Power of 3 Consulting Blog

I’ve gotten lazy. And tired. Yes, I know from years of experience that training is likely the number one way for my clients to get the most return on investment (ROI) on their software implementation project costs. Yet it is the first thing that gets slashed from the budget, or dramatically cut, to save money. And I have been letting it happen.

Our goal with clients & projects, lately, has been to at least have *some* training survive the cash-crunch-budget-squeeze. And I have run out of ways to respond to the question, “Can’t we just have you train one person and then s/he will train the rest of us?” “Yeah, um, sure, I mean, not really. At least not in the same way…” The real answer to that question? “No. Your people are not CRM trainers. It’s not what they do for a living. It is our job and one we happen to be very good at, and, I promise you, it will be the best money you can spend with us.”

So I was sitting with my new favorite client, Nano-Tex, and the training topic came up. I suggested a half-day on-site with a two-hour online follow up session a couple of weeks later. They scowled. I braced myself for the fight over training. Imagine my surprise when they said, “That’s not enough time. Our people really need to get comfortable with this software, because we are going to expect them to really use it.”

What? Did they just ask me for MORE training? OMG! Yes, they did. Thanks to their insight and desire for the success of their CRM project, they asked for MORE training. We then had a highly productive and thoughtful conversation about the amount of training, what needed to be covered in each session, the length of sessions and location of training (on-site vs. on-line).

What we finalized was 2 half day, on-site training sessions, back-to-back over two days. They flew their sales reps into their corporate office, and at the end of day one, we gave them some homework assignments to complete before the training the next morning. Day two we reviewed the homework and explored more of their ACT! software functionality. Next we have 4 hours of on-line training with the end users scheduled, and 2 more hours of training just for the management team on running reports and queries so that they can start to use the information in their ACT! database to more effectively manage their business. Have I mentioned how much I like these people?

As I left their offices after the second day of on-site training, I felt great. I could really see the lights going off for their sales people on how to best use their new database. And I am looking forward to the on-line sessions we have scheduled, because I know that they are really using the database, so they’ll have lots of questions for me.

Since the training, we have traded several e-mails about the project, and from their side, they told me that they realized from a previous (failed) Salesforce.com implementation three important things:

1. You only get out of an application what you put into it.
2. Sales people typically reflect their management’s interest & commitment level to these initiatives.
3. The training was the key to overcoming an historical anti-CRM bias in their organization.

I just got an e-mail from Bob, their Sales SVP: “Stacy – everyone feels optimistic and excited about rolling out ACT!, you were terrific!” That e-mail made my day. Because that’s what we want to hear from every one of our clients – that their people are “optimistic and excited.” Really, it doesn’t get better than that for a CRM consultant.

So I have a renewed energy around training, thanks to Nano-Tex, and will be holding the line firm when folks try to cut training from the implementation budget. Or I will at least be more vocal about letting them know why that’s not the best plan.

I got an email from a friend who knows that I work with all the social media “stuff” asking for advice on a LinkedIn relationship. I have had similar conversations with several clients recently and thought that sharing our e-mail exchange might be helpful.

Here’s her question:

I have a contact through my alumni association….one of those young guys who amasses hundreds of contacts.  I’m always getting updates about his status and contacts.  Anyway, now there is another parent at school (another guy who is always getting new contacts and updating his status) who has asked me, if I’m comfortable, putting him in touch with my alumni contact…

Do I ask alumni guy if that’s ok before I forward the parent guy his contact info?  Do I guard my contact’s privacy (what’s the point, isn’t that why they’re on LinkedIn in the first place?) or do I get over it, and share my contacts and know that sooner or later good karma will come back to me?

I think I answered my own question by describing the situation, but I would love to hear your comments on how this gets done!  (God, I feel so old right now!)

Trish

Here is my response:

Trish – If you were in a conversation with the parent you know, and he mentioned that he was targeting Company ABC, would you say “Hey, I might have a contact for you there, let me check.” If yes, then make the connection. If no… it’s complicated.

I would reply to the parent and be totally transparent. “Hey, Parent Dude, I would love to help, but Alumni Guy & I aren’t all that close. I would be happy to send him a message with your contact info if you like.” If he says, “Yes please” then I would send Alumni Guy this message through LinkedIn “Alumni Guy, someone I know through my son’s school, Parent Dude, is interested in your company. He asked me to make an introduction, so here is his contact info. He is interested primarily in 2 things, blah and blah blah. Hope this is a helpful connection to the both of you. Love, Trish.” The key there is all you are promising is to get Parent Dude’s contact info to Alumni Guy – then the ball is in Alumni Guy’s court and if he wants to pursue the connection, he can. If not, then you have done all you can and Parent Dude is going to just have to try another avenue.

