Follow the love,

KQED called me up to be the San Francisco Bay Area career hero on the California Report with Scott Shafer. Scott let me use his own career as an example for how to find a strength in seemingly irrelevant work experience. We also discussed taking a different approach to networking, and some things that employers look for in job candidates.

Check out the podcast; they even included the original take which has plenty more advice for people looking to beat this tough job market.

Comments welcome. Also, let me know what you’re looking to hear more about. In other words, what should Scott and I have been talking about?

We were late: she didn’t want to wear her Vans, we had to choose between which stuffed animal to take… I had to find my shades… lots on our minds.

So I doubled back around 11 with her lunch and caught the kids fanning out onto the playground. Evaline was among 10 or so other “Starfish” (that’s her group name), some wearing paper crowns, some not. She was surprisingly nonchalant about my appearance. I thought that was cool.

I dropped off her turkey and cheddar half-sandwich, Capri Sun, and yogini (our code word for yogurt), then headed back out to cross the playground and hit the parking lot. I was going to play it cool too and avoid bothering the gathering pile of kids around the picnic table.

But parents are anything but cool.

So I walked over and gave her a big kiss. She didn’t resist, which was nice.

Then Rae, a willful 4-year old crony of hers, demanded a high five. With that came 9 more little raised hands looking for similar rewards. I slapped hands for a few seconds — Evaline’s hand last (sweet patient girl!) — and then headed for the gate.

As I swung around the multi-colored half-wall, I heard Evaline say gleefully, “That was my daddy.”

You can’t have a bad day after that.

Ready to move onto the cloud, I decided to leave the old-school off-the-shelf style software of Sage’s benchmark product Act! and go for the hot new thing. The glorious SaaS alternative.

Little did I know I’d find a bizillion CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) options out there–and slowly become an expert in this game, at least from a buyer’s perspective. As someone who’s slogged through CRM blogs, played with countless demos, quizzed living, breathing sales reps, and naively shouted “Eureka! I finally found my CRM” at least 3 times in the wee hours of the morning… I figured it’s time for me to share the journey.

In this post, I’ll go over my experience with Salesforce, AddressTwo, HighRise, Oprius, WORKetc, Batchbook, Pipeline Deals, and Big Contacts–one of which became our CRM here at BrightSide Resumes.

BTW, all of these options, have their merits and are worth exploring; they just weren’t for me. Here’s a quick run-down of what I was looking for in a CRM:

• Contact-centric
• Reporting (standard and customizable)
• Keystroke shortcuts — I’m like an elephant; I hate mice
• Opportunities/Sales Pipeline Tracking
• Tags/Groups
• Email Dropbox
• Custom Field Options
• Integrated email
• Email Templates (frequent fliers)
• Automated Activity Series
• Lead Capture Tool

(If you haven’t made such a list and you’re serious about finding a good CRM, I suggest you break out the spreadsheet now. I put it off but it wasn’t until I was clear on my needs, that I found the right tool… sort of like finding the right career, but I digress….)

Back to the CRM race.

Salesforce
Might be good for megacorps but for a small outfit such as my resume business, it’s overkill. My biggest complaint: it’s not client-centric, it’s account-centric. My clients are my accounts so these extra steps of creating an account within a company to link to my contact who I’m trying to convert to a customer…. too much. I should add that the sales guy–who’d be a cool guy to have a Guinness with–couldn’t prove to me how this could work easily for an ultra-small business. His final retort: “rock the demo for a bit and see what you think.” A few mouseclicks later, I’m back online searching through forums.

AddressTwo
I thought I found the answer with these cats. Ultra simple 1-page interface, tons of templates, a cool integration with direct mailer postcard company, in-depth referral tracking system, , easy reporting, newsletter drip-feed option a la constant contact, social media considerations, google integration, even a cute feature called “Addy” your own virtual assistant who’s basically a drop-box email address with a cute name. Oh, and the company’s still so small, I got the CEO on the phone and he was great. Another cool thing: a feature where users (there were only 800 of them at this time) get to nominate feature requests and vote on them, watching the most popular ones rise to the top. Snazzy… that’s the kind of company-customer collaboration that’s making business fun these days.

