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.

On-the-Fly Email Templates are possible in the GoldMine email client. Rather than creating and saving an email template for one-time usage with a single record or a small audience such as a tagged list of records, it’s very handy to build a template on-the-fly.

I love using this feature in combination with the ability to tag records in groups or in my activity list, as a way to do quick targeted sales follow-up. It’s even more powerful if you apply filters in the activity list. For example, you could identity all the records that you have “Literature Follow-up Calls” for regarding a certain reference, and then compose a quick note to send them all.

In the client, you’ve noticed there is a tab for “Mail Merge.” Within the tab is the option to “Merge this email to a group of contacts.” It gives you the same recipient options (primary, addition, other, limit to merge code) as found in the document management center. Of course, the client lets you choose between sending now or queuing. If you know the expressions for inserting GoldMine Contact1 and Contact2 fields, you can type them into your email and they will be applied when the mail is sent or queued.

You can also start with an existing email template by selecting it from the “subject drop down list” and then editing it to suit your needs. This does not edit the original template. However, be careful that you don’t make any edit changes until you switch to the “Mail Merge” tab, otherwise you will lose the merge field feature. (GoldMine will even warn you if you make this easy mistake.)

Here’s a very quick and simple way to compose an on-the-fly email template with more graphical HTML. Just copy and paste content from your website into your email. You can even personalize it by adding a merge field for the contact at the top and your personal contact information at the bottom. Your email should maintain the links and code – although they will not be active until you view the email after it’s queued or sent.

Here’s a little circular logic that’s worth thinking about.  Increase sales by increasing selling time by decreasing non-selling time.  It’s really very simple.  A sales guru put it this way, “Sales people should sell, and everybody else should do everything else.”  First let me explain and then I’ll tell you about a way to do this with GoldMine.

In the time it takes a salesperson to merge a boilerplate cover letter, select the print materials to go into the package, print the label or envelope, put it all together and put it in the mail, they could have made some 2, 3 or more sales calls.  So, the question is, do you pay your sales people to do clerical work (they’re so good at) or do you pay them to stay on the phone while an administrative person handles the task for a whole group of sales people? 

If you have enough sales people doing enough fulfillment each day, you should take a closer look at GoldMine’s Literature Request and Fulfillment features.  They are intended to give sales people more time to sell, by giving them a simple way to delegate literature fulfillment.

You start by creating a “pick list” within the Literature Fulfillment Center.  (Open the Literature Fulfillment Center from the “View” pull-down menu.)  You can add merge documents such as cover letters, as well as print materials that get pulled from your literature shelves.  You can include forms, labels, envelopes, etc.  By doing a good job of classifying and organizing the list, it is much easier for users to find the items they need to be fulfilled. 

After the literature list is created, users can schedule “Literature Requests” from the same drop-down menu that they use to schedule all activities.   Active users of this feature will want to add the icon/macro to their toolbar.  From the scheduling box users can select the right cover letter, if called for, and simply click off the “literature list” items.  They can indicate whether those items are routed to a printer or fax and designate the person to handle the task and when it is to be sent, can include an alarm and requesting an automatic “RSVP” confirmation when they’ve completed it.  They can even write a note about special handling instructions. 

The person who is trained to handle fulfillment will see in the Literature Fulfillment Center all the documents and requests they have outstanding and pending for that day, week, month and next month.  They can also see the jobs they’ve completed.  There are several tools in the Center to help them efficiently handle their job.

GoldMine will increase selling time and ultimately sales, if you take the time upfront to configure the Literature Fulfillment Center and learn how to use it.

It just stands to reason that the more steps to complete a task, the longer it takes. When it comes to redundant types of tasks, reducing steps is key to increasing productivity. One thing GoldMine enables you to do is to eliminate steps, a.k.a.”mouse clicks.”

Sales Automation is one of GoldMine’s strong features. Macros, Automated Processes, and Task Bar items are all great tools to automate a day in your life.

