Your contacts are your business and your livelihood. Without names and phone numbers and email addresses, you have no business. But Contact Management is more than about managing your contacts. It is about managing your emails, your letters, your appointments, your time and thus, your business.
No longer should an agent need to enter contact information into more than one software program. I was at an office the other day to find that an agent had his contacts scattered in three different places: (1) a mailing label program for envelopes and labels (2) his email program and (3) a real estate software program from which he mainly managed letters for buyers and sellers. I neglected to ask if he had entered any of them into his Palm Pilot - afraid of the answer. The good news is he was willing to make an investment in these programs at different times for different activities. But now is the time to evaluate productivity tools and make wise decisions on the direction of your technology efforts. There are more efficient choices on the market today compared to a few years. Let's make the programs work for us - instead of them making us work more and more.
Choose ONE place to add your contacts and make sure that data is backed up at least once a week. You cannot afford to lose that information and have to re-enter everything.
The following is a list of what to look for in a Contact Management Program for your business. You should be able to:
1. Enter personal and business information about contacts
2. Categorize those contacts into groups such as past customers, vendors, associates, etc
3. Print phone lists according to categories
4. Print mailing labels and/or envelopes
5. Mail merge for personalized letters
6. Send and receive emails to contacts
7. Organize emails into folders
8. Create distribution lists for email purposes
9. Create signature with links to websites in it
10. Be notified of incoming messages
11. Schedule appointments on a calendar
12. Create and manage tasks
13. Set up reminders for events
14. Back up data to an external file or data source
15. Import and export files
16. Sync with a PDA
There are programs providing the ability to perform all of the above tasks. MS Outlook is one example. Within the real estate industry, there are 3rd party companies that have custom designed software programs that do all of the above, plus some marketing and financial features. Top Producer and Agent Online are good examples of these programs that will work with Outlook, by the way. You may have come from a business background in which Lotus Notes was used. Remember it is well worth the time and effort to move all the contact data into one source, whatever that source may be.
Here is the plan outlined for one agent I was talking with:
She had some contacts in her Palm that was synching with the Palm program on her desktop. Other contacts were being stored in a real estate program that was mainly being used as a birthday and closing date reminder. Email contacts were being stored in Outlook. And nothing was getting backed up.
She elected not to use the real estate program and wanted to move all her contacts into Outlook and work from there. After calling someone to help her, here was the plan:
Moving Files:
1. Backup data files before beginning process
2. Print out Birthday list and closing calendar
3. Sync the Palm and Desktop software.
4. Export Palm Desktop software to Outlook
5. Export Program ABC into Outlook
In Outlook:
1. Organize contacts into groups
2. Collect email addresses for contacts
3. Check/Add birthday and closing dates to contact information
4. Create calendar reminders for important dates
5. Create distribution list for mass mailings
6. Backup Outlook
After:
1. Sync with Palm
2. Backup Outlook to external source and on hard drive
3. Print out a new Master Contact List
4. Make some money $$
If you do not have Outlook, or have not yet made a decision on which program to use, you can start with Outlook Express. It is a "miniature" version of Outlook and comes free with all Windows operating computer systems being sold today. The data from Outlook Express can easily be moved into Outlook once that choice is made.
Don't wait. Start today. Start gathering the pieces of paper, napkins and business cards where names and phone numbers are scribbled on and enter the data onto your computer ONE TIME. Call past customers and ask for email addresses. Choose to take control of your business. Managing your contacts will help you manage your business more effectively. With less effort, you can contact more people and increase production. Why wait for that?
