So how big a problem is data quality depression really?
In the past, some firms neglected CRM data quality as a minor issue – to their detriment. In fact, poor data quality can become a serious problem, especially during an initial rollout because the attorneys can quickly lose confidence in the system if the data is a mess. After all, attorneys are trained to find fault – and when they do, they may jump to the conclusion that if the data is bad, the system is not trustworthy. Then adoption and usage will stall.
Additionally, until the data is properly cleaned and deduplicated, the value of your CRM cannot be fully recognized. Until the entire firm is rolled out, the attorneys can't leverage relationship intelligence to identify ‘who knows who’ relationships. Until comprehensive contact information is collected and compiled and contacts are categorized (how’s that for alliteration?), it’s almost impossible to accurately distribute mailings, invitations or other communications.
As a result, the longer the data cleanup process takes, the more marketing and business development opportunities are lost - and the more time and money are wasted. So ultimately, if you don’t focus on data quality, you could end up with what many firms refer to their CRM system as: a glorified, overpriced rolodex.
Effective business development starts with a plan. Without a plan, business development can become unstructured, unproductive and expensive – with limited or no return on investment.
We commit random acts of golf or lunch – inviting the same people who have never given us business. We spend weeks preparing for presentations for groups of attorneys – who are competitors instead of potential Clients. We spend hours writing long-winded white papers – for obscure, scholarly publications instead of industry or trade periodicals. We pay thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, for sports and event tickets – that end up unused or used by our associates and their friends. We give ‘til it hurts – to charities and causes with no ties to our strategic business development objectives. We don't prepare before the meeting or measure results afterwards. In short, we fail to plan, which is a plan for failure.
Without a plan to follow, it’s just too easy to fall into the habit of doing what we've always done or what we are comfortable with and hoping we might be successful. Doing what we have always done and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. And hope is not a strategy. And this scattershot approach is not a good way to develop business.
For successful business development, the ‘shotgun’ is not the weapon of choice. Instead you want a rifle with laser focus in your arsenal. Stop settling for doing the same things. You need to focus on the right things. The key is to make your business development efforts as effective as possible and get the highest possible return on the time you invest. Take the time to set your sights and really aim. But before you aim, you have to have the right target...
The end of the fiscal year is a primary time for organizational evaluation. Whether you have a start-up operation and have been in business less than a year, or are a veteran; annual evaluations are not only beneficial to all organizations, they are a necessity.
During an annual evaluation, you want to assess your entire operation. First, start by examining your annual revenue against your cost of doing business. Were your profits as high as you had expected or hoped they would be? If not, why didn’t you make as much as you wanted to? Was it due to a lack of or faulty marketing efforts? Did you lose customers or clients? Did you spend too much time and money training employees with a high turn-over rate? If profits were higher than expected, first take a moment to celebrate your good fortune; then get back to business. Why were profits so high? Did you gain an unexpected amount of customers or clients? Did you efficiently train employees, and therefore had a low turn-over rate? Did you increase free publicity through effective public relations efforts?
After examining your revenue, move onto your organizational structure. If you planned well from the beginning, your structure should be fairly flexible to meet the current needs of your business, while having room to grow as your business matures. Do you have enough employees to meet current demand? Do you have too many employees? Are the current positions meeting organizational needs? For instance, a company may have a Human Resource Director and a Human Resource Assistant. As the company expands and begins to receive more business, it may be necessary to incorporate a Project Coordinator. Rather than hiring someone new, the Human Resource Assistant can probably make a very good Project Coordinator (during the annual review the company discovered that the Human Resource Assistant did not have a lot of work to do). Moving employees rather than hiring new ones can help your organization save time and money. Sometimes a change in title and scope of duties for one employee is all an organization needs to do to substantially increase productivity for the entire operation. This is also a great time to conduct individual employee evaluations.
At the end of the day, most businesses have the end-goal of growth. What did you company do in the last year to expand? How are you staying in touch with new and loyal customers and clients? How are you reaching people who may have never heard about your business? What is your current publicity/marketing strategy? How much time are you spending executing it? Based on your answers, should you consider outsourcing?
While product quality and assurance should be an on-going process, a year-end evaluation should also include an assessment of your company’s products and services. How do your products and services match up to the competitions’?
It is important to take note that whether the news is good or bad, you must always search for the reason why in your annual evaluation. If your company performed poorly, you will need to understand what went wrong so you can fix the problem. If your company had a stellar year, you will also want to have a thorough understanding of why so you can repeat and improve on those results for the next fiscal year. Once you discover what your company did right, and what went wrong, take the time to make a new plan for the upcoming fiscal year. This is a great time to bring out your business plan as well and make any necessary revisions.
To learn more about how Writings by Design can help your business connect with customers, clients and other key stakeholders, please visit us at www.writingsbydesign.com, email your question to inquiry@writingsbydesign.com or call us at (866) 937-2361.
