I know what you’re thinking.  Another year, another upgrade.  And with new versions of ACT rolling out on a yearly basis you might not feel the need to upgrade.  After all as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you’ve been sitting in the Stone Age and are still clinging to your tried and true version of ACT 6, you might want to take a look at the features that you missed... 

I had a prospective client call me recently.  He made it clear from the start that he had absolutely no desire to upgrade to the newest version of ACT.  Not a problem as we support any and all versions of ACT.  He then proceeded to send me his wish list for ACT which included finding updated information for his 4500 contacts, integrating with Outlook 2007 and bulk e-mailing. He was using ACT 5/2000,... 

If you’re any kind of sports fan then you heard about the marathon John Isner/Nicolas Mahut match at Wimbledon this year.  The match broke many records including longest match (11 hours, 5 minutes), longest set (8 hours, 11 minutes) and number of games (183).  As a tennis player that groans just thinking about a third set, I can’t even imagine the mind-set and determination that both the... 

I received a rather bizarre e-mail last Saturday night just as I was getting ready to enjoy a lovely evening at a Marlins game.  It came in to my business account from my Yahoo account and was asking me to send money to myself.  According to the e-mail I was attending a seminar in England and needed some extra cash.  This was all news to me as I was sitting in my Boca Raton home. About that time... 

I see it all the time. The typical CRM user fires up his software and is greeted by numerous alarms.  At that point he deftly hits the “Select All” and “Snooze” button.  Drip.  Drip.  I can almost hear important information dripping through the cracks of the database! Oh, alarms – how do I hate thee?  Let me count the ways.  First of all, too many of you routinely snooze your alarms. ... 

Boy, do I hear that question a lot!  Sometimes I get a variation (feel free to substitute the name of the current CRM product du jour for Sales Force). Here’s the deal.  I know folks like you – I call them ACT fanactics.  I had 500 of them wait in line to get into a seminar I ran in August, 2002 on a not so sunny night in South Florida introducing the all new ACT 6.  I guarantee I wouldn’t... 

I ran a webinar this week on synching smart phones to your ACT database.  Presenting with me was my old friend Rushang Shah of Companion Link software.  Rushang looks like the guy selling replica watches out of the trunk of his car; the last time I saw him he must have had a dozen different cell phones in his brief case.  Although I’ve used Palm, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices in the past,... 

This being Easter weekend I thought I’d share a couple of my favorite ACT Easter eggs.  In case you’re not familiar with the term, a software Easter egg refers to a bit of hidden code in the software.  Although these Easter eggs are all represented by fields and aren’t necessarily hidden, they do tie into other parts of ACT which you might not be aware of. ID/Status: Although I hate the name,... 

I got a call from a potential client the other day who wanted help in converting his existing databases into the latest version of ACT; he was a long-time ACT user and had accumulated over 20 databases.  He then went on to explain that unless I could match the $15/hour price quoted to him by the kid down the street he wasn’t interested in my services.  Shortly after that I received a call from... 

Once upon a time life was much simpler – at least if you believe everything you see in “Leave It To Beaver” re-runs.  Dad marched off to the office every day while Mom stayed home and dusted.  Not once did you hear Dad cursing because he couldn’t find his software activation code and the gentleman at tech support couldn’t speak English, or watch Mom navigate through a maze of “Press 1...