CRM Success by the Numbers - Part 7: Too Many Numbers – or Balls – in the Air

The CRM success goals you set should be measurable, achievable and agreed upon by the firm’s key CRM stakeholders. They should also be relevant. In a law firm, that means saving time, solving problems or, best of all, increasing revenue. Most importantly they should be limited in number. If you try to keep too many CRM success balls in the air, you will often end up dropping them all.

Here are some relevant goals that I’ve seen firms set – and achieve:

• Clean up just one list for an upcoming mailing or event – and then another – and another
• Categorize a group of contacts such as competitors or vendors so that we don't inadvertently invite them to our next event
• Get one BD-focused Practice Group to enter their reimbursable business development activities with prospects
• Print reports of marketing activities with top Clients to provide at the monthly client team meeting
• Input industry information or codes for the firm’s top 100 (or 200 or 500) Clients so that lists can be generated for industry-focused publications or events
• Build an expert witness database for the litigation group
• Create some specialized fields for firm personnel records to track languages, education or expertise for pitches
• Here’s a particularly (or not) relevant goal for quite a few firms: this year, let’s fix the holiday card list.

 Fixing that one may just pay for the CRM system. Better get started in August though…