Almost! But Not Quite There

In my daily interaction with advertising partners, voice over talents, and other associates who are looking to manage their business with good, effective online tools, I have many opportunities to make recommendations. I spent quite a few years as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) web technology developer, so this is a topic that I am very familiar with. As a voice actor, it is imperative to manage my business appropriately and take advantage of every little "extra" that I can use to market my services.

There are a couple of tools that I usually recommend to customers and colleagues for their daily workflow. They are as follows:

• Microsoft Office Live (for a website complete with contact/opportunity management, online marketing, etc)
• Windows Workspaces - for "team" collaboration and exchange/versioning of files
• Dynamics CRM Live - a standard CRM for account/lead/opportunity management, marketing, service, etc
• Salesforce.com - same functionality -- more or less -- as Dynamics CRM

There are many web hosts on the internet these days, and many of the ones available have sufficient features/prices for creating a website, managing one's business, etc. In my personal experiences, and that of clients that I have assisted both as a developer and a voice actor, Office Live has been fairly adequate for daily needs.

I only wish that Office Live would offer the features (or direct access to) Dynamics CRM Live, even if it is as an "upgrade" to the Office Live services. Most of Office Live's additional features are only available if one is using their "built in" page editor. For most people, this is fine. However, if you want to "go the extra mile" and design your own pages in your favorite web page designer, you lose those features. This appears to be a trend from Microsoft through the years -- to lump users into "user camps", for instance "the microsoft office camp", the "developer camp", etc. While having a target audience can be helpful to meet their needs, when it comes to online productivity and how it has evolved, this holds people down more than it helps.

On the topic of CRM, I think Dynamics CRM is an excellent product, I only wish it were more accessible to individual users. In order to use Dynamics CRM Live, you must purchase a minimum of 5 user licenses (plus a one time only additional $79 fee). This obviously points out that Microsoft is going after "smaller" businesses, but not individuals. I think that is a blatant mistake, as most individuals' businesses grow and they become loyal to the tools they enjoy. This is where Salesforce.com is doing things in a more intelligent way, in my humble opinion. Salesforce.com has a "personal" edition that you can use for free. There are some limitations with the personal version, but most "one person businesses" won't notice the difference. When you are ready to grow the business, you can purchase licenses individually. Therefore, I must recommend Salesforce.com to all of my associates who need to manage their work processes in a small shop.

I hope Microsoft considers changing Office Live to make it more flexible to "power users" while not forcing them to give up features. I also hope that they enhance the CRM product to allow for single license purchases -- or even [gasp] allow "free" individual usage, even if it is for a slightly slimmed down version of the CRM Live product.

As we all face tough economic times and advertising dollars that are diminishing, hopefully this will help you in making some decisions that assist you with running your daily business.