Perfectionism Sucks. Seriously. it’s the enemy of anything. The ability to make a decision, to have things ABOUT right is pretty important. Right now, I’m without a CRM, mostly because I’ve been toying with Heap, Highrise, Act 6 and Daylite.
I’ve been trying to predict what I want to do when I grow up, and the fact that I don’t have anything other than Aweber driving automation is holding me back. My list still is good. I still can email and expect a response, but every marketing idea is isolated,it’s in a one off.
And I’ve said that I’ll have a CRM that I’ll adopt for some time. I’m enamored with Heap CRM. I pay $14 bucks a month as an ode to Ben’s genius. I’m also enamored with ACT! 6.0. No other versions, they all suck. ACT 6 is the solo warrior’s best friend–except that it is a PC program and even OPENING the email component makes my mac FUBAR.
The prbolem is that I have nothing, it’s hemming me in. In Geddy’s immortal words: I have chosen not to decide, and thus have made a choice. So, Sunday morning, I’m going to worship at the Church of CRM and make a decision by noon and spend the rest of the time implimenting it.
You can waste time shopping, or you can F#!@%ing get something done. Nothing is perfect. All of my choices sort of have limitaitons that I hate, from having to use the damn mouse for too much (Heap) to lack of activity series (highrise) to being forced to be on a PC (ACT!). But the fact that I have nothing is fierecely stupid. I have aweber. And for those of you on one of my lists, hi there.
I love heap, I want to like it, but it’s such a drag to use the mouse. Seriously, it limits radically the people that will become customers. I’m not into slowing down, I’m not into mousing around, I want to hit ALT-C. Whatever.
Any CRM people have suggestions? Do I need to get my own made, adopt sugar?
Getting ANYTHING decided is important.
So it’ll either be DAYLITE or HEAP. I suspect Daylite CRM even though I never got to use it during my 30 Day Trial.. If I was using it, I’d know who I was supposed to call back today. As it is, if I’ve left you out and you’re not in the process forgive me.
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I use the free version of Salesforce.com for individuals, which I’ve had for about 4 years. I’m not sure it’s still even available anymore – I may have a legacy version that they decided never to turn off, but if you can get it go for it. You can also sign up for a developer’s version of Salesforce.com for free as well, so there’s that alternative. I have a developer’s account, which I never use except when I was doing demos for my last job at a software company that provided integration to Salesforce.com’s API – I used it in demos.
That’s my .02 cents worth.
You’re a Type-A personality like me … Salesforce.com, hands down. You can get “Group” edition for $99 per year, and it’s incredibly customizable. Highrise will drive you insane when you can’t add custom fields for people’s Twitter handles (you’ll want to search by handle more often than you may realize), or the ability to enter the Twitter handle as one field (alias) and have another field auto-create a clickable link. (URL fields aren’t searchable, so this lets you search by handle AND click through easily.)
I’m an efficiency consultant who works with Type-A consultants/business owners and I’ve done more than 70 successful setups. You won’t be disappointed. (And I rarely endorse *anything.*)