As many of you know, my background is contact relationship management (i.e. CRM) and most of my experience centers around the ACT! product.

Here’s a question for you. Is your company database a rolodex or a database? In previous articles, I’ve talked about how your company database is your most valuable business asset and that this database holds the key to your company’s success. Regardless of what you use as a software tool to manage this database, be it ACT! or SalesLogix or SalesForce or whatever, the most important concept is that, a) you have a company database and a good tool to manage it and b) you’ve customized this database to be specific for your business. If this is the first time you have seen the words customized and database in the same sentence, then read on because this information is spot-on for you.

When I think of a rolodex, I think of those index card holders that would sit on your desk, circular in design, and it would hold 3×5 index cards filled with contact information. It had a big knob on the side and when you turned the knob, the index cards went around like a ferris-wheel at a theme park. If you had a lot of cards, and you turned the knob fast enough, this thing doubled as a cooling fan and could blow-dry your hair (OK, maybe not in my case, but you get my drift). Each of these rolodex cards contained information on your contacts, or if you got one of the fancier ones, it actually held their business card. The trouble with these rolodex files though, was that you were very limited in the information you could keep on a contact. If you wanted to keep track of information in addition to what was already on the business card, you either had to write it on the card, or maybe add another card. If you were just looking for an address, or a phone number, it didn’t work too bad. However, if you wanted to keep track of their interests, or their kids or birthdays or anything extra, it got cumbersome fast. Depending upon how you filed the cards, as long as you remembered the contacts name or company name, you could get to the card pretty easy. On the other hand, if you wanted to do any kind of special search, forget it. The rolodex file just wasn’t set up for that. Now, enter the digital era and the concept of the database.

With a database, and a good contact manager, (like ACT!2010), now you have some power. Not only can you store the business card information, but you can also store all kinds of things about this contact. You can keep information on their family, hobbies and interests, purchase history, annual events like birthdays and anniversaries, contract renewals, on and on limited only by your imagination. Best of all, not only can you store all this great information, but you can access it in seconds. You can find all the people you haven’t contacted in the last 90 days, or all the clients that have a shared interest in a particular event or hobby. You can group contacts together based on common themes like all those that should receive your catalog, or that have indicated an interest in a specific product and now when you have a promotion going on, you can get this information out to them in just a couple of minutes. Either by a mail-merge to a letter or through an email blast where each recipient gets their own personalized letter or message, customized for them because this information is all stored in your database.  Now that’s powerful!

You can even take it up a notch if you want. If you’re using a product like ACT!2010, there are tools available that will let you synchronize your database to your cellphone, wirelessly, and in real-time. You can add tools that will do calculations on fields stored in your database, and store the results of those calculations in other fields. You can have the database automatically create an activity based on a value you select in a field. You can add contacts to groups or take them out of groups based on information you enter into their contact record. You can have the database create a call list of your hottest prospects, so you can get in touch with them when they are ready to buy. Tools like these (and there are many more) can turn a flat-file list of contacts into a living, breathing repository of client and prospect intel that puts you in control of your sales cycle and allows you to drive new sales even while the economy around us is in slow motion.

Speaking of a slow economy, in the spirit of Cyber Monday, we are offering a special incentive to upgrade to ACT!2010.  If you schedule your upgrade with us by noon on Monday, December 7th, you will save 20% on the cost of your installation and services. Upgrades must be scheduled to occur on or before January 31, 2010.

For more information and to schedule your upgrade, please give us a call at 952-292-3420.

Have a great day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Have you hugged your database lately?
2. It’s just a database!
3. Thanksgiving thoughts.

So, is it me or is everyone feeling like the days are just flying by? I feel like the Adam Sandler character in the movie “Click” with the fast-forward button stuck in fast-forward mode. Good grief! I certainly don’t remember time going by this fast when I was waiting for my 21st birthday to come around.  Sorry, I’ll stop whining now.

OK, so here we are at Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for? I’ve got a list, long as my arm of all the things I can think of, right off the top of my head. You probably do too. Top of my list are our troops. God bless them and the work they do! Without them, we wouldn’t have the freedom to be an entrepreneur, or own a business. Sure, times are tough right now. Economy is down, job market is tight, belts are tighter, but in this Country, life is good, and for that, thank a soldier!

You know what else I’m thankful for? Technology. I LOVE technology! Bring it on and bring me more! I’ve got one television in my house and five computers. The computer on my desk that I’m using to write this has more processing power, memory and hard-drive space than the computer that ran the entire hospital I worked at back in the 80’s, and that computer filled a room. A very big room. This computer sits under my desk.