Automation also helps to improve consistency and data integrity, because activities and entries can be scripted. Automation can still give you flexibility, so you can modify or make entries that need human intervention. For example, a GoldMine macro that schedules a literature follow-up call for one week out can leave you off at the “Reference” field so the User can enter the appropriate product/subject information.

Management gets a dual benefit from automation. Naturally, they love it when the team can accomplish more volume with less work. At the same time, because automation is planned and configured in advance, management can have their imprint on what the automation does, so that their methodology/business process is incorporated as they see fit.

By the same token, GoldMine will allow users to configure their own Automated Processes, Macros and Task Bar items, (unless those “rights” have been taken away), so they can get the jump on others or make their life easier.

If ‘it’ happens often, automate ‘it.’ Automation is definitely a case where “less is more”!

You can use GoldMine’s “tagging” feature to select records for targeted follow-up. Tagging is a means of building a temporary filter. You can tag records on the Contact Listing, Members in Groups, and Records on the Activity List. To Tag records, hold your “Control Key” down and select items from the views above with a single left mouse click. A second left click will un-tag the record. Bear in mind that you are actually “tagging” the Record, not the activity! So the filter corresponds to the Primary Contact, not an Additional Contact, should the Activity even be with another contact.

Here’s an example of how Tagging can be used. Suppose you have a load of literature follow-up calls in your Activity List – by glancing down the Codes and Notes, you can select from the entire list of calls those records that you want to send a quick personal email. Then use the mail/email merge capability to efficiently communicate with all of them.

Other useful ways to use tagging:

• Build Groups based on Tagged Members from an existing Group.
• Tag and merge duplicate records
• Tag and delete records
• Tag and globally replace data in records
• Tag and “Group Schedule” calls

Sometimes there are just too few hours in the day, and you need a trick to help you be more efficient. Tagging is one of the those features in GoldMine that you can find a dozen uses for … and when you start to use it like this, you’ll definitely accomplish more!

Since it is so common to be put into voicemail on prospecting/sales calls, consider an alternative approach that leverages GoldMine in order to make more effective use of your “LM” (Left Message) calls.

Here is a strategy you or your whole sales force can deploy to make the most of voicemail on “prospecting calls.” To begin with, prepare a great little message that sales reps can leave. In the message, point out to the prospect that you’re going to send them something and then follow up to make sure they received it and see if they are interested. Create a GoldMine Automated Process that can be assigned to a “Prospecting Call” with a “LM” result. Here are the events and actions that you might have it perform:

1. “Create a History” of “PC” (Prospecting Call) activity with an “LM” (Left Message) result code

2. “Send an email” or schedule a fax with OmniRush that introduces you, with a link to your web site, referencing your left message and the fact that you’re sending your business card, etc.

3. “Print a Form” as a cover letter for your business card, etc.

4. “Print a Report” using GoldMine (with or without OmniRush) to print an envelope or label with a Dymo® LabelWriter

5. “Schedule an Activity” for a follow-up call in your calendar for specific number of days in the future

If only once click could do all this, wouldn’t you do it! If you need OmniRush, a label writer or help with creating an Automated Process, your Solution Partner can assist you.

Having done all this on your first call, then your next follow-up call will leverage proven sales techniques for literature follow up in order to improve your odds of directly reaching your prospect. And, once you do reach them, they’ll have a better sense of what you can do for them. Of course they still need to want what you have to offer, but at least with this approach and a little luck in terms of timing, you’re certainly better off on your second call than you would be otherwise!

Equipped with a short and sweet voicemail script and this GoldMine Automated Process you will be more effective and start to feel more successful even on “left message calls.”

The new task bar area in GoldMine 5.7 Business Contact Manager provides greater capability to add icons to perform various functions including:

• Macros to drive main menu commands
• Custom user recorded macros
• Launch other applications
• Launch documents or executable files
• Go to favorite web sites

Think of the possibilities! You can quickly appreciate how these new capabilities will save you time and increase productivity.

