Act! empowers SMBs with a powerful, all-in-one CRM and marketing platform that centralizes customer data, streamlines sales, and drives loyalty through personalized engagement. With intuitive tools, real-time insights, and dedicated support, Act! helps you attract prospects, hit sales goals, and turn relationships into lasting results.
SourceForge Podcast listeners can get a free trial and 10% off Act! with promo code ACTSOURCEFORGE.
Listeners in the United Kingdom can get a free trial and 10% off Act! with promo code ACTSOURCEFORGE.
In this episode of the SourceForge Podcast, we speak with Bruce Reading, CEO of Act!, about the evolution of CRM and its impact on small business growth. We discuss the functionality of Act!’s software, its adaptability to industry changes, and the importance of customer support and human engagement. Bruce shares insights on onboarding non-tech savvy clients, scalability for growing businesses, and the role of AI in enhancing customer relationships. The conversation also touches on building long-term customer loyalty and Bruce’s career journey in the software industry.
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Show Notes
Takeaways
- Act! has been a leader in CRM since 1987, adapting to industry changes.
- Simplicity and customer feedback drive Act!’s product development.
- Customer support is a key differentiator for Act!, with dedicated account managers.
- Onboarding is crucial for non-tech savvy clients to maximize software use.
- Scalability is built into Act!’s offerings, accommodating businesses of all sizes.
- Economic uncertainty impacts small businesses more than larger ones.
- AI can automate functions but should not overwhelm users.
- Human engagement remains essential in customer relationships.
- Act! Advantage introduces new modules for enhanced functionality.
- Understanding unique value is vital for startups to compete.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction to CRM and Act!
01:33 – Understanding Act!’s Functionality and Use Cases
06:31 – Adapting to Industry Changes and Customer Needs
08:24 – What Sets Act! Apart in the CRM Space
11:07 – Onboarding and Supporting Non-Tech Savvy Clients
12:25 – Scalability and Flexibility for Growing Businesses
14:33 – Responding to Economic Uncertainty
18:26 – The Role of AI in Business
21:31 – The Importance of Human Engagement
25:04 – New Features and Product Updates
27:46 – Building Long-Term Customer Loyalty
30:21 – Bruce’s Career Journey and Insights
33:48 – Advice for Startups Competing with Giants
35:53 – Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts
Transcript
Beau Hamilton (00:05)
Hello everyone and welcome to the SourceForge Podcast. Thank you for joining us today. I’m your host, Beau Hamilton, Senior Editor and Multimedia Producer here at SourceForge, the world’s most visited software comparison site where B2B software buyers compare and find business software solutions.
Today on the show, we’re focusing on the world of CRM and small business growth with someone who knows it inside and out. Bruce Reading, CEO of Act!. For decades, Act! has helped sales teams, marketers, and business owners streamline their workflows, nurture customer relationships and drive measurable growth, all while adapting to all the different shifts in the tech landscape since its founding in 1987. That is no easy feat given how fast this industry moves.
In this conversation, we’ll talk about how Act! continues to evolve in this space, what sets it apart from its competitors, and how it supports the small and mid-sized businesses that are the backbone of its success, I would say. I’m also going to tap into Bruce’s leadership journey and get his take on a number of things like building long-term customer loyalty, staying resilient through economic downturns and what startups can do to sort of punch above their weight.
As a podcast listener, you’ll also be eligible for an exclusive 10 % discount on a new Act! subscription. You can visit Act!.com slash source, forage, to claim your offer and get started. So with all of that said, let me introduce Bruce Reading. Bruce, welcome to the podcast. Glad you can join us.
Bruce Reading (01:25)
Beau, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Beau Hamilton (01:27)
Yeah, so before we get into some of the weeds, the nitty gritty details, could you just introduce yourself and give us your overview of Act! and what it offers clients?
Bruce Reading (01:37)
Sure, no, is a long-standing 38-year-old company that has been offering solutions to small business providers globally, specifically to manage the relationship between their business and their customers.
