Make it Easy for a Prospect to Find You in Their Contacts List

Your contact list is composed of more than just prospects and clients.  You hold onto contact information in case you need someone’s services or goods at a later date.  You may need a local plumber you met or referred to.  You may need print services when you are ready to send direct mail for your marketing campaigns. In all these cases you probably won’t even remember that individual’s name, but you certainly know what keywords will find him (like “plumber”).

Type plumber in your Search address books text box (to get plumbers that have the word plumber in their name or job description), or you click on the Contacts Navbar button and type plumber into the Search all Contact Items (to get plumbers that have the word plumber anywhere in the contact including the notes area).  You’ll get a list of names if more than one qualifies, and you can call any of them.

But won’t you be calling the one for which you have found has the best rates or exact service required, or even the person that you just liked and were comfortable with?  If that plumber had all that information in the notes area (and you would have already known that when they sent you their VCard), they made it easy for you to select them from among others.

So let’s turn that around. Likewise, you should complete YOUR VCard for inclusion with your email so that the plumber will find YOU based on keywords that you supplied best suiting what is you do.  Thus, be specific and give as much information as you can on your VCard to cover all the bases.

And here’s another strategy: Don’t just include your information in the notes area—polish your Notes area and let your marketing material shine.  Stir it up with colored fonts, pictures, tables, even your jpg signature (sign your name, scan it, crop it, and include it (Insert tab, Picture Icon).

Now there is a caveat here but not an insurmountable one.  When you send a VCard using your contact with the information and layout above, Outlook does something peculiar but predictable—it strips all those wonderful fonts out and just sends plain text.  It does this to keep VCards compliant with the Internet Mail Consortium which recommends keeping things simple for ease of general use.  That way, even if you send your VCard to another user who is NOT using Outlook, they can still get the same information.

However, if you know your recipient is using Outlook, there is a short and powerful way around this.

1. First, right-click on the Personal Folders and select New folder
2. Type _VCard in the Name field (don’t forget the underscore), and select Contact Items in the Folder contains box
3. 

Right-click drag your contact into this folder (select Copy).  Here’s how this will look when you select Folder List view:

1. Now, when you create a new email, Click on the Insert tab, then Attach Item
2. 
3. Select the _VCard folder and double-click on your single Contact.  Your VCard is now in the Attachments and when your recipient double-clicks on it, they will get into their Outlook all your wonderful formatting.

Pretty cool.

What Happened to the Contact Linking Text Box in Outlook 2007?

Outlook 2003 would automatically link an email to a contact so that you could see all emails, both sent and received, in the Activities tab of that contact. In fact, this feature was not limited to just emails. Outlook can link all new items that you created in the lower left-hand corner of new item forms, a contact field that would link that contact to the item–an appointment, task, journal entry…whatever. By being diligent in adding this contact for all new items you would have a running log of all transactions about that contact…and you could even group, sort and view all of those records in the same Activities tab for that contact. That way, you had a valuable running history of all activities between you and that contact.But now, in Outlook 2007, when you open a contact in you’ll notice something is missing–The Contact Links text box on the item screens–an Appointment, Meeting, Task, Journal and Contact form–all show WITHOUT that link.Well Microsoft did not really leave it out, they just turned it off, by default (I know not why).

Here’s how to turn it back on.

From the menu go to Tools, Options, then Contact Options. Check the box called “Show Contact Linking on all Forms”.

Now when you go to create a new item you’ll find the Contact link text box at the bottom.

Here’s a couple other things you should know to help you:

You only need to type part of the name in that text box and press Control-S (for Save). If Outlook found the contact it will fill the full name in for you and underline it signaling that it found the contact in the database. If it finds ambiguities it will prompt you with a Choose Contact box–and you can select from that.

Here’s another great use of contact linking. If you know multiple people at one company you could create a contact by that company’s name and then link all the contacts to it. Then, since those contacts are linked to their transactions, ALL of the transactions for all of those individuals for that company are now linked in as well. You can group, sort and change views of all of those transactions—say, sorted by date, or grouped by person and then sorted by date. These views are extremely flexible.

One final note about using names in the contact link box. To keep the list smaller and if you are not sure of the spelling, type only a few letters of the person’s LAST name rather than the first.

Renaming Fields in Outlook

In an earlier blog entry, I explained how to create Outlook fields. But one of the inherent problems with creating fields is that you CANNOT sort or even group by them.

So how can you overcome that issue?

Ah! let me introduce you to the Rename Field feature of Outlook.

Outlook has about 250 fields, and although they can’t offically be renamed, you CAN assign an alias name to them in any View.

Here’s what to do. Let’s say I was an independent marketer in a multi-level marketing organization. If I knew everyone’s level within the organization, I could create 20 different categories and manage them for each level members are in, but what a nightmare of management that would be–also bloating my categories list needlessly. Instead, I’m going to “pirate” one of those 250 fields, in this case the Government ID number and create one view for all members grouping by the level they are in. Just hang in there with me and we’ll walk through this step-by-step.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already created a category and that category has been applied to everyone in your downline (by the way, I show how to do this for many people at once on CD-2 of my course www.outlookfortheentrepreneur.com).

Let’s start by creating a new view. We’ll copy an existing view and call it MLM Levels.

1. Select the Contacts module. From the menu select Views, Current View, Define Views. Click on New.

2. In the Create New View dialog box, Name it MLM Levels, Highlight Tables Type of View, click the Can be used on: All Contact folders. Click OK.

3. Click on Fields Icon. Remove whatever fields you won’t be using. Add those from the left side that you wish to add (drag/drop, double-click or Add->).

4. In the Select available fields from click the drop-down and select the set called Miscellaneous fields. Double-click on Government ID Number and it will move to the bottom of the Show these fields list on the right. Left-click drag that field to the top of the list.

