This article is for those of you who use the GoldMine email center for sending and receiving emails. When configuring your e-mail account settings in the GoldMine email center there is the option to auto-retrieve and auto-delete emails. If you are going to auto-retrieve emails you MUST either check the auto-delete checkbox or remember to manually delete your emails from the online folder in the GoldMine email center after you have retrieved them, otherwise you’re going to retrieve the same emails over and over again.

I had a customer who called into our helpdesk with the same issue. Here was their situation, the user was auto-retrieving email and was set to auto-retrieve email every 2 minutes. The user logged in and checked their email and noticed about a 1000 copies of the same email in their GoldMine email center inbox.

My first recommendation is to set GoldMine to auto-retrieve email every 15 minutes and not 2 minutes. That’s really asking alot of your mail server and if you know you’re expecting an important email you can just as easily manually retrieve it from the online folder when it arrives. Then change the email settings so that they are set to auto-retrieve and auto-delete.

Campaign Tracker is an email newsletter tool built for those who want to send and track their own email campaigns. We design a template and you log in to your own account to manage your subscribers, create and send your own emails and view reports on the results.

Reports you will actually understand Our simple reports make it easy for you to check out the numbers that matter. Manage your own subscribers with ease – the system handles the unsubscribes and bounces for you. Elegant reports on the success of your campaigns let you easily see who opened, who clicked, who bounced and who unsubscribed. You can even search for a specific subscriber to see exactly what they did with the email.

As most know, GoldMine is a great tool for tracking activities (Calls, Appointment, Actions, Email, etc.).  However, GoldMine lacks functionality and features in the User Interface (UI) which demanding customer service/help desk environments require.  Here are just of few of the types of needs such departments have:

• Auto Ticket/Issue ID# Generation
• Issue Tracking – record all aspects from initial inquiry to problem resolution
• Configurable Inquiry Screen and Custom Intake Forms
• Assigning/Referring an Issue to another User
• Priority Escalation
• Automated Email Notifications to Users
• Integrated Knowledgebase – to capture and search for relevant solutions
• Relevant Reporting

Individuals who handle support calls will find that support software is designed to work the way they do, which is often different than how sales and marketing people work.  Creating, finding, and managing open issues is more user friendly and efficient!

The single biggest difference between recording a call in GoldMine (either scheduling or completing) and a service & support application is the “Issue Tracking.”  In GoldMine, each Activity is discrete.  In other words, there is nothing that automatically associates one pending or completed activity with another, other than the Record over, or the Opportunity/Project Manager.  Therefore, for organizations that wish to “open an issue” and manage it from “start to finish,” GoldMine falls short.  For this and other reasons organizations tend to look to special applications for this purpose.

There are many other important capabilities that a help desk or service department could be looking for.  And, there are many systems available.  But I’d like to call to your attention one particular product called Tele-Support Help Desk.  

I mention this product because Tele-Support has three significant advantages: 1) Out-of-the-box integration with GoldMine, 2) Affordability, and 3) Full featured, yet simple to use. 

Because Tele-Support incorporates your existing GoldMine contact database, you can leverage information you have in GoldMine, as well as share information between sales and service professional.  The integration lets you start creating tickets for existing records in GoldMine right off the bat.

Tele-Support’s integration with GoldMine offers several notable features: 

• The GoldMine primary and additional contacts are viewable when starting a support issue/ticket
• You can view GoldMine fields from within Tele-Support
• New open issues are automatically added to the “Pending” tab in GoldMine, and are also automatically moved to “History” when resolved/closed.  Unlike HEAT, the product made from FrontRange, there’s no need to refer to the “Tickets” tab which is an extra effort for non-helpdesk users such as sales people.  

There are several aspects about Tele-Support’s GoldMine integration which are advantageous.  Tele-Support Help Desk also deploys rapidly and relatively easily.  Manufacturer’s support for implementation is even free during the trial period.  (Imagine that, free installation support!)   