Beau Hamilton (01:53)
Gotcha. Thanks for setting that foundation. I think the fact that you were started in 1987 is just pretty incredible. And I’ve got a lot of questions surrounding that long history. Can you talk about some of the key tangible use cases of your platform and how businesses, which includes marketers and sales teams and whatnot, how they typically integrate Act! into their workflows?
Bruce Reading (02:16)
Sure, you know, it’s interesting. Small businesses, their focus should not be on the tools that they use to manage their business. It should be on their business and their ability to maintain and grow those businesses profitably and economically. So with Act!, what we try to ensure that we enable for our customers is the ability to use our products and services in a simplified, effective manner, so that it becomes part of their day-to-day life, no matter what your role. Many of the small businesses out in the universe, they wear multiple hats, whether they’re managing their back office, their finance operations, their front office marketing, and or sales, they’ve got a lot on their plate. And so what we’ve tried to do is make sure that we provided functional capabilities, regardless of the role, whether it’s in-house or outsourced so that you can manage the engagement with a prospect indoor customer seamlessly.
So if you think about sales, if you’re actively engaged in marketing your company and selling a product indoor service, you want to be able to do things like quote, track that quote, bring that quote back in as an approved offer, be able to bill off of that quote accurately, and then obviously inform the product indoor services that are needing to be fulfilled off of that quote.
All of that can be done from a front end standpoint using Act! software. If you’re on the marketing side, you’re concerned more with your communication paths, your customer communication, your prospect communication, and you want to be able to not only be able to push out communication, whether it be through SMS or email, but also be able to monitor and then react to communication that’s coming back either from a prospect or a customer. And so again, with Act! Software, you have the ability to seamlessly manage that engagement bi-directionally so that you know someone opened that email, somebody read that email, somebody responded to that email, et cetera.
Also on the front end, whether you be in sales or marketing, you want to make sure that you have clarity on engagement. So if someone visits your website, you want to be able to capture that. You want to be able to capture the information if they fill out a form interested in a particular product or service that you’re offering, and then bring that into the customer or prospect records within your software seamlessly. You don’t want to have to manually print off, re-record it. You want it to be able to be brought in and deposited and then alerted on that deposit of that information.
If you’re on the finance side, if you’re, if you’re concerned, whether you’re in-house, you’re the solopreneur that does their own billing. You’ve got outsourced finance or you may have a finance function in that small business. You want to be able to bill that customer. You want to be able to bring that payments back in. And then all of that information, you’re not handling the actual accounting function, but you want to bring that into the customer records so that you have, again, one place, a single pane of glass, if you will, to be able to understand and manage that engagement around the billing function and accounts payable and accounts receivable.
So those are some examples. There’s a plethora of functional capabilities that can be automated using our software, even for the smallest solopreneur out there, so that they can function and automate all of that engagement and be able to then use Act! software to have a single source to be able to go and understand the engagement between that customer and or prospect, regardless of the discipline that they’re examining.
Beau Hamilton (05:49)
Right. Yeah. Thanks for breaking that down. I imagine, you know, your platform looks completely unrecognizable from what it looked like when you’re founding years, right? Just with all the different tools and how it’s been built out. Cause again, I think it’s really impressive how your company has been relevant, continued to stay relevant throughout these decades. I mean, almost four decades to be exact with tons of different industry changes. I mean, you talk about like the shift of two, like an all-in-one system as opposed to just maybe contact databases, you have the rise of cloud-based CRM, and of course we’re entering this AI era. How would you say your company is able to stay flexible and keep up with the changing industry trends and what customers are looking for?
Bruce Reading (06:34)
So it starts with the premise of simplicity. And it’s very easy for, if you think about a day in the life, it’s very easy for an entrepreneur or a small business to get lost in administravia and forget or lose track of the amount of time they need to be spending on building and maintaining their business.
So one of the key principles for us is to listen very closely to our customers, understand, if you will, what keeps them awake at night and what they’re challenged by, and then bring that functionality into the product, but bringing in, in a simple and easy to use manner. I’ve used a number of different CRM tools over the years, and it becomes, with the added functionality, becomes a risk because of the complexity associated with the additional functionality.
