ENEWS > FALL 2007

Listen to Your ACT! Guru
Sales Opportunities Start to Finish!

ACT! is the number one selling contact and customer management solution in the world helping all types of users and organizations manage relationships with their contacts. With over 2.7 millions users you can imagine there are a variety of ways our customers use ACT!. However, there is one area where we consistently find many of our customers don’t use ACT! to its fullest potential – sales opportunity management.

ACT! can be a powerful tool to gain visibility into your sales pipeline and track a sale as it moves through your sales process. If you are already using sales opportunity management, congratulations! You know it’s a great way to gain visibility into your sales cycle, and a great tool to help you focus on the deals in your sales pipeline that you need to close. However, whether you are an old pro at tracking sales opportunities in ACT! or you have never even looked at the opportunity list view, you’ll find the below article valuable as it reviews key areas of sales opportunity management in ACT! to help you get the most out of this powerful functionality.

The first task, and this is no small feat, is to really look at your sales cycle and determine what steps are critical to in moving an opportunity from a lead to a closed deal. The sales opportunity management functionality in ACT! includes a built-in sales process defined, and while it is a good start, we strongly recommend that you analyze your own sales process and customize ACT! to reflect the realities of your market and your business. Whether you are selling products, services, or both, your particular industry is sure to have some quirks that play out in the sales process. In defining your sales cycle, you should consider the following:

• Are you targeting the right prospects?
• What information do you need to uncover early in the sales cycle to help you close a deal later?
• What information do you need to have your prospects look at or review prior to negotiating and closing a deal? Is it a presentation, a formal RFP, or a lengthy contract?
• What are the typical issues and objections that prospects raise during the sales cycle?

Another important question to ask yourself is what stages in the sales cycle are critical in order to move a prospect from lead to close? For example, if you know that getting an in-person meeting with a prospect greatly accelerates your sales cycle, then you want to make sure that step is in your sales cycle.

Be careful though, a common pitfall in customizing the ACT! sales process and stages that we see quite often is when people confuse activities with sales stages. A sales stage is a major milestone in your sales process. You may need to have a few meetings, several phone calls, exchange a dozen e-mails or submit proposals to move a particular deal from one sales stage to the next, but those activities themselves are activities and not necessarily sales stages.

Creating and Modifying Sales Processes and Stages:

1. Click the View menu, and then click Opportunity List.
2. Click the Contacts menu, point to Opportunities, and then click Manage Process List; or click the Manage Process List button on the toolbar. The Manage Process Lists dialog box appears.
3. You can Create a New Opportunity Process, or Edit an Existing Process. For the purposes of this tip we are going to Edit an Existing Process.
4. Select the process you want to edit, and then click Edit Opportunity Process. (Short-cut – just double-click the process you want to edit.) You will now be in the “Enter opportunity process name and description” screen.
5. Re-name this process if you like, and add a description that will make it easy for you and other users to know when to use this process.
6. Click Next. The Customize stages screen appears. Now you can modify your sales stages to map to your business model and sales cycle.
7. To modify a stage, simply double-click on that stage and start typing. Note: Existing Opportunities that are in the Sales Stage that you modify will be automatically updated when you complete your changes.
8. To add a stage, click the Add button. You can enter the stage name, a description and a default percentage probability, or chance of closure.
9. To remove a stage, click the Delete button. Note that if there are any opportunities in the database that are using the stage you want to delete, you will get the following message:
   
   
   
10. You will need to open and edit all the deals that are in the stage you want to delete before you can delete that stage.
11. You can move stages up or down, by selecting the stage you want to move and clicking the Move Up or Move Down buttons.
12. When you are done making all the changes to the stages for this process, click Finish. This will take you back to the Manage Process Lists dialog box. You can edit or create additional processes or click Close if you are done.

You will now have an updated and customized sales process and stages that map to your specific business model and sales cycle. Changing the sales process and sales stages is the first step, and a critical one, in putting the powerful sales opportunity management functionality in ACT! to work for you. Focusing on your sales process will help you work smarter to reach those revenue and profit goals.

