From surgeons to carpenters, from police officers to accountants … every profession uses tools.  And, so it is with sales professionals.  CRM is far and away one of the most important tools in a salesperson’s toolbox!

Professionals need to know the terminology, trends, and facts in their field.  They need an understanding of their customers’ wants, needs, and objections.  They must also be familiar with best practices, pitfalls, and patterns which lead to success.  But all this is not enough!  They must also be highly skilled on the tools of their trade. 

There’s an applicable expression, which I’m not a fan of, – “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.”   This expression gives all teachers a bad rap because many teachers are talented professionals who can easily work in the field that they teach, and have. They just love to teach.  Nonetheless, this saying does make a point – if you know a lot about a field, but you can’t use the “tools of the trade,” you might have a career as a teacher, but not as a practitioner.

CRM technology is a chief sales tool, and a skillful CRM user has a competitive advantage. Yet most salespeople barely use a fraction of their CRM’s capabilities and many struggle to use even the basic features, regardless of what CRM product they have.  Why is that?

I’ve heard all the excuses … I don’t have the time or I’m out of the office. It’s too hard to use.  It doesn’t do this or that.  I’m not good at computers.  These are cop outs!  Here’s why salespeople aren’t skilled CRM users:

1. Lack of Effort – You can’t expect someone in your office to spoon feed you CRM knowledge.  It’ll never happen.  The rest of the office already thinks salespeople are spoiled and they’re tired of cleaning up salespeople’s mistakes and sloppy paperwork.  Break out the manual and make the effort to go through the application on your own.  Skills take time and practice to develop.

2. Selfishness – Heaven forbid a salesperson should have to verify an address, or enter qualifying information about their leads into the CRM fields. The reality is salespeople need to do data entry.  Otherwise, marketing can’t target their campaigns to our prospects to support our sales efforts.  It’s time for salespeople to shoulder more responsibility for the database.  It’s time to turn selfishness into a higher expectation for yourself when it comes to the effective usage of your CRM! 

3. Attitude – What do some salespeople do during CRM training?  Their email and call-backs.  Most salespeople have never read, let alone seen, their CRM’s Users Guide.  When salespeople don’t know how to use their CRM software what do they do?  Too often the answer is they make excuses for not using it.  Or, even worse, undermine the organization’s use of it.  Successful salespeople are creative and resourceful problem solvers – it’s time to use some of that on your CRM! 

The combination of knowledge and skill is a winning combination.  Practice, patience, and persistence are mostly what it takes to develop the skills at anything.  Do you have the CRM skills you need?  If not, it’s time to work on them!

This article begins with comments about the value of information and then progresses on to offer some suggestions for using GoldMine Premium.

If “information is power” then your access to it will determine your power to sell.  Here’s another old adage that speaks to the point of this article.  Know your audience!  Sales is contextual … meaning what you say and what you do relates to who you’re dealing with. 

It’s true that your ability to be effective as a salesperson depends on having access to facts, figures, and historical details regarding the consumer or business you are working with.  The more accessible the information you need to sell is, the better you can sell and the more you’ll sell, not mention the value it has for servicing your customers. 

What kind of information?  Some of the information you need is obvious – name, company, phone, email, and relevant qualifying details.  But you also should be collecting information to satisfy your marketing and management reporting needs such as lead source, industry, etc. 

In addition, if you are a real smart operator, you can appreciate the usefulness of less obvious details such as the age of the lead, when they were last contacted, a history of previous sales, credit status, customer service history, etc.

Enough said about what you need; what I’d most like to point out is how GoldMine Premium can help you access it.

To begin with, GoldMine Premium’s screen design has moved to a maximized view of the record with convenient tabbed access to windows such as your calendar, activity list, and email center.  In doing so, the top half of the screen provides much more space in which to layout fields.  Bringing fields up to the top half of the screen that were previously in the “Summary” and “Fields” Tab will display information at glance, so you can do less “clicking around.”