Speaking of technology and being thankful for things, I’m really thankful for backups. In the last week, I’ve worked with two clients that had to recover data from their backups. The recovery process was smooth and their systems restored perfectly, but I’m reminded that it’s easy to become complacent and take that sort of thing for granted. A few months ago I worked with a client that wasn’t so fortunate. Their backup didn’t restore, and that recovery process was an entirely different story. Painful, to say the least. So, what’s in your backup? Have you tested it lately? Do you have the peace-of-mind that if you had to restore from backup you actually could? Are you backing up all the mission-critical files you need to keep your business running smoothly and of equal importance, have you tested your backups to make sure recovery is possible, not impossible. I really do love technology but I love it more when it works! Stop back again next week as I’ll share some more insight on some awesome technology designed to save you time and make you more productive.

All of us here at True North Partners wish you and your family a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy your freedom and say a prayer for our troops!

Related posts:

1. Database or Rolodex?
2. What’s New At True North
3. 16 Rules For Success by Bob Parsons

Automation is a great way to improve processes across all divisions including….

• Technology
• Administrative
• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Service

Man power is often the largest small business expense. Today’s hosted technology can offer incredible efficiencies without the hardware and licensing costs of previous solutions. Look for Software as a Service (Saas) companies that can help you interaction with your customers, employees and vendors without as much human interaction. New technology offerings are available everyday and many allow you to try before you buy.

Many small businesses mistakenly try to cut costs by doing everything themselves. The truth is, you’ll probably save a lot of time and money by implementing effective administrative processes such as:

• Use technology to manage administrative tasks such as billing, collections and data management.
• When human resources are necessary, consider interns, virtual assistants or shared resources.
• Make sure you have systems and processes in place. When your business grows you want to make sure your company can scale with the growth and not come unraveled.
• You can’t be an expert in everything.
• Don’t be afraid to outsource. For more great tips check out: http://www.insidecrm.com/features/78-ways-save-economy-101408
• Don’t be afraid to renegotiate your lease…now is the time
• Renegotiate with your vendors/suppliers
• Turn to your employees to ask for efficiency ideas
• Lease equipment instead of buying
• Consider bartering or exchanging product/services
• Hold off on new hires and consider contract labor
• Negotiate discounts based on volume or longer-term commitments
• Go green – turn off unused electricity and find ways to cut waste

There are efficiencies that can be made to your marketing processes.

• Use data and analysis to make sure you are cutting cost only on those programs that are the least productive.
• Don’t just turn off the faucet all together, cut marketing expenditures only when the analysis proves it is your least effective form of driving revenue.
• Maximize your time and resources.
• Learn how and when to delegate and outsource.

Nurture Your Leads!
How well do you keep in contact with your leads? Remember, being out of touch can quickly lead to being out of business.

Once a lead is created, the worst thing you can do is let it slip through the cracks. Are you guilty of this? Before you jump on Facebook, spend money on Pay-Per-Click, re-design your website to capture leads and kick your affiliate program into high gear, make sure you can properly manage your leads and lead conversion.

Make sure you have a lead management process:

• What happens to new leads
• How are you following-up
• How often are you following-up
• How are you tracking the lead source
• What is your average conversion rate
• How can you improve conversion rates
• Are valuable leads falling through the cracks

Put processes in place to manage leads and ensure you are doing everything possible to convert leads into sales (I am currently working on a series of blogs regarding Fixing Follow-up Failure so stay tuned as those will be posted in the very near future). In short, there are tools to help you manage your customer leads and help you follow-up effectively.

The process of tracking your marketing success is important too. Don’t spend money unless you can prove its value…

• Ask – where did they hear about you
• Use unique phone numbers for different ads
• Use trackable links for online ads
• Use promo codes to track the success of campaigns
• Split test email and website ocntent and design
• Track all referral programs with unique identifiers

Once a lead is passed from marketing to sales, you must be confident that there is a good process in place to convert leads and close deals. A good process will help you:

• Increase sales effectiveness
• Warm leads
• Shorten the sales cycle

Implementing better sales processes will pay off quickly. If you’re looking for a great book that describes how to put together a “bankable” forecast, then take a look at Sales Revenue System 2.0 by Carl Moe. (check it out here)

The average sale closes at 5 or more contacts but sales reps often give up after 3 attempts. What does this mean for you? It means you are losing deals because of follow-up failure. According to Marketing For Success – 80% of potential sales are lost due to lack of follow-up. What is follow-up? Follow-up is simply establishing a long-term relationship with prospects through a series of ongoing communications. Prospects will buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell to them. Follow-up positions you to be in-front of the prospect when they are ready to buy. Proper follow-up can be time consuming if you don’t have the right tools to manage the process. Automated follow-up will allow you to easily and effectively manage the process.

