This Is Just Between You And Me

This Is Just Between You And Me… Sunday I got a call from one of my best friends from my high school days. He happens to be a JibberJobber user and had a great question for me he started with this is just between you and me and something like I promise, no matter what the answer is, I wont tell anyone. He asked me: With all of the contacts and relationships you have, do you ever feel overwhelmed? Does JibberJobber help with that at all? Ah, what a great question! This is like asking the Coke driver if he drinks Pepsi, or the preacher if he sins I appreciated the question because Ive frequently wondered how many CEOs are in touch with their own products, and familiar enough to actually do a tech support call. I recently had lunch with Twelve Horses president Steve Spencer who said that he can field a tech support call with no problem and that most times people dont know that they are talking to the president. I think that is an awesome example and I worry about the day I might lose touch with JibberJobber reality (I see it frequently with software and wonder does anyone at that company even use their own product??). My answer to do I ever feel overwhelmed is yes, absolutely. While I have a team behind me I do feel like a lone ranger with marketing and some other things (Im sure many of you feel like that also). I have easily had contact with more than 1,000 people in the last year talking about JibberJobber from career experts to bloggers to newspaper editors to professionals. Its hard to keep it all straight a lot of my business is based around networking. That is, relationships. I really try and form relationships as best I can, which means that Im not just gathering business cards, rather, having significant discussion. This takes a lot of work! My answer to does JibberJobber help with all that is very simple. I have logged into JibberJobber more than anyone else (well, perhaps my dev team has logged in more, but not on the live server!). I use JibberJobber at least 5 to 10 times a day I will add new users, put a log entry in (from an e-mail or phone call), create an action item, or something like that, during the day. I have over 800 contacts that I have put in, almost one-by-one, and have ranked and/or tagged each of them. I love the birthday reminder to let me know who has a birthday coming up, and depend on getting action items e-mailed to me. If I didnt have JibberJobber I would have to have Goldmine, ACT! or SalesForce.com to manage it all. So thanks for the question heres my question to YOU. You know you should be doing all this stuff but really, are you actually doing it? I wasnt before I got laid off, even though I knew I should. Heres a quick checklist for you: Are you networking in person, face-to-face? I dont care how introverted you are, you can have the pain of getting over it now or have the pain of long-term unemployment later. Are you developing a personal brand that is googleable? If you search on your name, do you find awesome, on-brand stuff? Do you have a google alert set up for your own name or company? Are you really following up with relationships that you form, online or offline? After you meet someone, is there a real follow-up that allows you to develop a real relationship? Im talking about more than the canned it was nice to meet you heres what I do e-mail. Are you using something like JibberJobber to see and manage your relationships? Look, CRM-fanatics say that software cant manage a relationship and I agree. But you need something, from sticky notes to a notebook to free JibberJobber to really, really manage the details around relationships. Whats stopping you? I dont care if you are president of a college, a career coach, resume writer, or recruiter. Relationships are key, you preach it do you practice what you preach? I didnt practice what I preached 20 months ago. And I came to regret it. However, I do now (with regard to this stuff :p). How are you doing? This Is Just Between You And Me… Sunday I got a call from one of my best friends from my high school days. He happens to be a JibberJobber user and had a great question for me he started with this is just between you and me and something like I promise, no matter what the answer is, I wont tell anyone. He asked me: With all of the contacts and relationships you have, do you ever feel overwhelmed? Does JibberJobber help with that at all? Ah, what a great question! This is like asking the Coke driver if he drinks Pepsi, or the preacher if he sins I appreciated the question because Ive frequently wondered how many CEOs are in touch with their own products, and familiar enough to actually do a tech support call. I recently had lunch with Twelve Horses president Steve Spencer who said that he can field a tech support call with no problem and that most times people dont know that they are talking to the president. I think that is an awesome example and I worry about the day I might lose touch with JibberJobber reality (I see it frequently with software and wonder does anyone at that company even use their own product??). My answer to do I ever feel overwhelmed is yes, absolutely. While I have a team behind me I do feel like a lone ranger with marketing and some other things (Im sure many of you feel like that also). I have easily had contact with more than 1,000 people in the last year talking about JibberJobber from career experts to bloggers to newspaper editors to professionals. Its hard to keep it all straight a lot of my business is based around networking. That is, relationships. I really try and form relationships as best I can, which means that Im not just gathering business cards, rather, having significant discussion. This takes a lot of work! My answer to does JibberJobber help with all that is very simple. I have logged into JibberJobber more than anyone else (well, perhaps my dev team has logged in more, but not on the live server!). I use JibberJobber at least 5 to 10 times a day I will add new users, put a log entry in (from an e-mail or phone call), create an action item, or something like that, during the day. I have over 800 contacts that I have put in, almost one-by-one, and have ranked and/or tagged each of them. I love the birthday reminder to let me know who has a birthday coming up, and depend on getting action items e-mailed to me. If I didnt have JibberJobber I would have to have Goldmine, ACT! or SalesForce.com to manage it all. So thanks for the question heres my question to YOU. You know you should be doing all this stuff but really, are you actually doing it? I wasnt before I got laid off, even though I knew I should. Heres a quick checklist for you: Are you networking in person, face-to-face? I dont care how introverted you are, you can have the pain of getting over it now or have the pain of long-term unemployment later. Are you developing a personal brand that is googleable? If you search on your name, do you find awesome, on-brand stuff? Do you have a google alert set up for your own name or company? Are you really following up with relationships that you form, online or offline? After you meet someone, is there a real follow-up that allows you to develop a real relationship? Im talking about more than the canned it was nice to meet you heres what I do e-mail. Are you using something like JibberJobber to see and manage your relationships? Look, CRM-fanatics say that software cant manage a relationship and I agree. But you need something, from sticky notes to a notebook to free JibberJobber to really, really manage the details around relationships. Whats stopping you? I dont care if you are president of a college, a career coach, resume writer, or recruiter. Relationships are key, you preach it do you practice what you preach? I didnt practice what I preached 20 months ago. And I came to regret it. However, I do now (with regard to this stuff :p). How are you doing?