Perish the thought of taking away Outlook? Maybe not! Believe it or not, there are thousands of GoldMine users who have no need for Microsoft Outlook and many who frankly don’t miss it a bit.
While at the same time GoldMine offers more features for integrating with your Microsoft Outlook than ever before, there are many GoldMine users who could care less, or even prefer to keep Outlook off the desktop. Here are some reasons sales managers and users may want to take the stance that GoldMine IS the company’s business email client:
■Computer viruses are very commonly written to use Outlook’s address book for self-propagating
■Outlook tends to hold a great deal of personal email and contacts
■Important information that should be shared and accessible to others in the company may be stored in inaccessible personal folders
■Outlook data often “disappears” once a person leaves
■Contact information, such as faxes, email addresses, etc. maybe hard to round up for campaigns. And, once various personal folders are compiled there is often a duplicate problem.
■Non-authorized confidential company information is available for most users to export
GoldMine 5.7’s email client and email center are full featured and possess all the bells & whistles one needs to manage email communications. And, you can easily avoid the pitfalls listed above.
It’s this author’s opinion that one reason more firms don’t make the decision to rely completely on GoldMine email is that the decision makers are part of the problem – they find it just as appealing as their staff does to take advantage of features that favor the user, rather than the organization’s interests. On the other hand, a dedicated employee whose focus is to help the company achieve its mission will do what’s in the firm’s best interests to achieve their personal success in the process. Entrepreneurs, as well as Presidents, CFOs, and CEOs who are reading this article, wake up and smell the coffee. If you don’t put your foot down on this subject, chances are it isn’t going to happen.
The other reason people don’t change is the “comfort factor.” Folks are comfortable with Outlook email. They haven’t familiarized themselves with GoldMine’s client or email center. And, maybe they find GoldMine’s “linking” feature strange. (Frankly, this linking feature which make’s GoldMine email so powerful and appealing.)
Making GoldMine’s email system a requirement for sales, marketing and certain support personnel, doesn’t mean that you have to require it throughout the firm. Nor does it mean that you have to entirely take away Outlook or Outlook express as client for “personal” types of communication.
Life can function without Outlook. And with GoldMine, you may find your business functions much better!
Outlook® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.