Plus, what many users don’t know is that you have the ability to have multiple “Primary Views.”  Primary Views are different screen layouts that you can apply to the top half of the records in GoldMine.  You can also automatically drive which screen is displayed using Record Type Rules which change the screen based on the value of the data in “Key1.”  (Click here to learn more about Record Typing) 

Within GoldMine Premium you can also have a GM+ View Tab or GM Browser Window that presents an entirely custom layout of information.  Because these screens in GoldMine use Internet Explorer to present HTML, your options for presenting information are practically limitless.  You can organize information the way you want, drill-down, and even tie in to external data from other applications in your office or from over the Internet.  

There’s even more possibilities using SQL Reporting Services and SQL Queries!  These tools, made possible because GoldMine Premium runs on MS SQL 2000/2005, offer firms powerful capabilities that can put the right information at your finger tips so you can target and analyze your sales activities far better than before!

This is all very powerful.  It’s time to think of new and creative ways that you and your organization can use information to sell more.  If you have an idea, and you’re wondering if it can be done with GoldMine, let alone how to do it, contact First Direct Corporation – we’re here to help you.

Consider this …

First Direct Corp. is having a webinar on April 2nd titled, “Using GoldMine Through The Eyes of a Sales Rep – A Sales Centric Approach to Using GoldMine.” 

As some of my readers know, First Direct Corp. has won more than our share of sales awards. I could point to a few different reasons for this, but the one I wish to focus on in this article is one you can all benefit from. It’s also one that seems terribly obvious. To sell more … do more! 

What does this have to do with GoldMine? Just about everything. If you ask me, what I like most about GoldMine? – The answer is, the way it lets my organization do more. We can make more calls, do more marketing, stay in touch with more contacts, respond to more inquiries, produce more communications, and just simply do more sales than we could possibly do without the software. In other words, I need GoldMine to sell GoldMine!

I’m always struck by the following reaction some sales people have expressed during the first training session, or even during a demonstration of GoldMine. They’ll say something like this, “You expect me to put all this information into a database … when am I going to have time to sell?” When I hear this I want to say, “Who has the time to sell without GoldMine!?”

When I look back over the many articles I’ve written in the past for this newsletter, as well as the free webinars I’ve hosted, I find numerous topics that I’ve shared with my audience to help them sell more by doing more. Yet, as the old expression goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.” 

GoldMine gives you an enviable toolset to help you and your organization sell more and market better. But you have to make it happen, or get the help you need (shameless plug). If you’ve reached the threshold or the realization that you need to use GoldMine to sell more … schedule a free, no obligation, meeting with me and start to make it happen. 

Take a look at this upcoming webinar – Using GoldMine Through The Eyes of a Sales Rep – A Sales Centric Approach to Using GoldMine.

These are just a few of the big reasons why integrating your telephone system with your CRM system is appealing:

• Power-dialing (where your phone system dials contacts in a campaign automatically)can increase telesales productivity by as much as 300%!
• Using low cost Voice over Internet solutions versus traditional telecommunications carriers can save your organization 50% and more on phone bills.
• Integrating call tracking with your CRM data can provide major efficiencies and highly useful analytics.

New voice technologies are hot in general!  Expectations are that over 60% of organizations will move to a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) enabled phone system in the near future.  VOIP has many advantages including the potential to realize significant savings over time.  And, because “Voice over the Internet” enables organizations to extend their “phone system” beyond their physical office, beyond the local area network (LAN) and even beyond their wide area network (WAN) to include remote users, even cell phones. Such greater mobility offers strategic staffing options not available within environments running more traditional “PBX” phone systems.

