I was relaxing in my favorite coffee shop, minding my own business (really!) when I overheard the woman at the next table say, “How do I access my Sage ACT! database on a tablet?”

Now, I’ve had my share of people who have listened in on my conversations in coffee shops, without me realizing it, who felt perfectly justified in coming over and interrupting my companion and me to give me advice.

I have a soft voice by nature. I’m not one of those loud people who has to command a room’s attention to validate my day.  So I’m taken aback, shocked, even a little offended by being a) eavesdropped on and b) given unsolicited feedback from a stranger.

But, hey, I’m carrying on a conversation in a public place! So short of learning sign language or lip reading, I’ve just learned to be more aware of my public TMI. (For those of you new to business, that means NEVER name dropping clients’ names or project info in a public place to people who are not your clients.)

ACT! Users Want Cloud Mobility with their Database

So here I am *accidentally* overhearing *my keywords* being spoken at the table next to me (3 feet away). I could tell from the woman’s questions that she was consulting her IT guy (or computer expert) about buying a tablet or a laptop to help her be more mobile in her business. Everyone wants to be in the Cloud now, so that was not the attention-getting part for me.  I could tell she was not very tech-savvy (which is why most people like her use an ACT! database) because she was asking about 3G and 4G as if that had a bearing on accessing her contact database.

But then the “IT guy” started his techie speak (you know, the language that makes non-techies’ eyes glaze over) and it included recommendations for VPNs, Logmein and Dropbox uploads and downloads.

I started to feel like I had to jump out of my skin. For $79 a year, she could purchase Handheld Contact, a mobile app, to access her ACT! contacts, calendar and to do list on her tablet–with a better-than-ACT! interface (IMHO) and no additional IT-configured set up. Done deal. Handheld Contact also works flawlessly on Android (which is what I have) and iPhone operating systems.

The conversation went on and on. With every IT-guy suggestion, the woman had 10 more questions. Had I been her, with enough Cloud knowledge to be dangerous, I think I would’ve deemed the whole venture too overwhelming and gone back to my Daytimer.  Business technology is supposed to be seemless, not a game of Twister.

I pulled out 2 business cards and debated whether to put an end to their misery. To interrupt would be intruding, and I didn’t want to put the computer expert on the defensive for not knowing this easy fix.

What would you have done?

Kick up your email blast open rate with these 5 easy tips.

Let’s face it, if your email blast doesn’t get opened, you aren’t going to get any traffic. Here are tips to get your recipients to open, read, and respond to your email blast.

1. Get the Email Opened with a Good Subject Line

The worst mistake you can make with your subject line is to make it salesy or read like an advertisement. Stay true to your opt-in promises in order to achieve high open rates.

• If you promised a newsletter, then use the subject line, “[Company] October Newsletter”
• If you promised advanced notice on new deals, your subject line might read, “[Company]’s Best October Deals”
• If they opted in to learn something from you, start your subject line with “How To…”

If you provide what your readers expect, you build credibility and trust. That translates into higher opens over time because you don’t waste their time.

2. Pay Attention to your Blast’s “From” Email Address

A message from Tom@YourCompany.com will have higher open rates than one from Advertising@YourCompany.com or worse, from Sales@YourCompany.com Make sure your recipients recognize your name so that trust continues to build for you. After all, you’re the one who has the relationship with your reader (or will)!

Okay, now that you’ve gotten a high percentage open rate on your email blast, then what?

3. Get Them To Read Your Email Blast

Swiftpage / ACT! e-Marketing makes it easy to customize each recipient’s message via mail-merge fields. Addressing the email to the recipient’s first name and adding field data like “Companies in the [recipient's industry field] industry realize these three benefits ….” goes a long way toward creating compelling, readable messaging. Speaking directly and meaningfully makes a reader believe you are offering information tailored specifically to them.

4. Email Content: Compelling message, not Calendar Date

You should send email blasts when you have something important to say…not when you think it’s time to send a message.  When your readers receive information that they can really use to to solve problems, they will start looking forward to your next email blast.