So what we’ve tried to do, well, we’ve incorporated very deep and rich capabilities in our software, almost all of it has been driven by customer requirements, customer feedback. We’ve got several million users of our software over those 40 years, and tens of thousands of companies that have all had input into where we currently sit with our product offerings. The priority has to be on utilization that’s simple and easy to use.
AI represents tremendous potential to automate functionality, to simplify functionality, but it won’t replace the functionality. You still have to have the capability to manage that engagement with your customer and or prospect across those multiple disciplines as we discussed earlier.
Beau Hamilton (08:05)
So yeah, you want to focus on simplicity, listen to what your clients are kind of discussing, what their needs are. I know, yeah, the CRM space is definitely crowded with some big names. So could you continue to kind of describe what makes Act! stand out, especially for small and mid-sized businesses and not just the enterprises?
Bruce Reading (08:28)
Sure. You know, I think one of the advantages I’ve got is I’m supported by our investors to maintain a high degree of engagement with our customers. Profitability is important. It’s important to every business. But in our world, we have the opportunity to differentiate ourselves by partnering with our customers. And that’s an often used term. But for us, what it means is being available so that our customers have the opportunity to engage with the human being. Whether that be on their success side, how do I do this? Or I want to do this. Where do I leverage that functionality in my software? All of that is resonant in the ability to self-examine, but we also answer the phone. Every customer we have is assigned an account manager. That account manager’s role is to ensure that that customer is supported in any way necessary to ensure their success through the use of our software.
We also have live agents that answer the phone on the support side. So if you have a technical issue, if you’re running on our thick client software in a local area environment, there’s a significant amount of potential complexity in that environment. So the ability to support that customer through being able to pick up the phone, not just enter a ticket or self-examine for support, but actually being there to support them with tier one and tier two human beings is a major differentiator.
Our product is fully automated, but in partnership, we also believe in being there with human beings that they can engage with. And most of our entrepreneurs, almost all of our customers look to that partnership. That’s why they’ve been here. Our average tenure is well over 20 years with our customers. They’ve been here because we have been their partner through good and challenging times for them. And we’ve tried to support them as best we can around their unique needs.
Beau Hamilton (10:23)
Yeah, I love that. Always keeping a human in the loop and just maintaining the partnerships with customers. Because I know customer support is, it’s always been important, but it’s really important, especially these days as we enter this AI era where all these different automated support chats and recommendations, and they’re just being rolled out all over the place. And, you know, being able to automate this area can be helpful, but you also want to make sure you have a qualified team of people able to assist when needed. You also want to make sure you’re not just focusing on the big clients. You’re making sure the SMBs all feel valued and are getting the attention they deserve. Now for clients who aren’t particularly tech savvy, how do you help them understand and just get the most value out of the platform?
Bruce Reading (11:12)
It’s a great question. So one of the key principles, so our business is a recurring revenue SaaS, Software-as-a-Service business. One of the key principles is the ability to deliver value to the customer as quickly as you can. So literally day one. The way we go about doing that is through customer onboarding, again, with live agents specifically designed, they’re given the use case from our sales team so that they understand the type of business the customer is in, what they’re looking to accomplish short and medium term. And their role is in onboarding that customer literally on day one to ensure they start, they understand the basics of using the product, and then they build out a roadmap of success with that customer so that that customer and the account manager can then work on increasing their level of aptitude around the use of the software.
So in a very short period of time, they not only begin to use the product, but the sophistication around how they use the product grows at their pace appropriate for their business.
Beau Hamilton (12:15)
Yeah, so let’s talk about that sort of scalability and the flexibility that Act! offers there. Because obviously that’s, I would say easier said than done. So how do you handle the needs of clients experiencing maybe rapid growth and what kind of mechanisms do you have at play?
