When your new sales leads come in, how do you qualify how valuable a prospect they are?

Do you simply rely on what you are told in emails or telephone conversations with the individual and believe their self-promoting hype about how they own the company, hold the purse strings and how their company is a multi-million pound global company? Or do you do a little detective work and find out that they are actually the cleaner for a local start-up?

As we approach the Christmas holiday season, it's time to take stock of our CRM solution and check it still does what we need.

This video shows how SugarCRM can be used in a normal business day and how it fits in with your company's day to day business activities.

Bill Greenhead "Stik" (@Stiktoonz), creator of the World of Cow cartoons has drawn a cowtoon, especially for our Movember efforts.

EnableIT Technologies, 7th Movember, 2011

Throughout the month of Movember, sales team members Joe Bushnell and Mike Gee will be joining millions of men world wide who are growing a Charity Related Moustache as part of the Movember movement.

If you are thinking about leaving Salesforce.com, you may be in for more than you bargained for when they try to keep your custom, as a current Salesforce customer recently found out.

Social media is not just about advertising who you are and what you do. Neither is it about telling people, complete with photographic evidence, what you ate for lunch (as some Twitter users seems to try to convince otherwise).

It's about engaging with your contacts (whether they be friends, customers, prospective customers, vendors, suppliers etc.) in another manner. In the same way that Email revolutionised communication back in the 80s and 90s, so Social Media and Social Networking is giving us yet another way of reaching our audience, whether using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or any other of the myriad of Social paltforms.

But how often do you try to make what you do on those stand out from the crowd? Or are you just adding to the "noise" with postings like "I've just got on the bus - I hope it gets me to work on time"?

This time of year gives you the chance to practice for one of the biggest seasons of the year in the social networking calendar.

With the latest editions of SugarCRM it's possible to follow twitter conversations and perform LinkedIn lookups from within the CRM without having to go the the relevant website.

Imagine, if you will, that you are in the market to improve the performance, handling, top speed and styling of your run of the mill car.

You manage to track down, via the Internet, a trusted company who advertise that you can have the required work done in their capable hands. You make a call to the number on their website and are told that they are willing to discuss your requirements, in person, that day.

You get in your car (it makes sense to let them see what you already have) and go to their workshops.
You spend the next 20 minutes discussing what you'd like, what your expectations are and ask if they can help.
It turns out, not only can they help, they can give you a free trial of their services!