From sales representatives who cold call prospects and qualify them, to new leads filling out web forms, new contact data is coming to you from everywhere. People with a set structure for how they log all this new data will find the most success in contact management now and in the future.

Set a centralized location for contact data to be warehoused and shared among coworkers. All newly created or changed contacts must be logged here. You could use a spreadsheet, a book, or a Contact Relationship Manager. Some CRM software will intuitively pull data from your email inbox, business information services, or web form.

Set a requirement for what data employees need to log when creating a new contact. If you are using a web form, require prospects to log all needed information.

• Contact Details – data that can be used to get in contact with an entity
  • Ex: phone number, address, email address, fax number, LinkedIn
• Qualitative – a descriptive attribute that cannot be quantified
  • Ex: hobby, company type, industry, job title, spouses’ name
• Quantitative – a descriptive attribute that can be quantified
  • Ex: company revenue, number of employees, funding amount

Business relationships are just like personal ones. They need to be nurtured and require consistency and quality.

Make sure to routinely reach out to contacts. You can easily do this by using an email campaign service to send out personalized emails directly to contacts without having to send them individually. Persistently respond and deliver on time.

Make sure all communications you send out are quality. Guarantee that no messages are sent out twice. When trying to sell someone on a deal or product, focus on educating people on what you and your company have to offer them.

Now that the data about contacts is logged into your database and you have contacted them, you need to make sure your information is organized. Both structuring and cleaning data play a part in successful data organization and contact management.

Whether you use a spreadsheet, CRM, or other program to organize your data, it needs to be structured in an easily understandable format.

Data taxonomy refers to the organization of data based on similar characteristics. Sort and filter your data into categories based on any specific data point that describes them. For example, filter all contacts with “Director” in their job title.

Keeping data clean of imperfections ensures that your data is accurate and up to date. It can be a quick and easy step toward having an organized database. A clean database means no duplicate records, no incorrect or missing details, or outdated information.

How you correct data inconsistencies will be different depending on how you store data. If you use a spreadsheet or a CRM, you can usually use shortcuts and services to quickly remove duplicates, misspelled entries, consistently incorrect data, and more. If using a document or a paper book, fixing faults will take much longer.

CRM, or a contact relationship manager, has its meaning in its name. It is a software solution that facilitates effective contact management, moving you closer to mastering healthy relationships, a data-logging system, and organized data.

It centralizes all the necessary features and functions into one place that all employees can access and add to. Implementing a CRM is the easiest first step to move your team toward successful contact management.

Prophet CRM is a feature-filled, Outlook-based contact relationship manager that upgrades and unites your email service and contact management process.

Easily develop in-depth contact and company records with ease using Prophet’s contact manager. With parent and subsidiary company tracking capabilities and numerous customizable data fields, track the data that is valuable to your team, all inside Outlook.

Effortlessly keep in touch with contacts using Prophet’s group email function that lets you send automated personalized emails to one or more contacts, companies, or opportunities at a time.

Let Prophet save you time by automating the tracking of Outlook emails, tasks, contacts, and calendar events tied to contact and company records so that you can review a full timeline of interactions.

Prophet allows you to avoid wasting time searching through heaps of unorganized data. Your relational database of contacts, company records, and opportunities is presented in easily digestible, spreadsheet-like displays with advanced filtering, sorting, and look-up capabilities. Save list views of refined data groups filtered by any number of information fields.