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© 2009 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos,and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners |
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Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
ACT! Technology Corner:
ACT! by Sage 2010 Dashboard Data Chart Component
In ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0), a new Dashboard feature was introduced to the product line. This feature enabled users to use visual charts, graphs, gauges, and lists of Opportunity and Activity-related data. Similar to Layouts, Administrators are able to Design Dashboards for use by others in the database, allowing Filters specific to the type of data being reported, including the selection of Users and Types, etc. (Note that there are some Filter behavioral differences between ACT! and ACT! Premium products).
ACT! 2010 introduces a new Data Chart component to the Dashboard feature which further enables the customization ability. There are two new stock Dashboards that are included with ACT! 2010, "ACT! Administrative Dashboard" and "ACT! Contacts Dashboard", which use the new Data Chart. An important technical note with this new Data Chart component is that it uses the ACT! OLE DB Reporting Provider v2.0 (also new in ACT! 2010) to provide the component data. In this article, we'll provide insight on how you can use the Data Chart to further customize your Dashboards in a whole new way!
Bill Blakey
ACT! Research & Development
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
ACT! Industry Solutions
ACT! Your Way
As an easily adaptable and flexible product, ACT! by Sage suits the needs of companies in many different industries. Right out-of-the-box or with a few customizations, our customers find they can use ACT! in unique ways that help them manage details relevant to how they do business. Some of the top industries using ACT! include:
- Residential Real Estate
- Financial Sector
- Commercial Real Estate
- Professional Services
- Manufacturing
- Insurance
- …and many more!
For the first two industries in the list, we offer distinct products with customizations already made that enable management of unique industry data. These include ACT! by Sage for Real Estate (residential), and ACT! by Sage for Financial Professionals. If either of those products interest you, learn more about them by visiting the ACT! Website.
For the other industries in the list, ACT! is a great fit out-of-the box, and a few simple customizations can make it the perfect solution for their unique relationship-building needs. In the Commercial Real Estate and Professional Services industries, we’ve followed a few customers closely who use ACT! to find out how they have customized ACT! and use it for their specific needs.
In Commercial Real Estate, we profiled three top firms: Fuller Real Estate in Denver, Hawaii Commercial Real Estate, and American Executive Centers. These firms are leveraging the use of custom fields to track key property purchase and lease data, activities, and opportunities to schedule property tours and manage prospects, and different databases to track listings separate from prospective purchases. Read more about their stories here.
In Professional Services like recruiting, consulting, and advertising design, we profiled Ethan Allen Medical Search, Ament Resources, and Design North to find out how their unique use of ACT! was driving revenues and helping them build relationships. Read about their stories here.
Whatever your industry, the flexibility and adaptability of ACT! will enable you to better manage relationships while tracking the details that are most important to you.
Would you like to share this article? Choose “Options” and “Email this Message to a Friend” in the grey bar at the top of this article.
Angie Stuart
ACT! Product Marketing
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
Your Business In Mind
Getting Started on Facebook and Twitter™
Let’s be realistic. If you’re in business today and you don’t have Facebook and Twitter accounts for your business, you’re probably losing out to your competition that does. It’s easier than you think to set up your accounts and start reaching out to customers and prospects.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a micro-blog. Twitter allows you to blog (like instant messaging) in 140 character entries that are “Tweeted” out to your “followers”. You may have an unlimited number of followers and people you follow.
You will want to set up both a company account and a personal account. Here’s a good explanation of the difference between the two, from Hubspot’s How to use Twitter for Business: a Beginner’s Guide
Personal account: Used by an individual employee at the company. This account type is more personalized, can be used to talk about non-company related things and is better for direct relationship-building. Use this type of account to:
- Act as a liaison to the public for your company
- Update people on what you’re working on
- Share tidbits about your personality
- Expand your company’s network and make connections
Company account: Represents the company as a whole. Use this type of account to:
- Keep your customer base up-to-date on your events
- Promote recent blog articles or news
- Update your consumers about products/services
- Give real-time updates at conferences and events
Remember, your most valuable asset is the information you provide in your tweets. Designate an individual or team to monitor and maintain your business account. Keep your messaging consistent by following guidelines you have developed.
How to get started with Twitter
- Set up a Twitter Account—Go to http://twitter.com/ and click the “Get Started–Join” button. After joining, fill out your username and password. The next page will search through your address book to see if any of your friends are already on Twitter, or you can skip this step. Now, you are ready to start “tweeting.”