Ultimately, at some point, you may realize that getting help for data quality depression is essential. Once a firm reaches a certain size, often around 100 users, a part-time data steward just can't keep up with the volume of data changes in most cases. Larger firms will likely require a full-time data steward. And as a firm reaches the 250 user mark, even one dedicated data steward might not be able to do the job alone.
The reason that data quality resources are necessary is that, no matter what you do, keeping up with data changes from hundreds of CRM users is a challenging - and ongoing - job. One reason is that an estimated 25 to 30 percent of data degrades each year. Think about it, people move, get promoted, change companies, get married – and a few die. All this leads to bad data.
Additionally, during an initial CRM rollout, having extra data quality resources will be imperative. If you consider that the average attorney has approximately 500 contacts - some senior partners may have thousands while new associates may only have a few - it’s not uncommon for a CRM rollout for a firm with 100 attorneys to quickly build a database of over 50,000 records. Of those, conservatively 25 percent or more may be duplicates. That means there could be more than 12,000 records that need to be standardized, cleaned and merged. If you assume that a skilled data steward can deal with about 250 records a day, it could easily take months to get the data in order, which is essential to get the professionals to trust - and use the system. This is assuming you have the internal resources...
Knowing when you should make a call versus email is critical.
Computer mediated communication (CMC)—communication through the use of technology, such as text messaging, social media Web sites and so on—enables businesses to easily and quickly distribute messages to the masses. I love technology, and am always the first to purchase little gadgets and software to make business (and life in general) flow a little easier. I do, however, realize that there are certain key aspects that are missing when I choose to send an email to a client rather than picking up my phone and calling; or better yet, meet in person for a face-to-face meeting.
While some experts argue that CMC can sometimes help people develop deeper relationships than that of face-to-face communication, I beg to differ. Face-to-face communication is a complex process, in which physical markers and non-verbal cues greatly affect the receiver’s interpretation of a message—that is what makes it unique. Even when a genuine connection is seemingly made through CMC, that connection can quickly dissolve unless the communicators attempt to transition to face-to-face communication.
The critical error is perceiving one form of communication—either face-to-face or CMC—as “better” or “worse” than the other. In order to truly master effective communication in both face-to-face and CMC situations, we must realize that both serve different purposes and must be treated as such. There is a time and a place for email; situations where video conferencing is appropriate and times when text messaging is OK. Although the three aforementioned forms of communication are CMC, they still are very different—just as when comparing face-to-face and CMC. Methods of communication are vehicles for various messages. Sometimes it is better to take the scenic route on a train (traditional hand-written letter), even though I may be able to get to my destination a little faster on a plane (email); it just depends on the overall experience I wish to get from the communication (and the experience I would like the receiver of the message to have as well).
While technology has made staying in nearly constant contact with customers and clients, as well as potential customers and clients, a breeze, never forget the importance of face-to-face communication. Depending on your type of business, this may be more difficult for some than others. If you sell a product from a physical store, it will be much easier for you to make a connection with customers via face-to-face communication. On the other hand, if you are a business-to-business supply company, or sell services or products via the Internet, you may have to be a little creative. Physical distance can make meeting with clients in person rather difficult. If you are unable to periodically meet with clients in person, video conferencing tools can help you personify your organization and make a true connection with clients—which will inevitably lead to the increased longevity of your business.
J. Mariah Brown is the owner of Writings by Design, LLC. To learn more about how Writings by Design can help your business connect with customers, clients and other key stakeholders, please visit us at www.writingsbydesign.com, email your question to inquiry@writingsbydesign.com or call us at (866) 937-2361.
Like most things that are challenging – but can also be rewarding – business development success starts with a plan. To be really effective, you have to put together a strategy and plan that you can execute and measure success against. Without a plan, you will likely end up wasting the one resource that is the most precious - time.
Because time is limited, it's also important not to spend too much of it creating the plan either. Of course you need to spend enough time to prepare a well-thought-out plan, but remember, you aren't writing a sequel to war and peace. I've seen many a professional business development plan in filled with exacting detail, professionally bound, divided into sections and even annotated with a table of contents. The place you most often find that kind of plan is on a bookshelf gathering dust. Instead your goal should be to create a plan that is realistic, flexible and achievable...
When it comes to data quality depression, it's important to know that you aren’t alone. There are literally hundreds of firms struggling with the same frustrations and issues. Often, the best thing you can do is to reach out for assistance.
Frequently, help is closer than you think. In fact, you can often find relief within your own firm. There are plenty of people with the right skills and, more importantly, some additional bandwidth, who may be able to assist you with recurring data quality tasks. Good potential candidates include secretaries, records clerks, word processors, paralegals or even your receptionist. Having a qualified pool of candidates is important because when it comes to enhancing data quality, the more helping hands - and eyes - the better.