If, however, your message is full of fluff because it was simply time to send the next email blast and you haven’t had time to prepare a significant message for them, guess what happens the next time you send a message? Open rates go way down, and it don’t get read.

As your email blasts get opened and read, what needs to be in place next in order for you to generate that much-desired sales-generating traffic?

5. Use Your Email Blast To Drive Traffic To Your Website or Blog

When you create your email template, try sharing only the first paragraph of content versus the entire article. Include a “read more” link which directs readers to your website or blog where they can read the rest of the story and be led to a call-to-action special offer. This keeps your email short, too.

In addition to using “read the rest of the story here” links, you can also use links like:

• “Register for the e-Course”
• “Free Demo”
• “Read what others are saying about this product”

As readers click on these links, Swiftpage / ACT! e-Marketing will tally the results for you. You will be able to instantly tell which reader is interested in which articles or products, and exactly how interested they are by the number of times they click on each link.

Swiftpage uses a proprietary algorithm to create a prioritized Call List for you to make follow-up sales calls. The list shows you which prospects are hot, warm, and cold by the numbers, so next time you can include more of the content that works and less of the content that didn’t

Test these tips in your next Swiftpage / ACT! e-Marketing email blast, and generate responsive website traffic in no time!

Your email database is like a box of pastries

What is the size of your email database? 5,000? 10,000?

Whatever the number, hats off to you for attracting the permission of a wide group of contacts who wish to learn more about your business—and perhaps do business with you in the future.

Do you know the best way to encourage them to move more deeply into your sales funnel? Provide benefit to them while communicating with them in their language.

Your email database is made up of several segments. For example, you likely have contacts in many industries, of both genders, some who have already done business with you, and some who are still sitting on that proposal from long ago. At this point, you have also likely sent a carefully crafted email blast to everyone at once, then wondered why the response was weak at best.

Let’s Examine How Email Database Segmentation Works

Let’s say you have a new product offering, something like a packaged or downloadable software which enables business owners, consultants, and sales people to automate their proposal process. Your business is very excited about rolling this out and realizes that it can be a valuable tool for all industries, genders, prospects and clients alike!

However, sending one intricately designed Swiftpage e-Marketing template with one carefully crafted message to everyone is the least effective way to communicate with your email database. Why?

Database Segmentation Can Create More Positive Activity In Your Sales Pipeline

Each of your email database segments may respond differently to colors, words, images, brand ‘voice,’ and offer. Database segmentation is where the real power of your email database resides. Constructing more personalized and appealing Swiftpage templates and message copy will resonate deeply with each audience.

Here are some examples:

• Lifestyle buyers relate to templates with colorful and “acquisitional” images
• Female readers may relate more deeply with images of families or people in relationships
• Male audiences might relate more deeply with a “features / benefits” checklist.
• Each database segment will also be more responsive when they understand how your new service meets their specific needs and make their lives easier – in the language they would use to describe your product.

Granted, this takes a little time to set up. But once you get into the flow, you’ll see more activity in your sales pipeline and realize the value of segmentation.

Email Segmentation Is Effective Only if Your Information Is Accurate

As you begin database segmentation you will realize that you have contact with incorrect or missing information. Do you lump all of those contacts into one group? Before you do, try an automatic update.

With ACT! e-Marketing’s Swiftpage Email, you can provide an update form (using the survey tool) and invite recipients to provide updates. You collect that fresh info in your email database tool, then simply click to download updates into your database.

Realize, however, that these busy contacts are not likely to respond unless you give them a good reason to. Offer a new product discount or a small donation to the charity of their choice if they update their information now. Teasers and incentives work. Use them.

As contacts in your email database discover that you are talking directly to them, your sales stats will improve.

Susan Clark, author of the Sage ACT! Quick Study Guide, is guest presenter on productivity kaizen at the November ACT! User Group meeting.

Well, it’s that time of year.

My desk is pleading for a desktop clearance intervention and, at my gym, the increased number of cars in the parking lot confirms that it’s do-over season again.

The good news is that every end of the year brings each of us a fresh chance to rethink how to get things done better in the new year.