• Performing prevalent tasks
• Opening needed applications
• Performing functions that you may have set-up to be run with an executable file
• Pulling up frequently used pricing sheets or documents
• Going to a favorite site

To add an item to a task bar group, simply right click in the task area and select “add new item.” Then, from the “Item Selection” drop down list, choose the type of item you want to add. Go on to make the appropriate further decisions to complete the procedure.

Keep in mind that the task bar groups can be local for your individual use or system wide for global or shared use. If the additions/modifications you are making only apply to you, versus other GoldMine users, make sure you’re doing these on a “global group.” (Only Master Rights users can add/edit to global group task bars.)

Take the time to organize your task bar groups to suit your daily selling activities. GoldMine power users who rely on GoldMine to manage their time and sales follow-up, find they live on GoldMine. These new task bar resources put much greater capabilities at your fingertips

If you are one who truly walks-the-talk with regard to sales automation, then you’re going to appreciate the ability that the latest version of GoldMine – 5.7 Business Contact Manager – gives you to create “global toolbars.” While this new feature is not nearly as robust as what third-party products like “SalesMagic” or “AIM ToolBars” enable you to do, it is a step forward for GoldMine.In the past, GoldMine would not allow you to create custom toolbars and/or macros that could be shared by other users. It was too much of a chore for a GoldMine administrator to set up and maintain individually for each workstation. Plus, if a user changed their toolbar, they’d lose all the items. Hallelujah … 5.7 is the solution – now you can turn your most common repetitive and time-consuming scheduling tasks and processes into macros and organize them under task bar categories and give global access to them.

Tip: For truly powerful macros that can print documents, run reports, schedule multiple activities all with a click of a button, assign a GoldMine Automated Processes with macro icon.

Selling has been called a “numbers game.” Clearly it is much more than that. However, it’s obvious that sales and marketing depend, in part, on getting out there and reaching as many as you can. While rejection is unavoidable, any sales professional also recognizes the need to reach enough targeted suspects, prospects and current customers repeatedly in order to win at the numbers game.

To produce the necessary frequency and volume of communications, it can take an integrated stream including phone, personalized and bulk mail, email, fax, advertising, word-of-mouth, publicity and Internet marketing. In each area GoldMine has something to offer.

Features:

• Mail Merge
• Email Merge
• Integrated Fax Server Solutions
• Speed Dialing · Referral Tracking
• Web Importing

Sure GoldMine is great for managing relationships, managing our time, tracking calls and appointments, and taking notes! By the same token, it’s a super tool for reaching your numbers. (It’s also a great tool, in conjunction with reporting and analysis tools, for checking to make sure you achieve your numbers.) So, in addition to setting goals for sales volume, set goals for:

• Mass and Personalized Direct Mail
• Email Broadcasts
• Fax Broadcasts
• Call Types (use activity codes to track)
• Referrals

Measuring and managing the flow of these types of communications will raise your awareness of whether you’re producing the level of marketing activities to truly support and build on the efforts of your sales or telemarketing reps. Similarly, the feedback will underscore the volume of activities these reps need to do themselves.

GoldMine helps you play the numbers game so you win by the numbers!

How you capture information is crucial for later use. If we’re making the effort to ask intelligent qualifying questions, then we also can benefit by databasing the answers in predetermined GoldMine fields.

Unlike “Notes”, fields are superior for filtering, reporting, sorting and analyzing. Marketing campaigns can be targeted. Sales activities can be focused on more qualified leads, wasting less time. So much is made possible if responses go into fields rather than notes.

Evaluate your “Fields Tab” in GoldMine on a periodic basis, or as the situation calls for it. As our business processes change we need to update the fields and screens. The responsibility for reviewing and specifying the changes and additions falls on sales management. IT staff or your GoldMine administrator can do the work, but they follow sales management’s direction!