An excerpt from Chapter 15: How to Get the Most from Outlook, ACT, and other CRM Software: Strategies for Organizing and Tracking Relationships, of The Connectors (September 2009, Wiley)
Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at AccuQuote, a term life insurance quoting firm, Sean Cheyney has developed some simple but effective strategies for organizing the contacts he receives. Cheyney is responsible for spearheading the overall growth and direction of the company's marketing initiatives, strategic partnerships, and customer acquisition. He is also directly responsible for initiating and maintaining all advertising and partnership relationships to help benefit and promote the company's image and business model. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Cheyney has more than his share of contacts to classify.
“When I attend an event, I try to organize a list in advance of those people that will be attending,” Cheyney explains. “I color code the list with one color for those people I already know, and another color for people I want to meet. Right after the event, I make notes on my list. Then, that night, I go to LinkedIn and send a personal note and invite the people I met to connect.” Indeed, a very simple and effective strategy. Cheyney’s relationships will then move forward, based on the responses that are received, the other person’s willingness to connect, and the opportunity to meet again. Cheyney says, “I also look for opportunities to help the other person by connecting them to people I know.”
And, to take it to the next level of organization, the contact information is entered into the CRM database program.
Four Tips for Organizing Connections:
1. Entering basic Information into the database
- Enter name, address, phone, cell, email, social media links, and website.
2. Entering notes and key personal information
- Do this while the information is still fresh in your mind. Otherwise, the info you put in could be incorrect, and garbage in means garbage out (GIGO) for the accountants reading this book
- Record the important and remarkable facts
- Capture the spirit of the meeting/call
3. Scheduling activities
- Schedule a follow up after every contact you have with someone
- Drag an email right to your tasks so you don’t have to write the information again or copy and paste
- List of phone calls from previous week
- List of scheduled activities for the current week
- List of potential opportunities (prospects) to determine if follow up is on track
- List of appointments for this week and last to determine additional preparation or follow up
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