CRM Blog

ACT! 2010 Premium has a ton of great features. But there are a few things missing.

Here are the top 3 features we’ve developed for some of our clients (and ourselves) that can add value and simplicity to your CRM life. (Please note that each requires an affordable add-on)

1. Field Calculations – The Snap-In Tool, aptly named: “Field Calculator”, has helped us sum totals automatically for financial companies and calculate coverage ratios for real estate brokers. It can be set up in a few minutes. Pretty simple and can make life a LOT simpler. (Programmer’s Tip: this one doesn’t work with Dates, but “Scripting for ACT!” does)
2. Popup Messages – Snap-In Tool, “Scripting for ACT!” can do just about anything if you write it. This simple function we added is sort of our in ACT! “Post-it”. One user can added a message in our “Special Notes” field. As soon as an ACT! User looks at that contact, they get a pop-up message of the Special Note. Perfect for those VERY important facts to know before dealing with the client: “Get a signed invoice before starting work”, “Ask about the fruit basket we sent”, “Kelly is a man, don’t refer to Him as ‘she’ or ‘her’” (Programmer Tip: MsgBox on SwitchContact Event is all it is)
3. Copying Groups to Opportunities – Not sure why, but ACT! 2010 didn’t make it possible to import from a text file into Opportunities; this makes it hard to mass populate your opportunities without an extra import tool. We made a quick tool to copy information from a Group into an Opportunity, copy all the fields over, name it the same thing and copy the Notes/History/Documents. (This client used Groups to track Opportunity information, now that Opportunities are more full featured, they moved their info over). (Programmer’s Tip: Attached Documents are just another History Type, if you copy histories to the new entity, you get Docs for free)

If you want to learn more about what’s possible or have an idea like “Wouldn’t it be cool if …”, here’s our Contact Us page, or email us at info @ accentgold . com

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If you’re like me, you probably only use 10% of your brain…or 10% of your Google search potential.

Here are 5 tricks I recently learned that have really turned me into a Power Googler:

1. Searching for specific extensions. Google can search  for types of documents using the “filetype:” operator. For example, if you are searching for PowerPoint files regarding the Passover, you could enter Passover filetype:ppt
2. Lookup of area codes. Do you need to know where a phone number is geographically located? Google will let you know where it is, as well as showing you a map of the area, too. For example: 415
3. Omit specific terms with the “–” (dash). You can limit your searches using the hyphen/dash. e.g. if you’re looking for information about the Denver Broncos but don’t want anything about John Elway, you could try: “denver broncos” -elway
4. Simple currency conversions. Woo hoo! Google does currency conversion, for example: 100 Euros in dollars. It’s limited though to the more common currencies.
5. Use the “site:” operator to filter searches to a specific website. Ever had trouble finding information on a website? You know it’s there somewhere, but the navigation is horrible. So if you’re searching for Training on the Accent Gold website, you could just plug in: Training site:accentgold.com

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Who loves freeware? I do! I found a freeware tool called DVDVideoSoft. And it’s not one of those “Free Trials” that turns into a $30 purchase. Here are the top 3 ways I use DVDVideoSoft:

1. Free Video to Flash Converter - I have been uploading quite a few videos to YouTube. But I often run into uploading errors. And don’t forget, size matters. Converting an MPG file to FLASH reduces the size by at least a factor of 3. And no more YouTube errors.
2. Free Video Dub – For a quick and dirty video splicer, this one is about the easiest thing on the market. Just mark the sections you want to keep and hit Go! It creates a new file and uses your naming logic.
3. Free DVD Video Converter – If you are looking for a free and easy way to convert your DVD into MPG format so that you can view it on your PC or iPhone, this is the tool for you. I tried several others, but this one works well and doesn’t cost a thing.

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Do you ever find yourself looking for great teaching/training material? Sometimes google offers me too much information. And it is very difficult to weed through it all to flesh out the essential points.

But why reinvent the wheel! There are so many great PowerPoint presentations already out there. Do you want to create a class on “21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”? Don’t waste your time typing it all up! Just use these tools to locate the existing presentations on that topic. Then download and tweak. And don’t foget to give credit to your source!

So here are my top PowerPoint tools:

1. SlideShare – This is my favorite PPT search tool. The selection is fantastic. One fun tidbit is that these PowerPoints are very easily embedded into a blog or website! Obviously they are also downloadable.
2. SlideFinder - The selection on SlideFinder is a bit limited, but the results are downloadable PPT files. One bonus is the ability to search by University!
3. iSpring Converter – This free tool allows you to convert PPT files into Flash, while retaining all of the effects. How cool is that! This means you can now easily upload your PowerPoints to YouTube!

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Our entire firm has been using MindJet mindmap for years. It is still the best tool on the market and rich in features. It exports well to Word, PDF and even PowerPoint. In fact this is how I create my PowerPoint presentations…I start with a MindJet mindmap. I love it and use it for everything – from Needs Analysis meetings to preparation for teaching Bible classes.

Yet, sometimes there is a need to collaborate online in a mindmap. I tried bubbl.us. Nice colors, but weak on features. Then I tried Mind42.com. That stands for “mind for two” – as in “let’s collaborate!”

The three buttons to remember are Enter, Tab and Shift+Tab. The rest is drag and drop - and highly intuitive. So as we have begun mapping out ACT or CRM projects collaboratively, this tool has proven itself to be invaluable. To find out more: http://bit.ly/MindForTwo

My 5 favorite features of Mind42 are:
1. Keyboard Shortcuts and Drag/Drop
2. Auto-save every 5 minutes
3. Export to RTF and even to MindJet
4. Online Collaboration! Functions like Google Docs
5. Did I say it’s FREE!!

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