How do you manage your potential sales contacts?

[Chris Coulson]

Hi, I'm starting a new business, and I'm currently pre-launch.

I've visited a few local networking events, and every time I present, I have 2 or 3 significant people queuing up to meet with me afterwards, sounding very keen and interested.

This is all getting quite scarey (organisation-wise) for me, as my existing business is more consultancy based, where people call, I put them in a calendar and meet them. I'm not used to being organised!

How can I manage all these interested parties? I've heard of CRMs, but they look quite complicated and relatively expensive for what I need. What does the collective wisdom suggest I look at?

thanks!

 

[beasty]

Are you asking how to organise 2 meetings?

 

[Chris Coulson]

Not at all! I'm assuming you're joking?

I might have 2 or 3 meetings a every few days, finding out about them at random times, whilst I already have a busy job where I have to react quickly and book appointments, so I'm unable to stop what I'm doing and focus 100% on the sales enquiry.

So I'm looking for something where I can enter the enquiry, and then some point later, look up the details, action some response, and then maybe get reminded in a period to chase it up, or check if there's any other tasks that need actioning that I might have got in the middle of a firefight and forgot about.

Does that explain it better?

 

[telemax]

Salesforce.com

 

[Bradley Holmes]

Have a look into pipedrive.com,

 

[Ashley_Price]

Yes, CRM is good - but you need a lot of customers/enquirers, etc. to really get the best out of the software. And often you are paying a subscription for a whole lot of stuff you don't need at the beginning.

Instead, you can start with a basic spreadsheet to keep all the details and then set up calendar reminders for actions.

For example, my cold calling spreadsheet shows me the company name, the Office Manager (or whoever is responsible for buying office supplies), the telephone number and email. Then I have results columns (note plural) where I can enter the results of calls and other actions. For example Result column 1 could be "Mrs Smith not available, call Monday", then Result column 2: "Put through to Mrs Smith's voicemail, left a message, call PM." Result column 3: "No Answer from Mrs Smith's phone, so sent email. Call Wednesday". Result column 4: "Mrs Smith tired of me keep calling and told me to go away".

If you want to take it a step further, enter their postal addresses as well and you can use the spreadsheet for mail-merge, and use filters to only mail relevant people, (e.g. only those who live in a particular town or postcode, bought a specific product...).

If you take the time to design it right in the first place, a spreadsheet could be a simple but effective solution for some time. A friend runs a printing company, and they've been doing it like this for years - and have several hundred present and past customers on the spreadsheet.

 

[vishal777]

Hello,
If you are not organized than you will be stuck in your business any time. You may lose clients also. Initially use a planner (dairy) every time you communicate or visit any client. Nowadays there are many software available as per your need.

Regards,

Vishal

 

[BRIDGREGORY]

I have used ACT by Symantec for years now, it will do just about everything you may need.

You can get licensed copies cheap on ebay. They are not the most up to date version but are more than adequate.

You could always update at a later date. Make sure the copy you get is a UK one or you will be entering Zip codes and dollars instead of £ and post codes etc.

 

[MBE1]

A simple diary will do the job.

 

[Ashley_Price]

You can get licensed copies cheap on ebay. They are not the most up to date version but are more than adequate.

I guess it's worth mentioning that you need to ensure they ARE legal copies.

Some years ago, I bought what was described as an "genuine" version of Windows XP software from someone on eBay and of course, it was only later when Windows brought in the "Windows Genuine Advantage" (or whatever it was called) update that checked your version that I found out it was a pirated copy.