For the Want of a Contact List
I am coaching a woman named Lisa, who doesn’t add names to her contact list regularly and hasn’t for years. She hasn’t pulled all the names of her contacts together into her Outlook program from old client files, old employer directories, the shoebox of business cards she keeps and elsewhere.
This means she doesn’t have phone numbers and email addresses of her contacts handy. Because she doesn’t have them handy, she misses opportunities to contact the people she knows. She isn’t developing a rainmaker’s call discipline.
Lacking call discipline, she isn’t rekindling old or developing new relationships. That results in insufficient lead flow, and, of course, without enough leads, she doesn’t win as much business as she wants to.
If this goes on, she won’t get promoted to partner and will eventually be asked to leave the firm. And all for the want of a contact list!
A good contact list is the fundamental tool for getting business. Without one, you will never be a rainmaker.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:41 PM
Spot On!!!! Most people already have contact lists hiding in old yahoo address books and business card files. Easier to re-engage people who know you than cold-calling new ones!!!!
March 10th, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Hello Ford,
This prompts me to ask: “What is a good system for maintaining a useful and useable list of clients, contacts, and prospects?”
As a recent convert to Mac, I have been working on my old PC system for contacts through ACT! because I have found FileMakerPro on the Mac just way too hard to get working.
Rgds,
Ric
March 10th, 2009 at 9:30 AM
Rick,
Coppied this from a contest page for good Contact Mgt programs.
“Most folks who own a Mac look no further for a contact manager than Apple’s Address Book. That’s because Address Book is easy to use, it integrates seamlessly with practically every other application on the Mac, and it comes free with your computer…”
March 10th, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Sorry to be off topic, but Ric, I also recently switched over to a mac. Finding a Mac equivalent of ACT is very daunting. So I installed Parallels, a piece of software that lets one run PC-based software. (It basically turns your mac into a PC without having to reboot.) So far, it’s been working.
March 10th, 2009 at 1:08 PM
David and Steve
Thanks for helping Ric out.
Peter
Glad you liked it. As a Brit, the last line might mean more to you than to other readers.
Ford Harding
March 10th, 2009 at 5:52 PM
Thanks.
I think my problem with using Apple’s address book is that I use Entourage as my email system.
But I will check it out.
This conversation reinforces how important professionals like us, consider the very point Ford made.
Rgds,
Ric