Dear Friend:

Yesterday I opened my mail box to find a reminder letter from the agency I use each summer to secure a vacation rental property. It always takes me by surprise because now being December, I’m just realizing that winter is upon us and summer seems a long way off. So why is the rental agency contacting me at a time when I am thinking of snowballs and not sea shells? The vacation rental agency is really smart - they are following up with me to secure future business.

Last month, we delved into the topic of networking and how you can use networking to establish great contacts. We briefly discussed how important it is to “process” each contact that you make, and this month we will take the first step by focusing on selecting a tool for managing your contacts. Read on for great ideas (and a free download!) on how you can manage your contacts to secure future business! In our next issue, we’ll focus on how best to follow up on your leads.

We at HomeTech wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season. It’s great to have you as a part of our family.

- Mitch Lapides, Executive Editor
  HomeTech Business Building Ideas

P.S. [promo OR reminder ]

In This Issue

• Feature Article: Managing Your Contacts
• HomeTech ADVANTAGE Tip
• Did You Know This Remodeling Industry Fact?

Managing Your Contacts

You have piles of contacts in different places. Business cards you’ve collected, estimates you’ve sent out, people you spoke with on the phone, people you’ve done projects for before, messages in your inbox or on your voice mail system. Each “pile” represents an opportunity for you and your business that could lead to future projects. Your challenge now is to figure out what to do with each of these types of contacts and how best to manage them. The simpler you make your system for managing your contacts, the easier it will be for you to manage these contacts month after month.

Find a Place to Put Your Contacts
You first need to figure out where you are going to put all your contacts. While you may have traditionally gone to your various disparate sources for contact information – your email for some, referral leads, your bid sheets for others – now is the time to identify one central source to hold the important information about all of your contacts. The options for a central source are many, and as such, can offer a variety of helpful ways to organize and manage your contacts. But with a little understanding about what each option can offer, you can make a decision that will best suit your capabilities and your business.

Spreadsheets as management tools
Probably one of the most familiar types of management tools we all use is spreadsheets. We enter our personal budgets into them or maybe manage our bills with them. They are easy-to-understand, use, and provide a great time savings to us. By simply identifying what information you need to manage for all your contacts, categorizing it, and setting it up in columnar format in a spreadsheet, you’ve found a tool, that you’re probably already familiar with, in which to manage all your contacts.

For example, you may set up a simple spreadsheet with the following columns to populate for each of your contacts:

• Source – where the contact came from (a meeting, a referral)
• Name – first and last
• Address – either separate columns for street address and city, state and zip or one column for complete address information
• Phone – best phone to reach the contact
• Email – their email address
• Notes - any specific items you want to make sure you keep associated with the contact.

We’ve developed a sample spreadsheet designed to manage your contacts that you can download by clicking this link.

Email
If you use email, you probably have already set up some of your contacts in the “contacts” or “address” section of your email package. In addition to entering an email address, most email packages also allow you to enter most of the common additional information bits you need to manage for all your contacts – name, address, phone, etc. With email, you may be missing “source” capabilities, but you can probably enter “notes” about each specific contact. Your sorting capabilities are limited unless you export your contact list to a different program (a spreadsheet package for example), but, overall, email packages can also be good tools for managing contacts. If you choose to store your contacts in email, there is usually a way to export the contacts into a more robust tool later, if you decide to change tools later.

Contact Management Software
Last month we mentioned ACT! which is a full-fledged contact management software program. There are many others that fall into this category as well. In addition to allowing you to keep contact details in one central location, contact management software most typically will also provide you with additional tools to manage scheduling and communications with each contact.

Contact management software was created as a tool for managing contacts so much of the legwork in figuring out how to manage contacts is already done for you. However, you may not be able to customize the software as much as you would like; you also may find the learning curve on how to use contact management software something that you don’t want to commit your time to.

If you’re ready to really get serious about managing your contacts and are looking at contact management software, you’ll need to take a few minutes to decide what’s important to you when selecting one of these tools. Here are some important considerations:

• Fields: Does the tool store all of the information you want to track (name, address, referral source, size of potential opportunity, etc.)? If there is a specific field (e.g. referral source) to enter a piece of information, chances are that you’ll be able to sort on that field when required.
• Microsoft Outlook: Does it work with Outlook? Sometimes, you’ll want to export a contact from your contact management tool to Outlook, or vice versa. Many tools make this easy to do.
• Mail Merge: Does the tool help you do a mail merge to send a standard letter to a group of contacts you’ve selected for some sort of follow up?
• Tech Support: Is technical support available if you have questions?
  Many inexpensive tools don’t have technical support available, or they may charge you for support. It’s OK to pay for technical support, but just know what you’re getting into so you’re not surprised.
• Requirements: What are the computer requirements? If you have an old computer, beware of the requirements of the newer, more sophisticated tools. Some require as much as 1 gigabyte of memory and a lot of hard disk space. Some tools can be accessed over the Internet, known as a “hosted solution” or an ASP (application service provider), so you don’t have to worry about installing the software or upgrades over time. This can be a huge advantage, especially since they may also handle backups. A great example of this kind of tool is SalesForce.com.

Reviews and Additional Programs to Consider
These are just a few things to think about, but check out reviews at the following sites. You can quickly figure out what sounds best to you. Many tools even give you free trials, so you can even try them before you buy them.

• PC Magazine: Select products to compare
• Home Office Reports: Ratings and Reviews of Contact and Calendar Management
• Download.com: Click here and enter “contact management” in the search box. You’ll see a list of software, ratings by real users and more.

Additional contact management programs to consider are:

• Now, Up-to-Date and Contact 5
• ContactPlus Professional
• GoldMine
• SalesForce.com

Write to us and tell us what you use and what works for you. We’d be happy to share some of your experiences with others on our Web site or in a future newsletter. You’ve invested a lot in establishing contacts for your business, taking the time to effectively manage these contacts will prove well worth the effort. And in our next issue, we’ll focus on how best to follow up on your leads.

Additional Resources
Check out these additional resources on managing your contacts:

• Tips for managing contacts in Outlook (email package)
• Managing Contacts with ACT! 2006 (book)
• Download a sample contact management spreadsheet: Contact Management Spreadsheet Template

Customize Your Estimate Cover Page

Would you like to customize your estimates to reflect your business name and contact information? Now you can! Customize the cover page for all of your future estimates or for just one estimate.

For step by step instructions on how to customize your estimate cover page, click here.

According to the most recent figures available, there are approximately 210,000 General Remodeling firms in the United States. Of these, 900 (0.7%) have revenues over $5 million dollars per year and 9,000 (7%) have revenues between $1 million and $5 million. An additional 12,500 contractors (14%) have revenues between $500,000 and $1 million.

Source: Harvard University, Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2006 (2002 data)

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