Adding a New Sales Opportunity:

1. Lookup the person that is your primary point of contact for this opportunity.
2. Click Contacts | Opportunities | New Opportunity.
3. Enter a name for the Opportunity, we like to use whatever is the short-hand terminology you use to describe a deal in the pipeline, such as “Implementation Services”.
4. The Contact will be the person you looked up in step one, but in ACT! 2008, you now have the ability to associate an opportunity with multiple contacts. To do so, click on the Contacts button and then Select Contacts. Find and add all of the other contacts associated with this opportunity, and add them to the selected contacts area by either double-clicking their name, or clicking on the single, right-facing arrow, then click OK.
   
   
5. In the Status area, you can indicate if the opportunity is Open, Closed – Won, Closed – Lost or Inactive.
6. In the Forecast area you can select the sales process, and the current sales stage for this opportunity. Note that when you select the sales stage, it will populate the probability, or percentage likelihood that this deal will close, if you set that up in your sales process definitions. You can then select the Estimated Close Date.
7. On the Products/Services tab you can enter the details for, well, the products and services included in this opportunity. You can add multiple line items by clicking on the Add button.
8. You can enter additional information on the User Fields, Details and Opportunity Info tabs, and when you are finished entering all of the information about this opportunity, click OK.

Closing a Sales Opportunity:

You can open and edit the opportunity as it moves through the sales process and stages. Once the deal closes, for better or worse, you can close it in ACT!. Following through and closing deals allows you to view and report on all open opportunities, versus those deals that were won or lost, which really gives you some great analysis of your sales pipeline.

1. Lookup the person that is your primary point of contact for the opportunity you wish to close.
2. Click on the Opportunities tab, and then double-click on the opportunity you want to close.
3. In the Status area, change the radio button from Open to either Closed – Won or Closed – Lost. Once you do that you will be taken to the Opportunity Info tab, and you can enter a reason why you won or lost this opportunity. There are a couple of great standard reports you can run, including Sales by Reason and Lost Opportunities by Reason.
4. After editing or entering all of the information for this opportunity, click OK.

Non-Report Sales Reporting Options
Now that have customized your sales process and stages, and are diligently entering, tracking and closing your opportunities in ACT!, you just might want to run a report or two on those opportunities. When we talk with clients about what reports they need out of ACT!, what they start describing isn’t always strictly a report. Often our clients just want to view and manipulate the sales data, and in that case we point them to three options, none of which are technically reports – the Opportunity List view itself, the Export to Excel feature and the Dashboard.

When we start working with clients we always ask them “Can we see your Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that you use to track sales opportunities in the pipeline?” Notice that we don’t ask if they are using Excel for sales reporting, because just about everyone does. You can stop all that Excel data gathering if you just use ACT!.

The Opportunity List view in ACT! is a great tool to help you in tracking your deals in the pipeline. To access this powerful view, click on the Opportunity List icon in the left view bar. Like many list views in ACT!, this view can be filtered and customized. The filter options in this view are very powerful for managing the sales process with your prospects and customers. At the bottom of the view you can see the total number of opportunities, the weighted total, which is the calculation based on the sum and the probability of close for each opportunity. The grand total is the sum of all opportunities in the list.

Having this aggregate view of all opportunities is a great feature, but the real power comes with the filtering options available. Filtering lets you choose which opportunities you want to focus on based on any number of criteria. Filtering helps you focus, and focus will then help you close those deals, or determine which deals are not good investments of your time. Filter options in the list view include:

1. Dates: Focus in on those deals that are projected to close in a particular time frame, such as This Month or This Quarter.
2. Status: Including Open, Won/Lost, and a new status, Inactive. Many times an opportunity will stall in the sales cycle, and it may be out of your control to move that sale forward, you can now set the filter on the opportunity list view to omit those inactive deals, allowing you to focus on the just the Open opportunities and the tasks required to move those to closure.
3. Process/Stage: Many of our clients have multiple things that they sell, like products and services, and these different offerings each have their own sales process, cycle and sales stages. You can now define multiple sales processes, and have each process follow unique sales stages to closure. And you can filter the opportunity view to see all sales opportunities, or only those for a particular sales process.
4. Probability: These next 2 are my personal favorites. You can filter the opportunity list to view just those opportunities with specific probabilities, looking at either a specific probability, or by using the greater than or less than radio buttons. For example, you can filter based on a 50% or higher probability of closure. This allows you to really hone in on the deals that have the highest likelihood of closure. Or, you can focus on all of the deals with a particular value, such as 25%, to see what steps you need to do to move those opportunities to a higher probability of closure.
5. Total: You can focus on the deals with a particular dollar value, or you can use the greater than, or less than radio buttons to find deals within a specific value range. Using the Probability and Total filters together is very powerful. For example, you can filter on all opportunities with a greater than 50% probability of closure, that are greater than a particular dollar value.
6. User: If you are in a multi-user database, you can click on the Select Users button to filter the opportunities for all users, or specific users.

