Comments by Carl Kline, Vice President

National Consultant Referrals, Inc.

 4expertise.com Store

Reprinted with Permission

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askSam: Tell us about your organization and your role within it and the type of clients you serve.

CARL KLINE: NCRI is a 20 year old association of over 6000 consulting firms, expert witnesses, trainers/speakers and other service providers.  Our primary function is to match the skills of our members to the requests of prospective clients. The members sponsor NCRI and provide the search and referral service to the clients at no charge.

A few years ago, we started helping our members sell the books, software, training courses and other items they had created.  We opened a store at: http://www.4expertise.com.  Today, we have many suppliers of unique business products.  One of our recent additions to our store has been the line of products from askSam.  Besides outstanding software products, we feature carefully selected books and manuals from major publishers such as Dearborn, Harper

Collins, John Wiley, Lern and others.  We still have many products created by our members and proudly feature them.:

askSam:   Which of our product(s) do you use and what kind of information do you have in your askSam database(s)?

CARL KLINE:   Many years ago, NCRI purchased it's first single users copy of askSam.  We had tried many other "free-form" style databases as this type of database was necessary to more efficiently conduct our searches in our very large Talent Bank of members.  It was decided in 1987, to avoid the conventional database program because the use of generic titles in inflexible fields made an effective computer search very difficult, if not impossible.  For example, when a client asks for a "management consultant" or "engineer", a search in a relational database would turn up everyone or no one depending on the fields.  By asking the client to tell us about the problem or the projector the legal case, we can do a very effective

job of searching in askSam.

From the single user copy, we graduated to the LAN version as our staff expanded and we found it very easy to teach new employees.  It was unnecessary to teach them about fields and sorting, we simply showed them the various ways to conduct a search with askSam.  Usually a few minutes and a couple of example searches was all it took.  We very quickly discovered it was the ideal tool for keeping records of the referrals we made to the clients.  Now when we call a client or a member, we can bring up all records of all the referrals made by typing the appropriate name in the search box.  Then we made notes pertaining to the referral on the same page with the rest of the data.  We soon developed some shorthand abbreviations that could help us schedule our work.  CB means "call back."  ML indicated "message left".  There are many others that have utilized the unique search capability of askSam.

Soon after receiving my copy of the askSam Web Publisher, I began using it for several other purposes at http://www.referrals.com.  Now that the special features for recording and searching was available for Web page use, I soon found it an ideal vehicle for providing a free searchable Talent Bank with the skills and credentials of our members.  Since our members provide us with details of their skills and services in many different formats, we were able to simply import an RTF or ascii file using a delimiter directly into our Web Talent bank, add pictures and other graphics, no matter what style it was presented to us.

Some use resumes, others have material from their Web sites, lots of brochures and email message forms, as well as combinations came to us.  We easily and with out doing HTML coding, added it to our askSam online Talent Bank.  Clients come to our Web site, instantly understand simple askSam searches and find the expert they need.  Members can check their data when ever they have time and let us know if it is current.  We are currently setting up a membership change form using the askSam Web Publisher data gathering capability to allow the members to update their information while at our web site.

Still another valuable, time and money saving application of askSam at our Web site, is our use of it with the many marketing articles we have at http://www.referrals.com.  Over the last couple of years, I have written articles for many publications, both on and off line.   Also, some of our members have written guest articles for NCRI.  By using the askSam Web Publisher, we are able to give the viewer the option of browsing through the material an article at a time, or using the search, to focus on those articles that deal with a particular topic or subject.

For many years, when a prospective member submitted their credentials via our Web site form, we had to manually transfer the data to askSam on our personal computers.  Using the new askSam Web Publisher we can have the submitted data automatically gathered in the online askSam database.  We use this same capability to gather the details of a client request for an expert witness, or a consulting firm or speaker/trainer.  If the client chooses not to search the extensive Talent Bank online, they can fill out our form, save it, and the material is automatically posted in our appropriate askSam Client request database.  We can easily access it using our browser and print off or electronically transfer the request to our in house computers from the Internet server.

Here's one other application that I might mention. I also have a couple of years of Consulting-tools digests set up for browsing and/or search using the Web Publisher.  Consulting-tools is a discussion group of a couple thousand consultants that talk about subjects pertinent to our industry and really appreciate the ease with which they can look over back issues and pin point subjects that were discussed.

Recently, I made a proposal to a prospective client to build a Web site for them.  My proposal centered around using the askSam Web Publisher as the core of their technical support oriented web presence.  With very little training, they can be taught to add and subtract material to their online askSam based FAQ.  Their customers can search for support answers intuitively using the search and VCR style buttons.  This type of web presence demonstrates to the customer, both present and future, the commitment of the client to helping them.  Best of all, the prospective client has a limited budget and does not want to have to hire a coder overtime they want to add or subtract material.  Besides, the price for the Electronic askSam Publisher is very reasonable.  Many companies spend huge amounts of money setting up even small searchable online databases of material.  They must then employ directly or indirectly multiple employees to keep it working and updated.  This is not necessary with the askSam products.

Many years ago when I got my first single user askSam program, I never thought I would become a distributor for them.  The service I have received from using these products has made me an enthusiastic promoter of askSam.  Now, I am able to tell the prospective clients the money it has made me in my businesses.  I'm just now realizing the infinite number of ways this low cost line of products can be used.

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Carl G. KLINE, MBA, Ohio University, is CEO of National Consultant Referrals, Inc. He was a consultant and trainer before joining NCRI. Prior to this he held executive positions in several Fortune 100 companies. Mr. KLINE is considered an authority on Web marketing and writes columns for several Internet publications.

Carl Kline

National Consultant Referrals Inc.

4 expertise.com Store

3939 Eagle Street #306

San Diego CA 92103

Email: kline@4expertise.com

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