There’s way too much to say about Tele-Support Help Desk for this newsletter.  So, my suggestion is that if you have considered the need for a service & support solution, check Tele-Support.  Free trials and demonstrations are available from First Direct Corp.

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The GM+View tab is a web-based tab that can provide views of external data or views/reports of internal GoldMine data all within GoldMine itself. For example, use GM+Views to allow customer service reps to access order history and order details. Or, create your own application and link it to GoldMine thru the GM+Views tab. You can even track packages through UPS or FedEx without ever leaving GoldMine!

With the GM+View tab you have the ability to connect GoldMine’s data to the data from other applications in “real time”. Using a GM+View, data from GoldMine can be co-mingled with related data from an accounting program, production control program, shipping program … you name it! You can have as many different Views as you want!

With GM+Views you can create custom views of data, and control access and limit the ability to edit the information. Plus, this way your GoldMine users can stay in GoldMine yet be able to access outside data without having to log into another application.

So now that you know what the GM+View Tab is and what it can do you’re probably wondering how do you make it work. Well that requires knowledge about GoldMine’s database structure as well as the database structure of the application you’re trying to link GoldMine with as well as a good understanding about web programming languages such as asp, .NET, php, and/or java to name a few. In a nutshell its not something your typical GoldMine end user will be ab and its not something that can be setup with a click of a button. With that said, it is still a fairly friendly feature for those with the right skills.

Example: UPS Tracking Number

In the following example we are going to create a simple GM+View which will pull a UPS tracking number from a field in GoldMine and display the UPS Tracking Information on UPS’s website inside the GM+View tab. (See image)

To start lets go to UPS.com’s website and enter a tracking number, dont forget to agree to the terms and conditions. If you entered a valid tracking number you’ll be redirected to a page that has a URL like the following:

http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/ processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0

&loc=en_US

&Requester=UPSHome

&tracknum =1ZAE56110333009440

&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes

&track.x=30

&track.y=8

Notice the &tracknum=1ZAE56110333009440 this is the crucial part to getting the GM+View to work.

Now open up GoldMine, and inside of GoldMine paste the UPS Tracking Number into the Key5 field. This is the bottom field of the lower right hand quadrant of the GoldMine contact window, be sure to enter just the tracking number ie. 1ZAE56110333009440.

Now its time to create the GM+View.

1. In GoldMine click FIle > Configure > GM+View Tab. The GM+View Tab Settings window will display.

2. Click on the New button to create a New GM+View.

3. In the Template Name: text field enter UPS Tracking Number

4. In the lower white window right click with your mouse and select Edit HTML Source

5. You will see the HTML Source for the GM+View. Look for the following code <DIV></DIV>6. Place your cursor between the two <div> tags and hit enter a few times. The code should look something like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN”>
<META content=”MSHTML 6.00.2900.2769″ name=GENERATOR></HEAD>

<HTML><HEAD>

<STYLE type=text/css> P, UL, OL, DL, DIR, MENU, PRE { margin: 0 auto;}</STYLE>

<BODY leftMargin=1 topMargin=1 rightMargin=1><FONT face=Tahoma size=2>

<DIV>

</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>

Now we are going to enter our own code to display the UPS website inside the GM+View browser and display the UPS tracking information for the tracking number we entered in to the KEY5 field.

Start by inserting the following code into the space between the <DIV> and </DIV>

<SCRIPT>

window.location.href = ” ”

</SCRIPT>

This is a Javascript to make the website location property of the browser what ever value or web address we enter into the space between the quotation marks. If you guessed it, we’re going to enter the UPS Tracking URL:

http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0 &loc=en_US &Requester=UPSHome &tracknum=1ZAE56110333009440 &AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes &track.x=15 &track.y=9

However, we want to be able to display the Tracking Number that is displayed in the GoldMine KEY5 field. So were going to replace the Tracking Number from the URL with the GoldMine Merge code for the KEY5 field. The merge code is <<KEY5>>. However, we cant just enter <<KEY5>> in place of the Tracking Number in the above URL. We need to URL encode the <’s and >’s because these have special meanings when entered into the URL. The URL Encoded value for < is &lt; and for > is &gt;

