This isn’t because somebody has spent millions on marketing, or even that anybody has come up with a definitive description.

We now have so many opportunities to be “who we are” “where we want to be” and get together with people “we want to meet”.  Very quickly even a modest level of involvement in social space overloads us with stuff we want to remember.

Managing whats becoming an essential tool for business – social engagement – is a real challenge for everybody.

New services are being announced everyday to help us with this problem and it seems people are associating these services with terms such as Personal CRM and Social CRM.

Consolidation of activity across Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo, blogging (and a bunch of other sites) is the objective of such sites as Friendfeed and such tools as Twittelator, Tweetstack and Zensify.  And they all work – to an extent.

Google‘s announcement of Wave promises to raise the game to a whole new level – consolidating email, Instant Messenger, content sharing etc. in “conversations”.  It looks really exciting, but there aren’t any services using it, yet.  There will be soon!

Meantime there’s a new service – Gist – currently in private Beta which promises to consolidate relationships across social sites and integrate those conversations with email, Instant Messenger, Twitter and probably others such as Friendfeed and Tumblr.

Gist has a lot of traction, having recently received VC funding ( a special event in today’s climate)  so obviously the chatter about Social CRM has moved out of the social space and captured the interest of the money men.

We’re really excited about this new momentum, because it suggests we’re moving in the right direction with FOB3.

Months ago we decided we needed to change Front Office Box – adding to the People view with social connections.  This enhancement is being built into FOB 3 right now, and will be available to our users soon.

In terms of the difference between Personal CRM and Social CRM, we don’t think there is one.  Social is about being Personal, so any difference is only in the words.

What is different, between Front Office Box and the rest is the CRM part.

Being connected to our social relationships is only a part of the equation.

The other part is managing what we “do” with those connections.

For this to make sense in our businesses we need to bring together “who we know” with “what we know about them”, “what we want to do with them”, “how we plan to do it” and “who will do it, when”.

That’s what we’re doing with FOB3 – managing social relationships in a business context.

The only tools in my bag were intellect and honesty.   The honesty bit was where “relationships” came in to the picture.

Later various employers invested in training me in the finer points of selling but the element that stayed with me was the “honesty” and the relationships that derived.

Like most people (and despite warnings from others more insightful than me) I started to take for granted one of those relationships,  forgetting an important conversation.

Quite rightly the other party brought me up sharp, making his displeasure obvious.

Suitably contrite I resolved to concentrate more closely in the future.

Turns out that becomes harder to do as the number of relationships increases.

I need a tool to help me keep my relationships in pockets where I can find them, review conversations and bring myself up to speed with the current.

So we’re building this into Front Office Box, because if I need that, others must too.

How do you stay on top of all those conversations, those relationships?

I’m going to have my Personal CRM, because I really don’t want to be the jerk the guy in my story thought I was.

But we didn’t stop at the database.  We chose to extend the principles of business software with design- isolating the technology, removing the complexity and adding best practice.

Because of this Front Office Box looks, feels and works differently to other business software.  It’s meant to.  It adds value to users partly because it does all the normal things, but especially because of what it doesn’t do.

It doesn’t get in their way, stopping them doing what they want; and it doesn’t soak up their time with unnecessary complexity.

Front Office Box offers consultants a single, sharable database of companies, people, plans, tasks, schedules, correspondence and documents.

It’s:

• flexible – so they can work the way they want to.
• powerful – doing all the hard work under the covers.
• elegant – so they can enjoy using it.
• friendly – with best practice “built in” so they can just organize, and get on with the real job.

Someday, all software will be built this way.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pipeline Management – Coming Soon (frontofficebox.com)
• Promoted to Sales Manager, Now What (frontofficebox.com)
• Confused About Relationships (frontofficebox.com)
• The Front Office Process – First Call to Referral (frontofficebox.com)

Social Media sites opened the door for person to person interaction, so that friends could stay in touch.

Business people, especially the Internet Marketers quickly spotted the opportunity.  Now it’s possible to build networks and publish content, creating our own value.

What an opportunity – reach people in a social way, and provide them with content.  There has never been an easier way to meet new people and influence them by sharing what we know.

