1. My contacts are my contacts. I have a little black book of contacts that I made over time. These contacts belong to me and not to "the organization". It's the next person's job - the person that replaces me - to bring their own contacts and to develop local contacts and connections on their own.
2. Every bit of local data - from BRE visits to Projects is confidential. Documenting and storing this data puts us at risk. There is no need to store this information or to use it for reporting purposes. Outlook and Excel are safe enough for us.
3. Marketing - businesses will either find us or they won't. They will contact us when they are ready. If they like the area, find a property of interest, and if we give them incentives - we'll get a win. Companies move here because they like us and we feel them well on our site tours.
4. Local businesses will grow on their own. If they have questions or need help - we'll refer them to some people we know (see little black book above).
5. We create powerpoint presentations covering our strategic plan. We keep up with the number of projects won, jobs created, etc. in Excel. We give the board the reports we feel they need. If we don't have the report, we dance around it until the next meeting the following month and that request is typically forgotten. We share on a need-to-know basis.
6. It's not our job to follow up on how a company performs against the incentives and promises. We're happy the company is here and we'll leave them to it.
7. We have a small team - everyone can hear what's happening on another person's phone calls in the office so we don't really need to track conversations or activities on a computer. If I need to share information with others, I'll email it or we will cover it in a meeting.
8. We are not "in sales". CRM is for salespeople. We are in the business of economic development, not sales.
9. We can send out a newsletter from excel.
10. We have a website. If companies are interested, the phone number is on the website. We have a form people can fill out on the site too.