Fortunately, the moon and stars are in alignment for our final, end-of-year ACT! User Group on leveraging ACT! for higher productivity. And here’s why. My good buddy, Susan Clark, president of Cornerstone Solutions in Houston, will be the special guest presenter.

Susan has been the author of the official Sage ACT! Quick Study Guide (QSG) for the past 15 years and is the undisputed authority in the ACT! Software world for her expertise in using ACT! as a productivity tool.

November Sage ACT! User Group

Date: Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Time: 8am – 10am Central (Time Conversion)
Place:  Online or “in person” in St. Louis, MO (held concurrently)
Register: Use the “online” or “in person” link below

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What You Will Learn at the ACT! User Group

If you find yourself…

• Managing too many fluid projects at once
• Trying to hold yourself or your employees, team or family accountable to their commitments
• Struggling to prioritize your day, week or month

…then register now to hear Susan address these challenges and the universal question of, “How do I get myself to do the things I need to do most?” In other words, how do you battle inertia, procrastination and other activity blocks that keep you from finishing what you start and are holding you back from accomplishing the very best version of yourself everyday?

You’ll also pick up tips for…

• Creating new ACT! records faster
• Setting up relationships between contacts
• Keeping track of reference files (like docs, pdfs, favorite web pages, etc.)
• Rethinking how to use the ACT!’s Task list more efficiently

Susan will share her A-HA! inspiring Three “S” Grid, which easily breaks down the 4 phases of productivity in a way that will give you instant clarity on where to invest your self-improvement efforts.

Best of all, Susan has already figured out how to apply *anybody’s* time management or productivity system to ACT! so you don’t have to. Just add your industry expertise, and you’re ready to go.

ACT! Productivity Kaizen

Susan’s *thing* in life is productivity kaizen. She’s the one who taught me how to clean my blender with hot soapy water on high speed immediately after use.  She’s the one who knows a month in advance what she’ll be wearing every day of the week at the Sage ACT! trade show, which we usually attend together. (She also hangs up every outfit and then puts it into her suitcase after wearing it, so that by the time we check out, she’s already packed. I’m amazed when I can plan my outfit the night before, let alone a whole month out.)

And, for you gentlemen reading this, she knows more about home improvement than most guys I know. She drew her own home remodel blueprints down to placement of the remote control fireplace, and I’ve seen evidence of her efficient influence on her husband and two sons. She’s truly an equal-opportunity productivity force of nature. (Really, the only reason I can still be friends with her is because she has a “busy” desk like mine.)

Susan’s 500+-page QSG is packed full of ACT! tips just like her lifehacker tips. In other words, she doesn’t just show you what ACT! buttons to click. She shows you smart ways to use ACT! that increase your quality of work life and put you fully in charge of your precious allotment of 86,400 seconds a day.

Since she and I will be together this year on ACT! User Group day, she agreed to share some of her ACT! productivity tips with you, whether you join us in person in St. Louis or via online meeting from wherever you are.

As an ACT! user, you already own a great technology tool. Why not tap into all that internal greatness you’ve bottled up inside and seize the new year with a fresh approach turning ACT! into a productivity tool?

Register now to join us in St. Louis or from anywhere via online meeting.

Q – When using Swiftpage for a newsletter, it will not recognize my secondary contacts. How do I include them in my email blast?

A – Sage ACT! only recognizes primary email addresses. This can also be a problem for insurance agents, stock brokers and financial planners who capture spouse and child data in their ACT! contact management systems. The best time to figure out how to email secondary and additional contacts in a company or family is before you build your database. But if you’re past that stage already, then consider “promoting”  your secondary contacts to primary contacts, then linking them via the Relationship tab (in ACT! 2008 – 2012).

Q – I work in St. Louis, MO, and I have 10 users on my ACT! contact management system. They like to “freelance” the entry of the city name as STL, St.L, or Saint Louis. The Edit List feature won’t let me fix the variations to standardize the list. It drives me crazy.