Access to the low-cost, high-speed Internet access is making an explosion of the VOIP industry possible.  Marketing by residential VOIP providers such as Vonage has raised the awareness of the benefits of this technology. And, many telephony equipment providers such as Avaya, Mitel, 3COM and others who provide are realizing double digit growth.  Systems for small to mid-size businesses by providers such as Altigen and TeleVantage feature incredible functionality.  Software as a Service (Saas) providers have made VOIP easy and economical to deploy rapidly. But VOIP is one part of a better solution.  Phone system without integration to your contact database (CRM system) is still just a phone system, even if it is a better system.  

If you’re a GoldMine user in the market for VOIP, the desire to integrate with your contact database is probably one of the greater concerns facing you.  After all, buying a new phone system is costly enough, so you wouldn’t want to switch CRM systems as well in order to integrate the two. 

There are established vendors with VOIP systems that will integrate with GoldMine out-of-the-box.  But I believe FrontRange’s latest VOIP technology, Voice 5.1, offers superior integration.  With FrontRange Voice (FV) the value of your CRM database is extended to your phone system.  Inbound and outbound calls are more easily tracked.  Integrated screen-pop, power dialing, and skills-based routing provide efficiencies that can add huge value to your organization!

Frankly, I’ve been skeptical of GoldMine’s integrated VOIP technology to this point. FrontRange Solutions introduced Voice over IP products about 18 months ago, called IPCC and GoldMine Voice Suite, but I was not satisfied with their functionality or their stability.  The products needed to mature.  I see positive change coming with the release of FrontRange Voice 5.1.  This product is the next generation of FrontRange’s VOIP system and it incorporates the best of both products on one platform that supports integration between all of FrontRange’s products, HEAT, ITSM, and the full GoldMine CRM line with their Voice 5.1 product.  

FrontRange affirmed their commitment to this technology at the recent national sales conference.   Numerous awards, and over 100 installations, a detailed product map and strong R&D budget, as well as positive feedback by industry analysts on FrontRange’s vision all indicate that FrontRange Voice has a bright future.  So much so that I’m taking the plunge in my firm, First Direct Corp. and converting our phone system over to FrontRange Voice 5.1.  In a phrase, “I’m eating my own dog food.” 

There are many features in FrontRange Voice 5.1 that I’m excited about having, let alone selling.  It’s going to be a huge help with call campaigns.  “Call monitoring” along with “Silent Whispering” are great tools that will help us train and coach representatives.  Call transfer with GoldMine record screen-pop will help our organization’s teamwork. 

Remember, a phone system without integration to you CRM, is still just a phone system.   VOIP and CRM are a winning combination.  To request information on FrontRange Voice 5.1 click here.   

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.

High on the list of important topics in any sales methodology or training program is the need to “sell to the people most likely to buy.”  And, it ought to be in every CRM system!  Is it in yours?

Every salesperson, worth their salt, knows they need to qualify a lead.  There are hot buyers, lookers who may buy, and others who pass your way.  Leads come in all ways – off web forms, on cold call lists, from referrals, through networking, etc.  Either way, the first order of business with leads is to weed through them to separate the wheat from the chaff by qualifying them. 

Qualifying can take the form of questions, knowing the source of the leads, researching them online, or even by floating attractive direct response offers past them with the requirement for certain information. 

Like other vital information on contacts, qualifying details should be databased.  Otherwise, marketing can’t target future marketing communications, and management can’t report and analyze the effectiveness of its efforts. 

Salespeople have a tendency to capture such findings in “notes” rather than in fields.  Part of the reason is that it may seem easier to type this information right along with all the notes about a conversation; and not to bother to update pertinent fields accordingly.  The other reason is sometimes the CRM system lacks the necessary fields and lookups for the data to go into.  This second reason is an oversight that can be easily fixed.  The first is a more challenging issue – changing people’s behavior!

