Garbage in / Garbage out is also very true.  When you enter data into your CRM database, take the extra time to do it completely and accurately, correcting errors as you go.  Using the Google Forms I’ve written about here, you can do an easy import of the information into these databases.  However, if the site visitor has entered errors (likely), then correct them before or after the import.  I like to do it in the Google Spreadsheet before the export to .csv.

Whether MyFax or another service, if you can send faxes out as attachments to emails, then you’ll want to do your first import into the CRM and Realtor/Vendor databases differently, and change a field.  Instead of a standard phone number format field for the fax number of a contact/prospect, make it an “email” format field.  Then put in the email address you use with your fax service.  With MyFax it looks like this:  “15555051212@myfax.com.”

Then, whenever you need to fax a contact, you can just click on this live link right out of their contact record in your database.  Just attach the PDF or other document just as you have always done it.  And, don’t forget to Cc your Gmail history address as well!

As far as this post’s title, what you’ll want to do if you’re about to import all of your contacts is to go ahead and open your .csv file in a spreadsheet.  Enter a new column, and do a concatenation of fields to end up with the complete email address.  Then you’ll get them all in at once.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 5 Reasons to Go With an Internet Fax Solution (stepbysteptips.com)
• Replace Your Fax Machine with an Online Fax Service (adamzaius.net)
• myfax Internet Faxing Service (stepbysteptips.com)

Email for History

I recently posted about using Gmail as an email history resource, and it works really well with a field in each contact/prospect record with the URL to the search.  However, some would immediately recoil, thinking about having to get that URL into every record in their CRM databases.

Well, it’s really easy, especially if you’re just getting started and about to import your records for the first time.  Once you have a .csv comma delimited export from your current system:

• Open the file as a spreadsheet
• Create a column and copy down all of the URL that’s common to every search, in Google it looks like this:  https://mail.google.com/mail/#search/
• After the last / is where the name of the contact is when you do a search as in:  https://mail.google.com/mail/#search/firstname+lastname
• You should have two columns for names of contacts, one for first name and one for last name.  If not, do a “text-to-column” data split to get them from the whole name.
• So, what you do is to create a column with a “+” replicated all the way down for every row.  Then you do a Concatenate command like this:  =concatenate(URL cell, FirstName cell, +Cell, LastName cell).  In other words, you’re telling this new cell and column to merge the data from four other columns, the URL common part, then first name, then the “+”, then last name.  You’ll end up with the complete URL for every record’s name in a column which you can then import right in with all of the rest of them.

You don’t even need to worry about whether you’ve ever traded emails with them, as the Gmail search will just turn up “nothing found” if that’s the case.  I got hundreds in all at once for one client.

Tech Tips for WebEx WebOffice

databases extend the funtionality in many ways.  It’s natural that users compare the system to what they’ve used before, are another vendor they’re considering.  Since many of the other vendors are custom software, there are things they can do that aren’t able to be accomplished with WebOffice…or at least not quite the same way.  Here’s a great example and the way we solved the challenge:

A user really only missed one thing about the way his previous Top Producer software tied his emails to the prospect/contact/client automatically.  Though you can email right from the contact’s record in your WebOffice, it doesn’t actually tie a copy of the email to that record.  So, we found a truly elegant solution, particularly because it uses the generous free storage and great search capability of Gmail.

If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can set one up for free, and get almost 7 Gigabytes of free email storage.  The power of Google search is also part of the package, for searching within your emails.  So, we combined these two features and came up with this procedure:

1. Use the new Gmail address as your return address in WebOffice, or forward a copy of all mail from your regular email address to the Gmail address.
2. When you email out from WebEx, always elect to “send yourself a copy.”
3. This copy will then end up in your Gmail account.
4. Do a search on a contact’s name or email address in Gmail and all emails between you, incoming or outgoing, will show up in reverse time order.
5. Look up in the URL address bar in your browser, and you’ll see that this search has its own URL, as in https://mail.google.com/mail/#search/firstname+lastname.
6. Copy  out that URL and place it into a new field in your Contacts Database.  This will be a “web address” type field, and you paste the URL into that field for the specific client.
7. From then on, anytime you’re in a client’s record in the CRM database, just click on that link to see every email the two of you have ever exchanged opened up in Gmail.

**NOTE:  The beauty of this solution is that you don’t even need to send the email from WebOffice.  Even if you send it from your Gmail account, or from your regular email with a Cc to Gmail, all of the emails will end up in this one place for instant recall later.

One of the things I do best is to find ways to get things done technologically at the lowest cost or free.  I believe that the power of the WebEx WebOffice with custom databases is huge, but you sometimes would like to do something more than looks possible.  Send me an email, as there’s probably a fast and easy way to get it done.

Your listing info will always be accessible to all online from anywhere, and 24/7.  Pull up detailed information, client contact information, listing setup task status and more.  Watch the short video below to see how easy and comprehensive this system is.