Spring can be a wonderful season of growth and renewal, both in nature and for businesses. Last month we gave some advice on spring cleaning your Act! database, but this month we want to focus specifically on cleaning up contacts by ID/status and possibly renewing your business connections.
The ID/status field is often used to track a database user’s relationship to a contact by categorizing the relationship. This way you can keep your vendors straight from your clients, and your prospects separate from your networking contacts, while keeping all your contacts in the same, convenient place. Spring is a great time to pull up your contacts by ID/status and review the relationships you have. You can review which contacts you should reach out to again, which need a new ID/status, and which you may not need anymore. For instance, run a search in your database for everyone labeled a prospect.
The ID/status field is often used to track a database user’s relationship to a contact by categorizing the relationship. This way you can keep your vendors straight from your clients, and your prospects separate from your networking contacts, while keeping all your contacts in the same, convenient place. Spring is a great time to pull up your contacts by ID/status and review the relationships you have. You can review which contacts you should reach out to again, which need a new ID/status, and which you may not need anymore. For instance, run a search in your database for everyone labeled a prospect.
Think about which contacts may benefit from a little more attention. Perhaps they fell off your radar or told you they would be in touch. Now is a great time to give them another call. Those who have told you they are not currently interested in your services should be marked as dead prospects. This way you know that they have told you no, so you don’t risk becoming a nuisance they wouldn't consider should they need services in the future.
After prospects have been examined, you may want to review networking contacts. Is there anyone who provides you with valuable leads and business advice that you've lost touch with? Schedule time to renew your networking relationships this summer.
Also consider reviewing your clients and vendors. If you haven’t worked with someone in a long time, are they still a client? Perhaps you may want to put some time and energy into reinvigorating some of those relationships. On the other side of the coin, if you know that a client is now firmly a former client, you would do best to mark them as such so you do not mistake them for active clients when you send out freebies, newsletters, and the like. And your vendors? You want to make sure that the ones you’re actually using are marked correctly. That way you don’t mistakenly call the vendor you used 5 years ago rather than your current choice.
Have you reviewed your database by ID/statuses recently? What did you learn in the process? If you could use some help organizing your database, please contact us. We’d be happy to assist you.
After prospects have been examined, you may want to review networking contacts. Is there anyone who provides you with valuable leads and business advice that you've lost touch with? Schedule time to renew your networking relationships this summer.
Also consider reviewing your clients and vendors. If you haven’t worked with someone in a long time, are they still a client? Perhaps you may want to put some time and energy into reinvigorating some of those relationships. On the other side of the coin, if you know that a client is now firmly a former client, you would do best to mark them as such so you do not mistake them for active clients when you send out freebies, newsletters, and the like. And your vendors? You want to make sure that the ones you’re actually using are marked correctly. That way you don’t mistakenly call the vendor you used 5 years ago rather than your current choice.
Have you reviewed your database by ID/statuses recently? What did you learn in the process? If you could use some help organizing your database, please contact us. We’d be happy to assist you.