Visiting your store or talking with a live sales rep should not be the only way a prospect can buy from you. Make it easy for a customer to purchase when they wish, how they wish by leveraging ecommerce. Ecommerce does not always mean a tangible product. Offer service packages, memberships, content downloads, etc via a shopping cart or online order form. Encourage ecommerce transactions with special incentives for online orders. Make sure your ecommerce tool has the ability to add upsells and cross-sell offers to an order. Use electronic transactional receipts to offer additional, relevant products/services. By implementing these ecommerce features, you may quickly discover that your website is your most effective sales rep.

Customer service is a critical factor in client satisfaction and retention. You must deliver excellent customer service to create and keep loyal customers. There are several ways to automate components of customer service in a way that will:

• Cut costs
• Increase the Quality of your Service
• Increase your ability to scale your Service Offerings

Some other thoughts on ways to leverage your customer service experience:

• Use the Internet to post FAQs and other self-help content.
• Use community software to encourage customers to help other customers or to post answers to questions that your general customer base might be looking for
• Create weekly webinars to assist customers in a one-to-many environment vs. one-to-one.

So far we have talked about  3 of the 4 tools in the ultimate THRIVAL kit:

• Loyal Customers
• Economical Marketing Strategies
• Effective Processes

Along with each of these tools, we have provided tips and tricks and specific things you can do implement them in your own business. The final tip is a bit difficult because it all hinges on you. It is a positive attitude combined with a little creativity. Next week, we will conclude our segment on marketing in a down economy, by discussing Positive Attitude and Creativity.

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Get Positive!
2. Make Your Business Thrive!
3. Economical Marketing Strategies

As you may already know, I’ve been in the contact management database business for a long time. First as a user, then as a business consultant. My particular area of expertise is helping other businesses build and develop a database of their most profitable customers, ideal business partners, and passionate referral sources.  I hope you will agree with me when I say that in your business, your database is your most valuable asset. You do have a database right? Now, please understand that I’m not talking about your Outlook address book, or some other email-based address book, or contact directory on a cell phone, smart phone, pda or spreadsheets.

No, what I am referring to is something much more valuable and tangible. What I’m talking about is a living, breathing, dynamic and organic relational database that is the sole-source repository of everyone you know. It needs to be customizable, searchable, and capable of segmenting your contacts into a variety of categories. It also needs to be secure and capable of being backed-up on a very regular basis. Ring a bell? If you don’t have something like this, then not only is your whole business at risk, but you’re losing revenue. Lot’s of revenue!

At True North Partners, we focus exclusively on one contact management (or contact relationship management) database system. ACT! by Sage.

Over the course of the next several blog posts, I will be writing about the ACT! Contact and Relationship Management system, and going in to great detail about how you can improve your company’s profitability, and overall net worth, by harnessing the power of systems like ACT!.

Thanks for taking the time to share in my morning inspiration.  Enjoy the rest of your day!

Related posts:

1. Database or Rolodex?
2. It’s just a database!

Now, let’s talk about your living, breathing, ever expanding database of contacts that you’ve been keeping track of, and staying in touch with over the years. This database represents your customers, your prospects, your suspects, your vendors, your referral sources, your media contacts, absolutely everyone you’ve come in contact with during the course of your business life time. Not only does this database contain the “who’s who” of your company’s existance, but it also contains the notes and histories of all the interactions of days gone by. Details of phone calls, meetings, buying habits, lead sources, measurable outcomes of marketing campaigns, relationships, and more, all packaged together in a nice and neat data repository we call a database. Now, put this bad boy on the market and offer it up to somebody who is interested in buying a business like yours and see if you get their attention! As they say in the auction business, let the bidding begin!

One last thought. If you are at all concerned about the current state of your database, or your thinking that what I described above is a bit of a stretch from where things are for your company today, then maybe we can help. It’s one of the things we happen to be very good at here at True North Partners, so if you would like to talk with us further about how we might be able to help you build and develop your company’s most valuable asset, click here and give us a call. We look forward to talking with you.

Related posts:

1. Have you hugged your database lately?
2. Database or Rolodex?