Follow-through is Critical

Using a tool like Ofuz to manage your contacts is great, but the follow-through is always up to you. As with other functions that are critical to our freelancer, he can use Ofuz to stay on top of what needs to happen next with his contacts. Maybe it’s a followup call to discuss a project idea, or a thank-you note for work that’s just been paid for.

Ofuz offers two features that help our freelancer get an A in follow-through: contact notes, and contact tasks.

A note is attached to the contact, and provides additional information about that contact. Things like the results of the last interaction with that contact, important things to remember for that contact, etc. Our freelancer adds a not to a contact this way:

1. Click the Contacts tab.
2. Click on the name of the contact you want to add a note to (the name will be highlighted in blue).
3. In the Add a Note About <contactname> field, type your note.
4. If you want to attach a file to the note, change privacy settings for the note, or notate time for your timesheet, click more options. Otherwise, click Add this note.

Our freelancer can also attach tasks to a contact. These are used for more action-oriented items, like reminders to call the contact by a certain date. Tasks attached to contacts show up in the Ofuz dashboard, just like tasks attached to a project. To attach a task to a contact, our freelancer simply:

1. Click the Contacts tab.
2. Click the contact’s name.
3. The contact details page appears.
4. On the left, click add new task.
5. The Add a Task box appears.
6. Fill out the Task description, due date, category, and project fields.
7. Click Add this task.

Building Your Network With Ofuz

Ofuz offers a great way to passively build your network. You can create a web form, which you then add to your web site. Site visitors can fill out the web form to be added to your Ofuz contact list automatically. When you use a web form, you’ll also want to use the feature that tags contacts created when someone fills out the web form. That way, you can identify which contacts were created through the web form.

Here’s how to create a web form:

1. Click Settings (top right of window)
2. Click Web Forms (left side of window)
3. In the Form Title field, type the name you want to use to identify your web form.
4. In the list of fields, select the ones you want to include on your web form.
5. In the Tags for those contacts field, type the tag you want to use for new contacts that are created when someone fills out your web form.
6. In the Web address to take the user after submitting the form field, type a URL where users will be directed after submitting the form.
7. Click Create.

Another great, easy way to create new contacts is to use the Ofuz email dropbox:

1. Click Settings (top right of the page).
2. Click Drop Box Note.
3. Take note of the email address under Drop Box Note Setup.
4. CC the email address from step 3 and a new Ofuz contact will be created (if necessary) and a copy of the email will be attached to the contact as a note.

Staying Billable With Ofuz

Ofuz helps you stay billable by integrating your contact list with your workflow. From contact management to creating new contacts, Ofuz connects your contact list with your task management in a way that helps the freelancer spend less time on the administrative tasks of sales and lead generation, and more time on billable work!

See how Ofuz can help you. Sign up for a free account now.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 10:57 am and is filed under Freelancer, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.