CRM Blog

Simple and Easy CRM

Does CRM have to look like this?

What’s the secret regarding CRM products? Users in the worldwide marketplace are becoming more comfortable with modern productivity tools (i.e. Google, Amazon, Twitter), most CRM tools are stuck in the 20th century. Bottom line, CRM innovation has remained stagnant.

Until now.

CRM User Adoption

The world of CRM usability is being redefined – and Sugar 6 is changing the game. No longer is the user compelled to combine the world of (a) spreadsheets (b) email and (c) complicated and antiquated CRM tools.

Sugar 6 is:

1. Intuitive. Simply put, it is easy to use!
2. Flexible. It is easy to change – to match your business processes.
3. Open. It is easy to integrate. The Open Source architecture allows for unmatched integration possibilities.

Web Based CRM Software

Sugar 6 allows you to truly manage your business rlationships, increase your marketing effectiveness, optimize lead generation, measure and grow sales revenues, and better support existing customers.

Sugar 6 delivers a Web Experience that users are familiar with. If you feel comfortable with Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Docs, then you will love your SugarCRM experience.

Do you need a review of Sugar as an ondemand web based CRM software (windows CRM application vs web CRM software)? Do you have questions regarding the pricing model (Licenses, Software as a Service SAAS CRM) and feature differences between the free/community edition and the  paid (professional, enterprise) editions? Are you interested in a SugarCRM upgrade or in need of a download to install SugarCRM 6? No worries! Just give us a call! We’ll help you understand just how powerful this web based online customer management tool can be as a hosted sales CRM – especially in an Open Source or Call Center software environment.

Do you need a live demo of how SugarCRM as an online CRM compares to SageSalesLogix (Cloud) CRM, vTiger (Open Source CRM) or Salesforce (on Demand CRM) - or the differences to online MS CRM? Are you concerned with understanding free web CRM Software and your options? Do you have questions regarding how the world of web CRM, hosted CRM  and cloud CRM in a local CRM environment? Do you need clarity regarding CRM lead generation services or CRM  support (incl. CRM Help) plans? No worries! Just contact us!

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SugarCRM 6.0 will be available on July 13th! If you haven’t seen it yet, contact us for a demo!

Sugar 6 has a simple approach. Everything revolves around the following 3 keys:

1. Flexible - Easy to customize and deploy anywhere
2. Intuitive - Works how people are using other social web 2.0 applications
3. Open - Low price and low risk and without limits 

Stay tuned for more details…

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One of my greatest web frustrations is the mass of information yet the lack of strategy regarding Social Marketing.

I kept looking for someone to tell me the 10 easy steps to getting started in the world of Social Media. So I decided to create my own - here’s my breakdown of how to get started. And all the tools below are free.

1. Set up your Logo. Branding is crucial, and you want to make sure that your brand is consistent across all platforms.
2. Start blogging. Content is king. So if you have nothing to offer to “the conversation” on the web, then don’t waste your time with Social Marketing. Figure out how you want to position yourself in the market. And start producing (or intelligently summarizing) the content that your listeners are interested in. If you aren’t set up with WordPress or don’t feel comfortable with it, then just go to WordPress.com and set up a free account. It’s not that difficult; in fact, it’s easy – and powerful. Just make sure to keep your blogs bite-size, use visuals and create alluring titles!
3. Get your Accounts set up. That means (a) a Facebook Page (b) one or more Twitter sites (I separate my personal tweets from my business tweets) (c) one or more YouTube channels (d) a LinkedIn group.
4. Start following opinion leaders. It’ll help you learn how to best blog, how to best tweet and how to best use YouTube. By “follow”, I mean (a) follow on Twitter (b) become a Fan of relevant Facebook Pages (c) Subscribe to Blogs that matter to you – most blogs let you set up an Email subscription (d) Subscribe to the YouTube Channels of valued leaders. For example, while I follow Max Lucado on my personal twitter, I follow Gizmodo on my business twitter – to help me stay abreast of the latest trends in gadgets. I subscribe to Problogger’s blog, and I also subscribe to MarketingProfessor’s YouTube channel. Lastly, I highly advise you to configure your SmartPhone so that you can easily view Facebook and Twitter. If you’re like me, then time is precious. Having quick access on my Sprint EVO 4G helps me stay abreast of all the trends.
5. TweetDeck and HootSuite are the two best products that allow you to send and receive Social messages. They aggregate the messages for you. I create a message and then choose which channels I will push it out through. Very convenient. And best of all, you can set up filters (such as “CRM”) to help you stay abreast of the conversations that matter to you.
6. Bit.ly is a simple tool that you can connect directly into TweetDeck. It helps you create personalized links to the pages you are marketing. And you will love the reports it provides. If you use it right, Bitl.y will help you discover which of your links (and blogs) are really drawing readers and which aren’t. You might be surprised!
7. YouTube. Although this might appear daunting at first, most cameras these days allow you to easily create video content. This is the wave of the future, so hop on board now! It ain’t going away. There are fantastic tools out there like Camtasia – as well as some great free utilities  from DVDVideoSoft. Create the videos, shorten them, convert to Flash and upload to YouTube. I do it all with DVDVideoSoft. Did I say free! And don’t worry about the quality for now. No one expects you to be the next Steven Spielberg. By subscribing to popular YouTube channels, you will become aware that the people want content, not beautiful editing. If it takes you a month to edit a video, it might just be “old news” by the time you post it. Web 2.0 is fairly forgiving.
8. Gadwin Printscreen. Although there are more professional tools out there, I have been using Gadwin for 8 years. It installs in 2 minutes, it’s free and it is easy to configure. It is probably the tool I use the most! Everyone loves a picture, and Gadwin puts you in the driver’s seat.
9. SlideShare. This online PowerPoint reader allows you to upload your PowerPoints and then embed them into your blog or website. Very easy to use, and it makes your blog look slick! Again, this last tip is more about your blog than your social marketing. But it definitely helps to embed visual content into your blog – be it JPG pictures, YouTube videos or SlideShare presentations.
10. Configure your blog to automatically feed into your Facebook Page, your Twitter feed and your LinkedIn group. So when this blog went live, my 3 Social Marketing pages were immediately updated. FeedBurner is a great tool to help you with this. You will likely also need to use your RSS feed. This is probably the most complex part of the whole experience. And if it is too complex initially, then skip it and instead promote your published blog manually via TweetDeck.

So whether your CRM is Sage ACT 2011, Microsoft Dynamics CRM or SugarCRM, you need to get going on your Social Marketing strategy!

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Who is Accent Gold? Check out our Prezi-tation! Tim Priestley made this recently for our ACT 2011 Roadshow. It highlights the following:

1. our Core Values
2. our CRM solutions
3. our focus on business processes
4. our cutting-edge knowledge in the world of Mobile CRM.

Ever wondered what we look like? Check out our pictures?

Now check out the action pictures!

According to Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford, our brains can handle only about 150 friendships – a number which might be a far cry from what your Facebook profile states.

This study, which is now referred to as “Dunbar’s number,” was originally based on research done in the 1990s, before Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn and MySpace were a part of our daily lives.

When reexamining the topic, Dunbar surprisingly found that the number, 150, still stands as the approximate max for the number of friends one’s brain can handle, regardless of the new social networking technology.

So I ask you this: How many friends do you REALLY have on Facebook?