- Secure your brand’s identity (register your brand now). Read this article from Hubspot on choosing a handle.
- Use Twitter through twitter.com or your cell phone—You can enter your comments about what you are doing or reply to others through your Twitter home page. In the box underneath the question “What Are You Doing?,” type your first tweet and press update. Or, you can set up your cell phone for tweeting by selecting Device Updates on your Twitter home page. Enter your country code (i.e. “1? for the United States) with a “+” before it and then your phone number. Check the box that gives Twitter permission to send you text messages. Once you are confirmed, you can use your phone to send tweets.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is the #1 social networking site on the Internet with 300 million users. It allows you to promote your business through personal relationships, connect with friends, share updates, learn more about organizations you’re interested in, and much more.
You will want to set up both a personal profile and a business page. Here are some pointers on the difference between the two:
Personal profile: Profiles are for people, not companies. Use your personal profile to:
- Become fans of different businesses, including your own
- Become members of different groups
- Connect with people you know
Business page: Use your business page to promote your business:
- Create an engaging page, keeping in mind that nobody cares about your products or services except you
- Host events and promote them
- Post relevant photos and videos
- Link to interesting industry articles or blogs
- Include an RSS feed from your blog
- Engage people with your content
How to get started with Facebook:
Video 1 - Setting up Your Profile (beginners)
Video 2 - Navigating the Home Page
Video 3 - Adding Basic Tabs and Applications
Video 4 - Advanced Applications
It’s easier than you think! And for businesses today, it’s essential to maintain a competitive edge.
Joyce Ethridge
Senior Copywriter
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
Spotlight on ACT! Customers:
RE/MAX Breckenridge Builds Strong Relationships with ACT! Premium for Web
Challenge
During tough economic times, the success of RE/MAX depends upon the relationships it builds. It requires a solution that provides instant access to a complete and integrated view of customer relationships to maximize productivity and focus on successful business decisions in a declining real estate market.
Solution
After 20 years of using ACT! by Sage, RE/MAX decided to research contact management alternatives to see if there is a better solution offered in the industry. After implementing a real estate-focused contact management solution, RE/MAX returned to Sage by deploying ACT! Premium for Web and Handheld Contact for BlackBerry® to expand its access capabilities.
Results
Customer information is collected and stored in a single location, accessible to the entire team. Web-based and BlackBerry access keeps staff productive when they are away from the office and supports an anywhere workforce. Access to all customer details anywhere, anytime allows RE/MAX Breckenridge to be build strong relationships. As a result, it has become the top-selling office in the region.
See the agency’s full video testimonial
See all video testimonials here
Do you have an ACT! story to tell? Join the Sage Software Customer Reference Program.
Participating in the Sage CRM Solutions Customer Reference Program generates positive exposure for your organization, your people, and your products and services, while publicizing how your use of technology provides better business solutions and improved customer service. If you are interested in joining or would like to nominate someone, please e-mail our Reference Program Manager or call directly at 480-444-4923 to discuss program details and reference opportunities.
Ines Newby
ACT! Product Marketing
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
Listen to Your ACT! Guru
Building Relationships with the ACT! 2010 Web Info Tab
ACT! can help you track a lot of information. Of course, it has all the requisite contact and company “Rolodex®” type tracking information covered. (For the young ‘uns reading this, go here to see a Rolodex). ACT! can also assist with managing your sales opportunities and pipeline. But the big payoff for me in using ACT! has always been—the Relationship Management. I was lucky enough to have a fantastic mentor early in my sales career, Ed Solomon, and he instilled in me the importance of The Relationship. He taught me that the most important aspect of any sale was that it was people buying from people.
Now with ACT! 2010, there is a fantastic new feature to use in managing your relationships—the Web Info tab. This new tab allows you to display Web pages on the Contact or Company view. These could be related to the company, like the company’s Web site, or to the individual, like their LinkedIn® profile.
Now more than ever, there are a lot of places to find out information about your prospects, customers, suppliers, and even competitors. People use Facebook, Twitter™, LinkedIn®, Blogs and countless community sites to post information about themselves, their companies, their products and their own relationships. With the Web Info tab in ACT! 2010, you now have one central place to track all of that information and listen. Listening is a key part of building any relationship.
Out of the box, the Web Info tab in ACT! 2010 comes pre-loaded with links to Facebook, Google Maps®, Driving Directions, News Search, LinkedIn®, Plaxo, and Yahoo!®. But you can easily customize the Web Info tab and add other Web sources of information.
