Act has a lot of bells and whistles that it offers its users. For example, act email marketing, activity series and automation, as well as reports. It is easy to be distracted by these shiny offerings.
I always tell my act clients not to lose sight of what’s truly important in their day-to-day business. Never lose focus of your primary goal. Many established businesses can focus primarily on their existing client base to generate future sales and revenue. Therefore, you have to have a plan for reaching your clients on a consistent and regular basis. At the end of the day, you would like to make sure that no contact ever slips through the cracks in act.
Recently, a client asked me to help them to email the prospects they have in their database. One of the first questions I asked them is what are they doing for their existing clients? Act email marketing is a fantastic tool for reaching out to your contacts via email. The call list feature can help you reach out to those that have opened your email and interacted with your correspondence. It is much more difficult to take a cold prospect and convert them to a client than it is to help an existing client do more business with you.
I understand the need to reach out to new prospects. But what is the point of reaching out to them if you are not taking care of the clients right in front of you? They are sitting right there in act and you just need to take action. Sometimes it is as simple as just saying hello.
The Catch-22 of Automation and Act
To truly automate some of the tasks you want to accomplish in act, you need to be pretty darn organized. My experience has been that most people that are organized don’t necessarily need automation. There lies the Catch-22. If you are organized, you do not need automation. If you decide you want to send an email every 90 days to prospects you can automate that process. But I contend that the amount of time it would take you to set that up is greater than the amount of time it would take you to actually do it.
Typically, people that have taken the time to automate find it doesn’t work quite the way they expected and then they spend a lot of time trying to figure out why. In a perfect world, automation can be a great asset to act users. But I know most act users wear many hats in their business and time is their greatest asset. The trick is understanding how to make the most of their time and then make the most out of act without encroaching on their time.
I’m a Groupie: I Love Using Act Groups to Stay Organized
Instead of automation, consider using groups to draw your attention to the contacts that are important to you. Once they are there in front of you, take the action you need to follow up with them. It is decidedly un-automated, but can be highly effective.