U.S., MID-ATLANTIC: Transforming Contacts into Leads and Clients

Bruce Newman

Mid-Atlantic Bureau Chief
(New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Washington, DC)

Networking is an ongoing process that transcends the common practice of merely attending an event and distributing (and receiving) business cards with little, if any, follow-up. While attending events and making personal contact is important, what is arguably the most important part is the next phase of the process: what to do with this list of contacts and how to turn them into potential clients and leads. One way of achieving this goal is through the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Contact Management (CM) software which are specifically designed for this task.

For this article, I posed a series of questions about CRM/CM software to LinkedIn users and to my personal networks outside of LinkedIn. I received many responses, the largest percentage (relative to the group size) being from ETP Network. The willingness of its members to respond speaks highly for that organization.

Depending on the size of the company, people handle their leads very differently. Although both groups frequently use their CM/CRM software throughout the day, larger organizations also use it for a wider variety of reasons, often integrating it into different departments including marketing, accounting and other areas. They also require significant report generation.

Most importantly, on a scale of 1 (most helpful) to 5 (no help) when assessing the importance of CM/CRM software, the average rating was 1.2 – most helpful. This acknowledged importance was across all respondents who almost unanimously rated this type of software as most helpful. Several people noted that they had unsuccessfully tried other methods – from notepads, to writing on cards to spreadsheets - prior to moving to this software solution. Respondents also expressed little concern about the amount of startup time required to learn how to use the software effectively – which varied from one to five days.

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Key necessary features included: contact data storage, setting action items, target companies, and associated notes for both contacts and companies. The ability to document everything was also strongly noted. Facets of this documentation included: dates, notes from conversations, whole email text saving, calendar and reminders. The ability to form groups and sort by industry was also mentioned and strongly endorsed by several respondents.

Interestingly, some individuals and small businesses preferred hosted systems as opposed to programs they could load locally on their computer or server. The advantage of a hosted system is that someone handles all the dirty work for you including software updates, computer problems and backups. The disadvantage is the cost and the remote location of the data.

So, let’s summarize the key points of this ongoing networking process step:

• 1. A rating of 1.2 – most helpful; almost universal agreement among users of CM/CRM software.


• 2. If you’re not using software to track your contacts, companies, clients, and prospects, you’re probably working inefficiently and losing potential contacts and business.


• 3. Whatever system you do use should include the following basic functionality:




• a. Allow you to make notes


• b. Track all communications


• c. Provide a calendar and reminder system


• d. Offer the ability to form and sort by any number of groups

Remember, good networking is a process that needs to be effectively managed and nurtured. When successful, the results can be outstanding.

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Bruce Newman, a consultant guru is the Mid-Atlantic Bureau Chief for The National Networker and the Vice President at The Productivity Institute, LLC, a 100% woman-owned company that matches the consulting needs of companies to the expertise of rated outstanding consultants. Finding consultants can be a very time consuming job and once you find one, how do you know how good they are? At The Productivity Institute, we do the work for you - at no cost to you! We find and constantly rate our consultants to ensure that their work remains outstanding.

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U.S., MID-ATLANTIC: Transforming Contacts into Leads and Clients