So much focus is given to how GoldMine is used for sales and marketing that we sometimes overlook GoldMine’s tremendous value as an interoffice workgroup solution. 

Nearly 15 years ago, before MS Windows was even introduced, the founders and creators of GoldMine, Jon Ferrara and Elan Susser, had the vision for a workgroup contact management system, soon to be referred to as sales force automation, that would allow all the various members inside the organization to share one central database for prospects, customers, vendors, and other key contacts. 

From the start, GoldMine featured functions that would help organizations work together more effectively.  Believe it or not, ever since the DOS version, GoldMine offered task delegation, group scheduling, network-based electronic mail, document storage, a knowledge base and other functions.  These qualities have always made GoldMine stand out over other contact management systems and are some of the reasons it’s won so many awards.  In addition to helping sales and marketing, GoldMine has always offered workgroup features which are valuable to the organization at large including but not limited to the ability to:

• Track in-house interactions in relation to database records
• Capture significant facts and activities regarding these records that others need
• Document important internal and external conversation notes or instructions pertaining
• Check availability of co-workers
• Delegate scheduled follow-up pertaining to records in the database
• Notify or copy staff or management regarding aspects on records
• Offer an efficient way for multiple departments with different roles and responsibilities to share files while at the same time having options to hide or limit access to restricted information

GoldMine has always been much more than a stand-alone contact management or sales automation tool!  Working together more effectively remains vital to any organization’s success – so owners of GoldMine are smart to leverage it to help them do so.

One tell tale way to know if you're really using your CRM/Sales Automation System is whether you're relying on reports. Rolling up data into useful views can serve any number of purposes, from pipeline to market analysis.

Successful reporting, which is akin to successful CRM, depends on good data integrity and good report design/layout. We've covered data integrity in other issues of GoldMine® Success™ and ways to ensure it.

Choosing the best report writer to create your report will make achieving your objectives a whole lot easier. There are popular tools to use with GoldMine for report writing - GoldMine's native report writer, and two award-winning add-on tools - MasterMine and Stonefield Query. As well as excellent generic report writers such as Crystal Report. (They each have very different benefits to offer, so contact your Solution Partner for an explanation and/or a demonstration!)

Designing an effective report takes a special combination of skills and talents. Including technical abilities, understanding of the subject data structure and an appreciation of how to use the data to tell the story the "owner" or "user" of the reports desires. It often takes more than one person to plan, design and create the report.

Reporting brings the truth out! Reporting can showcase performance (or lack there of), highlight quality issues, or provide important information for other departments to follow-up, etc., etc. Reporting will help you hold users accountable - as they see the output of their input; they're more likely to appreciate how their attention to detail and activities impact their standing on reports that management uses.

With the New Year, now would be a great time to give more thought to your GoldMine reports and how you can manage smarter through them.

GoldMine's "AutoUpdate" feature within the GoldMine system Lookup.ini allows you to automatically populate the data in fields to save time and improve data quality. Some common examples of when it is appropriate to do so include:

■Entering Territory and/or Sales Rep based on State or Logged-in User
■Entering "User Login" name for appropriate sales rep to work in conjunction with Automated Processes
■Entering a numeric total into a field based on the sum of other numeric fields
You can configure GoldMine to update fields automatically when a user either creates a contact record or enters data in specified fields by Including the [AutoUpdate] section in LOOKUP.INI.

To configure GoldMine to update one or more fields automatically when a user creates a contact record include the following statement in the [AutoUpdate] section in LOOKUP.INI.

NewRecord=field(s)

Example 1.
[AutoUpdate]
NewRecord=Key1

This will update the Key1 field whenever a contact record is created. To specify the value to appear in the Key1 field, add a [Key1] section to LOOKUP.INI.

Example 2.
[Key1]
Lookup1=&username

JDOE=John Doe

This will place the full name of user JDOE in the Key1 field.

Example 3.
[URep]
Lookup1=State

CA=Jon
NY=Mike
Otherwise=Mark

This will update the Rep field in every new contact record with Jon when the State entry is CA, with Mike when the State entry is NY, and with Mark for any other State entry.