Bruce Reading (12:29)
Sure. So a key part of it is the offerings that they can take advantage and leverage. The functional capabilities are virtually the same, whether you’re just getting started as a small business or you’re scaling. The difference is the level of sophistication, the depth, if you will, as to how you want to go about using that product into our capability. So our products offer two different ways and, as I’ve alluded to, we support with human engagement that a customer as they’re scaling, even if it’s hyper scaling, they have the ability to consume more of the product. That simply changes the level at which they’re engaged in terms of their subscription rate. The functionality is there. So if they, if they’re fortunate enough to be in that hyper scale environment, not only is the functionality there that they can deepen their sophistication around, but you, you can scale very rapidly through simply using the product more effectively. And then your account manager will work with you to upgrade you to the next level of consumption, whatever around whatever functionality it is that you happen to be using.
So, you know, we like to believe that we bring very sophisticated capabilities in a simplified fashion to the beginner to maybe those organizations that don’t have the technical support or the operational ability to focus on our software. And we, we replace that with our own engagement and then we scale with that customer accordingly.
Beau Hamilton (13:53)
Now, I know there’s a lot of uncertainty these days in the business world. And I like that you have these like tools and the foundation to help a company scale. But I think a lot of companies, you know, there are different, differing sort of degrees of growth at any given time. And obviously, yeah, there’s a lot of uncertainty with the political climate, as well as all these AI automations making businesses and employees much more efficient, but also a little bit kind of weary of where things are going, I guess, and how quickly we’re able to respond, I guess, as a society on a macro scale.
So yeah, I’m just curious, like, how are you responding to today’s changing economic climate and the impact it might have on small business in particular?
Bruce Reading (14:38)
Sure. You know, I think it’s interesting and we’re hearing more and more, given the uncertainty that you alluded to in particular in the U.S., but in other parts of the world as well, you know, that small business does not have the same level of flexibility that perhaps a larger organization may have to be able to absorb some of the ebbs and flows of economic cycles. And so downturns in their business and pressure on their business economically represents far greater risk to the SMB than perhaps a larger organization.
Our capabilities are such that you can expand or contract based upon your requirements and do that very cost effectively. Typically, if you want to look at a spend you may have on the OPEC side in your business, say for marketing automation, you may be using other products and or services that you spend money on. You have the ability to consolidate that spend and leverage that.
Now we don’t promote or we certainly don’t market and manage to those replacements, if you will. But when you look at the functionality in Act! Advantage platform, you have the opportunity to consider the replacement of considerable operational spend and exposure and consolidate that into our platform in a way that provides material economic advantage and reduction in the operational exposure that you may have.
The functionality is going to be very similar and depending on your level of sophistication, I think that there’s opportunity that you can consider the use of Act! in replacement of other technologies in other parts of your business that you can then materially improve on the operational performance of your business accordingly.
Beau Hamilton (16:24)
Hmm, that’s really interesting. Yeah, I’d love to kind of sit down and talk or just look at your all these different mechanisms and what your software looks like. Maybe we’ll have to have you back with a with product demo one of these days, but…
Bruce Reading (16:36)
Yeah, I’d love to. It’s interesting because for me, one of the most important attributes is the software that we just brought to market encompasses 20 years of development, all fed by customer requirements. And so, you know, it’s easy to get lost in the hyper aspect of building cool tech. And I think a lot of my competitors in this ERM space, they’ve got some really interesting approaches to the technology.
But what our kind of secret sauce has been is that our product offerings all are gauged on customers specifically asking for this type of functionality in this way, whether it be in finance or marketing or customer support, so that it best supports their needs and isn’t just about cool tech, but actually brings functional differentiation into their business, which is what kind of drives our success is the ability for our customers to realize value, not act to realize value.
Beau Hamilton (17:35)
Yeah. Yeah. I think listening to the customer is huge. I also, I want to talk about, kind of ask you about your, you know, your experience weathering all these different trends. And I don’t want to like beat a dead horse with the topic of AI, but of course that’s the, that’s the big topic, of the, our, of our time right now. And it’s interesting, it’s almost all of our guests we have on the podcast seem like they’re really bullish on the upsides of AI and what impact it’ll have on the world. And while I’m a bit of a techno optimist myself, it’s hard for me to grapple, I would say, with the short-term impact of this technology because it’s being ushered into the world so quickly before people can really adapt and learn new skills to keep them employed and whatnot.