There are several features in GoldMine that your organization can leverage to make it easier to capture qualifying information:

1. Web Import – capture facts from web forms directly into the corresponding fields in GoldMine.
2. Auto-data Entry – trigger the population of one field based on values from other fields.  For example, drive the entry of territory and/or sales rep base on “state.” Or, automatically populate a date in a field when a milestone value is entered into another field.
3. Scripts – a lesser known feature in GoldMine that enables you to design a series of questions with select responses or manual entries that automatically populate the right fields.  Branching logic is a feature of GoldMine scripts, so a particular response can direct the person asking the questions to the appropriate follow-up.
4. Field Lookups – default choices in fields that can control the values that are entered into fields, thereby ensuring data consistency and integrity, and making it faster and more intuitive for users to fill information in.  (Don’t forget to check off “Auto Fill” in the Lookup Set-up to save users time when entering common choices.)

Changing people’s behavior is easier said than done.  Giving salespeople tools like I’ve listed above will help. Training and reinforcement is a must as well.  But chances are the best reason for them to want to change is if the salespeople see the value in it for them by seeing how the information they capture is used successfully.

Once you’ve incorporated the features in GoldMine into your sales qualifying process, it just makes a whole lot of sense to explore ways marketing and management, let alone sales people, can use this information to sell more, by targeting time, effort, and resources in the direction of the people who are most likely to buy.  If you do, you’re going to increase sales and your ROI!

If you’re a busy person, struggling to keep up with a load of calls and emails, here’s a way to use GoldMine that I find extremely efficient.  It uses a feature in GoldMine most users aren’t even aware exists – “Activity Filters.”

Open your activity list and go to any of the pending tabs (Open, Calls, Appointments, Actions, Forecasts, etc.) and you’ll find the choice to “Filter” is one of the “Options” on the “local menu” that is accessible with the “right click.” Inside the “Activity Filter” dialogue window you’ll see you have the choice to “Activate Filter” in order to turn on this function, and to select the basis for your filter (i.e. User, Activity, Date Range, Activity Code, and Reference Text).  If you’re filtering the Closed or Real Time tabs you also have the choice of adding “Result Code.” 

Before I explain the valuable ways to use this feature, I will point out that there are some illogical options with the user interface.  For example, if you’re on your activity list in the calls tab, the choices for User and Activity are useless at best.  The do come into play if you’re on the Real Time tab.  Just use a little more common sense than the designer of the interface did and you’ll figure out what applies and what just creates confusion. 

Now, back to the benefits!  Which by the way, will only be relevant for those GoldMine users who diligently track their activities and schedule their follow-up with GoldMine.  Even more so if you make strong use of Activity Codes and References.  If you’re not there yet, trust me, you don’t know what you’re missing!!

For those who are still reading, it’s time I got to the point…

So, let’s paint the picture – the scenario is this:  You’re up to your eyeballs with a list of calls and actions that’s way longer than you have time to handle.  You know that on this list are tasks with varying degrees of urgency, requiring different levels of personal response.  Some items can just be rolled over to another date; while some could “timed” and should not be put off.  Others could be addressed with an email, or perhaps even a personalized “on-the-fly email merge.”  (If you’ve never done one of these from the within email client, you really need to learn how to do this!)  And, still others require an actual phone call or a completely individual email.  On some you’re ready to go in for the “close” and a lot of them you’re just touching base looking for any feedback whatsoever.

The tricky part is focusing on your activities with a sense of priority and the means of identifying sets of similar activities from one another.  With GoldMine, it’s easy to do the tricky part if you understand how to use Activity Filters.  By simply activating a Filter you can cut out of your long list of Activities only those which require your attention on the basis of the Activity Code and Reference. With an Active Filter on you can send a personalized email merge, and then rollover all those same activities to another date. 

Here’s an example:

Suppose you simply wrote the word “Close” in the reference of those activities where you believed when you scheduled them that the next time you followed up you should try to take the order.  Or, if your wrote the word “Timed” because for some reason you didn’t want to let this activity slip by or get overlooked.  With an Activity Filter it would be a cinch to pull them out of your list.  The same concept can be applied to Activity Codes. 

