1. Letting the CRM system define your sales process
Most systems come pre-set with default lead and opportunity stages, default fields for accounts and contacts, even default reports and dashboards. This is not your sales process. The sales process that works best for your customers should be determined in advance, and your CRM should be modified to accommodate it. (ACT! does allow this flexibility.)

2. No consistent definitions
What’s a qualified lead? What criteria are required to move a lead to an opportunity? And does everyone across the organization (including and beyond the sales team) understand that? Your data will only be as good as it is consistent, so ensure everyone knows how you expect to define and move accounts, prospects and customers through the pipeline. (in my experience with hundreds of sales teams, this is major point of contention and the decision usually by decree of the sales manager or business owner)

3. Not enforcing consistent & accurate usage
It’s one thing to have definitions, it’s another to ensure they’re being used actively. If a call is made, if a campaign is executed, and it’s not reflected in your data, how can you use the system to tell what’s working? How can you manage next steps and behavior? I’ve worked in sales organizations that have a simple rule for this: If it isn’t in the CRM system, it didn’t happen.(This is a key point. One company I worked with said to the salespeople that if it is not in ACT! then 0.00 commission would be paid. It worked. )

4. Not enforcing consistent & accurate reporting
I see it all the time, different sales groups or departments pulling the same data via multiple different reports. And because they all have different filters, different formats, and different ideas of what they’re looking at, each report has a slightly different story. Inconsistent reporting (even if it’s an innocent but small difference in a filter) will call into question the integrity of your entire process and pipeline. Create one, consistent set of reporting so everyone is on the same page.

5. Letting your data get and stay dirty
It’s bad enough when you have bad data. Companies entered five different times. Leads that don’t get de-dupped. But if you don’t get on top of that problem right away, it’s only going to get worse and more expensive to fix down the road. Put systems in place (including software add-ons and manual processes) to regularly clean your data – both on the way in as well as periodically for what’s already there. (ACT! has some of this process built-in, but there are enhanced dupe checkers that take it one step further at www.actaddons.com)

6. Reporting on too much at the wrong levels of the business
We often overthink our reporting. We include too much, show too much data to help justify the work we’re doing. Lots of data may be appropriate at the front lines, to measure and optimize tactical campaigns. But your executive team doesn’t need to see open rates for your email campaigns. Keep them focused on the “money” metrics, those that best reflect the output of your work. If that output isn’t going as planned, you can then pull a second report (which you watch daily already) to identify what’s wrong. (KPI’s everyone! Do you know yours?)

7. Failing to identify causality
Clean data, consistent reports and custom lead/opportunity stages aren’t going to help you if you can’t take action on what you’re seeing. If something’s wrong with your output, with your pipeline, your CRM system should be able to help you identify what’s wrong. If the data isn’t there, or you aren’t using the data to get to the root of the problem, take time to identify explicitly what’s missing and create a process (both right now and moving forward) that will give you that insight.

8. Sales & marketing don’t use it consistently
By consistently, I mean both on a regular basis and in the same way. Too may B2B marketing teams have never been in their company’s CRM system. They don’t see the sales reports, don’t know what’s working once the lead gets passed to sales. Marketing leadership should be using CRM (at minimum using the reporting) on a daily basis. And both teams need to have the same rules, definitions and reports to ensure they’re on the same page. (The process of lead generation usually fails to marketing and the execution of sales process to the sales team. It is a good idea to make sure both sides are clear on what each group is doing.)

If you need to send a fax you can still do it via Outlook with their plug in.

Not anymore, PDF Merge takes your existing ACT! data and merges it to any PDF form and then it can be sent as an email attachment. The process even works as a merge to multiple contacts.

Check this link to see the video to see how easy it is to create a merge form for a W-4.

Alas, never time to type all that data! Solution, the WorldCard Ultra Business Card Scanner for ACT!. Plug it in, scan the card(s) and it/they appear in a window on your desktop. Check to see if the data is going to the correct fields and viola’ a new ACT! contact is create! Tooooo easy!!

The scanner comes in several flavors so get the one that meets your needs and get busy! Oh, did we mention that until Jan 1 2011, get an extra 10% off the sales price?

Did we mention it will work with double sided cards too?

No more. www.joinme.com allows you to share your desktop with anyone and speak at the same time. The free version does not allow you to schedule a meeting or any other pre-or post meeting niceties, but heck at this price, who cares! And you can upgrade to a full account for $30 a month.

Go to another PC and install Dropbox, log into your account and edit the document. When you exit the document the new version is updated automatically in the Dropbox folder. Back to the original PC and the latest version is waiting.

Get you own 2 GIG DropBox via this link!

• Dynamically filter on current contact, group or company
• Reschedule or reassign appointments with one click
• Display the calendar in Gantt style charts
• Have any ACT! field show up on the calendar (I use”ID/Status”, so I know before I call if it is a customer or prospect!)
• Change fonts on the screen and in printing – make the calendar look like you want it to!

There are some tricks it does, so download the trial version and get your calendar super-charged!

QuickFile adds a toolbar to Outlook and makes it simple to put any email into the correct folder as you are sending or receiving. Try the download today from this link. We guarantee that you will be wondering how you ever got along without it!

Or, watch this video to see it in action.