So to review:

< = &lt;

> = &gt;

<<KEY5>> = &lt;&lt;KEY5&gt;&gt;

So now we can replace &tracknum=1ZAE56110333009440 with &tracknum=&lt;&lt;KEY5&gt;&gt;

So the final code for displaying the UPS Tracking Number inside GM+View is:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN”>
<META content=”MSHTML 6.00.2900.2769″ name=GENERATOR></HEAD>

<HTML><HEAD>

<STYLE type=text/css> P, UL, OL, DL, DIR, MENU, PRE { margin: 0 auto;}</STYLE>

<BODY leftMargin=1 topMargin=1 rightMargin=1><FONT face=Tahoma size=2>

<DIV>

<SCRIPT>

window.location.href = “http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0

&tracknums_displayed= 5

&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T

&loc=en_US

&InquiryNumber1=&lt;&lt;KEY5&gt;&gt;

&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes

&track.x=10

&track.y=9″

</SCRIPT>

</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>

Save the View by clicking the Yellow Save icon or by right clicking in the window and selecting save. Then close out of the GM+View Settings. When you go to the GM+View tab in GoldMine you can right click and choose the UPS Tracking Number view and you should see the tracking information for the Tracking Number in the Key5 field.

Now if you were to enter a different tracking number for a different contact and view the GM+View tab you’d see the information for that contacts Tracking number. For better use, create a custom field to store the UPS Tracking Number or even Multiple Custom Fields to Track Multiple Tracking Numbers per a customer.

In addition, there is a product that can take a lot of the leg work and time out of developing a GM+View application. It’s called DbNetGrid and its sister product is DbNetEdit.

DbNetGrid is a fully encapsulated HTML grid component designed for use in Intranet and Internet development. It has been designed as a fast and flexible way of presenting and updating database information in a browser environment. DbNetGrid has been designed to fully exploit the features of the IE5+ family of browsers. DbNetGrid can be used as a simple grid component integrated with your own applications, a web-reporting tool or as a fully functional web-application.

For a personal demonstration/consultation and to read more information about DbNetGrid and DbNetEdit please visit our website or email us.

When composing GoldMine HTML emails it is possible to insert links, for example to a website, or to a reply email address. You may have discovered that simply typing the link in proper format, e.g. http://www.1stdirect.com, will convert the text to an active link. For most purposes this is fine, however, there’s another way to create links in GoldMine email templates.

When creating the email template you can highlight the text in the body of your template email, that you want to make a link, and then “right click” to pull up a local menu with the option to “insert” links. Form there you will see various “Insert Links” to choose from. In this article we’re going to focus on inserting “http” and “mailto” links.

When you insert a link this way the actual link is not displayed, rather your text is highlighted and underlined as an indication that this text represents a link. You’ve seen this before – for examples “Click Here” or “Contact by Email.”

There are several advantages to inserting your links this way:

1. You don’t take up space with long URLs or lengthy email addresses because the actual address is not displayed.

2. The wording in your email for the link can also be your “call to action” for example – Click here for more information.

3. You can embed tags in the web address link so you can track clicks from your email campaign to your website pages. For example, instead of linking to http://www.1stdirect.com/index.html, if you append to the end of the URL “?source=EmailPromo12” your web analytics software should be able to track and report the number of site visitors that came to your website from your email.

4. You can also designate a predefined “Subject” for the email when inserting a “mailto” address. This is very useful if you’re trying to develop more efficient handling/processes for response emails. For example, an unsubscribe request or a specific product request. In these cases the mailto link would look something like this: mailto:name@domain.com?Subject=Remove from Mailing List.

Click the following link to see what it looks like. Unsubscribe

5. In addition to adding a predefined “Subject” you can also insert a default body. The link would look something like this:

mailto:email@domain.com?subject=Request for Information&body=Please send me information on GoldMine Software. I look forward to hearing from you.