You’ve obviously helped clients weather a lot of different trends. So I’m curious what your view is of AI as a whole and how it impacts the world. And maybe even just focusing on the business world, how will it impact small businesses?
Bruce Reading (18:32)
Sure, I think AI in its current instantiation and certainly as it evolves, it’ll become better and tighter and more effective, automates a significant amount of redundant functionality that allows you to become far more efficient in the way you go about leveraging technology. The key is for us in the SMB space is not to overwhelm our customers with the use of AI, but present it in the product and as adjunct capability so that they can leverage at their own pace in a manner that’s appropriate for their technical skills, their acumen, their interests, etcetera.
Much of the way we leverage AI today is centered around extracting value and presenting it to our customers in different ways, whether it be about their customers, whether it be about technology evolution, whether it be around process. We’re using AI tools to bring all of that forward in a manner that our customers can consume. And then obviously supporting that with the human engagement, as we’ve discussed.
I think AI represents enormous potential, but it’s not going to replace, you know, the engagement aspect of our customers with their addressable market, whether it be prospects or their customers. And I think our role is in bringing AI forward through the use of our tools in a manner that doesn’t overwhelm our customers, doesn’t intimidate our customers, but effectively puts them in a position of control and allows them to dictate the pace at which they adopt and leverage the potential of our software accordingly.
Beau Hamilton (20:05)
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Give them the tools to kind of use at their own discretion and however they see fit. You’re kind of the, yeah, the middle man in that sense. And I like also just the, it’s reassuring to hear that like the human aspect and human connections are still really the backbone of, of really any business still to this day. I know we kind of get obsessed with like all these AI agents and automations kind of, you know, doing all the heavy lifting and stuff.
But I’m a little old fashioned in the sense that I still think the human interaction is key to really a successful business and a successful partnership.
Bruce Reading (20:44)
Listen, Beau, I just want to act with something you just said, because I think it resonates with me, especially. Obviously, I’ve got a lot more miles on the tires, if you will. I just had a conversation literally the other day with a 20-something startup, 20-year-old-something startup. There were four of them virtually working under their garage. Very bright, capable. They came out of Stanford, actually.
The reason I was having a conversation with them was that I have a standing offer on our website that allows anyone to contact me at any time that wants to talk about business, if I can help them in any way. And what they called about was the ability to leverage our software. These guys are very bright and very capable technologically, but they’re starting in their career. So what are they lacking? Experience.
And so what our software represents is years, literally 38 years of customers telling us. This functionality is important to me because I want it in the product. They don’t have any of that experience or any of that visibility. So for them, they can certainly go there, but they don’t understand it because they’ve not had that experience. And so they wanted to talk about, why do you have that functionality? How should I think about leveraging that, etcetera? That’s not something that AI can provide. You can provide use cases and examples and they can read them, but having that conversation, a 20 something that’s starting out in business with someone that’s been around for a few years explaining why there’s resident functionality that customers have requested and then how it’s put to use.
They found, you know, it was a use case for me that really reinforced our need to make sure we make available to anybody, whether it be an experienced business person or someone just starting the opportunity to engage, to discuss the unique trends and requirements of their business.
Beau Hamilton (22:33)
Right. Yeah. I just love that you’re able to, you know, put yourself be open to having these conversations, right? And, and the fact that they’re able to get so much information from you by talking with you, as opposed to just trying to, to find out the information online through their own sources, chatbots, ChatGPT, etcetera, etcetera.
Yeah. I think there’s a, you know, there’s definitely the generational kind of divide of like, you know, maybe it’s growing up with the pandemic or just the internet age where there’s not as much human face-to-face interactions. I mean, the fact that we’re having this over sort of a Zoom call is kind of a byproduct of that. But yeah, it’s worth reiterating the importance of just talking to someone like yourself who has the industry experience and the different perspective.
But I also, I just love bringing these questions up because, not to get into the doom and gloom on this topic because it can definitely get there, but it’s just a lot of material to talk about over the dinner table, you know, where so many of these conversations come up.