So what went wrong?
What you see is what you get. No customization at all. For me there were fields I didn’t need that I couldn’t get rid of and there was no way to add fields that I definitely needed. I applaud AddressTwo’s commitment to simplicity where so many others have over-featured but in the end, this is why I didn’t hand them my credit card number. Also, there was no way to enter set products or services at a price; I did have the option to enter SIC codes for industry products however… but I didn’t need that.

So I reluctantly stepped away and kept looking.

HighRise
Talk about simple. Jason and the 37 signals people have got simple down to a science. I’m already hooked on their BaseCamp product which I use for project management. If you’ve been a customer with us, you know it rocks, and you know it’s easy to pick up.

HighRise is the same: rockin’ and easy to pick up quick. I think my favorite thing about HighRise is how darn gorgeous their UI is. Wow, it’s beautiful which means it wasn’t just fun to look at it was compelling to play with. I watched all the demos. They had the drop-box, a cool pipeline tracking option called “Deals” and even an easy place to put quick comments about a client. Again, I wanted to love this and buy it and integrate it with Basecamp…. WAIT A MINUTE… HighRise doesn’t integrate with it’s sister product, BaseCamp! Yes, you read that right. You’d have to enter contact info twice for each program, even though they’re by the same manufacturers. Search the forums and you’ll find 2 years worth of complaints related to this incompatibility issue.

I love 37 Signals for coming up with BaseCamp and I think these guys are some talented folks but they really made an oversight when they kept HighRise and BaseCamp separate.

There was also one other MAJOR issue. No reporting and no templates. No set reports and no option to build reports. Imagine having 2,000+ contacts but not being able to run a single report, except to look up a single contact by name. Frustrating to have so many great people/clients in one place and nothing to do with them.

I came back to HighRise (after looking at other CRMs in this list) at least 3 times. I wanted it to be the one but it just didn’t seem practical.

Oprius
This one was recommended to me by a fellow resume-writer and I can see why. A very comprehensive tool, cool company, and by far the cheapest option: $14.99/month with unlimited everything. Say what?!

Oprius’ steering committee seems like they’re having fun while remaining ethical about their practices–at least that’s what I glean from their “About Us” page. I was especially impressed with their “relationship builder” feature which enabled you to set up a series of activities according to the phase a propsect/client was in. You could also link these activity series to groups/tags. So, tag someone as “favorite client” and you can automatically send them emails thanking them profusely and set tasks in the internal calender to followup. This all happens behind the scenes. I also like how the UI sets you up to easily keep notes while you’re on a call.

The glitch in the matrix in this case: Again, no reporting. Ouch. Also, there was no email drop box and no link to Gmail or Outlook so you’d have to work exclusively through their email tool, and I’m willing to bet that their tool is not as strong (nor as frequently updated or inundated with add-on apps) as Gmail. Other shortcomings: no pipeline/sales tracking feature and no keyboard shortcuts. Out goes Oprius.

WORKetc
Wow, these guys have a genius idea: a single piece of software that serves as a CRM, SFA, and PM tool all in one. Strangely, this idea has not occured to anyone else so hats off to the WORKetc. peeps. For me, this was a bit too much software for my needs. The Project Management part was WAY too involved. I worked on their free intro for a while and was impressed with the responsiveness of support/sales. I like their vision but it was still a bit clunky for me.

I spoke with a very polite sales rep who tried to point out how much I’d spend on two or three pieces of software vs one. She didn’t have much to say when I pointed out that the cost of their system, while considerably less to begin with, would hike up with each user I add. And since I’d be using this as a Project Management tool (hey, that’s the point right, use this tool instead of BaseCamp?), I’d have to give access to all of our writers, editors, and admins. That’s 10+ people which means you ruin the all-in-one “deal.”

