You own it why don't you keep it!!

The last blog I wrote was about the nuts and bolts of setting up a contact management database..a real snorer. I would like to talk today about Intellectual Property. All companies have trade secrets, how your widgets are made, the recipe that goes into your candy, the programing done to develop a piece of software.... Would you let someone walk away with those secrets after working for you for five years? Of course not! If you have someone working for you and you are paying them to sell to new companies why do you let them leave with that information when it was you that paid for the time to find the new data. It is a mistake a lot of companies make. As we all know sales is a process and you need somewhere to start. And if every time you hire a sales person and they have to start the process over it is a very inefficient way of doing business. It would be the same thing as hiring a programmer to develop a piece of software and that developer leaves and then you hire someone else and you have to start over....it does not make a lot of sense. Capture your sale data in what ever electronic way you decide, it is one of your most valuable assets!