Probably one of the biggest features of the Opportunity List view is Export to Excel. In the Opportunity List view, just click Tools | Export to Excel. This will quickly export the opportunity list to Excel, where you can slice and dice your sales data to your heart’s content. Steve Stroz contributed an article to this edition of eNews that focuses solely on how to turn all this rich sales data into knowledge using Export to Excel. You should really check out that article, we’re talking pivot charts and everything!

The final non-report option is the ACT! Dashboard, new to ACT! 2008. What is a dashboard, anyway? Well, the dashboard in your car is designed to give you up to the minute information that will help you drive. The ACT! Dashboard provides the same kind of immediate view into important elements that you can use to better manage your business and sales pipeline. The dashboard view is also easily customized and filtered to select only the most relevant data specific to your business model and/or sales process. There are two other articles in this edition of eNews related to the ACT! Dashboard. I encourage you to read up on that to really get a feel for this powerful new feature.

Sales Reporting Options
While the non-report options outline above provide three powerful ways to view and manipulate your sales data, nothing takes the place of a really great sales report. ACT! has 20 sales-related built in reports. My colleague, Steve Stroz, wrote a great article on Sales Reporting options in the Summer 2007 edition of eNews. If you missed it, you can click here to see the full article.

Running a Sales Report:

1. Click Reports | Opportunity Reports. You will see a list that is 8 of the 17 sales-related reports. If you don’t see the report you are looking for, click Other Opportunity Reports.
2. You will be viewing the 40 built-in reports that ACT! has, select the report you want to run, and click Open.
   
   
   
3. You will now be in the Define Filters dialog box, this is where you can select where you want to send the report data as well as what data you want to see and for what timeframe. If you are in a multi-user database, you can also select which user’s data you want to include on the report. Make your selections and click OK.
4. You will now be viewing your sales report.

For more help with ACT! sales opportunities, you can visit the ACT! Knowledge Base for instructional articles. Or, seek out an ACT! Certified Consultant.

Stacy Roach, ACT! Certified Consultant and ACT! Premier Trainer
Power of 3 Consulting, Inc
www.po3inc.com

BONUS ARTICLE!
Turning Data into Knowledge using ACT! Export to Excel® After you read my esteemed colleague’s article about ACT! Opportunities, you will soon have a database loaded with them. Now it’s time to transform that data into moneymaking knowledge using one of my favorite features – export to Excel.

Excel was created by that little-known Seattle start-up, Microsoft. If you don’t own Excel, continue to read the article as if you do, because the benefits might justify the purchase. Also, keep in mind that being able to export your data to Excel is a privilege and can be taken away by your system administrator.

Preparing for Export:
Begin by opening ACT! and clicking View | Opportunity List. You’ll notice ACT! has a powerful filtering section at the top of this view. Excel will allow you to filter the opportunity data, but many ACT! users find it easier to do some filtering here before they export to Excel. For instance, if you only want to analyze “Open Opportunities” you can click the Status dropdown and uncheck “Closed – Won”, “Closed – Lost”, and “Inactive” before exporting.

You can also include additional opportunity fields that are not displayed. Click View | Customize Columns (or right-mouse-click and select Customize Columns). The fields in use will appear in the right hand column. Available fields will appear in the left hand column. Click to highlight a desired field from the left and click the “right arrow button” to add it to the displayed fields list. For the following examples please add the “Referred By” field and make sure the “Product Name” and “Stage” fields are displayed. Also, make sure that “All Users” have been selected using the Select Users button.