The whole point in LinkedIn is these exact kind of connections. My guiding principle on these things is that if I am fairly confident that neither party is a kook or incompetent, then I connect. If either of the desired connections is even slightly freakish or I suspect they might totally suck at their job, then I say something like “This is one of my many layers removed contacts, so I am afraid an introduction from me would be meaningless. Sorry.”

Hope that helps,

Stacy

What do you think? How do YOU handle requests for LinkedIn or other social media site introductions?

The recent earthquake in Haiti was devastating. The aftermath is affecting millions of Haitians, already some of the poorest people on the planet. As I made my financial contributions, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is there something more that I can do?” Since dashing off for Haiti doesn’t fit in my life plans right now, I was feeling kind of deflated. Sure, I can contribute financially, but it just didn’t feel like it was enough.

Then, my good friend Len Kamerman from Hero Technical Solutions put out a call to fellow ACT! Consultants to put on a series of ACT! training webinars and donate all the proceeds to the Red Cross Haitian Relief efforts. Sold! I was so in, this was PERFECT! Not only could I use some of my skills, but I could provide a way for my prospects and clients to also help, while they got some excellent training from some of the smartest ACT! Consultants I know. Talk about a win-win!

So, if you want to add some ACT! skills to your bag of tricks or just want to be more productive using ACT!, and you also want to help the millions of Haitian people struggling to survive and (eventually) rebuild, then click here and register.

I was looking back at some of the New Year e-Newsletters we have sent out over the years, around this time I typically wrote a “Top 5 Business New Year’s Resolution” kind of article and tied in how ACT! could help you keep those resolutions.

As I perused my old lists I realized that there are some good nuggets in there that are still relevant, but others needed updating. And the list name itself didn’t quite fit anymore. Because although we here at Po3 are hopeful that the economy will pick up in 2010, the past year certainly put many of us through the wringer. With colleagues and friends out of work I started thinking that maybe what I should do is apply the “professional” lens to my list this year. Because it’s not only businesses that can apply these resolutions, but individuals as well.

Finally, I included a Social Media  Boost to each of the resolutions, because 2009 was “The Year of  Social Media”. But, more than a trend or fad, Social Media actually “grew up” in 2009, and it began to be used effectively by companies in their marketing strategies. And, in the interest of full disclosure, the Social Media twist is somewhat self-serving because we are having a hands-on “Practical Social Media Workshop” in San Francisco next Tuesday, January 12th. We find that many of our customers are starting to learn about Social Media Marketing, but few have actually rolled up their sleeves and actually started working the Social Media sites/tools. So we figured we would help jump-start your Social Media Marketing initiatives for 2010 with a real-world, real-live workshop. Emphasis on the WORK. And we also decided to lower the workshop fee from $199 to $169 per participant, as a nod to the state of the economy.

Resolution #1 – Stay in Touch & Follow Up Consistently
Take a look at your customer list. Now, looking at that list, can you easily see the last time you reached out to all of the key contacts at your customers? Do you know when the next scheduled interaction is with that list? If you answered no to either of those questions, then you need to invest some time in 2010 to make it happen.

In ACT!, you can quickly do a lookup of ID/Status = Customer, then in the Contact List view, add the fields “Last Reach” and “Last Meeting” to that view and sort by those columns. Those fields are system fields in ACT!, by the way, that get populated when you clear an activity and/or record history that you had a phone conversation (Last Reach) or a meeting (Last Meeting). Once you are in this list view, you can also schedule recurring activities for your customer list to follow up on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, quarterly – whatever time-frame makes most sense for your customers. If you do this, there won’t be a customer in your database who doesn’t feel appreciated and cared for by your organization.

Social Media  Boost - To make your interaction more meaningful, check your customer’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo, Facebook and Blogs before you connect, so you are up to date on the latest information that they have posted. Think how much more meaningful the conversation will be if you can start with something like “I saw that you just hired a new person/added a new product/opened a new office/just got back from vacation…” rather than “How are things going?” And with ACT! 2010, you can setup the Web Info tab to display that information right on the Contact record, reducing the amount of time you spend gathering that information. (See Resolution #3).

Resolution # 2 –  Focus Your Marketing Efforts
First, you gotta look backwards & ask these questions about your marketing efforts in 2009:  How did you spend your marketing dollars in 2009? How effective were those efforts? What investment paid off the most? What is  your target customer profile for 2010?

Once you have taken a good, hard look at what did and didn’t work in 2009, then you can make your 2010 Marketing Plan. Focus on those marketing activities that net you more qualified prospects and customers. Look at non-traditional marketing options too. If you only do direct mail and trade shows, for example, try an e-mail blast campaign. With ACT! you can use Swiftpage to send e-mail blasts to thousands of customers and prospects, and track the results, right in ACT! In ACT! 2010 Swiftpage is the engine behind ACT! E-marketing, the integrated e-mail and drip marketing tool.

