We are delighted to introduce Kyle O’Meara as the newest partner at Etnacom. Kyle comes to the team with a great deal of experience in fast-paced business environments where time and money are critical, and he knows a great deal about system architecture and security. We invite you to read more about Kyle’s background on our About Us page. Feel free to comment on this post or e-mail to welcome him!
We know that we haven’t posted much on our blog lately, and we’re sincerely sorry for that. Stay tuned, because we have plenty of new posts on the way!
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I’m entering my sixth day of cabin fever in the Baltimore / DC area, and it hasn’t been as quiet as I’ve expected. I’ve actually been receiving calls from a number of clients who are also snowed in but need to access their work files in order to keep business running. After taking calls on a number of issues, I’ve separated them into three categories:
- “Help! Can I access any of my work files from home? I’ve never done it before but really need to get in!”
- “Help! We set up remote access and VPN months ago but I never use it. I don’t remember how to use it / can’t get it to work / don’t have it set up on my computer anymore.”
- “I’m safe and working from home! Since I’m online, can you take care of a couple of projects / small tasks for me?”
Ideally, I would like to see all of my clients fit into the third bullet. I understand that some businesses don’t require extremely advanced technical systems, and sometimes it’s just not in the budget. However, a snowstorm such as the one that is just starting to wind down in the northeastern U.S. might force a few business owners and managers to re-evaluate change and continuity plans across the board. It certainly pays to at least consider the impact of various events (man-made, natural or otherwise) on the business. Even if the ultimate result is that it is not worth the investment in countermeasures, at least you know what you’re in for.
What you might find from this exercise is that countermeasures actually aren’t that costly. Here are a few relatively inexpensive countermeasures that we can employ for a small business. Given the current weather and its anticipated consequences, I’ll use the case of a family-owned insurance agency.
XYZ Insurance agency operates out of a small shopping center in Montgomery County, Maryland. With the growing number of power outages, roof collapses, car accidents and other calamities, it’s safe to assume that XYZ Insurance is pretty busy handling claims right now. Unfortunately, the employees of XYZ can’t even get out of their driveways and down the street. Even if they could, the shopping center where the offices are located can’t clear its own parking lot. There’s just no way to get to the office.
Normally, this would be a catastrophe. However, just a few simple measures in what I will call an “emergency plan” (some larger organizations call it a COOP, or Continuity of Operations Plan) helped XYZ to keep moving and be highly effective for its customers, even when XYZ itself had some considerable issues in the snow. Let’s talk about a few of these measures:
- On the company’s letterhead, answering machine, website (and just about anywhere else their phone number is posted), XYZ has an “emergency line” displayed. This line is designed for after-hours usage and any other time that the office can’t be contacted. The emergency line is actually a Google Voice line available free to anyone with a Google Account (also free) but by invitation. Google Voice provides such features as call forwarding to any number of telephone numbers (such as employee mobile or home telephones), voicemail transcription, and more. Now XYZ’s employees can be reachable to clients from an alternate location. Did I mention that Google Voice is free?
- XYZ keeps some pretty detailed records on clients in their database, including contact and policy information. This is run on an internal server for security and privacy reasons, but the server isn’t actually located in the office – it is in a safe, reliable data center behind a trusted firewall. While keeping a hosted server could cost various amounts of money (anywhere from $40 per month into the thousands), it doesn’t cost anything to extend access to employees working from home. It’s as easy as installing VPN software provided by the hosting company. Luckily, XYZ thought ahead and ensured that employees had home access to systems in case of an emergency.
- Most importantly, clients need to be aware of what is going on and why XYZ is not reachable at the office. They also need to be comforted in knowing that this isn’t a problem and that the company is still available to help. By placing an emergency message on their website with current status, most customers can be reached. Additionally, the office voicemail was changed to also reflect current status.
As one of the only local insurance agencies able to stay ahead of the snowstorm, clients praise XYZ for being there when they are needed. The company capitalized on this success and marketed its ability to be “local and available”, leading to new customer lead generation and increased profits.
In the end, XYZ was able to stay ahead of the storm’s incapacitation. What was the cost to implement this plan? Surprisingly, it was absolutely free. The only cost was some prior thought and planning.
I do agree that sometimes it requires an outside perspective to start thinking of an emergency plan. Here’s my shameless plug! If you need help putting together your COOP or emergency plan, especially when it comes to leveraging IT and systems resources during an emergency, I can help. I’ve done it for a number of clients, both big and small. Don’t forget that I have the free consultation guarantee – try before you buy!
