A quick story
Yesterday I tried Highrise. Highrise is a CRM (customer relationship management) tool that helps keep track of the people you meet. I signed up for the free option, looked at the tools, and got excited. I wanted this tool to systematize my follow-up, and it looked promising.
After adding my contacts, I went into my account and turned on a feature that automated adding contacts to my Highrise account. It seemed non-intrusive enough, add a bcc (thank you Outlook Macros) to every email and it would get the account. You also connect your Gmail account, and voilà – everyone gets sorted into the software.
I thought I could set it and forget it, and I ended up breaking one of my new rules: segmentation is king. I didn’t realize how much email I receive in a day, and this captured everything. Without segmenting and keeping a tight leash around what I let in or out, I opened the floodgates. In two days, it went from working fine to sending everyone that I correspond with an error message.
It didn’t look good, and it served as a great reminder of that lesson of segmentation, and it reminded me that lessons come in the form of annoyances.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 