Whether you use Swiftpage or not, you can track your marketing campaigns in ACT! easily. You can either create a custom field or fields to track which contacts you added to which campaigns, or you can setup groups to track marketing campaigns. One great use of groups is to setup groups by market segments, and then plan and execute campaigns by segment, tailoring the marketing message for each segment. Then you can track which segment/campaign had the best results.

Social Media  Boost - Social Media tools offer you a potentially power and relatively inexpensive way to engage with your prospects & customers. You’ll need to understand the major Social Media tools and decide which fit best with your target customers. Even if you aren’t actively using Social Media, you can bet your customers are, and maybe your competitors. Don’t you want to be involved in those conversations as well?

Resolution # 3 – Be more Efficient & Productive

Chances are good that you, like many folks, are trying to do more with less. Less money, less people, less time. So you need to maximize your productivity and make every tool you have work for you.  ACT! is a very powerful contact management solution, but we find that many folks don’t really use it to its full potential. Sage just published a white paper on how using ACT! can help you be 25% more productive versus other CRM tools. The two areas of ACT! that we see opportunities to maximize productivity are in database design and task management.

Too many folks just start using ACT!, right out of the box, and never take the time to customize the fields and views to map to their business model and sales process. You do have the standard “User Fields” that you can use, but you can customize those and/or add additional custom fields or even add custom tables. Customizing your database will make capturing, tracking and reporting on relevant data that much easier. If you find yourself constantly searching multiple places for information, think about customizing ACT! to track all that data for you.

The ACT! Task List is a like a productivity secret weapon. The task list can help you prioritize your tasks, and, when used properly, can help you  group like-kind activities together. Turns out we humans are more productive if we do batches of tasks together. If you are careful with the information you put in the regarding field of an activity, you can then sort your task list by “regarding” and, voila, all you like-kind tasks will be grouped together.

Social Media  Boost - ACT! 2010 now has a web info tab which allows you to organize all your Social Media links in one place and you can then view those links on your customer and prospect contact records. So rather than pulling up LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other sites, you can click on the Web Info tab and see that contact’s relevant Social Media information. Did you customer just Twitter about their new product? Did a prospect just post about their latest vacation? Those are great tidbits to bring up in conversation, and you can quickly find that information without leaving ACT!

Resolution #4 – Network with Other Professionals & Organizations
When I first got started in sales, I went to every networking event I could and built a database of contacts in my industry. Then again, when I started my own company, I threw myself into networking again. The net result of both efforts was relationships and knowledge. Both of those examples occurred during economic downturns (I guess I like jumping into new things when the economy is lousy.) What I learned was that networking is critical in a down economy. I admit that my networking activities are more selective now, but I also better understand my market and my business.

Attending networking events and meeting people is just the first step though. You need consistent and relevant follow up to nurture those relationships. I add everyone I meet in my networking efforts to my ACT! database, with a note on what they do and what they are looking for. Then I send a follow up note and/or e-mail and invite them to stay in touch, referencing what they told me they are looking for or are interested in. Then I schedule a follow up activity for a month or so down the road and drop another e-mail to touch base. One of our best partnerships came from attending a local Chamber of Commerce trade show several years ago. I met a great  IT Solutions Provider and now we have several mutual clients, having referred each other a number of opportunities.

Social Media Boost – In the “olden days” I was limited to networking events that were in my geographical area, but with Social Media sites & communities I can belong to any number of affinity groups all over the world. I am actually part of a peer group of consultants that are spread across two countries and 4 time zones, but we share information and ideas that have literally changed my business over the last two years.

Resolution # 5 – Start Using Social Media Tools for Business & Professional Development
Well, you had to see that one coming, right? If you aren’t already using Social Media sites and tools for your business, then 2010 is the year you need to start. Marketing used to be about the message, but it’s quickly becoming about the conversation. Social Media sites and tools provide an interactive experience for you and your customers. You can connect with customers and prospects, engage in a dialogue and then identify opportunities through those new relationships and conversations.

You can use ACT! to track the contact information for folks that you connect with through Social Media tools, and as mentioned above, with ACT! 2010 you can use the Web Info tab to aggregate the relevant Social Media information all in one spot.

Social Media Boost – Well, this entire resolution was about Social Media, so the boost would probably be in an  ACT! Guru article I wrote for the Fall 2009 ACT!ion Newsletter about how to use the ACT! 2010 Web Info tab to build relationships, click here to see that article, or search community.act.com for “Stacy Roach”. Or (here is another plug for our event) if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area next Tuesday, January 15th, think about coming to our hands-on, Practical Social Media Workshop. We will walk you through getting up and running on the key Social Media tools to help your business or your professional development.