Batchbook
It’s no mistake that this company sounds a lot like Facebook. Their angle is social media. Quite innovative and pretty sexy. One thing I noticed in the video tutorial is you can actually monitor FB, Twitter, LinkedIn for use of keywords related to your product, so you can keep in close touch with people talking about your product/services. That’s genius! I expect more products like this to emerge and I can certainly see the value but some other key elements were missing–so I left this one alone.

Pipeline Deals
This was one of those screaming-at-3am-out-of-joy moments I mentioned. This is one hot application and at an unbeatable price for small business (aside from Oprius, that is). Pipeline Deals is about sales, sales, sales. Hence the name. They’re lead-tracking system is so darn intuitive it’s silly. They have a 3-tab system where the same information is organized in different ways to be able to use for different purposes. Again, I loved the leads tab, where you can look at all of your prospective clients, noted with color splashes whether they’re hot, warm, or cold. So simple and so easy to prioritize things at a glance. Then when you have a note to add or want to log some call information, make one mouseclick and you’re recording new data without even leaving the screen. I get a tingle just thinking about the Leads page.

Other cool stuff, the Rolodex type business cards that represent contacts, reporting up the wazoo, key shortcuts, groups/tages, dropbox, and most of all that robust, intuitive sales-tracking. Wow. These guys got it going on. Seriously, check them out.

So why weren’t they the winner for me?

There was no option for email campaigns using templates, autoresponders, etc. Since they had a drop-box you could easily record emails sent through gmail but I couldn’t set up a series of emails to go out, or even have a quick list of frequent fliers to choose from. Some quick research showed me that Gmail has the quicklist option. They call it “canned responses”. So that’s an alternative but I still couldn’t get an activity series to happen.

One other issue was they didn’t have an easy way to enter products/services. I’d have to manually enter a deal name, then enter a product name, then a price, and quantity, every single time I wanted to linke a client to a service. Not cool. Way more work than even an admin should do.

I seriously didn’t want to step away from these guys. I even waited on hold to get them on the phone and ask for work-arounds but the sales guy confirmed I’d have to do all that data entry. Not gonna happen.

BigContacts, Winner
Just when I thought I couldn’t go on anymore, I found BigContacts.

Big Contacts met every single one of my criteria listed above. It wasn’t the slickest looking app I toured but it had all the functionality. And it had it in spades. BigContacts is simple, in fact I find myself looking for other tabs to find information before I realize it’s all right there in front of me. The main tab is broken down into three areas:

• the left pane is a quick-access command center
• the middle panel is a”business card” with all the contacts vitals plus space for customized fields and comments
• the right panel is where all your tracking takes place (notes, email correspondence, record changes, and calendar

Let’s talk customization. Go to the Admin tab and become a master customizer in an hour tops. So easy, but again, not so pretty. I was quick to load up my products, define some client types, and develop lead-tracking labels. Very exciting. Then I added my administrative manager to the user list and picked up a unique drop-box number so we could send emails directly into contacts from gmail–this includes the attachments to those emails.

They have several reports already set up and you can build your own. I admit, I fretted over not being able to find a lead-tracking report already built. In fact, I was livid. How can I not be able to track prospective clients through the stages of my pipeline! That’s ridiculous. I’m in the support tab and I find nothing. Thinking of calling them when I find the “Sales Manager” button.

Genius. It’s not a report, it’s a window that sits on the 3-part UI I mentioned so you can look at leads according to what stage they’re in. click on the lead and go to the contact. Then click on the phone number and BigContacts automatically dials the number through Skype. Log the call or send an email and it’s recorded. My only complaint with the Sales Manager feature is that if you decide to send an email or leave a note, the Sales Manager window is replaced by the “Call” or “Email” window. So you have to open it again. I’d like to see this fixed but for now I’m cool with just clicking ctrl/shft/w to open up Sales Manager again.

Another awesome feature is the activity series you can set linked to different fields in your database. This way you can set up templates to fire off to clients and prospects at different intervals. I’m not crazy about spamming clients so I use this sparingly. I’m not looking to drip relentlessly on people; they either want to work with us or they don’t. Clients, however, I’m happy to stay in touch with and I believe that’s a reciprocal feeling.

