the power of my mouse and click around on it for and interminable time – updating expected close dates, and probabilities of closing the deal. If life was good, the spreadsheet would calculate the totals correctly and I’d turn in the spreadsheet.
Next I’d get the call “Have you called the so-and-so account? ” or “when it the last time you talked to Mr. Smith at ACME?” That’s all history now. I enter my opportunities into my ACT! database as I discover them. I update them regularly as I speak to my prospects, and I use ACT! activities to remind me when to call people back. The Notes/History report give me, at the click of a mouse, an update on who (whom?) I talked to and when. The Activities report tells me (or my boss) when I am supposed to call them back
Now, is your ACT! database working as hard as you are?