When you Activate your Filter, only those that meet the conditions you set are displayed.  This makes it very easy to “Tag Records,” and to use other time-saving features such as “Auto-Update” and “Roll-Over”  (Another good fact to know is that you can filter and tag emails on the “Email” tab.  Something you can’t do from the email center.)

For me, as the week winds down and I’m to the point where choices need to be made because I can’t possibly complete all my calls or actions, Activity Filters and the things I can do with them, really saves me!

It’s a me, me, and me world.  Yet, in the world of sales, it’s all about you!  “You” being the prospect and the customer.  So what is it about “you” that matters?

Ultimately, if sales people and marketers have any intention of serving our consumers, our focus must point to the needs and wants of our consumer.  And, how do we figure this out … through personalization. 

Personalization is not just a merge code in a letter or email.  Real personalization takes place in every means of dialogue wherein we try to learn the wants, wishes, and needs of our consumer.  This can be in the form of phone calls, emails, website forms, sales visits, etc.  In every case we seek to learn something that will help us to both serve and sell!   

Much of the information we collect in the process needs to be databased in a CRM system like GoldMine software, for example.  Databasing this information enables you to make your follow-up efforts more personal, and therefore more relevant and effective.  It’s also the most effective way to manage, share, and analyze the information.  Anyone serious about personalization needs to develop disciplined practices regarding the usage of CRM! 

“You” is all about personalization.  It’s also all about qualifying.  But people are reluctant, by nature, to give up “personal” information at first.  To earn their trust, and willingness to provide it, we need to establish our credibility and competence, as well as the relevance our offering plays in terms of their needs (solutions).

To grease the skids and help information to flow more easily, it often helps to apply the rule of reciprocity – in other words “give to get.” You can give them information that they’re asking for.  It can even help just to open up and share information about yourself and your business and get their trust – trust builds trust!

Once you’ve established enough rapport, the possibilities are too long to list.  Here’s some open ended questions which should provide plenty of ideas.  Just finish the question below in a way which relates to your industry and organization:  What do you …? How do you ….? When do you …?   Are you …? Would you …? Could you …? Will you ….? 

The findings from such questions can drive your future marketing and selling efforts.  I know it’s easier said than done.  But, again, this is one of the most significant benefits that can come fromproper usage of a CRM tool.  CRM is not a “silver bullet” and it takes plenty of planning and effort to align any CRM system to your organization’s needs and processes.  Nonetheless, you can pretty much forget about a “papersystem” or “spreadsheets,” let alone personal email/calendar software like Outlook as a means of accomplishing a truly “personalized” sales and marketing system. 

Find out more about “Personalization and CRM Systems” – Contact First Direct Corp today!

This sales scenario happens just about every day. So, here’s a trick that will save you time and ensure timelier sales follow up! First I’ll describe the problem situation …

You speak to a prospect or customer and as a result, for whatever reason, you need to follow up with them some specific period of time into the future. You don’t want to forget, so you schedule a reminder call or action for the appropriate point in your calendar and you put useful notes in your activity so you can reference them in your next conversation.

What’s wrong with this situation? Nothing, except that the day you scheduled your timed follow-up activity for is so cluttered with other sales activities that you might overlook it. And, alarming it does no good because you’ve got so many other alarms that they are all falling on deaf ears. So what’s the solution?

The solution is to schedule your follow up as an email so that will go out automatically on the exact date and time you want it to. In other words, I write the actual email when I’m finishing the previous activity, while the comments of my prospect/customer are fresh in my mind, and so that they will resonate even better with my recipient. Here’s an example to show you how it works:

My prospect tells me they have a meeting scheduled for next week Tuesday morning to discuss my offer/product. They say that I should check back in that afternoon. I write my email with words that take advantage of the influence of “commitment and consistency,” (read Robert Cialdani’s book Influence – the Modern Psychology of Persuasion), by saying I’m checking back per their request … and I ask in my message how the meeting went and if they’re ready to speak with me or if they need more time. My message is timely and relevant!