Click the following link to see what it would look like. Request for Information

It takes an extra moment to do these links this way, but when the advantages outweigh the effort it is nice to know there’s a way to format your links this way! If you need further assistance designing your HTML emails with even more elaborate functionality and greater appeal, contact First Direct. Click here to email your request.

GoldMine has a feature that is available when scheduling and completing activities which is unlike other Contact Management solutions.  GoldMine offers users the ability to “Code” Activities (Calls, Appointment, Actions, Sales, Emails, etc.), as well as the “Results” of those Activities.  The value of “Coding” Activities and Results can come into play in several ways including:

• Save Time Entering Your Activities – Activity & Result Codes are faster to type than descriptions. Redundant/common actions make appropriate choices for the drop down “pick” list of Activity Codes.  Same is said of “Results.”
• Organize your Scheduling Activities including Sorting and Filtering as a means to manage your time, by prioritizing or focusing your efforts.  Even viewing your activities on your GoldMine Calendar, and especially your Activity List, can help you to be more effective.  
• Target Contacts (building GoldMine Filters/Groups) based on Tagged Activities with Certain Codes – can be useful if you want to create a marketing or sales efforts based on records in GoldMine with which a certain activity has been done.
• Report and Analyze Completed Activities – Metrics can be derived from Activity & Result Codes which can help you manage people, processes, marketing, etc.  

Since the concept of “Activity & Result Codes” is a rather unique concept within GoldMine, many GoldMine administrators don’t quite have a good idea where to begin.  The result of this article is intended to help you with framing your thoughts for how to organize and use your firm’s “Activity & Result Codes.” 

But before I begin, you should know that in most organizations with multiple users of GoldMine the decision to use and configure “Activity & Result Codes” belongs to management and the GoldMine administrator.  In fact, in nearly all cases, I recommend that the right to add/edit/delete to the lookup list for codes is reserved for users with “Master Rights.”

Definitions to Start With:
Activities – Activities are time-specific or event-based actions linked to contacts, such as calls, appointments, letters, etc., or other types of activities, such as To Do tasks or events that are assigned to users. For the most part, GoldMine is designed to link contacts with scheduled activities. This linking allows you to schedule the activity on your calendar and on the contact’s Pending tab. Then, when you complete the activity, it is moved to the contact’s History tab, thereby creating a record of that activity.

Activity Type – GoldMine tracks different “types” of activities (e.g. Calls, Appointments, Next Actions, Other Actions, Sales, etc.).  GoldMine automatically tracks the “user” who enters and completes the activity, along with the respective dates and times.  With respect to each of these Activity Types, GoldMine offers the option to indicate an Activity “Code,” “Reference,” and “Result.” 

Code – generally used to define the purpose or nature of the activity

Reference – generally used to describe what the activity is regarding

Result – generally used to denote the essential outcome of the activity

Considerations:
It is important that Activity Codes and Results, in particular, have “Lookup Lists” for the user to select from.  Furthermore, GoldMine Users should NOT be permitted to add, edit, or delete from these lists.  In other words, the choices for Activity Codes and Results should be predetermined, If they need to be edited, this should be done by the GoldMine Administrator or a user with “Master Rights.”  It is fairly common for GoldMine installations to permit users to manually enter the “Reference” for an Activity while they are scheduling it, although it is beneficial to offer a Lookup list for this entry as well.

The Lookup List for Codes, References, and Results are discrete for each Activity Type.  In other words, the Lookup List for Calls is separate from the Lookup List for Appointments and from Next Actions.

In the database, GoldMine only stores up to three (3) characters for an Activity Code and Result Code.  The Reference is a 40-character field.  Since Activity Codes and Results are limited to three characters, you must develop a list of abbreviations or acronyms to represent the description of your entry.  The Lookup List will display the “Code” along side of the Activity “Description” to help users make their entries. However, only the first three characters are captured in the database when a selection is made.  The most familiar/user friendly way to decide on your codes is generally to use acronyms for multi-word descriptions and abbreviations for single word descriptions.  (See below.)  Do NOT use the same code for multiple meanings!

