A lot is going on in my life these days.

• My youngest is graduating from the University of Texas this month… and he has a job. Yea!
• I will be out of town all next week attending the annual Sage Business Partner (and ACT! Certified Consultants) Insights conference in Denver (learning about the next version, checking out new add-ons, meeting with tech support teams to compare notes, etc.). There will be several thousand partners in attendance. 
• I’m also presenting at the conference on ”How to Implement Drip Marketing in Your Business.” In addition, I will be one of two business partners on a panel discussion about effective marketing methods in today’s economy.
• Cornerstone is planning another ACT Road Show on Wednesday, June 23rd in Houston to let our clients and prospects see what is up with ACT, but I am thinking about an online option as well for our out-of-town friends. (Save the date… and more to come on this later.)
• And I have just finished writing another book… The Swiftpage E-marketing QuickStudy Guide.

I’ve also been doing a lot of speaking lately at networking groups and at other conferences as well. I’m speaking at the ICED conference in June… again on using E-marketing strategies with your database.

I’m always looking for referrals for speaking at networking groups in the greater Houston area, or at conferences anywhere. Let me know if you are part of a group that is looking for a speaker with excellent content Which brings me to today’s tip…

Referrals are a big part of our business.

Part of giving referrals is also sending someone the basic contact information on the referral that you are passing on. I worked with someone recently who wanted to develop a template that merged just the basic contact information into a Word document. After I showed him how to do it, I asked him why he wanted this template. (After I heard his answer, I was kicking myself for not asking first. I have a much easier way to do what he wanted to do. )

Tip #1-Copying ACT Contact Information

This tip is so easy and it works no matter what version of ACT you are using (except for the Web users… sorry about that). If you want to send basic contact information from a contact in your ACT! database to someone else (like a referral)…

1. Lookup the Contact(s) in ACT
2. Click anywhere in one of the fields (you cannot be in the Notes or History tab), but do not select or highlight anything in Contact Detail view. If you are in Contact List view, tag or select the contacts to copy.
3. Press [Ctrl+C] on the keyboard to Copy the contact’s basic information (nothing happens).
4. In your email message or Word Document where you plan to include the contact’s information, press [Ctrl+V] to paste the information. It will look like this…

Susan Clark
President
Cornerstone Solutions, Inc.
713-661-5093
713-661-5096
PO Box 270514
Houston, TX 77277-0514
clark@cornerstonesolutions.com

The first phone number comes from the Phone field and the second one is the Fax. I usually delete the fax number before sending on. You cannot include any other phone numbers or other fields in this copy and paste operation. But if this works for you… it is so easy… and you can always manually include any additional information (like a Cell number) if you wish.

Tip #2-Sending a vCard

If you are using ACT 2010, you can also send a vCard (a virtual card with all of the contact information that can easily go into someone’s email Address Book… such as Outlook).

1. Lookup the contact(s) in ACT.
2. Right-click on the layout background (not a field). If you are in Contact List view, tag or select the contacts to send and the right-click on one of the highlighted contact rows that you have selected.
3. Select Send vCard.
4. A New Message email will display, with the vCard(s) attached. Continue filling out the email and click Send.
5. The recipient can double-click the attachment(s) to add the contact(s) to their own email address book (not to ACT!).

So hey, reply to this and send me a referral of someone you know who might be interested in using ACT! or doing more with their existing database (like marketing)… or maybe you know a group or conference that needs a speaker!

Thanks

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This weekend I attended my uncle’s 80th birthday in another city. It was a wonderful time of sharing and reconnecting with aunts, uncles, and cousins who came in from all over the United States. I haven’t laughed that much in years.

I come from a family of story tellers where each one tries to top the embellishments of the one before them… as we all have our own version of a shared memory. And 80 years comes with lots of memories. There were war-time stories of my uncle’s life as an MP in Japan (I still have my Japanese porcelain baby doll that he sent back for me). There were the vacation stories when the youngest cousin almost drowned (funny now… but not at the time). We compared movies (visual stories) that had made an impact on our lives. We poked fun at our youthful antics and marveled that we lived to tell the tales.

It was a reminder to me of how stories have a unique power over us. Even the great-grandchildren frequently found their way into the circle as they listened to the narratives. We are all drawn to stories, especially when they reveal a layer that we didn’t know about or teach us something new or just show us something about ourselves. It was a great reminder to me that I need to use more stories in my own writing.

As you work with your marketing messages, instead of including bullet points of how great you are… let a story do that by telling how a client was helped by your product or service. Or perhaps you should begin gathering testimonials… first-person stories… that you can include in in your promotional materials. As you work on your marketing messages this year, pratice telling your own stories to make your emails come alive.

I know I’ll remember the stories for years to come.

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