This is how we build our Personal Brand.

Working with Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, our own blogs on Blogger or WordPress, we have an open opportunity to be our own person.

No longer constrained by the corporate positioning stuff, we can now be ourselves, in places where people want to know people, not who they work for.  They want to know what value we can add to their thinking.  They want to share. And so do we!

In the good old days my parents explained to me “what we knew” was less important than “who we knew”.  All of the opportunities went to people who were on the “inside”.

With social media we get to change those rules.

We get to be somebody even more special – because we we contribute “what we know” to “the people we know”.

Building a personal brand in this way creates value for us as individuals, regardless of whoever we work for, and when we change, the network comes with us.

With personal brand the company is only a piece of the picture, and we as individuals have much more control.

Social Media is changing the rules.  Those who embrace the change and contribute will prosper, at the expense of the Luddites who don’t.

• Experience in sales and sales management.
• Belief that software should add value, above the transaction.
• Always On connectivity.
• Generously sharing newly discovered stuff.
• Business Partner rather than Customer or Vendor.
• Everybody’s friend but nobody’s fool.

How do I promote that brand?

• Consistency – it never changes.
• Engagement – talk to me, I’m there.
• Empathy – need help – just ask.
• Open – new ideas – I’m listening.

Does this work for everybody? No, of course not.

What does your brand say?

Do you have one?  What does it say about you, as a person, as a professional, as potential friend, or as a potential enemy?

Whatever it says it should be ‘real’ – none of us can get away with pretending to be something we’re not.

There’s no good or bad in personal brand – these things are always good and bad.  What’s important is that brand should stand for something, and stand out from the crowd.  People must be able to relate to that brand and understand what it means for them.

The very fact there’s a brand there helps all sales people stand out from the competition, and helps the customer know what he’s dealing with, and that’s half the battle.

The other half of the battle is persuading the customer there’s value for him/her in that brand.

So what does your brand say about you?  What does that mean for the customer.  How does it relate to the personal brands of the competition?

How do you promote your brand?  Have you build a web-presence?  Do you have a personal blog?  If so is it connected to your Linked In and Facebook profiles?  Do you participate in the big conversation?

Does everything about you support your brand?

Typically, today’s sales professionals stick to the company line.  Representing the company brand is what they get paid to do.  Marketing departments work hard at positioning the product against both customer needs and the competition.

It’s easier to regurgitate the company brochure than create one’s own brand.

Internet Marketers work hard at developing their own, personal brand.  They add value with interesting news and analysis.  As a result they build a personal relationship with readers and a subsequent permission to market product.

For these guys it isn’t business, it’s personal, and the business will follow.

The bottom line here is companies by from companies like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.  Reps for these businesses take orders and manage the revenue pipeline.

Those of us who work for less strong brands need to do things differently.  We need to build personal relationships with the buyers.  In our space companies don’t buy from companies, people buy from people.

In order for people to buy from us, as individuals, we need to add value in the person to person relationships.

Once we’ve done that we’ve started to build our personal brand, just like the Internet Marketing guys.

Soon we’ll post an article describing, in much more detail, how we can set about creating that personal brand.

Watch this space!

But distill the concept of CRM to it’s fundamental elements – Relationships, Plans and Schedules – “Who” we know, “What” we want to do them, “When” we plan to do it – the potential for Personal CRM starts to emerge.

Firstly, we really should be keeping our own records of our business contacts, but in a “relationship” as opposed to “transaction” context. The fact that John Jones is CFO of Acme Inc and we have an appointment to discuss his renewal on the 28th is related to a transaction. Facts like he’s a member of Pine Valley Golf Club, enjoys classical music, his wife works for a childrens charity and daughter is studying medicine are related to our relationship.

These are different dimensions of the same contact. We need to be on time with a competitive offer if we’re to win the renewal. At the same time we need to know which of our contacts enjoys concerts when we have tickets for the symphony. If we can commit to knowing more of John’s personal interests we can deepen the relationship, opening up other opportunities. Maintaining that relationship will always be helpful when the going gets tough.