Updating Fields upon Record Creation

You can configure GoldMine to update fields automatically when a user enters data in specified fields by including the [AutoUpdate] section in LOOKUP.INI. Place the following setting(s) in the [AutoUpdate] section of LOOKUP.INI. field a=field b will update field b when a user types a value in field a.

For example:
[AutoUpdate]
State=uSalesRep

Zip=Key5

This will update the SalesRep field as soon as a user types a value in the State field, and will update the Key5 field as soon as a user types a value in the Zip field.

You can set GoldMine to update multiple fields when a user types a value in one field.

For example:

[AutoUpdate]

State=uSalesRep, Key1

This will update both the SalesRep field and the Key1 field when a user types a value in the State field.

Creating Auto-fill expressions can be more challenging than many of the ordinary GoldMine administrator functions, so it may be a good idea to work with your Solution Partner for assistance.

Perish the thought of taking away Outlook? Maybe not! Believe it or not, there are thousands of GoldMine users who have no need for Microsoft Outlook and many who frankly don't miss it a bit.

While at the same time GoldMine offers more features for integrating with your Microsoft Outlook than ever before, there are many GoldMine users who could care less, or even prefer to keep Outlook off the desktop. Here are some reasons sales managers and users may want to take the stance that GoldMine IS the company's business email client:

■Computer viruses are very commonly written to use Outlook's address book for self-propagating
■Outlook tends to hold a great deal of personal email and contacts
■Important information that should be shared and accessible to others in the company may be stored in inaccessible personal folders
■Outlook data often "disappears" once a person leaves
■Contact information, such as faxes, email addresses, etc. maybe hard to round up for campaigns. And, once various personal folders are compiled there is often a duplicate problem.
■Non-authorized confidential company information is available for most users to export
GoldMine 5.7's email client and email center are full featured and possess all the bells & whistles one needs to manage email communications. And, you can easily avoid the pitfalls listed above.

It's this author's opinion that one reason more firms don't make the decision to rely completely on GoldMine email is that the decision makers are part of the problem - they find it just as appealing as their staff does to take advantage of features that favor the user, rather than the organization's interests. On the other hand, a dedicated employee whose focus is to help the company achieve its mission will do what's in the firm's best interests to achieve their personal success in the process. Entrepreneurs, as well as Presidents, CFOs, and CEOs who are reading this article, wake up and smell the coffee. If you don't put your foot down on this subject, chances are it isn't going to happen.

The other reason people don't change is the "comfort factor." Folks are comfortable with Outlook email. They haven't familiarized themselves with GoldMine's client or email center. And, maybe they find GoldMine's "linking" feature strange. (Frankly, this linking feature which make's GoldMine email so powerful and appealing.)

Making GoldMine's email system a requirement for sales, marketing and certain support personnel, doesn't mean that you have to require it throughout the firm. Nor does it mean that you have to entirely take away Outlook or Outlook express as client for "personal" types of communication.

Life can function without Outlook. And with GoldMine, you may find your business functions much better!

Outlook® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.

It's been said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." GoldMine is a great tool for tracking and measuring sales activities, but it can often be challenging to analyze the data.

GoldMine's "Statistical Analysis" feature is effective for tabulating overall calls, appointments, etc. It's also useful for counting one-up "Activity Codes" during a data range for one or many users. However, if you need a more powerful dynamic analysis tool with graphical capabilities, consider MasterMine Software. It combines the best of Excel with the best of GoldMine by letting you produce analytically rich "Pivot Tables" in seconds. See a demonstration of MasterMine and you'll recognize in seconds the potential for using your GoldMine data to effectively measure and manage just about anything you want!

If you're a sales manager who's constantly drilling home the importance of follow-up, let GoldMine notify your salespeople, and you if you'd like, if they are failing to follow-up on new leads. GoldMine Automated Processes are useful mechanisms for this.

All automated processes start out with planning.