Exporting to Excel:
Click Tools | Export to Excel or click the “Export to Excel” icon on the toolbar. This action will open Excel and export the displayed opportunities (and the displayed fields) to a new Excel Workbook. Thanks to our good friends at Sage Software, an accompanying PivotChart and a PivotTable are also automatically created. We’ll have a lot of fun with these!

Analyzing your sales pipeline/funnel:
Click on the Opportunities Pivot Chart worksheet. You should be looking at a graphic depicting the open opportunities by Record Manager (a picture says a thousand words, huh?). Locate the Stage field in the PivotTable Field List Box. In one move, click and drag the field and place it right next to the Record Manger field.

Congratulations! You’ve just created a Sales Pipeline. Keep in mind that the PivotChart and PivotTable are linked so changes made in either view will be reflected in the other. Click the PivotTable worksheet and notice you have a nice Sales Pipeline Summary report. If desired, Click File, Print.

Changing the Group Order:
Now that you’ve created a Forecast by Rep by Stage report you might want to view the information from a different perspective. Perhaps, by Stage then Rep. This is also an easy task. In one move, click and drag the Stage field and place it before the Record Manager field. Now the PivotChart will display all of the opportunities by Stage grouped by Record Manager.

A savvy manager will use this information to analyze gaps or bottlenecks in the sales process for each of their reps. Having this information allows a sales manager to take proactive action to avoid a sales drought or to increase staff or realign territories if a funnel is too large.

Removing a Field:
Removing a field is very simple. Right-mouse-click the field and click Remove Field. The field will be removed and placed back in the PivotTable Field List Box. Remove the Stage field.

Analyzing Products by Record Manager:
Now click and drag the Product Name field from the PivotTable Field List Box and place it next to the Record Manager field. (Note: this works best when only one product is selected per opportunity).

I’m using the demo database for these examples. So why does Chris Huffman sell so much? Sounds like a good discussion topic at next week’s sales meeting. Next, remove the Record Manager field by Right-mouse clicking and selecting Remove Field. Notice certain items are way up and other items are down. I wonder what we can do about that?

Analyzing Marketing Campaign Effectiveness:
If you’ve been following along, close Excel and go back to the ACT! Opportunity List. In the Status dropdown box uncheck “Open” and check “Closed – Won” and “Closed – Lost”. Click Tools | Export to Excel.

Remove all of the fields at the bottom of the PivotChart by right-mouse clicking and selecting Remove Field. Locate the Referred By field in the PivotTable Field List Box. In one move, click and place it in the “Drop Category Fields Here” box at the bottom of the PivotChart. Now you know the source of your past opportunities. You can click the small arrow button in the Referred By field to select or deselect different items. In this case I’m going to deselect the opportunities that have a “blank” Referred By field.

Interesting. Notice that E-mail Campaigns and Advertisements are bringing in a lot of opportunities but few opportunities are attributed to Search Engine or our Website. Executives use this information to guide them in developing marketing strategy and to determine which marketing efforts work, and which need refinement. By comparing the value of opportunities with the cost of the marketing campaign, a manager can quickly determine the ROI (return on investment) of the marketing effort and determine if spending should be increased or reduced.

I hope you’ve come to love the export to Excel feature as much as I do. Your analysis is only limited by your creativity. Consider using your custom opportunity fields, analyzing past sales performance, or running a competitive analysis. Use these skills and ideas to achieve great success at your organization!

Bonus Tip:
Have you grown tired of looking at Column Charts? Life is too short; try this:

1. In Excel, Click View | Toolbars | Chart to display the Chart toolbar.
2. In the middle of the toolbar, click the arrow next to the Chart Type icon.
3. Add pizzazz to your next board meeting by changing the type to Pie, 3-D Cylinder, Area Chart, etc.
4. When you’ve found a favorite, click Edit | Copy. Now you can paste it into a Microsoft Word document or PowerPoint presentation.

For more help with the Export to Excel feature, you can visit the ACT! Knowledge Base at www.act.com; or seek out an ACT! Certified Consultant who are specialists in helping organizations get the most out of their ACT! investment.

Steve Stroz, ACT! Certified Consultant
Gold Coast Advisors, Inc.
www.goldcoastadvisors.com