A – The city field can be modified in Tools > Define Fields. Go in and clean up all the variations on the drop-down list. Then check the profile setting to “Limit to List” which will allow users to choose a city name only from the drop-down menu. If you need to add a city, go back into Tools > Define Fields to do it. To fix the mistakes already in your database, do a lookup of your entire database in the List View. Tag records that have non-standard entries. Then Lookup Selected. Use Edit  > Replace Field to standardize the city names to “St. Louis.”  (This process works on any field, but run a backup of your database before you use the Edit > Replace Field feature, as changes will overwrite any value in that field and cannot be undone.)

Q – I’m using an old version ACT! Software. If I want to use all the new features in ACT 2011 or 2012, I have to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.  That’s a little costly.

A – What can we tell you? Software companies are in the business of releasing new software to provide more features and a better user experience. Unfortunately, those pesky software engineers want to be paid for what they create. Cloud computing (like Salesforce.com) promises to change all that, but the trade off is you pay for your software in perpetuity, kind of like a data plan on your smart phone bill (but typically several times that much).

As value added resellers of Sage ACT!, we frequently witness the utter lack of attention spent by many of our clients on planning their technology upgrades–until something stops working, crashes or they inadvertently upgrade something they shouldn’t have.

We’re all for not spending money you don’t have to, but if your technology is more than 3 years old or you plan to purchase new workstations, laptops or tablets, have a chat with your IT expert first. Make a list of all your software (including your server software) and find out what the system specs are for each program–especially the mission critical ones like your contact management or accounting software.

Laptops used to be on an 18-month obsolescence track; we’re sure it’s much faster than that now with all the new devices released seemingly every month. Do not expect or assume that all your toys will continue to work in harmony. Upgrading any part of your technology may trigger a domino effect.

Even internet browsers can cause a conflict. Swiftpage Email, for example, is not yet compatible with Firefox 4.0.1, and Firefox has no “downgrade” after you upgrade. So before you upgrade anything, check it out with IT or each software app’s technical support center to find out what will be compatible with your current technology if you upgrade.

If you have any questions about whether ACT! will play nicely with any of your current or prospective software apps, call us at 1-314-485-4350 or use our Contact Us form to ask.

To use the Google sync, you’ll need a Gmail or Google Apps account. A Gmail account is YourName@Gmail.com. Any email ending in gmail.com is a Gmail account.

A Google Apps account is still Gmail, but it lets you use your own domain, which is more business oriented. The free version of Google Apps lets you sync to the Google calendar. The paid version of Google Apps, approximately $50 per year per email address, syncs to both the contacts and calendar.

Until ACT! 2012 is released, the current way to sync ACT! to Google is through a third-party add-on app, such as Handheld Contact, Companionlink or 123Synchronization.

Each of them passes thru Outlook as an intermediary. So the flow is to sync ACT! to the add-on software to Outlook to your phone or tablet device. Almost every device can be synced, including iPhones, iPads and Droids. Once the ACT! to Google sync is available, contacts and activities will flow from ACT! directly to your Google calendar.

Currently, ACT! has several ways to sync to Outlook. If you are using version ACT! 2010 or earlier, ACT! has an automatic ACT!-to-Outlook sync built into the system for the  calendar only.

Sage ACT! Outlook Integration

In ACT! 2011, you can sync contacts and calendars, but not notes. If you create an activity in ACT!, the sync will copy the activity exactly, including the date, time, and location details–but no contact information will carry over to your Outlook calendar.

We recommend that you look up your contact in the database first. Then go to the Edit menu and copy the contact (or press CTRL + C on your keyboard) to copy the contact information onto the Clipboard. Then you can create an activity with that person and enter their contact info into the details tab (CTRL+ V). The details do synchronize with the built-in ACT! sync for ACT! 2011, and now you have the contact information plus the activity record.

Some people consider that extra step a limitation with the built-in ACT! sync, so another option is to get an ACT! add-on like 123Synchronizer, which has a one-time charge of approximately $125.00 per licensed user.

123Synchronization will automatically transfer the contact information with the calendar. It will transfer the notes. It will also sync sales opportunities and secondary contact information. The sync goes in two directions, too. Use the ID/Status field to categorize contacts that you want to transferred to your device.

