Tutorial: How to Use ActOn Software with PowerDialer for Salesforce

1. Install ActOn’s Salesforce.com app by visiting the AppExchange. 

2. After installing the app, set up automated information pushes between Salesforce and Acton. The frequency of the pushes should depend on your current campaigns running, as well as, how many API calls you have available in Salesforce (API restrictions in Salesforce).

3. Install InsideSales.com PowerDialer from the AppExchange. After installation, create a new dialing list by going to the InsideSales.com tab, and the selecting create new seek list. 

Note: Seek lists are only available in Enterprise edition of Salesforce. Professional Edition will still work with domino lists.

4. Filter what lead score you want your sales people to be calling on by setting up the appropriate filter in the filter fields (see below screen shot). These can be changed at anytime. In addition, in the bottom specified sort choose ‘Act-On Behavior Score’ descending to ensure your sales people are calling the hottest leads first.

5. Save the initiative, and you’re finished! Have your sales people launch the PowerDialer list, and let them dial away!

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Happy Valley’s Heating Up: A Recap of Utah’s 10 Hottest Tech Companies in 2012

1. Dubbed tech’s hidden gem in Utah Qualtrics entered 2012 with guns blazing by securing $70 M in investment from Accel Partners and Sequoia in April. The ease of use coupled with their happy customers left competitor SurveyMonkey wondering how to stop hemorrhaging market share in the marketing research arena.

2. Happy Valley’s software kingpin Josh James is at it again. First it was Omniture–now it’s Domo, a business intelligence solution that delivers critical data in real time. Named BI start of the year by BI Group Domo took another round of venture capital worth $20 M, this time from Institution Venture Partners.

3. InsideSales.com took its first round of funding totaling $4.2 M from Hummer Winblad and Josh James. The company has captured a large segment of organizations using Salesforce.com looking for a way to make more sales. At Dreamforce InsideSales.com released gamification and social selling tools into the PowerDialer platform. With the high ROI of inside versus field sales, InsideSales.com is hedging its bet on the growth remote sales to fuel their growth.

4. Fishbowl has arrived. It took them a bit to get here, but now that they’re here they’re not going anywhere but up. They specialize in inventory automation, an extremely narrow but deep niche of small and medium size businesses who can become more profitable through tighter inventory management. Co-CEO David Williams also started writing online for Forbes this year.

5. 2012 was make or break for Pleasanton-based Workday, and they made it in a big way.  The human resources software company was the second major IPO after Facebook flopped. Investors got very rich with the stock popping 72% on the first day of trading and has only gone up since. It’s competitors, SAP and Oracle, have competing products, but they are like tortoises on their backs and it will be way too late when they finally are able to turn over. Most recently, Workday has opened a sales office in Salt Lake City.

6. MoneyDesktop racked up awards this year taking home Finovate’s best of show. The company’s new PFM app launched November 2012 gives consumers greater visibility with their money. They are making banks too–with customers changing banks to use the app. A quiet year on the investment front MD’s last investment was in just shy of 200K in 2011 from founders Dave Jaynes and Ryan Caldwell according to an SEC filing.

7. Salt Lake City based Experticity hit it big at the Citi/Bain Capital Advanced Retail Technology Conference in June. The online retail training platform company helps sales reps become experts on different products, driving sales. While no investment round this year is on the SEC website, it is rumored the company is expected to take $10M from Bain in the near future.

8. Fan based sales chat Needle snagged $10.5M in funding in June, postering on TechCrunch with the headline, “No More Call Centers: Needle Grabs $10.5M To Turn Your Fans Into Customer Service Reps.” Adding to additional $2M earlier in the year founder and former HP Logoworks-er Morgan Lynch is betting on fanatic fan bases to be more knowledgable and credible than internal customer support and sales departments.

9. Elearning company MasteryConnect makes a snap of online assessments. Think Khan Academy resources with Smart Board and Bubble Score Technology. Watch out Instructure!

10. Attask raised $13M in August and made a few key executive changes this year. In addition to the investment this year the Lehi-based project management company continued to build out their sales department with eye on corning a few new verticals including healthcare and high-tech.

Click below to download the latest Ebook “31 Inside Sales Must Haves for Driving Appointments and Sales”

3 Best Practices for CRM Data Hygiene

The Why: Accurate business intelligence and information translates into making good business decisions. Inaccurate or incomplete forecasts and information pose a significant liability to companies when they have to rely on taking a stab in the dark, or worse, making decisions based off of inaccurate data.

The Tradeoff:  Requiring accurate and up to date information from your sales department requires greater effort and time on their part. It usually requires a more in depth training than what may be provided in on-boarding. The case you have to make is that accurate information gives management a clearer picture of what is working and what isn’t. A clearer picture means more money and commission in their bank accounts. Helping sales people understand the why in each step in your process is critical to data integrity.

1. Required versus Preferred Fields

A CRM administrator’s natural instinct is to make ignored data fields required. While this may be a solution in some cases, it usually an indication of a larger problem. For example, say would you like to collect the cell phone numbers so that automated text messages can be sent out before an appointment. The natural instinct would be to make the cell phone field a required field before the record can be saved.

The above solution neglects practicality and the user experience completely. A customer may not feel comfortable giving out their cell phone number or the sales person may forget to ask for it. In either case, the user is forced to put in bad data to save the record. An appropriate solution would be to make the cell phone field a preferred field, highlighting the background of it yellow to remind the user of the importance.

2. Role Specific CRM Training: Keep it Simple, Stupid!

Because a CRM or ERP can span through different organization functions it is crucial to utilize different layout groups and profiles for these users. Determining the scope of each profile is very important to balance complexity, security, and accuracy of information. While on-boarding programs might help employees hit the ground running, role specific training is critical to create and preserve data integrity. Model your role specific training around different layout groups or profiles in your CRM.

3. Red Flag Reports

These reports can help recognize problem areas in data integrity for your organization. The two most telling reports to include are employee start date and employee role. If your company is moving the the right direction employees with more recent start dates will more hygienic data than employees with earlier start dates. Additionally, data check reports segmenting by role and territory can identify shortcomings by certain roles or departments.

Executive Briefing by InsideSales.com Research Team at  Dreamforce 2012