5. Click OK to return to the Customize View: MLM Levels wizard.

6. Click the Group by… icon. Select the Miscellaneous Fields box in the lower-left corner drop-down. In the first Group items by, drop-down and select Government ID Number. Click OK.

7. Click on the Sort… icon. Again select the Miscellaneous Fields box in the lower-left corner drop-down. In the first Sort items by, drop-down and select Government ID Number. Click OK.

8. Click on the Filter… icon and then the More Choices tab. Click on Categories and select the category that you have assigned to everyone in your downline. This will eliminate anyone not in that category in your new view. Click OK.

9. Finally, click Format Columns. Here you can change the Label of Government ID Number to Member Level. Click OK.

10. Click OK to close the Custom View window. Then click Apply View. You will now see that the Member Level is grouped and sorted. Click in the Member Level text box on any row and fill it out. Use “sortable” field names like 1-Diamond and 2-Director.

That’s it. You now have a new report view that will tell you in an instant who’s where in the organization and also is easily modified.

What are the Outlook Display-As and File-As fields?

Do you know the difference between the File As and the Display As?

Both appear on the Contact form. The File As field is used to display which combination and order of the Contact Name and Company in the Business Card, Address and Address Detail Views.

Open up a contact that has both a Name and a Company. Click the Drop-down box under the File As and you will see which fields and in which order you wish the contact to appear. Be careful though because changing this order implies that the item will appear in “other than the place it was” in the 3 above views based on the “new” name.

The Display As field works like the File As, but for the Email Field.

By the way, you CAN override the name of the File As without affecting the Contact Name. For example, you can change William to Bill and look for your contact name by Bill.

Careful Importing Duplicate Contacts in Outlook (2003 & 2007)

Originally I would have thought this was an issue with Outlook 2003, but the “feature” still exists in 2007.

Here’s the short of it.  If you want to add contacts (import contacts) to Outlook from another file, you know these will go into your address book contacts, say, for marketing to them via their first name and email.  But here is something important you should know:

Always select Allow Duplicates to be Created.   Why duplicate contacts? Here’s why.

Your idea of a duplicate and my idea of a duplicate and Outlook’s idea of a duplicate are all different.  You might think that a duplicate is everything the same except a modification date.  I might think that a duplicate is everything except the notes.

If you were importing a file where there was 2 Mary’s and each had their own unique email you and I would agree that these 2 are NOT duplicates.

Surprise!  Outlook will find duplicates based on the same first name and will lose the second (and third) duplicate entries.

That’s why you should always select to allow duplicates.

Interestingly enough when you attempt to import a duplicate, Outlook will recognize you are attempting to import a duplicate and will give you a menu asking which fields you want (Outlook 2007) or if you would like to update or overwrite.

If you have many, you’ll want some easy mechanism to delete duplicate contacts. But you first have to find duplicates. Teamscope.com has a very cool duplicate remover add-in called “Outlook Scrubber”.  It will find duplicates, then help you remove duplicates. I use it and recommend it and it has helped many of my clients.  I’m not an affiliate, but would like still tell ‘em I sent you.

http://www.teamscope.com/otherpro/utilities.asp#scrubber

Paul

How to Setup a Contacts Followups-To-Go Report

In these busy times, it’s sometimes very difficult to followup with prospects and clients. Here is a way that can definitely help you use your time more effectively. Make your calls while you are travelling…say from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. Here we will create a custom view to show only your open followups and then print it and take it with you. The problem with standard views is that they mostly contain too much information to print neatly on one page and don’t have the right information. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just create a view of your followups in the order priority…and then just print it out with you while you’re on the road. (Careful with that cell phone out there, I definitely recommend a headset)…and this is NOT intended for rush-hour traffic–Pay attention out there! For this exercise, start by clicking the Outlook’s Contacts from the Navigation Pane. Ensure you have the Advanced Toolbar on. Right click in the toolbar area and turn on the Advanced toolbar. Create the Followups-To-Go View

• Click on the Drop-down Current View text box and click on Define Views… (at the bottom of the list)
• Click on Phone List View Name and click Copy… command button.
• Name this Followups To-Go and click OK
• You will now see the Customize view: Followup To-Go wizard
  • Click on Fields… Remove all fields on the right and then add the following:
    • Icon
    • Full Name
    • Business Phone
    • Mobile Phone
    • Followup Flag
    • Reminder Time (click on the Frequently-used fields drop-down box and choose Miscellaneous fields then Reminder Time
    • Click OK
  • Click on Sort…
    • You will have to select Miscellaneous fields set in the lower left-hand corner again.
    • In the first Sort items by drop-down box, select Reminder Time and check Descending.
    • Click OK. This will give you those persons you need to call first
  • Click on Filter
    • Click on the Advanced tab
    • Click on the Field command button and select Frequently Used Fields, Follow up Flag
    • Click on the Condition drop-down box and select is not empty.
    • Click Add to List. This will then filter only those contacts who have a Follow up Flag.
    • Click OK
  • Click OK to close the Customize View
  • Click OK and then Apply View. You now see the completed View

Notice that you can spread the headings by dragging them horizontally or even double-clicking on the separator bar between them.Notice too that if you don’t like the Reminders on the right side and want to move the column to the left, you can do that by simply dragging the heading Reminder Time to another heading position. Way cool huh.Finally, you will see that this View is now permanent. Print your Followups-To-Go report.Click on the Printer icon in the Standard toolbar and simply click OK or Preview. If you are exceeding the page width you can simply adjust the heading widths until they fit on your paper.

Now you can print your view anytime you want. And it will ALWAYS be current…Remeber to keep your followup flags going.