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Taking notes when not making a telephone call
You can also take notes when a client calls you or at any other time. Simply press Ctrl+N. The Select an Account screen will appear. If you have a long list of accounts, you can type the first letter of the Sort Name, and the Select an Account Screen will jump to the first listing with that first letter. Double-Click on the desired account, or move the highlight with the up and down arrow keys to select the account, then press Ctrl-Enter. The Note Screen will appear with the Date and Time
stamp. Take notes by typing anything you wish. When you are through taking notes, click on OK to return to the Main View Screen. There is virtually no limit to the amount of data that you can store in your Note Screen for each client. Your only limit is the capacity of your hard disk drive.
It is hard to overemphasize the value of the Note taking function. It completely eliminates the need to save diaries with notes on conversations. Those are always so frustrating to search anyway. With just a couple of mouse clicks, you can sound to any one of your clients as if he is your number one client, since you remember everything that he said to you.
Unlike the calendar/diary, your notes on your clients can be viewed by both you and your assistant.
Using client functions to track prospects
As stated in the section How to Enter an Account above, BOOKS™ is written on the premise that prospects are simply clients-in-waiting. Brown & Overton suggests that once you have had an initial conversation with a potential customer, and have moved him or her from the "suspects" to "prospects" level through your conversation, that you use Accounts Add Account to create an account page and enter on the account page and in the notes for the account everything you learned in that conversation. Then you can browse through your Prospect Accounts and know exactly which people to call with what. You can use the Account Pages and Note Taking and Dialing functions to track prospects by creating prospect numbers. Use account numbers that are not possible at your firm. Since account numbers consist of letters and numbers, you can even categorize the prospect by the prospect number you give him or her. You can enter millions of prospects without confusing prospects with established clients.
When you open an actual account for a prospect, you will not have to retype the information that you have gathered during the prospecting process. Simply by using Edit an Account, and changing the account number, your record will be converted to an actual client record. Please note the date of the conversion in your Notes for Compliance purposes. The advantage of this system is that you can simply change the account number when the prospect becomes a client. Your notes taken while he or she was a prospect will continue to show when you view the Notes screen, so you keep your hard-won insights without having to retype them.
You can choose whether to indicate a prospect as active or inactive. If you designate the prospect as active, the prospect's name and address will be printed when you print your mailing labels.
Click here to go to the next page - Editing an Account
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