An associate of mine who has read this blog asked me two interesting questions. He was curios to know how I manage a database of over 3600 contacts, and how I determine the monetary value of my contacts. Since I built my database out of shear desperation and poverty, and over a long period of time, I never really stopped to think about it until now. Today, I’ll answer the first part of his question.
For starters, my database is something that I created and customized myself–with a little help from various programming forums around the world. Although it’s highly customized to meet my needs, there are many of its functions that can be replicated through Microsoft Outlook or other personal information managers (PIMs). My system combines my database (created in Microsoft Access), several different Outlook plug-ins and some web tools.
The reason I customized my database started in 1999 with my first Palm Pilot. I was dissatisfied with how the handheld synchronized with my desktop computer. I started researching customization options and found the best solution in a program that allowed the handheld to sync directly with a desktop database. This was important to me because I needed a PIM that was also a customer relationship management (CRM) system that allowed me to keep a history of all my communication with prospects and customers, create proposals, create orders, and manage my vendors and their products, services and pricing.
I also needed to keep track of my network and always know who gave me referrals and to whom I gave referrals. And all of the information had to be instantly searchable by virtually unlimited parameters. Easy, right?
I won’t bore you with my tales of trial and error. Aside from being ridiculously tedious and time consuming, my bumbling was downright embarrassing at times. In this case though, the result was worth the effort.
To keep things simple, I’ll focus on how I manage my networking through the technology I employ coupled with my personal strategy.
Let’s track the life cycle of a potential new networking connection. After developing rapport with someone at a networking event, the wheels are set in motion. First, I enter the information into my PIM ASAP. If this is going to be delayed because I’m having a busy week, I will make sure that I at least send a follow up e-mail to my new contact. This area is where I employ the first bit of technology. I’ll use my BlackBerry to send an e-mail reinforcing our conversation. This must happen within 48 hours. I do this by utilizing downtime on the subway or my couch. Next, I will invite my new contact to my LinkedIn network. One of the aforementioned Outlook plug-ins is LinkedIn. After adding several new contacts, I can send several LinkedIn invitations at once. My record is 32 at one sitting.
If I decide that my new contact needs more follow up, I’ll make sure to create a new task to remind me of what I need to do. I do that either on my BlackBerry or Outlook and have it sync wirelessly through a hosted Exchange service. I won’t to go into too much detail about hosted Exchange, but it saves me loads of time. Feel free to check it out here. This is the service that includes BlackBerry support. Hosted Exchange.*
The other Outlook plug-ins I have are Plaxo, for synching my Outlook contacts, calendar, tasks and notes online, Google calendar Sync, for synching my Outlook calendar to Google and Xobni, for keeping track of my e-mail exchanges with my contacts.
Another great tool is Google Apps for Business. Google offers over 7 gigabytes of storage (more than just about any corporate exchange server), shared calendars, corporate intranet, shared documents and lightning fast e-mail search—all for free. The best part is that you can use a branded e-mail address. I don’t think it’s the worst thing to use Yahoo!, AOL or Hotmail, but I think it’s much more professional to use a branded e-mail address. I’ve met people who looked and sounded professional, but handed me a card with something like johnny1283atyahoo.com. I covered this in my first technology overview http://www.drsallywitt.com/networkingmastery-technology. Do yourself a favor and spend the 10 dollars a year to have your own professional sounding brand.
All of this is to ensure that I never lose a networking opportunity. It also keeps my data in several different places in case my computer dies. Although I back up twice a day, I make sure to have my critical information online also. This way, I’ll always have access and never lose my contacts.
The last bit of information is about keeping track of changes to my contact’s information and communicating with my contacts en masse. If you’re not on Plaxo, get on it post haste. People change jobs, move, get promoted, et cetera. Plaxo automatically notifies you of changes. If you choose, you can have it automatically apply those changes to Outlook (it also works with other PIMs and on Macs). I highly recommend it, and again, it’s free.
With regard to communicating with your entire contact base, I strongly recommend Constant Contact.* I find the service to be extremely useful. I use it to send professional looking messages to large groups of people. I send a monthly newsletter to my customers and twice yearly, I send an e-mail out to all of my networking contacts. It’s also great for holiday cards. I couldn’t do that through Outlook because of the limited number of messages you can send out at one time, but I wouldn’t want to if I could. Constant Contact allows me to track who opens my messages, who clicks on links within my messages (particularly useful when I’m marketing to my customers) and which e-mail addresses could not be reached for various reasons. I like that kind functionality.
Even though this all seems complicated when it’s laid out all at once, the learning curve for each service is negligible. There are many ways to approach contact management. This is what works for me as a one man business. I built my business on networking and need to make sure that I make the most of every opportunity. I encourage you to look into your own solution. The bottom line is that competition in every sector is fierce. Do you want to be someone who is organized like me, or do you want to be in competition with someone who is organized like me? Hmm. Talk to you soon. Until then, Decide, Commit, Conquer.
*Full Disclosure: I am a reseller for this service.
Francisco J. Acosta
Executive Vice President
Internal Business Consulting
212-330-0300
www.ibcglobal.net
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