This year has started off strong, since going through a little bit of marketing and getting my new site up with Blu I have booked many things for the year.
My question is this, what does everyone use to keep track of clients, information, and differences between booked/looking or contacted by?
Right now I use MS Word, Outlook, and good old paper/pen.
Most folks I know use Word, Outlook and good old paper/pen.
Actually, if you like MS Office programs, why go anywhere else? In the Small Business section is a product called Contact Manager. Being that contact manager is also a generic term describing software to do what you want, Googling that phrase will get you a truckload of programs to do that. There are about 10,000 options, so the only way to know if you're going to be happy with one is to read all the reviews you can find and then try the products. Good luck!
Outlook with Business Contact Manager is good for me. I don't use it enough, but I only use it for contacts, tasks, tracking projects and potential leads.
Paper and pen is far easier, but I don't have that organized so it doesn't help me in the end.
I have two copies of the 08 and 09 calendars printed and hung on my wall. The first copy is for inquiries, the second one for bookings. When I get an inquiry, I'll put the name in the first one, and then black it out when i get booked, and write their names in the second one. I've made it into a weekend calendar (it only shows fridays, saturdays, and sundays), so it only takes up one page.
We have two huge laminated calendars on our wall, 12 month. We use the dry erase markers on them to track leads, meetings, E-shoots, weddings, etc.
The thing that is so convenient is that at a glance we can see if we are open, booked before / after, see how the month is, etc. all at a glance.
For more detail and notes, we have a printed form, a pen and a lateral file cabinet.
Oh yeah, we also have our calendar online which shows booked dates, outlook calendar and synced to my HP palmtop.
We tried the Gigbuilder system but it was kind of a pain to use and keep up. When we get leads / calls we write them down so inputting them into a system is just extra work.
What I would really like to do is use a piece of software that would track customers wedding dates and auto-generate a list to send anniversary cards, Christmas cards, etc.
there is also another program similar to WW, called photographers office by the Holritz's. Its a bit different in that its stored online. You'd have access from anywhere, but you also don't have a hard copy on your server or in print.
