Does (database) size matter?

Does (database) size matter?

Does (database) size matter?

While helping small businesses establish, build, upgrade and fix up their Contact Management and CRM databases, we've noticed the vast disparity in the size of our clients' databases. It's really all over the board.

Our first meeting with a new client revealed that he (a sole proprietor) had 71 contacts. When I asked him how long he had been in businesses he stated, "Oh, over 7 years."

Really?

A new client that we met with recently showed us their ACT! database and they had over 53,000 contacts. Wow!

But I guess size doesn't really matter. A thriving, profitable business doesn't rely on a large number of clients. We once knew a very profitable interior decorator that had less than a dozen clients.

What IS important, regardless of the size of your database, is how it's organized and categorized. And hopefully IT IS organized and categorized. All good CRM and Contact Management apps have this capacity; far beyond what can be done with Excel or Outlook. This is the key to being able to fid the information you'll be searching for at a later point in time.

For example, you'd like to find all customers who spent more than $10,000 with you last year. Or you'd like to mail something to all prospects in the state of Wisconsin. Or you want to find all contacts in a particular area code due to an area code change that's impending.

Better yet, you'd like to find all customers who haven't been contacted in some way, shape or form for the last 2 years. You'd like to find all customers who have purchased or had expressed an interest in a particular product line.

All of this is done through proper categorization and organization. Can you crazy on this; you know go overboard? Well, sure. Some common sense comes into play.

In ACT! there's a field called ID/Status. We instruct clients that this field should house the very reason why a contact is in your CRM database in the first place. Are they a prospect? A customer? Client? Suspect? Former customer? Industry contact? Vendor?

It doesn't matter if that contact is an attorney or a manufacturer. We'll tackle Industry next. Right now, why is this contact in your database? OK. Now, let's classify them according to industry. Use the Industry field, or create a Group to house all Manufacturers.

Who will be getting your email newsletter? Let's create another group consisting of those contacts. Here's where Contact Management and CRM apps shine.

Nope, size doesn't matter; but organization regardless of size does.

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