Looking for CRM software for a Advertising Sales Rep

You'll see a lot of comments comparing these products. I just went through such a comparison on a very high level and for me a telling comment came from someone I know who had recently (about 3 years ago) gone through this review, and about a year ago done it again. His focus was as a sales rep, but he's a very practical person, and the comment was :

"I was asked to participate in the review process and we considered the following products; Maximizer, Maximizer Enterprise, Act, Goldmine and SalesLogix. Act and Goldmine are very “lightweight” and not great from a salesman point of view however they both work nicely with MS Office and other Microsoft products. The real competition was between SalesLogix and Max Enterprise. From a salesman’s point of view Maximizer is a much more powerful tool however SalesLogix works very well with Microsoft products. In the end it came down to the following. Maximizer is a great tool for sales people – it functions like sales people work – if you want to make a number of phone calls, send emails or track your contact with clients and potential clients it is great. If you want to mine data from Maximizer to use in reports it can be difficult. Maximizer also doesn’t play nice with Microsoft – so that can pose challenges too. SalesLogix works great with Microsoft, has amazing reporting functionality and is absolutely **** to use as a sales person. It is as though SalesLogix was designed by accountants to keep track of sales people whereas Maximizer was designed by sales people to keep track of customers.".

The comment about Max not playing nice with MSoft referred to version 7, and I would have had to agree. My understanding is that ti's much better in version 9, but I can't say 100% as we use version 7.

To address your comment about wanting to get away from Outlook completely, be careful. Maximizer has a built in mail client that works but has very limited formatting capabilities. Can't speak to Act or Goldmine, but be very careful here. Syncing to Outlook is very common in the CRM world, so don't count it out - if working with the two product together with is intuitive and gives you what you want for functionality, who cares, right?

For your use you'll have to decide - download the trial versions and check them out.

Good luck - and please keep us posted.

- R.

Thanks for the comments. I am really leaning toward Maximizer at this point. I know I can download a trial of each, but the amount of work to really get up and going, I don't want to make a false start if I don't have to.

Its basicly a marraige releationship, pick one and then for better or worst, stick with it.

Perhaps I will rethink my Outlook thoughts, just seems like you shouldn't need anything that "bulky" to handle email, if you've got all your contact info else where.

Thanks again, I'm doing some more research this week and plan to make a decision by next week.

First, Maximizer does not have a built in email client, only a conduit. Without an existing email , Max email can't work.

Maximizers strengths include UDF's, amount of contact info you can keep, document storage, etc. However, it comes up woefully short on Calendar & Scheduling areas.

ACT 2006, stay away from. No more need said, although you can visit various forums for specific feedback. webx.act.com, amazon.com, cnet.com ACT 6, if you can find a version on ebay is not bad.

Goldmine is definetely not 'lightweight'. Not in the least. However, it's interface in very DOS looking, and it has some weird issues that tend to aggravate a person. Supposedly, a new interface is being planned for 2007. Also, much harder to do customizations within GM, including UDF's, reports, etc.

I was a 10+ year user of Act. The last version that I used was Act 6. It was great. As my business grew, Act 6 didnt really suprt netorked multiple users to the degree that I needed. At that time, they (Sage) was releasing Act 2005. I figured I would try it....absolute garbage. It amazed me that a software vendor would release a product that was so clearly not free of bugs. Instead of fixing it completely, they released Act 2006. (they offered me a "special" upgrade price - how sweet of them!)

At that point, I figured I would try to evaluate Maximizer 8.0. I did, and I hated it BECAUSE I WAS USED TO ACT. Its not that Max was bad, just very different than Act. I made the decision to "bite the bullet" and go with Maximizer 9.0 Enterprize, and for the most part have not regretted it. While I am still not totally used to it, it is a very good and stable package. Here are some of the factors that I considered to make this decision:

1. I wanted to OWN my data. There are many packages that once your data was in, there was really no way of getting it out should you need to switch to another solution down the road. As an extension of this, I immediately eliminated all web based solutions: YOUR data is on SOMEONE ELSE'S computer. For me, my business = my data. Nuff said.

2. I looked for a strong network of specialty consultants. I am not willing to spend big bucks for someone to do everything with my database to get it the way I wanted it. That said, my time is worth something, and so from time to time, I use the services of a Maximizer consultant here in Canada. The operaters of this board are a very good choice for that too. Google "Maximzer consultants".

3. I looked for good user support where I could go and post the odd question, and get an intelligent answer. This board was a large part of my decision to go to Max 9 ent. It is a valuable resource. (BTW - toward the end of me using Act, the board that I looked in on now and then was over run by people like me totally disgusted with the poor quality of ACT 2005. Not much help mostly frustrated ramblings)

4. Ease of searching data and generating reports based on that. Act was good, but max is probably a bit better.

5. Ease of customization ( i.e. -User Defined Fields) Customizing Act was a nightmare. Max is very easy to add a field to.

By the way, Act and max both use Outlook or Outlook express, or any other mail client to do email. It is integrated. In both cases, the "front end" is Maximizer (or Act), but the engine running behind it is the email client of your choice. Again, having used both, I think that Maximzer has a slight edge over Act in this area.

I hope this helped.

BTW, I should add that it is once again just me using the database. Ironically, what got me stared looking in other directions (the need to Network Act) no longer exists for me. I will stay with Maximizer now on principle: Sage, in my opinion felt (and perhaps still feel) that it is more important to continually generate (AND SELL) new editions of their software and NOT to make sure that it works. It is my uderstanding that Act 2007 will be arrivng in stores shortly. That just doest seem right to me. That would be like taking in a 1 year old car for warranty work, and the Auto Manufacturer saying, "no we wont fix it, you need to buy out new model" Huh?