Bruce Reading (23:40)
Absolutely. And the thing about our business, we serve, I don’t know, 25,000 companies and hundreds of thousands of daily users. And we have in the background several million people that have our software. Each of them are unique. They’re unique in different ways. Their businesses are unique. They, as individuals, are unique. The mindset around how they’re going about managing their business, building their business. Thinking about the different challenges that they’re facing. Everyone is unique.
And so for us, we can put together a library, which we’ve done, that has all kinds of access to knowledge, which pretty much every software vendor does. But what it lacks is context. What it lacks is the ability to say, you know, as a financial advisor, as an insurance person, as a fine arts dealer, here are some of the things that we’ve experienced with other customers that are in similar types businesses that may be helpful for you to consider or did you know that or that’s a real challenge, but you have the opportunity to address that in this way. Those are things that don’t naturally come out of just a knowledge base and access to automated engagement, whether it be on the support side, whether it be on the success side, it comes through human engagement. And that I think is part of our secret sauce.
Beau Hamilton (24:59)
Right. Yeah, I love that. Do you have any upcoming exciting updates or new features or partnerships that users can look forward to?
Bruce Reading (25:09)
Yeah, you know, it’s funny you asked that we just released a product called Act! Advantage, which is an expansion of functionality with our cloud capabilities. Within Act! Advantage, there is a significant, I think there’s 13 new modules that allow customers to consider value in different areas of their business. Again, solopreneur that may outsource certain functionality up to, you know, 100, 200, 300 user accounts. That was a big step forward. That was the culmination of a couple of years of work, bringing all of that customer knowledge together in an integrated platform.
The next step for us is to bring that functionality to our thick client environment and our thick client customers where for unique reasons to them, they want to stay in a localized environment. They don’t want to run, you know, their CRM capabilities in the cloud. So, what our job now is to bring that type of functionality to them in a unique environment. And that’s, you know, stay tuned on that. I would encourage you to take a look at where we are right now, given we just launched Advantage last month. But I think in the coming months, what you’re going to see is that type of product related functionality come across out of the cloud into our local area environments as well.
Beau Hamilton (26:27)
Yeah, that’s exciting to hear about. So Act! Advantage. Now, do you have a strict release cadence that you follow, or is it as these features and products are just finished being developed? Or how does that release cycle work?
Bruce Reading (26:44)
Yeah, we have, as is typical with most SaaS businesses, there’s a pretty regular cadence because with a cloud product, it’s one software code base that services many. So we’re in a cadence of two week updates to that software. It may be minor that customers never see, or it may be a major feature release. But every two weeks, we are evolving the capability in cloud. That’s one of the advantages of a cloud offer versus desktop or thick client.
With our thick client environments, we’re at once a quarter where we make available to customers and it’s their choice to upgrade or not, depending on the functionality, some take advantage, some don’t. But the cloud is every two weeks, the desktop environment is every 90 days.
Beau Hamilton (27:31)
Gotcha. That’s great. So every two weeks you have something new and shiny to look forward to. Yeah, so you mentioned Act Advantage. I think that’s fantastic. It’s always nice just to have some new and shiny features to look forward to. I think that constant future-facing mindset is clearly part of your long-term success, I would say. Now, again, with your decades-long customer relationships, I’m curious, what is the secret to that kind of loyalty, and what advice would you give to other companies trying to build those close, long-term customer ties?
Bruce Reading (28:03)
So, I think there’s a couple of key drivers for us. And I think the company has benefited from that customer loyalty in a couple of different ways. It starts with value. If your product and or service does not represent good value, customers will find that value elsewhere, typically for better economics. So I think, first of all, we’ve provided a high quality product and or service for a long time. I think what is also important is that, as you evolve, you don’t overreach in terms of the economics you expect. You have to, I have to manage my business to optimize for profitability, just like everybody else does, all of my customers do. But I have to do that with an understanding that anything I do has to be first and foremost, is it going to bring that value or expand that value to our customer?
