The following are seven guidelines to consider when evaluating contact management software.

1. A Team-Based Solution
Your staff must work as a cohesive team for your practice to be successful. Likewise, your contact manager must facilitate team-based activity. Some products are much better than others when it comes to multi-user access and information sharing. Make sure that your contact manager allows multiple members of your team to work on the same investor's account simultaneously. And that the software can easily expand as your team grows. Other features to look for include the ability to display the calendar of any member of your team and the ability to easily delegate tasks to other members of your team.

2. Complete Investor Profiles
Your contact manager should be the primary source of information about your investors. This ensures that every member of your team can quickly find existing information and file new information. An investor profile begins with names, addresses and phone numbers. But it doesn't end there. It should also contain family background. KYC information. Nurturing information. Marketing information. A list of all pending activities. A detailed chronological history, listing phone calls, meetings, e-mails, letters, internal activities, gifts given, etc. Investment positions. Transactions. Signed documents (scanned). Letters. Spreadsheets. Presentations. Financial plans. Statements. A photo. In short, every piece of information your team will every need about that investor.

3. Flexible Data Mining Tools
The investor information in your contact manager will quickly become your practice's most valuable asset. You'll want to mine that information each and every day, both to service your investors and to manage your practice. There are an endless number of questions worth asking. Who among your clients holds product XYZ? Which of your platinum clients enjoy golf? Who among your clients and prospects would be interested in this breaking news item? How many high-worth prospects are you dealing with at the moment? What are your projected sales for the next quarter? Given the range and unpredictability of these queries, your contact management software should be flexible enough to accommodate queries based on any combination of information.

4. Integration, Integration, Integration
It's impossible to completely avoid duplication of investor information in your office because your front and back office systems need the same information for different purposes. But you can eliminate the wasted time and typing errors that result from entering the same information into multiple systems by selecting a contact manager that integrates both with your back office and with your other front office systems. You'll want a contact manager that can accept a daily data feed from your back office, containing any updates to your investor information (mailing addresses, valuations, etc.). And you'll also want your contact manager to feed information about an investor to your other front-office systems, such as your financial planning software.

5. Procedures and Automation
In his famous books The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited, best-selling author Michael Gerber makes a compelling case for developing what he calls a turn-key operation. He defines an operation to be turn-key if it continues to run effectively when the owner is absent. The first step in developing a turn-key operation is defining and documenting each of your office procedures. Then you must automate those procedures to whatever extent is practical, so that your staff are simply responsible for executing your system. To transform your practice into a turn-key operation, you'll need a contact manager that encourages your entire team to think in terms of documented, reproducible procedures. You'll also want your contact manager to automate your procedures, a capability only available in the very best software.

6. Contact Management To Go
If you need to be productive while away from the office, then you need a contact manager that travels well. Two different solutions are available. If you use a laptop computer or hand-held organizer (e.g. Palm) and want to be productive no matter where you are, look for a contact manager that can synchronize with your specific device. If you simply want to work from home or from the cottage and you have access to the internet, look for a contact manager that can be accessed over the internet.

7. Installation, Training and Ongoing Support
There's nothing more frustrating than software that isn't working properly or that you're not sure how to use. If you purchase your contact manager at a business supply store or from the firm that maintains your office computers, who can you turn to when you need expert help? So make sure you select software that's backed by a reputable vendor with a proven track record of providing great training and support services. Don't hesitate to ask for references.