Microsoft Office 2010 & ACT Integration

Be warned ! Microsoft Office 2010 32 bit edition only works with ACT! 2011.  If you have an earlier version of ACT!, you have to either upgrade ACT! or downgrade Microsoft Office to 2007 or 2003.

Also please note Microsoft Office has to be installed before ACT! does.  This allows ACT! to "see" that Microsoft Office exists and will add the necessary connections.

Here is the article from Sage.

by Mondo

Make It Easier for Your Sales Reps to Sell

 

Wired Contact Report Page Sample
One Click Report Example

I have been reading Selling Power magazine for many years, and I finally figured out they don't talk much about CRM. Why ? I believe they don't like data entry or even re-entry or administrative work like compiling reports. So, when you design the CRM, ask the software or your local consultant to make it "one-click" easy. Since I used ACT! when I was in sales, I thought it was "second nature" for others like me to take 5 clicks and moving between 4 fields to enter in a history with the proper details.  Turns out I was wrong. One of my clients pushed me real hard to make macros in WiredContact.  With WiredContact, I can one button do the following:

  • Record a "Sales Call" rather than a generic "history done" or a "note".
  • Automatically fill in the "Regarding " Field to say: Sales call with John Kaufman at The CRM Connection
  • All the sales person needs to do is say what happened.

OK, that's fine, but what's in that for the sales manager and those looking for trends in their company ? With one click, I made WiredContact do the following:

  • Filter the current week (day or month)
  • List only successful 2 way conversations or meetings
  • Tally the number of meetings by category, number of cold calls and voicemails
  • Count the Number of fields updated.  This way the manager can summarize whether the sales rep is updating the data so he can be well armed for subsequent calls
  • Section this off by Sales Rep

Consider this when designing your CRM system, no matter the platform.  Push your consultant to make it even easier to get data into the system.

by Mondo

Interview in Chicago Tribune

On 2/2/2004, the Chicago Tribune interviewed business owners like myself for a regular column about mistakes business owners have made.  Full text.

by Mondo