I provide illustration services for architects, and Daylite has become one of the best tools in my studio.

Client Base:
I have 1000s of prospects nationwide in the Real Estate Development, Architecture, and Construction Industries, but many of them will only have a project in need of my services once every 1-2 years, This means it's important that I use daylite to track how long it has been since I have been in contact with these prospects, to make sure that when they have a project, I am at the top of the list. Individuals move between companies alot, so my contact/marketing is based more on individuals than firms.

Marketing:
I find that Daylite works well for service oriented businesses, where "Rainmaking" is an essential (albeit gritty) part of the business cycle. I can keep track of when the last call/email/postcard was sent. The marketing "hopper" style of report is useful, but it doesn't track clients that aren't full opportunities yet, so I use a familiarity ranking sysem as prospects know/trust/like me more. Referrals between firms from different industries are a large part of my business, and it's great to be able to track that.

Proposal Generation:
I have created an estimate that has 4 parts: Quotation/Scope/Terms/Authorization. This is all generated from the estimate portion of opportunities and it simplifies my ability to return a quote in 24 hours.

Project Management:
This is where DL falls short a bit. Once the opportunity has been converted, it's difficult to track the schedule of projects on the monthly calender, to see the workload. I have tried third party PM prgrams like FastTrack and even the new OmniPlan, but it's all double entry, and I would waste alot of time laying out a project timeline. I simply need a report that compares the projects start and due dates as a horizontal bar graph by week, to see when I am busier than others. I may work on this. This is a request I have been making for a while, as it seems that it is all possible internally to DL

Invoicing:
I still use an elaborate excel worksheet to track financial data, due to the shortcomings of Billings and the utter incomprehensibility of iBiz. I would love an invoice section for projects, just like estimates for opportunities. I print my invoices from DL, but there is double entry in order to track which invoices are outstanding

General:
If I were more of a code writer, and had a lot more time on my hands, I'm sure I could intergrate DL with my website alot more and simplify some of my communications. For now, however, this program is an amazing tool, and the best I've found by far.

GD,

I am quite interested in your marketing. I also use postcard style direct marketing and was trying to come up with a way to track these? I'm still struggling with how to best create the mailing (task or note, or something else), and then report or notify me when it's time again. Might I ask how you create/track yours?

Yes you are absolutely right and I think we can use Day lite to elaborate illustration services more comprehensively and easily.I am very happy with this as it has a scheduler, to-do list, notes utility, project manager, and sales tracker all rolled in one. Moreover it also provide 50 users support against one license, Don't you think its incredible for those who has a bunch of architects and illustrates as all of them can log on against one licensee its really very cost effective as well.