You Can’t Take It With You…Your CRM is Locked in the Corporate Vault

For those of you who work in sales, or in almost any industry where you interact with customers, you probably understand what a CRM is: a customer relationship management system. There are many varieties, such as Sales Force and Raiser’s Edge. The purpose is to track, catalog and pursue increasing sales with the individuals that you are maintaining in the system. Every time you have a meeting, or send an email, or make a connection, the information is to be stored in the corporate CRM system. If you follow the protocol, it is a great tracking mechanism.

The downside is that this CRM is owned by the company for which you work, and so is all the data. Therefore, when you go to leave your job, you can’t take it with you. The CRM system, the data, contact information, and any individual notes is all owned by the company. And while you may be very happy in your job, and never thinking of leaving, it is a known fact that rarely do people stay in their jobs as long as they think they might.

If you are a recent college graduate, studies show that you will leave your first few jobs within 12-24 months of starting. Thus, all the work that you did of putting information into maintaining contacts, all has to stay at work; unless you’re using PRISM Networking. One of our motto’s is: “A CRM is for work; and PRISM is for your life.”

PRISM allows you to keep your information that you would like, on key people in your life. You may meet a customer, who after a while becomes a friend. You have a co-worker, who shares the same passions for certain hobbies. By keeping all this information in a system that you own, that is your personal CRM system; that you do get to take with you.