You may also benefit from the ideas and best practices of other firms. You may want to consider joining – or creating – a data quality “support group.” Start a discussion group, arrange meetings, or just get together for coffee with people in your area in similar positions who have the same data quality challenges and headaches. Before making a decision about how to address your own firm’s data quality issues, find out what has worked for them, as well as what hasn’t.
Finally, to take your personal value proposition up a level – to really connect with a potential Client – articulate characteristics that may be of particular interest to them. Discuss things that differentiate you or your practice. Describe a niche area of expertise. Mention unique skills or knowledge. Talk about your Client focus and how you help people avoid risks or solve problems.
Your personal value proposition should be compelling and memorable, something that would make a potential Client want to hear more – and remember you after your initial meeting. It should also be interesting and engaging, since the idea is to spark a continuing conversation. You could discuss areas outside of work that you are passionate about but that make you better at what you do. This will humanize you and make you seem approachable. You could even use a little humor or even or tell a story. People love a good story – and they often remember them.
Most importantly, you should demonstrate some element of enthusiasm or for your profession because your personal value proposition also gives the listener an initial impression of what it would be like to work with you – and first impressions can be powerful. Remember, all things being equal, in most cases people hire people they like and trust, and your personal value proposition is often your first opportunity to convey these characteristics to a prospective Client.
If your data quality depression doesn’t seem to be responding to conventional treatments, fortunately there are now some alternative treatments available. One treatment that has been particularly effective for some firms is outsourcing your data quality.
If you aren’t able to hire full-time or permanent data quality resources, there are now outsourced data quality professionals available who can help you to get a handle on your data on a part-time or even full-time basis. For a very reasonable hourly rate, these professionals can assist your firm with individual data quality projects – or even serve as full-time permanent data stewards.
These trained data quality professionals will serve as members of your firm’s data quality team. They are knowledgeable about multiple CRM systems, and they are supervised by consultants or companies who are experts in data quality and CRM success. Your data quality team members will communicate with you on a regular basis and will also provide you with regular reports regarding data quality progress. And, because they are outsourced, you won't have to deal with the headaches associated with finding, hiring, firing or supervising them.
Ultimately, using these alternative data quality professionals can be an effective and affordable way to reduce your data quality headaches – and the return on your investment can be significant. If you’d like more information about data quality outsourcing options, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help relieve your pain.
To really elevate your personal value proposition, begin by trying to articulate it in terms of Client needs. These needs can often open the door to new business. But remember that Clients typically have a hierarchy of needs – and some are more pressing than others.
The goal is to identify and find potential solutions for the ‘big’ needs, the ones that are the most imperative, because these are the ones that are most likely to drive a hiring decision. Some of these needs include:
Increasing revenue and profitability
Reducing costs, losses, inefficiency, pressure, stress, downtime, uncertainty or risk
Avoiding conflict, litigation, fines, fees, bad publicity or negative consequences
Saving time, effort or resources
Improving processes, procedures or production
Enhancing or protecting and reputations, images or credibility
Meeting connections and deadlines
Once you have focused your personal value proposition on the Client’s needs, you are ready to take it to the next level…
While the bad news is that data quality depression may seem to be an epidemic, the good news is that it is treatable – and it's rarely contagious. The treatments for data quality depression vary depending on the symptoms and the causes. As a result, your data quality specialist should diagnose your specific issue in order to prescribe a course of treatment specific to your firm’s unique needs.
For instance, if your symptoms include delirium caused by end users who do not seem to follow instructions or take responsibility for their own data maintenance, your data quality consultant may recommend a course of training (also known as a training course.) The focus of the training should be not only therapeutic, to alleviate the current issues by teaching users to best ways to prevent data quality problems, but also preventative, in order to avoid future relapses by emphasizing the reasons that long-term data maintenance is important to the firm.
On the other hand, if you are presenting with symptoms of stress and fatigue that seem to have been induced by a lack of adequate resources to do your data quality job, the consultant may first work together with you to create a compelling business case to take to firm management in order to secure additional monetary or human resources.
If this initial treatment is unsuccessful, another equally effective treatment to consider would be to involve employees in other positions or departments to assist with data quality tasks part-time. Assistants, paralegals, word processors, records personnel, receptionists or even summer interns could be recruited to help prevent the spread or growth of data quality issues.
You should be aware that the selection of individuals responsible for data quality can be challenging and proper screening is crucial. Ideally, good candidates should have excellent attention to detail, a strong work ethic and some institutional knowledge of your firm and Clients. If the right individuals can be identified, their assistance can have an excellent prophylactic effect on future data quality problems.
While most cases of data quality depression often respond positively to one of these treatments, some cases seem to be resistant to these methods. In such cases, we often recommend an alternative therapy…