If you’re in the northeast U.S. – stay warm and be careful digging your cars out!
Organizing business projects is a challenging task. Organizing your personal life can sometimes be even more challenging. Perhaps you’re like me and work two jobs. Don’t forget about all of the things that don’t necessarily lie in one “world” or the other. Put it all together, and your life is a hurricane! How do you keep track of everything and control what’s going on without feeling overwhelmed?
Personally, I tend to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach fostered by David Allen. There are many other strategies that can be just as successful. However, if you’re a techie like myself, you may find yourself struggling to find software that best fits your personal organization scheme. I’ve been struggling with that question for a long time, and I finally found a solution. Yes, I do think that simplifying my life a bit is certainly part of the answer, but life gets busy, no matter what. For a long time, I sought a solution that could help me keep information from all parts of my life in one spot. A couple of months ago, I found my solution and it has been working wonderfully. I call it “life by CRM”.
CRM, as you may know, stands for “Customer Relationship Management”. It is one of the bigger business buzzwords these days, partially because we’ve entered the age where software to manage CRM is available and relatively inexpensive. It’s popular among sales teams and project managers for its strength in measuring customer requirements, tasks and interactions. SalesForce.com is one example of CRM software – other examples include Microsoft Dynamics and my personal and professional favorite, Highrise. Highrise is a web-based CRM manager created by 37signals.
Let’s back up to how businesses use CRM. It’s strengths are in tracking contacts, interactions and tasks, to keep it simple. Isn’t that how personal life is structured as well? When running personal errands, there’s usually something to do, something that happens and someone to do it for. Many people like to keep track of their personal errands in some sort of journal or diary. CRM is a journal that’s in electronic form and tailored to help you get things done.
Being that Highrise is my CRM tool of choice (and what I use for both business and personal), I can share my strategy for keeping my life organized. Here’s a screenshot of what my Highrise looks like (with some proprietary data conspicuously hidden):
When I log in I can see a “Journal” of recent entries, including my notes, e-mails, tasks and so on. I can also see upcoming tasks, which I can complete and assign categories to. On the top of the page, I can view my contacts, tasks, cases, deals and tags. Cases and Deals are great. They are special groupings of notes, e-mails and tasks that pertain to one particular initiative. Cases and Deals are very similar, but Deals pertain to initiatives when there is an incoming sale. You can keep track of bid information and whether or not the deal was won. Tags allow you to assign categories to various people, companies, cases, and so on. This is all set on top of a pretty powerful set of permissions, if you’re going to allow multiple users to access the system. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the product – you can access a tour on the Highrise website.
What’s important to me is that I can use this Web-based contact / case / task / sales / Rolodex manager to help me stay on top of everything that I need to do. As a part-time consultant, I am constantly trying to keep up with shifting needs, changing priorities, and multiple updates from clients and vendors on a variety of issues. Highrise is uncanny in it’s ability to help any kind of professional like myself stay on top of this and update case files easily. When I need to fulfill a request, I add a task and categorize it. When I receive new information or have an interaction with someone, I can add notes or forward e-mails. At the end of the day, Highrise is the best tool for me and helps me to stay agile.
This doesn’t just translate to my professional work, either. Highrise CRM’s organization capabilities help in my personal life, too. My fiancé and I are planning our wedding and this tool helps us keep on top of our vendors, financials, and everything that we need to do before the big day. Being able to search for a receipt or for conversations from a specific person or company works great! It is especially useful when something doesn’t go as planned and need to go back to a previous conversation to verify what was said. I’m sure many have been in a situation like that.
Although I strongly advocate Highrise, please understand that I have some specific needs and operate in a specific way. Highrise is a perfect fit for a small company with many different things going on – most of them short-term. If you are a larger organization or operate in a different manner, different software might work better for you. I’ve worked for medium-sized businesses that have used Microsoft Dynamics with great success. I’ve worked with startups who use SalesForce.com and it is a disaster, while other startups wouldn’t want to use anything else. It is all about finding a solution that meets your needs. I can certainly assist anyone looking to determine how to leverage the benefits of CRM software or just boost productivity in general.
I invite you to keep this discussion going. What sort of CRM or web-based productivity software do you use (or have used in the past)? How has it worked for you? Feel free to share success and horror stories. Perhaps I’ll even share some of my own!