■To begin with, determine the criteria you believe constitute a "forgotten lead." It may be a set of factors.
■For example: Contact Type = Prospect, and there is no scheduled call back (Contact2->callbackon is empty), and there is no scheduled next action (Contact2-nextaction is empty).
■Prepare the filter that you will use as the "dBase expression," which will serve as the "trigger" for an "event."
■Then determine what action you want your automated processes to perform.
For example, you may wish it to schedule a message to the appropriate person.

In order for this process to notify the appropriate salesperson, there will have to be a field that contains the user login name for the salesperson that is responsible for this prospect. (Tip: Set-up a lookup.ini expression to auto-fill a field with the sales rep login.)

To make sure that the process is applied to prospect records, see to it that this expression is attached to all "prospect" records, also using a lookup.ini expression. And, since follow-up is ongoing, design the properties of your automated process to "restart each time the process ends." It can be removed using a preemptive event that sees the record is no longer a prospect. Also, to avoid creating a repeating loop in your automated process, which schedules duplicate messages, make sure there is a track(s) that deals with those records that already have pending messages.

Word to the wise - always test automated processes before setting them loose!

Just because people love to hate the "big brother" aspect of CRM, doesn't mean it is not a valid application for the tool. Sure there are better ways to manage and motivate people than to spy on them and hover over their shoulder. You can choose what to do with this information. I'm just going to give you a few ideas that may help you to inspect what you expect. Depending on how your security access is set up, you may not have access to several of these.

Closed Tab and Real Time Tab on the Activity List - There are two quick and easy places for reviewing users' completed activities in detail. The Closed Tab is great for going over the specific types of activities (calls, appointments, next actions, etc.) for a certain user, while the Real Time Tab will give you a blow-by-blow of each completed activity for every user on your network in real time. Both views give you the option to "filter" the list so you can drill down for certain Activity Codes or Date Ranges, etc.

Calendar Peg Board - The Peg Board is the last tab on the Calendar view. If you operate in a network environment it lets you see whether any user is currently active on GoldMine by displaying whether they're logged in or away, and how many minutes it has been with no activity.

Statistical Analysis - This Analysis View is a fast and simple way to get a tally of the number of completed calls, appointments, forms, emails, sales, etc. for selected users for a specified period of time. It's useful for checking against goals.

Forecasting and Quota Analysis - Use these Analysis Views to get a roll-up of the total sales revenue in your pipeline by user, group of users or overall. (If you're using Opportunities, then the Opportunity Manager gives you a detailed breakdown and the ability to sort.)

System Logs - User Logins and Sync Wizard Logs are administrative tools to see how many records a user has edited and the times they've synched if they're a remote user.

Time Clock Tab on User Properties - This view is only available to users with Master Rights. However, it will tell you every time a user has logged in and out, and even how many keystrokes and mouse clicks they've done.

It's still nice to know that there are a few features that GoldMine possesses that will help you to determine if your people are doing what you're paying them to do. Besides, what's so bad about wanting to get your money's worth?

How do you measure GoldMine® Success™? Test your GoldMine® Success™ by answering the questions below. Consider whether your organization is doing the ten things below with GoldMine. In each case that you are give yourself 10 points. Total your score to see how you are doing with GoldMine. (Or, for that matter, any contact management software.)

1. Changes to important information about a record (e.g., prime contact leaving, address, phone and email, etc.) are updated right away in GoldMine.

2. It is very common for us to communicate and delegate internally with GoldMine, thereby creating a history within the record.

3. We have designed filters to segment our database for marketing purposes.

4. Our Document Management Center contains ready-to-go letter and email templates for all standard marketing and sales communications.

5. Analysis of sales activities reflects our volume of prospecting and sales calls.

6. If a sale is pending to a prospect, there will be a forecasted sale in GoldMine.

7. Customers with a past due account have a GoldMine "record alert" and a history of any collection calls made.

8. We rely on reports of certain GoldMine data in order to operate more effectively.

9. We have GoldMine Automated Processes that perform regular functions.

10. Leads from our web site forms are automatically imported into GoldMine.

So, how did you do?

■70% or better: then your organization couldn't live without GoldMine, or something to replace it.