One of my favorite links to customize is to add a contact’s twitter account. First, find them on twitter and then add their Twitter account name to a field in ACT!. We use a custom field, but for this example I used the User 1 field in the ACT! Demo Database.
Simply click the Edit Links button on the Web Info toolbar, and then click Add. Enter “Twitter” in the Site Name column and in the URL section enter http://www.twitter.com, then click on the link you just added to highlight and click Advanced Edit. In the Source URL add a backslash and then in the Select Fields section on the right, scroll down to User 1 and click Add. You should now have http://www.twitter.com/{Contact.User 1} in the source URL section. Click OK twice. Now when you go to a contact and click on the Web Info tab, when you click the Twitter link ACT! will display that contact’s Twitter page with all of their tweets.
Customizing the Web Info tab will make ACT! an even sharper relationship management tool for you and your organization. Start tapping into the places that contain powerful information about your customers and prospects and then use that information to further your most important relationships.
Stacy Roach
Managing Partner
Power of 3 Consulting
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
Get more from ACT!
Discovering New Opportunities with Social Media and ACT! by Sage 2010
Join our Live Webcast to Learn More!
One of the key new features in ACT! 2010 that is drawing a lot of attention is social media integration. Now, you can keep track of your contacts’ social media profiles and activity right from within ACT!. This new feature makes it easy to get connected and stay connected to your social customers to keep up with what’s going on in their lives.
A common misconception out there is that social media is just for making personal connections. But when done correctly, professional and business-related social networking can be a very effective way to build relationships and get your messages out in a non-intrusive way. The added benefit is that you can leverage the viral nature of social content to extend your reach, potentially touching thousands more than traditional methods of customer outreach.
Sage is hosting a customer and prospect Webcast that explores the benefits of using social media to engage with your customers and prospects, and demonstrates how ACT! 2010 can make it easier to find new prospects, learn about their needs, and then grow those relationships.
Webcast Topic: Benefits of using social media to engage customers and prospects
Date: October 22, 2009
Time: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Register now
To learn more, join us for the live Webcast. After attending, you’ll get the accompanying white paper.
Angie Stuart
ACT! Product Marketing
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
What’s New with ACT!?
Still Haven’t Seen ACT! by Sage 2010?
Seeing is believing, and you have to see ACT! 2010 to understand all the great new features and how they work.
Check out these mini feature demos to learn more:
- Newly designed look of ACT! with instant access to search, big "easy" buttons, and the Welcome page
- Leading-edge social media technology that automatically incorporates profiles and data from LinkedIn®, Facebook, Plaxo, and more
- End-to-end e-mail marketing service* that enables you to send striking e-mails or a series of e-mails in just minutes
- Completely customizable sales opportunities that can be tailored to fit your product and/or services business exactly
- Custom reports view where you can mark reports as favorites for quick access and customize report descriptions
* Requires additional subscription.
Stephanie Spangler
ACT! Product Marketing
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Welcome to ACT!ion
ACT!ion
Fall 2009
ACT!ion > Fall 2009
eNews has Evolved!
In our Summer 09 edition, we announced that eNews was being delivered, for the first time ever, in the ACT! Community. This means you can subscribe to, share and comment on individual articles, giving you a voice and a way to share your thoughts with other ACT! users. We’d hoped that you’d embrace this new way of communicating...and embrace it you did!
Each of the individual articles from our Summer 09 edition were viewed an average of 13,000 times – amazing! Thank you for supporting this new way of delivering the newsletter.
It seemed appropriate to celebrate this change by asking our readers to don their marketing hats and come up with some creative new names for the newsletter. We received many imaginative and thoughtful name ideas from you, but one really seemed to define our ACT! community of users—you’ve probably guessed it by now since our newsletter is now re-named!
Please join us in congratulating newsletter reader and ACT! user Andrea Seifert with INFLUENCE AT WORK (IAW) for her winning submission, ACT!ion. IAW is a professional resource to improve organizational and personal performance by deploying ethical influence strategies. Offering keynote presentations, participatory workshops, and intensive Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT) programs, IAW serves an international audience that includes a spectrum of multinational corporations, governmental agencies, private enterprises, and higher education. You can read more about Andrea, and IAW here.
Andrea, thanks for your great submission and congratulations on winning your choice of either the current version of ACT! or the next release!
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
Sage
Did you find this article useful? Let us know by posting your thoughts here in the ACT! Online Community. You must be a registered member to reply or post. To reply, click on the reply link at the top of this post.
Tawny Mergel
Community Manager
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