I won’t go on and on about BigContacts (too late), but I will say the customer services has been great too. I’ve gotten quick responses to every email I’ve sent, including the ones related to my importing my contacts from Act! to BigContacts so I can finally say I’m in the cloud, baby.

I’m in the cloud.

-Cliff
CEO and Self-studied CRM expert for BrightSide Resumes

I can wear jeans, go barefoot, even have a little wine at 4:45pm on Friday while I tackle technical problems. No one’s watching. Carte blanche, baby!

So why I have I started wearing ties to work?

It started with my 3-year old. Whenever she dresses up, she demands I do too. At first I just threw on the tie to please her but then forgot to take it off, after dropping her off at daycare. Perhaps more accurately, I forgot I was wearing it at all. Resumes tend to put me in a trance (in a good way).

Ties can complete an outfit, they’re great to fidget with while listening to voicemails, and they give you respect points at lunch hour.

I’m kind of digging it…this tie thing.

Knot like normal,

-The Artist “Formally” Known as Cliff

I used to just go to a cafe and sit there. Sit and think and let my mind wander, like a flash flood filling up a dry river bed. Ideas pouring over rocks like glittery fish, tails flapping in vain to the forceful current. Silence soothed.

Now silence invites only thoughts about work: the price of loving your work and owning your work. I enjoy these thoughts but I fear becoming boring like a current swirling into an eddy. Nothing to see but spinning ripples around a hollow. That’ll put anyone to sleep.

So I read to find stillness, I play WordWhirl on my Palm Pre to silence the entreprenuer. Who needs yoga when you have gadgets? To be honest, writing resumes does the same thing…brings the stillness. Focus on one thing and one thing only for hours, like a water skiier concentrating only on his next turn, not the fish underneath nor the boat pulling him along.

You gotta start with the small stuff.

It took us 2 and a 1/2 hours to go 15 miles from the East bay to San Francisco. My compatriot, a 3 and a 1/2 year old with a bloodied index finger from a fall earlier that morning, was hardly herself–crying every 15 minutes and demanding ice cream for breakfast.

Parking was like a video game. Picture an aerial view of 100s of cars in a 12-block radius breaking traffic rules as they as they circle perimeter watching for brake lights and nonchalant people with keys coming out of their pockets. Rolling stop signs was the norm–how else would you get in front of the person who had the right of way?

Then the walk, 6 blocks, which isn’t much but you have to add in rest stops from carrying my compatriot on my shoulders, in addition to a backpack and the dried brush she collected along the way. Oh, and the ice cream break, gathering of water at the bodega, and homeless guy who harassed us for not stopping to chat (so we gullibly stopped to chat).

By the time I reached Golden Gate Park and discovered there weren’t any signs up designated which stage was which, I didn’t care that some of the best bluegrass in the world was at my fingertips. I nearly took off.

Glad I didn’t.

We found a patch of goodness right by the port-o-potties, on the outskirts of the crowd closing in on the Arrow Stage. Upon splashing down on the blanket, Evaline immediately took stock of her toys: 1 coloring book, 6 crayons (5 of them broken in half), 1 Cinderella doll, 1 squishy ball, a hair clip, a magic wand / drumstick, and (to join in the bluegrass properly) 1 wooden recorder, which she plays like a bugle.

She played the flute a bit, colored maybe a page or two and spent the rest of the time using her daddy as a jungle gym (when she wasn’t rocking out to the tunes in her gold cowboy boots!).

There were 5 or 6 stages so people around us kept moving in and out like the tide but we just stayed put, camped out by the toilets just in case, loving the sun, the hardcore-from-Texas-and-Mississippi bluegrass bands, and nothingness in front of and all around us for the next 6 hours.

Dancing and Prancing,

-Cliff

Some people are born-again virgins, I qualify as a born-again gym member. Back in college, when me and my roommate used to go, people literally laughed at us as we walked out the door in our cutoffs and trendy skater shoes. But we kept at it. I even took a weight training class senior year (a bit off the mark from my Lit degree but everyone needs balance in their life).

