What your Grandma Never told you about Relationship Management

Grandma always said; mind your own business, do not gossip, respect your elders, keep your mouth shut, choose your friends wisely. Perhaps that works on the playground, but not in a social business world.

CRM says:

• Everyone is your friend and their business is your business
• Gossip is a note that you need to highlight in RED, and share discretely with your team members! 
• Respect your elders and all the other relationships you encounter by connecting with them on their terms, the way they prefer
• Open your mouth and log what you say ~ make sure what you are saying is relevant to your listener and benefits your goals for them
• Choose your friends wisely and tag the rest of your contacts as vendors, prospects, alliances, or otherwise needed to remind you that not all relationships have the same value, but all relationships have value.

CRM says not to:

• Clique, classify, or corner yourself into a reputation that you don't want to represent you. By handling all appropriate relationships in a strategic way you have more control over your customer experience.
• Be your own data aggregation tool! That will be an epic Fail! Trust a technology sweet that will give you some integration and streamlined analysis
• Work with someone without properly understanding the relationship. If you have no way to monitor or reference your history with a person, than how can you expect to classify them as a good partner! 

You can't live without Grandma or CRM, they both have their places in your life. But you spend more than 8 hours a day developing your business value, shouldn't you trust that to someone more relevant! Sorry Grandma! New Media Wins this one!