Back in 2009 I wrote a blog article about staying nimble in a bleak economy.  It is sad to note that we are still in that environment.  That made me think it was time to revisit this post and see what had changed.  Interestingly, not much.  I've added a few new items, but here is my take on what we are doing to stay ahead of the grim business reaper. Staying in business is important to my staff and I and we are celebrating our 15th year anniversary in 2013 and I want to make

Boy, times are tough.  Companies are hurting and I’ve been working with a lot of clients recently who are looking for creative ways to find new or keep existing clients.  These clients all have customer databases and are trying to figure out ways to mine the data and go after any low hanging fruit.  They tell me “the phones aren't ringing” and they need to find ways to make that happen.  In the process of helping people run reports and figure out who to

Today's blog is about using SQL commands directly in Excel.  I am going after data in Sage ACT, but you can use the same technique to go after a wide variety of data sources that are SQL based. First off, open Excel.  I am showing you screen shots from Excel 2010.  You want to click on the data tab and pick "from other data sources". After choosing From other data sources choose From Data Connection wizard which brings up the following dialog box.  Choose Other

Several years ago I wrote this blog article and after working with a client recently I figured it was time to post it again.  We went over exactly what was in the post and I thought that would be great to blog about. And I went, duh, I already did. Here it is. Time to ACT. What does that say to you? Time to do what you need to do? Now’s the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country? You get the idea. It means time to do what needs to be done. Ok, Let’s take it to

I love Sage ACT's eMarketing feature.  It is a plugin that allows me to use the Swiftpage email blast and survey service. I can send out mass emails and ensure that none get delivered to people who have opted out of my emails AND (this is the good part) know that they have indeed received, opened, and clicked on links in my emails. The best part is the data gets written back to my ACT database and I now have information that I can search and act upon. In a previous life I used Constant

When thinking about the right CRM ask the 5 "w's" questions: Where are you going to use it, Why are you using it, When will you use it, What will you write about and Who is your audience. 1. Where - if you are selling GPS equipment to combine owners and you are outstanding in their field (and I don't mean good at what you do, I mean standing in the middle of a corn field), internet connections are probably not available and small devices not an option.   unless.... 2. When - if you

Everyone we talk to recently is still lamenting about how bad the economy is and how hard they are struggling to get in new business.  We are in the same boat.  So, it is important to us to do everything we can to get in new leads and quickly react to them.  In addition, we and our clients are looking for ways to drive more people to our website.  It would be great to have a way to leverage both needs. Recently I attended a conference listening to awesome people with amazing

Well, once again my muse has come up with a great blog article topic.  I’ve been tweeting about not deadheading my cone flowers.  Turns out they are an excellent thistle seed source for Gold Finch.  Last week there had to be 50 or more of the lovely birds in my garden feasting on the dead blossoms.  In this case, there was a benefit to not dead heading or “throwing away” what appears to be something of no use. My muse, who is @kimjosephs on Twitter said “Oh, does the