By Rick Davis
The Roman philosopher Seneca noted that "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." Nowhere is this more apparent than in the process of sales information management. Whether you are an organization or an individual, one obvious lesson you must take away from today's challenging times is that information management is crucial to your long-term success.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term often used to describe database management, but it falls short of preparing you for the opportunities and crises you may face in the coming months and years. CRM focuses on your customer base, while the larger picture of database management (DBM) includes information about customers and prospects.
From my observations of LBM dealers, there is unequivocal evidence that most do not have adequate information and resources to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. Answer the following questions to determine how prepared you are for the battle ahead.
1. If your key salesperson quit tomorrow to work for a competitor, would your company have all the information it needs to maintain relationships with the salesperson's customers? If your answer is no, and you suspect that your salesperson would walk out the door with information you wish you had kept over the years, you need to rethink your database strategy.
2. Do you have a distribution strategy for e-mail and direct mail communication to customers in your market? This is not a simple question bec...
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