Companionlink has been around a long time. We don’t recommend them as often because they’re software often creates duplicates. You can get into an endless loop with trying to fix the duplicates and…creating another set and another set. Some ACT! users use it and love it and don’t have this problem. But Companionlink does go directly from ACT! to Google, bypassing the Outlook sync altogether. Companionlink has two products ranging from $80 for a manual sync and $130 for an automatic sync.

Companionlink vs. Handheld Contact

Some people like it. Some people have not had any issues with it at all. If you go in one direction; if you always say go from ACT! to Outlook or ACT! to Gmail with Companionlink, you have no issues at all. It’s only the going back and forth that has the issues. So it’s kind of up to you. There’s no one answer for what’s the best for everybody. It depends on what version of ACT! you’re on, and what you need to get out of it. There’s all your different ways of doing it.

Handheld Contact is a third synchronization option. It supports Blackberrys and the iPhone. This add-on is a $179 subscription you pay for on an annual basis. It’s unique feature is that it replicates an instance of ACT! on your device.

Some of our clients like this product, but the ones who don’t say its interface is kind of clunky. Even though it’s ACT! on your phone, users say it doesn’t work it like address book and calendar they’re used to on their phone apps. It’s a completely separate interface for the contacts for the calendar, and they don’t integrate with each other.

So if you need to get driving directions to a contact, for instance, you’d actually have to copy that contact into the iPhone’s contacts separately. Additionally, Handheld Contact only supports older version of Windows, not Windows 7.

Improve your ACT! user experience by setting personal preferences under the Tools > Preferences menu

Just like apps for smart phones or iPads, ACT! Software lets you set a “profile” of personal preferences so you have a better user experience.

Some preferences are for your computer or laptop. Some are global database settings and will change the preferences for every user on your shared contact management system. Here are 5 custom settings to set up “just for you.” Almost all of them work on any version of Sage ACT! Software:

1. Grid Lines. Any feature that says “List” (Contact List, Task List, Group List) can show grid lines for easier readability. Info in the History and Notes tabs can also show grid lines. To add them, go to Tools > Preferences. Then go to Colors & Fonts. Pick the view you want and check the box at the bottom that says Show Grid Lines. This change only affects your ACT! database use. (The grid lines do not print out on ACT! reports, but any list can be exported with 1 button push to Excel.)
2. 4-Hour Work Week. Let’s say you want to schedule yourself for the perfect business lifestyle, a la Timothy Ferris. In ACT! you can set up your work week to work only Tuesday and Wednesday from 8am – 10am…then take the rest of the day (week) off! Go to Tools > Preferences > Calendar & Scheduling Tab > Calendar Preferences. Choose the day you want to start your week and the hours you want to work. Your calendar reflects your changes. Again, you are only adjusting your own calendar; everyone else is free to work a full 60-hour week, if they so desire. The actual calendar view will always default to the daily, weekly, work week or monthly view you looked at last.
3. Changing Default Activity Settings. Each item in Calendar & Scheduling has a default setting which can be adjusted. For example, if you want your scheduled calls to ring an alarm 15 minutes beforehand, modify the default setting. You can always override that, but each call will automatically alert you 15 Minutes in advance. You can also set your activities to Automatically Roll Over to the next day if you don’t have time to get to them all on the day they are scheduled.
4. Colors & Fonts. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I hate Times Roman and Arial fonts. My urge is to change them to anything else—immediately—if I have control over the situation. Fortunately, ACT! gives you that option. You can change the font type, font size and font color. Some people assign different colors to different salespeople, but that can look pretty busy if you have a lot of shared database users.

Set Up Custom Preferences for Everyone on your ACT! Database

Starting with the Sage ACT! 2011 version, there is a new tab under Preferences called Admin. This tab is for ACT! administrators only who change preferences that will affect all ACT! users.

Some options for this tab are preventing users from editing notes, history or creating a history everytime one ACT! user sends an email to another ACT! user.