I think the second thing is the empowerment of our team. We have very much unlocked significant potential. And this is an overused phrase, but I strongly believe in it. When I empower people to do the right thing with customer-first being the mindset of literally everyone in the business, great things happen. Customer calls, they’re speaking to a tier one support rep. On that rep’s mind is, what do I do to satisfy? How do I please this customer? What is it that is necessary? In order for me to try to get that customer address that issue, whatever it may be. That mindset is resonant within the whole company and supported by me every day.
And I think that over time, when the organization embraces that approach, goodness happens for your customer because their best interest is always first and foremost in the minds of everybody inside of that. And I think that explains more than anything else why customers consume, pay, and have been with us for a long time.
Beau Hamilton (29:58)
That’s great advice. Yeah, I hope the business leaders and marketers, salespeople listening to this are taking notes because that’s very valuable. Now I want to zoom out slightly to talk about your career. I know I just kind of mentioned that and then asked you a business question, but I want to ask, how did you get started in this industry, first of all?
Bruce Reading (30:21)
So I’ve been around software literally since the early 90s. I began my career in financial services in Canada, in Toronto at a college. And my first startup was building software for the gaming industry. My partner and I were based in Calgary, Alberta. And it was through that experience that I started to understand the emergence of and the impact of software.
I went from that, we sold that business to Ballet Gaming, seems like a million years ago now, but I went into a legacy brand called Dictaphone and ran their Canadian operations for them. And it was at a time when we were emerging from very much an analog based approach for a hundred years since the company had been formed by Alexander Graham Bell way back in the day into a digital environment. So the ability to capture in an operating theater in 911 application, digital content and information, and then be able to leverage that taught me about the transition that was occurring and the acceleration of that pace.
When we sold Dictaphone, I went to my first startup in the States and same thing. My career path has been primarily in emerging technologies in and around software. With that, it’s an interesting play for me. It’s like turning back the clock. This company has a very long and proud history, but had lost a little bit of that drive towards innovation. And so the investors in Act!, when they turned to me and asked me to consider this, really were looking to tap into my ability to understand the innovation path and how do we reintroduce innovation into a very strong and storied company in Act!, but really start to move towards the ability to capture enormous potential value through the innovation that we brought to market. And that’s really been my focus since I arrived.
Beau Hamilton (32:25)
That’s really interesting. Yeah, I think your experience working in various startups, I think is really valuable and speaks to the innovation side of things. I can see why they’d be interested in having you on board.
Bruce Reading (32:38)
Yeah, it’s interesting too, because it translates into our customer base. When you think about the SMB space, I’ve been in their world. I’ve faced the uncertainty of next quarter and the ability to make payroll or the uncertainty of the competitive pressure I’m under and how do I leverage my unique capabilities and bring that forward. So I can empathize with no matter what they are doing, what business vertical they’re in. I can empathize with those challenges. And I think that that resonates greatly, not just with our customers, but also with our staff.
And when I talk to, you know, the ability to be tuned into what our customers face and think about their success and putting customer success first for them, it has made a significant transformative shift in the mindset of how we embrace our customers. And I think, you know, the results are in our financial performance.
Beau Hamilton (33:32)
Yeah, so I teased the question of, you know, how do you, what advice do you have for startups to help punch above their weight? But so I want to ask you, yeah, what advice would you provide startups to help them compete with some of the industry juggernauts out there?
Bruce Reading (33:58)
Well, I think, you know, it’s a difficult question from the standpoint of the individual or the individuals that are in the SMB space. But I think defining who you are and your unique value and then bringing that forward in a way that’s consumable by your prospects and your customers allow you to differentiate yourselves. You said earlier, you know, Act! is in a very crowded space. There’s plenty of CRM products out there, but there’s very few that go about the day to day like we did. And it’s the ability to tap into that and then bring that forward in a manner that is easy to understand and derives value quickly that has really led to this reemergence of Act! in terms of a category leader around technology.