Microsoft Excel. Oh, how I love thee. I love the endless geeky ways that I can analyze data to my heart’s content. Pivot tables anyone? But I’ll tell you my dirty little secret about Excel… I just about start cheering when I am talking with folks about how they are currently managing their contacts or sales pipeline and they say “Excel”. Why does my heart beat just a little faster? Is it because I love working over their data in Excel? Nope. It’s because these are the types of people that have the most to gain from implementing a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution like ACT! or Microsoft CRM. And those are just the sorts of people I love to work with.

Excel is a great tool, but it is really limited. With a CRM solution like ACT!, you get so much more. First, you have that all-important central repository of leads, prospects, customers, vendors and even competitors. Second, you have an integrated calendar that links activities, appointments and follow-ups to your contacts. Third, you can track and view all the history and interaction with your contacts and you can view that information on the individual contact level, or the account level or even a project level. That includes all the e-mails sent & received from Outlook, and you can live your e-mail life in Outlook and ACT! will still note your e-mail activity on the contact’s history tab. Fourth, you can use ACT! to track your deals in your pipeline. Fifth, you can setup e-marketing campaigns and track your lead/prospect/customer interest and response to those campaigns on the history tab. There’s more, a lot more, but those are the biggies. But here is the cool thing, the feature that makes my geeky Excel-loving side just dance a jig - you can still export most of your data to Excel, often with one easy click, giving you the ability to continue your data slicing & dicing.

Let’s take managing the sales pipeline, for example. You can have an Excel list of your current deals, but updating that list and keeping it current is time-consuming and, over time, can become unwieldy. If instead you use ACT!, and you track your deals using Sales Opportunities, then you can view your deals on the Contact and/or Company view, or you can view a list of all your deals.

And hey, while we are on the topic, I did a guest blog for Sage on the latest cool features of Sales Opportunities in ACT! 2010, the latest version of ACT! – check it out here.

Back to ACT! & Excel – so you have all your sales opportunity data in ACT!, and you want to send an Excel report to someone in your company, but you first want to work with the data in Excel. No problem, just follow these easy steps:

1. Click View | Opportunities from the pull-down menus.
2. Filter this list view to show the data you want to play with in Excel. Maybe you only want Open opportunities, or just the deals that are set to close in the next month, or deals that are over a particular dollar figure. Hmmmm, I think I smell a future blog post on filtering list views…
3. Customize the list view to add whatever opportunity data you want to see. For instance, I always add Days Open and Probability of Closure to the opportunity list view. Hey, there’s another blog post topic, customizing list views.
4. Now click Tools | Export to Excel and voila, all you data is in an Excel spreadsheet. But wait, there’s more. Notice the other tabs at the bottom of the Excel worksheet – ACT! very kindly builds a pivot table which you can use as a starting point to begin some really slick data analysis. Pivot tables, blog post topic #3!

ACT Export to Excel

Recording History

Many of our customers use the ACT! calendar and scheduling features, so they understand the value of clearing those activities and recording the details of a call or meeting, which then appear on the History tab in ACT! But other customer either don’t or can’t use the ACT! calendar, and use the Outlook calendar instead. In fact, we talk to virtually every one of our clients about integrating the ACT! & Outlook calendars. There isn’t a simple answer, it really depends on what information you want to send to and from Outlook and how your ACT! database is setup. If you do primarily use Outlook, there is a quick way to enter the details of your customer & prospect interactions into ACT! so that the information can be viewed, shared and reported on from ACT!

For most of our clients tracking that all-important history of your interaction & communication with your ACT! contacts is an important requirement. And even if your company relies on Outlook for calendaring, you can use the powerful Record History function in ACT! to enter the details of your meetings and calls with ACT! contacts.

How To Record History:

1. To Record History on a contact record, first find the contact by looking up the contact.
   
2. Click on the History tab and then either click on the Record History icon, or anywhere in the white space on the tab, right-click and select Record History.
3. Set the Type to either Call, Meeting, To-do or one of your custom activities if you have those defined. In the Regarding field enter the main topic of the interaction, such as “Proposal Review”.
4. Click in the Details: area and add all the detailed notes from the interaction. Note here that if you do use ACT! activities, you can click on the Follow-up button at the bottom of the dialog box and schedule the next follow-up activity for this contact, so that any key next steps don’t fall through the cracks.
5. Click OK and you should now be viewing the your recorded history on the History tab.
   

This is a screen shot of the Record History Dialog Box in ACT!

Stacy Roach
ACT! Certified Consultant & Trainer
stacy@po3inc.com
866.362.4263