Secondly, we probably don’t need a reminder of our daughter’s birthday, but a reminder to find a gift a few days before might be helpful, as will a list of her close friends so we can invite them to the party.

Thirdly, in the natural course of things we meet people who aren’t, and may never be, clients, and also aren’t family or friends. They can be helpful to us in our business, and we can reciprocate. We need to know what their value add is so we can introduce opportunities to them, and build similar relationships to those with our customers.

We’ve just looked at three different types of relationship, but of course there’s only one of us. Having three different systems to record this information, and know how and when to use it, sounds like it might create more problems than it solves.

Maybe our own Personal CRM system isn’t an oxymoron. Maybe it’s an absolute requirement as the focus of business turns from transactions to relationships.

Front Office Box Personal CRM is free – sign up today and see how easy organizing your personal and social media relationships can be.

Is a strategic resource, or a convenient way of storing email addresses?

Is is a single, sharable, business asset, or a collection of semi-complete, partially up to date, collection of old data you don’t use most of?

It’s a fair bet the answers will all be the alternatives.  After all if it’s just a way of storing phone numbers or email addresses we don’t need to change out of date records we don’t use, or store last names or companies for close contacts.  We don’t need to note contact history, categorize positions or industries, or those extra little items that turn the basic information we can use to relate one contact to others.

Doesn’t sound like much of an asset – more a liability.

BUT Imagine if we had a record of everybody we ever met, their history, interests, connections and the context of our contacts with them.  Imagine if we had some way of delving into this knowledgebase to find people who might help with a plan or opportunity, or who we might help.  How much more powerful and effective could we be?

Linked In, Facebook, and a bunch of forums target this type of asset but of course they only do a part of the job.  They don’t help us connect between the different networks, there’s no context, and no way of linking contacts and histories with opportunities and plans.

Relationship Asset Management helps us transform those thousand tiny diamond chips into one big 24 carat gem.

Take the example of our friend who used to be in a very precarious situation – self employed agent of an association offering insurance on special terms to members.  The association’s members but his insurance product.

One of is tasks was approaching non-members with a suggestion they join, to enjoy the benefits – promoting the insurance in the process.

The association wasn’t interested in collecting the contact information but this guy needed it, to do his job.  Along the way he collected and collated every piece of who, what, why, how data and stored it in his own system.

Now he knows more about the entire sector, comprising 1,500 organizations – names, contact details, affiliations, dates, conversations, correspondence and even documents – than anybody else.

He’s now the world authority on the sector, and got their simply because he used Relationship Asset Management when prospecting for insurance clients.

But distill the concept of CRM to it’s fundamental elements – Relationships, Plans and Schedules – “Who” we know, “What” we want to do them, “When” we plan to do it – the potential for Personal CRM starts to emerge.

Firstly, we really should be keeping our own records of our business contacts, but in a “relationship” as opposed to “transaction” context. The fact that John Jones is CFO of Acme Inc and we have an appointment to discuss his renewal on the 28th is related to a transaction. Facts like he’s a member of Pine Valley Golf Club, enjoys classical music, his wife works for a children’s charity and daughter is studying medicine are related to our relationship.

These are different dimensions of the same contact. We need to be on time with a competitive offer if we’re to win the renewal. At the same time we need to know which of our contacts enjoys concerts when we have tickets for the symphony. If we can commit to knowing more of John’s personal interests we can deepen the relationship, opening up other opportunities. Maintaining that relationship will always be helpful when the going gets tough.

Secondly, we probably don’t need a reminder of our daughter’s birthday, but a reminder to find a gift a few days before might be helpful, as will a list of her close friends so we can invite them to the party.

Thirdly, in the natural course of things we meet people who aren’t, and may never be, clients, and also aren’t family or friends. They can be helpful to us in our business, and we can reciprocate. We need to know what their value add is so we can introduce opportunities to them, and build similar relationships to those with our customers.

We’ve just looked at three different types of relationship, but of course there’s only one of us. Having three different systems to record this information, and know how and when to use it, sounds like it might create more problems than it solves.

Maybe our own Personal CRM system isn’t an oxymoron. Maybe it’s an absolute requirement as the focus of business turns from transactions to relationships.