Prior to Sage ACT! 2011, you didn’t have that last option. If you sent an email to another ACT! user in your office, it got recorded in that person’s history, which meant all inter-office email was being recorded as well. This created many uncomfortable situations in the past because it was possible to transmit sensitive information back and forth.

Note: If you were (or are) an ACT! version 6.0 user, you saw profile changes update immediately. On new versions (ACT! 7.0, or ACT! 2005 – 2012), changes are not automatic. If somebody makes a change to the database and you’re on that record expecting to see that change, it’s not going to happen.

That’s because ACT! now works more like a website. If you’re on a website page and someone makes a change to it, you’re not going to see the update until you refresh it. You must do that in ACT!, too, using the F5 Refresh key. (You can also get to the Refresh command under the View menu).

You’ll enjoy using ACT! a lot more if you set up each tab in your preferences. Why repeat an action when you can set a default for some of them or just make ACT! look more aesthetically pleasing to your eye?

Save time with Sage ACT! keyboard and mouse shortcuts shown on the Lookup menu.

As everyone’s attention span dwindles, now’s a good time to re-visit the keyboard and mouse shortcuts on the Sage ACT! menu. Hey, a fraction of a second saved is several hours earned over a year, right?

A couple of things that I really like with the newer version versions (Sage ACT! versions 2007 – 2012) is that you can right-click on just about any area of a layout or data field. A dialog menu will pop up and, the majority of the time, whatever you’re trying to do is going to be an option on that ACT! menu.

One of the fastest shortcuts you can do is a lookup on any field in the database. Right click on any field, and a mini lookup window will pop-up, pre-filled with the field you want to search on. Rather than going to the Lookup Menu, then choosing that field from a drop-down list, just go to that field, right-click on it, and complete your lookup. It’s very simple.

A second shortcut is to right-click on the background of your layout. You can:
•    Schedule your calls
•    Create a New Contact or duplicate a Contact
•    Record a History on an unscheduled call or meeting
•    Insert Notes or
•    Attach a File

You can find this right-click option on any screen. You don’t just have to be on the contact screen. Try this on the Groups, Companies or Calendar views, too.

On the calendar view, we can right-click and Schedule a call. I can also click and drag my mouse to highlight an activity’s start and end time. When I let go, it pops up and automatically fills in the date and the time that I had dragged my mouse on top of that to fill that in.

Sage ACT! Menu Shortcuts for Keyboard or Mouse Lovers

These same commands are available on your keyboard too, if you’re not a mouse person, but a keyboard person. The keyboard shortcut equivalent of right-clicking usually starts with holding the control key (CTRL) plus another key. For example, to create an unscheduled history item, all you do is press CTRL + H. Just complete the dialog box that pops up with all the details.

Even when you're on one peron's contact record, you can record information about an unscheduled activity for another person using the CTRL + H keyboard command, one of the ACT! menu commands.

One of my favorite Sage ACT! shortcuts (really an ACT! tip) is using this command when the phone rings and interrupts me right in the middle of something I’m doing. I type CTRL + H, and when that person starts talking to me, I can take notes during the call.

Since chances are that this is not the person who’s record I’m already on in ACT!, I just change the contact to this person’s record (or press the Contact button on the right and then the New Contact button on the lower left to add a new contact to my database).

My notes are automatically added to the history tab, documenting my conversation. The History tab is the “daily diary” of everything that happens with that contact.

The Difference Between the ACT! History and ACT! Notes Tabs

Some people confuse the History and Notes tabs because ACT! used to show them as one tab. But Notes are for “facts” about your contact, such as directions to his office, his dog’s name, his favorite restaurant, things like that. The keyboard shortcut key for Notes is F9.

Other useful keyboard shortcuts are:

• F8 takes you to the Contact Detail View
• F11 goes to the Contacts View
• Insert Key (usually above the backspace button) adds a New Contact or, if you’re on the Groups view, it adds a New Group

Everyone wants more time to spend on the non-work-related good stuff. ACT!’s menu commands for mouse and keyboard shortcuts get you in and out of your database fast.