Relationals CRM Tips & Tricks

Creating Views

2008-07-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

Views are a great way for you to alter the way that you look at data in Relationals, as well as create distribution lists for email blasts. Views are one of the best ways that you can change the way that you look at data. Suppose that you have been very dilligent in identifying leads that are "hot." How do you look at these accounts? Simple. You create a view.

Start by selecting Add View from the very top of your screen (the link should be right under the main tabs and next to the name of the current view you are looking at). Once you have added the view, you will see the Filter Screen (see below).

At this point, I recommend that you print out these instructions and start to work on your own computer. These pictures are very small. You'll notice that the column to the left has a list of available fields, or information that can be included in your "view." The column on the right shows the information that is in the view. This only means that this is the information that you will see on the main screen of the view (the rest is still available within the accout, lead or contact record). Choose what you want to see on your screen and make sure it's in the right column. Things like Related To (i.e., account name), primary contact, primary contact phone number, primary contact email, and last activty are some really good choices. Highlight what you want to move from the left column and use the arrows in between to move the information between the two. You can use the arrows located to the far right to move information up and down.

Once you are done, check your sorting. If you are creating a view of leads, it always defaults to Last Activity descending. Here's a tip: If you change it to last activity ASCENDING, Relationals will put the leads that have the oldest last activity date (i.e., those that you haven't spoken to recently) at the top. You could also choose to have them sorted by Related To (i.e. Company Name), Primary contact - anything. Just think about how you want to look at the data.

The second tab is the Filter tab. This tab allows you to customize the information you are looking at. There are many ways to use this tab, such as to change your date parameters. However, one of the best ways to use the date tab is to Filter by a value. In the Field area (it's in about the middle of your screen), you will see a list of all of the available fields. You can choose just about anything - City, lead status, etc. Let's go back to our example before of looking at Hot Leads. You coud choose Filter - Hot Lead; Operator - equals; Value - Yes (because you want a list of everyone that you have identified as being a hot lead). You could choose Field - Lead Status; Operator - Equals; Value - Qualified to get a list of qualified leads. Want a list of everyone in San Francisco? Field - City; Operator - equals; Value - San Francisco.

Let's talk about the operator a little bit. This is basic Boolean logic (which I know is crazy for some people). But you want to think of what you want and don't want. So, for example, if you want everyone with an email address you would want to exclude anyone without, right? Therefore, you would use: Value - email; Operator - Not Equal To; Value - Blank.

Now, not to get too sophisticated on you, but you also can have TWO values. So, you could have people who live in San Francisco and are Hot Leads, right? You just click on the Add Value link to add another row. The only time this gets complicated is if you have multiple, contradictory values. For example, supposed you want to see adveritsers who are in either Zip Code 94014 or 94015. You'd be tempted to enter Value - Zip; Operator - Equals; Value - 94014 and then do another row with 94015. However, if you used AND you would get nothing because no one has a zip in both zip codes, right? You would have to select the Advanced Options to get the box that allows you to choose OR. Now, if you get so fancy pants that you need to use parentheses for your views, you need to stop reading this blog and go see a person for help. It's complicated to explain.

Homework for Tonight:

Create a view of all of your accounts in a specific city.
Create a view of all of your leads you have marked as qualified
Create a view of your choice

If you are really interested in views, check by frequently. This is a hot topic, so I'll be sharing some other ideas on views in the future.

So I want to follow-up with a list of people...

2008-06-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

There are multiple ways that you can follow-up with a list of people. One of the easiest ways is to use the Call List function. As opposed to creating a Marketing Campaign, which requires you to create a view or report of advertisers, a Call List allows you to quickly and easily identify a list of advertisers who you need/want to follow-up with and "push" the reminders to your calendar on a particular date.

First, click the check box in front of the advertisers who you want to target. Then, select the Group Actions button to the left. Here you will find the Create Call List link. After selecting this, you will get a new screen, which asks you to select an owner, subject, assigned date (this is the date it will appear on your calendar, so select the first day you want to see the reminders on your calendar) and the type of activity.

MANAGERS: This is a great way to send reminders to AEs on particular accounts that you expect the AE to follow-up on for a specific initiative. You could just choose the AE you want to assign the calls do in the Assigned to field. However, if you are really interested in tracking call activity off of the initiative, you need to set up a telesales/in person campaign, which I will cover in another posting.

Clicking Notify creator does send a note any time the status on the account changes (this could be a good thing, or it could clog your emails with unwanted messages). Click save and you will see these accounts appear on your calendar the day that you selected as the Due Date.

Your Homework: Go to your lead or account list and choose 10 acounts/leads who you haven't talked to in at least 1 month (use your fancing sorting skills to sort decending to make this easier!) Create a Call List for these advertisers and assign them to be due this Friday. Make a commitment to call each of these advertisers as a follow-up and try to gather one piece of needs analysis information (maybe, how are you marketing yourself on the Internet?)

Changing Lead Status

2008-05-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

For those of you who manage multiple leads, managing them within Relationals can be challenging particularly if you want to be able to run reports and manage your prospects in a more sophisticated way.

Change your lead status is an excellent way to do this. As you can see in the picture to the left, the easiest way to do this is to change the lead status as you are logging your call. The lead always defaults to Lead Status Open, but by changing to Contacted, Qualified or Unqualified, you create more information that you can use down the line to help you create lists of your prospects who fit these categories. It also helps you manage your "open" leads by keeping this view only people you still need to contact.

In addition to changing lead status on the Log Call screen, you also can do this when you create a new lead by changing the Lead Status in the post.

Now you can create a custom view that allows you to sort your leads by your lead status.

Your Homework: Go to your leads tab. Notice that it defaults to Open leads. Spend some time today editing your leads and changing to contacted, qualified and unqualified. Come back tomorrow to learn more about how you can create a view of these leads.

Using Lead Status to Manage Prospects

2008-05-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

If you work frequently with leads, you may find it challenging to organize your lead lists. In particular, you may wonder why your lists are organized the way they are and how you can change this. Relationals allows you to change the way that your leads are "sorted," or organized. The screen to the right shows you the Sort By area of Relationals (which can be accessed by clicking Edit or Add View linsk from your Leads screen.)

Your default Leads view is Open Leads, which are leads that you have entered and not changed the status on or have been loaded and assigned to you. This view defaults to sort your leads by Last Activity Decending (or, showing those leads you have contacted most recently at the bottom of the list so that you see those you need to contact at the top). This can cause some confusion if your Open Lead list is all of your leads, including those you have logged activity on. You're probably wondering why they aren't sorted alphabetically, right? There are times and places in your CRM to sort alphabetically, such as contacts or accounts. But leads? You really should be concerned about activity.

Last Activity is a nice, default way to organize leads. However, if you are logging calls and follow-up tasks, you're going to see these leads later show up in your calendar, right? So, there are some other strategies you can use to sort information. And, Relationals allows you to use up to two different levels of sorting.

For recruitment salespeople, you may find it helpful to sort by, say, Number of Employees - ascending (most employees first) and they by Corzen Lead Score - ascending (highest probability to advertise at the top). For retail salespeople, you may want to use a Dunn & Bradstreet revenue figure to put those with the highest revenue first. Keep in mind - you can only sort on the data that is available for the lead. In many cases, particularly if the lead is from outside of the organization, that means this type of data won't be there. So, smile and take your leads sorted by LAst Activity or maybe by Company Name -ascending (i.e., alphabetically).

Homework
Today, review your leads and how they are sorted. See if you can change a view of your leads by sorting by a different criteria, such as by Company Name.