I would suggest that no matter what business you’re in, if you really understand your unique value and then you put in place the strategy to bring that unique value forward, that’s a key step in your ability to differentiate and capture greater market share and compete. I think the ability to compete with larger companies is challenging, but there’s technologies like Act! that exist that allow you to appear and perform because of the scale potential in the software like a bigger company may and automate a bunch of the functions that allow you to do a lot more with the same amount of time.
So be clear on who you are. What you do and the value that pertains to your customers and your addressable market and then leverage the automation that’s available to you to do more with love.
Beau Hamilton (35:23)
That’s some great advice. Yeah. I think, again, you know, hopefully people are taking notes here because this is some valuable information. And, I want to give you one more chance here now that we’re kind of coming to an end with some of the questions I have for you. and maybe you can summarize some of the points you’ve made throughout this interview.
Now, Bruce, if listeners could walk away with just one key insight about Act!, what would that one key insight be?
Bruce Reading (35:48)
Sure. So I was having a conversation with a banker recently, and he’s part of a large organization. He’s been a long time user of our software. I was asking him, his name was Dan, I was asking Dan why he’s been so loyal to the software. And for his needs in his environment, what it allowed him to do was to maintain his business is his to run, even though he’s part of this larger financial organization. And our software has allowed him to maintain his unique identity and not have to share that unique identity with the larger organization. And that was an important business driver for him.
For me, I think when you think of Act! and you think about what we’ve done, we have emerged with Act! advantage and we’ve moved from a back office solution very much to a comprehensive front office capability. It’s not an ERP as you will, that a larger company may put in place. But it really does have the opportunity for a small business, regardless of your size, to tap into automation across all of the functions of your business. And because of that, and the economics around the use of our software, there’s tremendous potential for you to scale and grow very cost effectively through the use of our product.
And so as a result, I’d love to talk to anybody who doesn’t understand how to go about that or wants to understand how to best accelerate that. Because I think we have a lot to offer in so many different ways. And as I said earlier, it’s a crawl, walk, run for everybody. And we have the ability to accommodate just the early starters all the way through to someone that’s a little bit more sophisticated and wants to move very aggressively.
Beau Hamilton (37:37)
Yeah, you mentioned you’re open to talk with businesses and customers interested in working with you. How can customers get in contAct! with you and your team and just learn more about your platform?
Bruce Reading (37:50)
Sure, no, it’s all on our, you know, act.com. Everything’s there, my contact information is there. You know, I think we do a pretty good job. If someone puts their hand up and says, you know, I’d like to talk about this, I try to encourage not a sales mentality, but an engagement and understanding and really engaging to understand what it is that that individual or that organization is trying to accomplish. Because I think in that knowledge and I think in that understanding, you really do have the opportunity to show value in ways that probably they’re not even aware of. And I think at the end of the day, that wins. I’m not interested in putting people through a, or a prospective opportunity through a sales engagement model that, you know, traditional people are, and they fear sales. They don’t want to tell you I’m interested. I would much rather talk to people. If you will have a cup of coffee with them, understand who they are, what they’re trying to do and then determine if there’s a potential opportunity for them to examine ways to get to those goals through the use of our software.
I encourage our sales team to do that. And we try to do that pretty much with every engagement we have. So you can get to us through act.com. You can reach out to me personally through act.com and you know, we would welcome the opportunity to have a conversation.
Beau Hamilton (39:08)
Fantastic. All right, act.com. That’s a pretty easy domain to remember. I think it’s also neat that you’re offering SourceForge Podcast listeners 10% off their Act! subscription. So yeah, if you’re interested listeners, just visit act.com/sourceforge. You can start a free trial or request a personalized demo. And once you’re ready to subscribe, you can just use the promo code Act! SourceForge at checkout. Pretty easy.
Beau Hamilton (39:32)
Awesome. Well, hey, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to sit down and talk with us about your company and the industry at large. That’s Bruce Reading, CEO of Act!. Thanks again, Bruce. I really appreciate it.
Bruce Reading (39:44)
Beau, was a pleasure to be here. Thanks very much for the conversation.
Beau Hamilton (39:48)
Thank you all for listening to the SourceForge Podcast. I’m your host, Beau Hamilton. Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software related podcasts. I will talk to you in the next one.