The beauty is that I didn’t have to worry about making or missing my call! My follow up was taken care of automatically, leaving me to push off my “manual” follow up for another week or two. It’s a beautiful thing! But how do you do that with GoldMine you ask?

It’s easy to pre-write emails that go out automatically using a tool called – EmailRush™ by Z-Firm. With EmailRush I simply schedule an “Other Action,” which is just like scheduling a call, and I write my email in the “Notes” of the scheduled activity. Those notes become the body of my email and they’re inserted into a custom HTML email template so it looks great!

You can find dozens of common situations when scheduling emails to go out automatically will work for you. (e.g. event reminders, appointment reminders, expiration notices, etc.) With EmailRush™ I can also leverage the “group scheduling” feature in GoldMine to write a reminder that will go out to a filter/group or tagged list of records.

CRM is supposed to be a “productivity tool,” and it is, if you learn to use techniques like this one. Here a CRM power-user has a competitive advantage because, as we have all heard, “Sales is a contact sport!”

Almost anything anyone does repeatedly in GoldMine can be done in less time and with less effort through the use of Toolbar Icons/Macros.

GoldMine lets you modify the existing Toolbar in order to add and delete icons. You can also create a custom toolbar with macros for the features you use frequently and activities you do often. I like to place my personal “activities toolbar” running vertically down the left side of my screen and leave the standard toolbar along the top.

A right click on the empty section of the toolbar displays the local menu where you can select to insert icons from a standard list of prerecorded and unassigned icons. It’s on this same local menu that you’ll also find the choice to start recording a macro. Once you start recording, it remembers all your actions in GoldMine, including mistakes. It may take a couple tries to get it right. But it’s well worth it for all the time you’ll save!

Toolbars are user and computer specific. So if you’re intending them for others, you’ve got to go around and record them for each user.

Toolbar icons/macros can be used for more than scheduling and completing activities. They can assign Automated Processes that can do just about anything in GoldMine. They can also be used to launch a particular telemarketing script.

Brainstorm those things that make sense to have macros for. Then plan them out down to the last detail before you start to record them. Don’t overlook anything, including even standard reminder notes you may wish to have inside your activities. If you’re missing an appropriate activity or result code, add it to the lookup list before you record the macro!

Basic Steps in Building a Macro:

1. Plan it out in advance – make sure all the lookup selections you want are already in the lookup lists and that you know what you want to type into any notes boxes.

2. Right click on an open space of your toolbar and select “Insert Item.”

3. From the “Insert Toolbar Item” menu, select “Macro” from the drop down list.

4. Select the icon that you desire to assign for your macro from the scrolling list of available icons. Hold your left click on it and drag it up to your toolbar. Release the left click to drop the icon in place. Use your right click to drag it around after.

5. Go back up to the open space on your toolbar and right click to get the toolbar menu again and select “Record Macro” to begin the recording process. You’ll notice the little recording button toolbar opens. The recording process has already begun, so you don’t need to press any of the buttons unless you want to pause or stop the recording.

6. Using your keyboard as much as possible to perform the steps you want your macro to do. (If you make an error, continue below but press “Cancel” at the very end of the process and then start over at step #5 to re-record your macro.)

7. When you are through performing the steps of your macro, press the Stop Recording button. This will automatically bring you to the next step below.

8. Scroll to find and select the same icon that you dragged onto your toolbar in step 4 above. Fill in the description boxes with an explanation of what the macro will do. The top box appears as rollover text on the icon, so keep it as brief as possible (3 words max.). If you are displaying “Button Text” on your toolbar for all the icons, you’ll need to keep the description even shorter. The second box allows you type a much longer description and will scroll to give you more space. This description will appear in the lower left hand corner of your status bar at the bottom of your GoldMine application window. If you want, you can assign the macro to an available “Function Key” as well.