Owning a scalpel doesn't prepare anyone to perform brain surgery, and buying the latest tool 'du jour' is seldom a guarantee to success. Since many of us are familiar with CRM tools, I'll share my experience and suggestions about selecting a tool for that application.

First a little background. I have always thought that being able to maintain useful information about my contacts was a good idea. It would allow me to suggest solutions to their problems and provide them better guidance to challenges they faced; becoming a Trusted Advisor. I created my first contact database in '83 using dBASE II, and later added SideKick. SK was a great little DOS TSR program that allowed multiple simultaneous app's to run in a DOS environment, almost a decade before the first reliable Microsoft Window GUI (3.1). Since then I have used CRM tools from: SAP, Oracle, SalesForce.com, ACT!, GoldMine, FoxPro, and Lotus Notes.

Many companies are satisfied with 'out of the box' performance, but some become frustrated as they try to 'drill down' with more complex queries. They're not able to write the necessary QBE/SQL code to conduct searches, or customize reports that can handle the output that results from those queries — then I get a call. Having been able to solve those problems, what I usually hear next is, "I don't understand how to...", which relates back to Number Two in the Top Four Highlights.

You might be able to eliminate, or at least minimize potential problems by reviewing the Check List below:

1. Make the choice based on what actions you will execute, once you have the tool.
• A. Don't collect data that you aren't planning to use
• a. The bane of a salesperson's existence is entering data that nobody reads
• b. Bury this in the middle of some report, "if you found this I owe you $1, if you missed it, you owe me $2")
• B. Will the data reside on a company server, personal HDD, or in a 'cloud'
• a. Ability and convenience to access data real-time for corporate and remote users
• b. Connection ease and data transfer for remote users over a VPN
• c. Security, and back-up issues
• C. Scaleable, Compatible, and Extensible
• a. Can it grow as your needs grow: amount of records, etc.
• b. Can it 'communicate' with other tools (Data I/O)?
• i. You want to import records to initially populate the database, i.e. CSV, or other file
• ii. Can it accept XML data, (input from your website) or is manual entry required?
• D. The tool needs to fit your company budget and culture
• a. Six-digit tools are nice, but if your budget is $50K - that's not going to work
• b. Some cultures are very data driven, others less so - determine which one you are

2. Most companies spend lot's of money acquiring a tool, but not enough on training to use it effectively
• A. Training should be on-going
• B. The needs are different for an Administrative Assistant, Regional Sales Manager and VP Sales
• a. Not 'one size fit's all', customize training to fit end user needs
• b. The first session is an overview. "They don't know, what they don't know"
• c. Six weeks later, everyone "will know what they didn't know" and have targeted questions

3. Identify a 'go to' person responsible for tool management, and involve your IT department
• A. Someone needs to be responsible for many of the daily housekeeping and maintenance activities
• a. Whoever inputs data will make mistakes, and someone needs to 'vet' that data before hand
• b. Standardized input formats can help, but will not eliminate all errors
• c. If your contacts are international, particular attention must be paid to phone numbers and postal codes
• d. Is the customer name entered as IBM, I.B.M., or International Business Machines?
• i. Existing customers can be tied to unique customer codes, new customers should be set-up with IT
• ii. It is possible to search 'free-form' data, but easier and faster to search well defined fields
• e. Getting clean data make take longer than you expect, faulty emails, duplicate entries, etc.
• f. If you do any direct mail - ZIP+4, and gender identification could be useful
• g. Phone calls for lead qualification, literature fulfillment or sample requests might better be outsource

4. Start Small and Build on Success
• A. Don't wait until you have all 100,00 client entered to test your tool, why?
• a. Because you'll have problems, I can't tell you where, but you will
• b. Enter enough data to be meaningful and execute something simple that can benefit all users
• i. A targeted email with a call to action that identifies the sales, marketing or customer service contact
• ii. This can demonstrate the benefit to these important stakeholders
• B. Most tools require some customization, this is the time to get it done
• a. Complex searches to extract information from raw data may be needed
• b. QBE/SQL are examples of complex searches that might need to be created
• c. Special queries usually require customized reports to be generated