Used in conjunction with one another, the Activity Type, Code, Reference, and Result provide a rather complete and specific level of detail for reporting and analysis.  Coupled with these details is an opportunity to enter “Notes” pertaining to the Activity.  The “Notes” from a Scheduled (Pending) Activity are carried into the GoldMine Record History when it is completed.  One can add and/or edit those Notes when they “Complete” the Pending Activity.

Examples: 
This list is not intended to be your list!  It is simply some examples to get you thinking/planning.  Ultimately, the list you come up with should represent a “day-in-the-life” for an individual in your organization.  Think in terms of common/redundant activities to get ideas.  Also, try to account for those activities which are important for calculating metrics (measurements).   During the Configuration Planning process that First Direct Corp. does with you, First Direct can help you to get started and to validate your ideas.

ACTIVITY TYPES:

CALLS -

APPOINTMENTS - 

NEXT ACTIONS:      

Please Note:  I have not provided examples for all the Activity Types.  The logic for determining and applying them is very similar.  You are welcome to discuss how Lookup Lists for Activity Codes, References, and Results can be applied to the other Activity Types.

What if you could predict the future? If you could anticipate what people will do, would you leverage that knowledge for success?  You can and here’s how! 

The other day I was in my first working meeting with a new client.  I was explaining to a group of their department heads how they could do this when my customer said with excitement, “It’s true … it’s amazing how responsive Bob is!”

As sales and marketing professionals we don’t need a fortune teller to tell us the future.  With a little experience and common sense, we can anticipate it.  How so … well think about it.  Can you predict how a prospect might react?  I didn’t say WILL react, I said MIGHT react.  Can you predict what a prospect might ask you?  Can you anticipate possible objections, fears, and concerns?  Can you figure out the various reasons why prospects do and don’t purchase your products or services?

There’s no question we can anticipate most of the likely scenarios we’re faced with!  The question is how well we use our instincts and our experience to market and sell more effectively and efficiently!  Here’s what it takes:

1. Planning:  Make a list of the situations that you run into during a typical day or week.  What do you do?  What kinds of requests and questions do you get asked?  How do you handle new leads?  Are there any redundancies?  What patterns you can find or make?

2. Invest Time:  Prepare and assemble the materials you need to handle the various situations you expect.  Be practical … start with the more likely ones (e.g. requests for literature, literature follow-up, frequently asked questions, etc.)  Fulfillment may be in the form of an email, or letter, or fax.  Or, possibly, schedule follow up.

3. Invest in Automation:  You’re going to need technology to do this right – a Contact Management Software or a Customer Relationship Management System with certain capabilities.  A product such as GoldMine software has the features you need.  Here’s what to look for in the system you choose:

• It must let you maintain a library of letters, faxes, emails, and have the ability to personalize them on demand. 
• It needs to be able to print one label and envelope at a time. 
• It must be able to capture contact information and other details from web forms.
• It must be able to automatically perform functions such scheduling activities based on information about the contact or responses on web forms. 
• It must be able to delegate administrative and sales support tasks to others in your organization, in some cases automatically. 
• It must offer the ability to build “tracks” which contain a sequence of actions that are performed when they are triggered by a variety of conditions including information in fields, the passage of time, completion of activities, and other circumstances in the database.  And, have the capability to manually and automatically assign and remove these “tracks.”
• It must be able to dial the phone for you.
• It must let you build “macros” which can perform one or many functions at the click of a button.

4. Build Speed: Athletes develop muscle memory so that they can perform complex physical moves at high speeds in a reflex reaction to a situation.  Salespeople need to do the same in response to the situations that come at us.  Whatever new system we build will take getting used to.  Speed comes with practice and repetition.  Functions that start out being difficult to perform become effortless and in a sense mindless once we do them enough times.  

You Have An Edge!
By investing time upfront to save time later, you’ve developed an edge over other salespeople.  Now you have leverage … you can do more in one day than most sales reps do in a week! You’re more efficient and more productive.  You can respond faster and follow up better.  You’re not working harder … you’re working smarter!