Transcript
This video is going to show you how to process your due tasks when you already have a CRM system in place. This video assumes that you have set your outlook tasks to look something like this but if you haven’t then please go and view the instructional videos ‘“How to display your Outlook Tasks”, and “Setting up your Outlook categories”.
OK so everything is set and now let’s imagine its 8am on a Monday morning and Outlook has presented us with a list of reminders. The reason we set the reminders for 8am on the Monday morning is that you are now fully aware of all your sales tasks for that week. You can make a judgement call based on your work load to help you figure out the best way to process them.
We use a long-standing and proven approach to processing actions when they become due which is called the four D’s so here they are.
- Delay: for whatever reason you feel you can’t carry out the action this week. Simply reset the Due date for a Monday in a week where you feel you will have enough capacity and save the task. If you delay an action 3 times you should probably question its validity.
- Delegate: when you identify a task you want somebody else to do you should delegate it in your normal fashion so either call, email or verbally tell whomever you are delegating the task to. Reset the due date on the action to be for the deadline you have set the delegate, make a note of who you have delegated to, in this case it is Melanie, and save the action. It will now remind you on the date the delegated action should be completed so you can check that it has been done.
- Delete: upon reflection the action is no longer relevant and can be deleted. You will need to check what happens when you delete a task in Outlook. Most systems will synchronise both ways so that what you do in Outlook will be reflected back into your system but you should check to make sure.
- Do: you feel confident you can complete the action this week. Add an Outlook category of “Action” to the task and save it. This will now appear in your tasks at the top of the list and makes it very clear that this task forms part of your sales to-do list for this week. So I have 5 mins and called (EXAMPLE NAME). I will now mark the task complete and go into my CRM system to fill in the details of whatever contact I have had and set up a new action. This will restart the cycle.
A CRM system is incredibly powerful when used in this way with Outlook tasks, it allows you to keep on top of your contact regimes allowing you to develop and culture your relationships with your stakeholders whilst still doing your day job.