Contact Organisation Can Be a Pain

When starting out in business you would like to do everything right, but how many times do you find that you have a pile of business cards you collected at an event. What do you do with them to keep everyone straight, how do you know if you have not met them at other events? I know one person who goes to an event and every time she meets a particular guy he introduces himself and says that they have never met. This has gone on for over a year.

By keeping your contact, and not just your customers organised, you will be able to find out how many times you have seen them and make notes on anything they say they are looking for. This can be done with or without technology. Buying a recipe box, business card box, or using an old shoe box you can alphabetise by company or contact. Write notes directly on the business card or if you have a lot to write stapling the business card to a larger card or paper then filing it. How much better does it look when you meet someone at an event and can say, "oh yes I remember you were looking for... did you find it".

If you meet someone and they are looking for something that you can not provide but have a business card of someone who might be able to help them. It is easy to find that information if all your business cards and contacts are organised.

Sometimes the information is not on a business card, it can be electronic or other formats. By keeping the information electronically you can save space and if you find the right software for you, it is easy to find the contact you are looking for. The minimum information to keep is the name, business name, notes to type the type of business if needed, phone, email. Then it is up to you to decide what else to keep, such as address, notes etc. If you only want a list, you could use Outlook or Excel. If you wanted more information which, as mentioned above is extremely helpful, such as when you meet them, call them, email them you can look at using a Contact Relationship Management (CRM) program. Some programs will allow you to send and receive emails into them, then file them with the contact. Other will allow you to write notes and say what type of contact.

You also must decide if you want to access this information on the move. If the software is only on your business computer which sits in your office, then it is no good if you travel a lot, even if travelling is just to meetings down the road. Then you have to remember to look the information up when you get back. Some programs will let you view the information on your phone, or if you have a laptop it can be on that or there are web programs. Web programs, like FreeCRM and Salesforce allow you to access them from any device that can access the web and view the window (probably not a good idea on a phone with a small screen). This also means that if you have a virtual assistant, they could access a web CRM.

Most CRM software are extremely powerful and can be rather complicated looking but starting out with entering all your contacts then trying out one other feature before moving to another. For example you can enter information about what products or services you think they might be interested in (usually called opportunities). Once you are comfortable with that enter a log of each call, email and contact you make with them. This information will build up and eventually you will be able to see when the last time you contacted a person.

There is no one way to organise your contacts, but by organising them you will find that it will be easier to keep track of who you know, what products or services they might be interested in, what they are looking for that you don't provide and how often you contact them. People appreciate that extra touch and will remember you not as the person who is constantly trying to sell them something but someone who remembers them and puts them in touch with people they need.

This is not a quick fix, depending on how many contacts you have it can take many hours of work, but in the end you will be able to provide better customer service and find contacts easily. As you add more contacts it will become easier to organise them with the right system. Remember that the right system for you, might not be the right system for the next person.

Katherine Davison

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