■50 -70%: at least you're getting your moneys worth out of GoldMine, but you're not leveraging it the way you could or should.
If your score is disappointing, resist the knee-jerk reaction to blame GoldMine. There are lots of businesses that will score 100% on this quiz, and they're simply the ones who dedicated the energy, focus and discipline to make it so! By the same token, we can all raise our score and do better if we make up our minds to do so.

It’s impossible to recall everything we need these days to sell, service and operate a business.  Actually, the key is not remembering everything but knowing where to find it. 

A manager’s success depends on their people having access to the information they need to do their job.  The issue boils down to access – quick and easy access! 

One of the most valuable features GoldMine offers is a powerful solution to the challenges of managing and sharing information.  Meet the InfoCenter.  The InfoCenter is found under the View pull down menu. 

Within the InfoCenter you’ll see that there are tabs for KnowledgeBase, PersonalBase and What’s New.  Think of the KnowledgeBase as the general view and the PersonalBase as every user’s individual view.  What’s New is where you’ll find a list of every new or updated entry in the KnowledgeBase in descending order.  GoldMine User Preferences can be set to have the list of “What’s New” pop open when a User logs to alert them.

The InfoCenter is organized in outline format with bodies of knowledge presented graphically as a book, which makes everything easy to find. Within each book there are pages, or folders with pages in them.  Clicking on books and folders drills down to the pages under them and displays associated content to the right.  Files can be linked to the topic and launched directly from the InfoCenter.  (Right click or select the icon.)   Linked files can be every type of format including word-processing, spreadsheet, multimedia, graphics, or you name it! 

The InfoCenter has its own toolbar and local command menus.  Search capabilities let you search topic names, folders, key words and text.  You can print or fax topics.  You can even link contact records to a topic for situations when the two relate to one another (e.g. a price list and the relevant distributor’s/manufacturer’s GoldMine record).   Security features let you limit read and update access to topics. 

The actual task of building and maintaining your organization’s InfoCenter is simple and easy.  Using it is also simple.  The challenging part is taking the time to put it together and keep it up-to-date.  As with any new tool, it takes effort and reinforcement to condition users to look in the InfoCenter when they need information.

Like records in GoldMine, the InfoCenter is also shared.  Contents within the InfoCenter, including linked files, synchronize to remote laptops or servers.  The InfoCenter is a powerful way of disseminating information in an organized structure that you know is instantly accessible when the time comes.

With information properly stored in GoldMine’s InfoCenter rather than relying on memory or floating on paper, everyone has the ability to instantly recall everything they need to know in order to do a smart job of selling and servicing your prospects and customers.

GoldMine makes forecasting business extremely simple. It will also present our forecasted sales or opportunities in the form of a "funnel" analysis or report. Let's consider the benefits of this type of representation of our sales pipeline.

By virtue of associating a probability with each sale in progress we can generate a sales funnel. A sales funnel lets us view how much business is in our pipeline at each level of probability. But first the company must decide on the definitions and basis for selecting the probability. Some firms have the sales person subjectively indicate the closing probability.

Since sales people's instincts vary from overly conservative to totally unrealistic this method is fraught with problems. To minimize these subject swings firms prefer to have the probability correspond to specific stages in the sales cycle. Plus, this will enable much more intelligent reading of the sales funnel. With a funnel we see the amount of business in the pipeline at each stage in the sales process. One advantage of using GoldMine's "Opportunity Management" tool to track deals is that is offers the ability to track both the sales cycle "Stage" and the "probability" of closing. Either way, sales management should recognize that the more options they give for stage and probability, the more time consuming it is for sales people to update their pending transactions. From a practical standpoint, less is more!

A sales funnel is not just a tool for evaluating the performance of a sales person or sales force. It's a way of predicting the future. Business ups & downs impact various departments including production, delivery, customer service, even purchasing and accounting. Having some advanced notice, via the sales funnel helps them to prepare for the future and manage their processes and resources.

An equally valuable benefit of funnel analysis is that it can give us early warning signs that our marketing or sales efforts are ineffective. Also, it may indicate changing market conditions we need to adjust to. In more ways than one, a sales funnel can definitely help us to manage smarter.