So about 2 weeks ago, we got a family membership. Now Evaline goes swimming with the other guppies, I can finally try karate and get back to soccer, and Molly and me can bond over the dumbells. So far, it’s working quite well. The pecs are coming back, as is that just-out-of-wrapper freshness.

Crazy though, 15 years later from my college days, I’m stilling playing back words of encouragement from my roommates: “sweet pain”…”extendahz baby”… “do it for Johnny!”. The ghosts of inspiration by my side, as I grunt to the beats of Alice in Chains on my iPod.

Keeping it Fresh,

-Cliff

Nestled in the urban delights of Oakland, is a plantation-like estate more akin to the humid flats of Savannah: the Dunsmuir house.

Built by none other than Alexander Dunsmuir in honor of his scandalous love for his friend’s wife, this house boasts 37 rooms, 12 fireplaces, and 16,224 square feet of living space. For 2 people. And their guests of course.

Unfortunately, Alexander died while on his New York City honeymoon with his betrothed and really never got a chance to live in his mansion/wedding present. Whatever, enough with the history lesson.

Tired of going to the usual parks and brunch spots, we set out for the Dunsmuir house one sunny Sunday afternoon. Molly found it in a travel book.

The meadows around the house were spotted with picknicking Bay Areans, in a sense, pretending to be billiionaires for the day–seeing as we all had a view of this mansion as a backdrop to our children’s cartwheels and hula-hooping.

Pretty cool. When it came time for the tour, I noticed something: The 12 folks around me, spanning in age from 5 to 65 and smiling, intently but leisurely as the period-costumed guide blathered on about pillar placement, were all women.

“Where are all the dudes?” I whispered to Molly.

“Guys don’t do antique houses,” she said.

So, while the other dads sat (or snoozed) out on their blankets, one hand on an open book, the other on absolutely nothing for a change, I amped up my knowledge base on 17th century cooking appliances and water closet technology (or lack thereof).

Certainly something new. and Interesting. I even asked some questions.

Jogging would surely contradict this worldview.

Ah well, it’s time…

I put on the closest thing I have to jogging shoes–Grey Saucony’s that used to be Navy Blue–before an impromptu inner tube ride in the Farmington River with my dad. Great arch support, wide enough to fit over my high instep. Like walking on clouds. Perfect.

I made it to the end of the block with a friend’s death metal band playing on my iPod. Suprisingly I wasn’t heaving. The traffic lights were a good excuse to take a few breaks before I made it to the lake.

9pm and the Lake was bustling with people: walkers, runners, strollers, gossipers. Happy hour for fitness peeps. The death metal–strangely optimistic in its lyrics–put me in the zone. My kick was high. I only had to stop about 10 times before I got around the entire lake. Pretty good, considering I’m coming from a strict diet of Wii Boxing and Yoga and maybe a few push-ups now and again.

Describing my jogging experience just ain’t going to be exciting so I’ll spare you the details and cut to the chase.

It was good. Some highlights?

• Listening to Eddie Veddar croon like a wolf while running through the playground I usually go to with my 3-year old.
• Stopping and breathing heavy on a bench, though I was sort of interrupting two necking love birds.
  Nodding to other joggers
• Hearing the sand crunch under my feet during the 2-second intervals between songs. Made me think of Chariots of Fire. Holy Sh*t. I’m jogging!
• Having random thoughts come in and out of my head and (best of all) having no thoughts at all.
• Feeling the “tickle drips” of sweat on my ears and neck.
• Not throwing up
• Running through a sprinkler 3 blocks from home
• Bragging about my jog to my wife with my back sticking to to the leather couch, and then guiltlessly watching a special on a man who lives with grizzly bears in his log cabin.

I don’t know if I can say I’m a jogger now, but I felt the burn and it was good. Might have to invest in some new shoes.

With calves aching,
-Cliff

Eagerly & Beaverily,
-Cliff