South 12th

A funny, interesting conversation I overheard on a recent flight between Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

• Passenger 1: Well, gathering business cards and e-mail addresses is great—if those resources are used effectively. With LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter—we HR consultants are faced with ever-increasing opportunities to network and make important business connections.
• Passenger 2: But these networking tools do not take the place of a well-designed database.
• Passenger 1: The best business is repeat business. One of the most important assets for any HR consultant is a list of customers.
• Passenger 2: Yeah, it's imperative that you maintain a database of customers, contacts, referral sources and vendors. In addition to serving as a source of important information on clients, as the database grows it becomes a rich source of information that can be mined to identify trends and opportunities.
• Passenger 1: I agree. While social networks allow us to maintain client lists and to communicate with those in their network, these tools generally do not allow client information to be exported for any type of external communications.
• Passenger 2: E-mail newsletters, holiday cards, or invoicing.
• Passenger 1: Right. Social sites all have a place, but are best used as an end point to gather information to incorporate into a main database for all customer, vendor and relationship information. Not all customers and vendors will be members of a specific community.
• Passenger 2: Of course not. Pressuring them to join a community as part of a marketing strategy is foolhardy at best.
• Passenger 1: Then again, referencing that the customer or prospect is a member of a certain community in an internal database can provide additional information and marketing value. By monitoring which, if any, social networking sites prospects and clients use, we can gain insights into how responsive they are to these communication tools.
• Passenger 2: Yes! These sites can offer lots of additional value to HR. I upload my contact database to LinkedIn, and because it is easy to use, you can build a list of testimonials easily and non-confrontationally and you can easily add the LinkedIn icon/hyperlink to your signature, showing you have awareness of the power of social networking.
• Passenger 1: In the beginning, there is no need to invest a lot of time or money in a database. A simple spreadsheet application is an easy and familiar tool for capturing basic information.
• Passenger 2: And you can add as many columns as you like to collect all sorts of information on your contacts.
• Passenger 1: It doesn’t matter if the database is a simple predefined Microsoft Access database, Microsoft Outlook address books or something as scalable as SQL Server or Oracle— having that information available in one place for adding, editing and changing can have a profound effect on a company’s customer resource management.
• Passenger 2: You said it. As HR consultants find their lists of contacts growing, a simple spreadsheet might no longer meet their needs. You'll will probably find that database software specifically designed for client management will make searching through large numbers of contacts much easier
• Passenger 1: Software packages specifically designed for contact management can make it much easier to create reports and general mailing lists as well.
• Passenger 2: There are a couple of different options when it comes to the software to use to manage their client and prospect lists. One option is to use software that resides on their computers.
• Passenger 1: Of course, if you're keeping the information on your computer, be sure you keep your anti-virus software current and keep frequent back-ups somewhere other than on your computer, especially if using a laptop.
• Passenger 2: There can be benefits to using a hosted service where the software is accessed over the Internet.
• Passenger 1: An online contact management system is generally more mobile, as it can be accessed from any computer with access to the Internet and frequently from mobile phones, as well.
• Passenger 2: I recommend web-based CRMs because then you can have access from home, when you work from home, and they almost always sync to a smart phone. When looking for a web-based option, look for one that has permission-based systems so multiple people can view the database, each with a specific and different set of rights.
• Passenger 1: Yes. Where did you go to college again?
• ..................................................................................................................
• You: Wait a second, Andy! This conversation isn't funny or interesting! It's really, really boring! And it keeps going on and on!
• S. 12th: Well, reader, welcome to Midwest Airlines flight 2110, departing from Milwaukee with nonstop service to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Because I was stuck in front of this conversation for the whole flight. I couldn't even focus on finally finishing "Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954" because Passengers 1 and 2 were so loud, and the big, sad, creepy ending was totally ruined because I kept hearing words like "scalable" creep into the text.
• You: You have suffered terribly, Andy.
• S. 12th: I just want that acknowledgement.