How To Find, Collect, And Manage Business Contacts Or 3 Tips For Managing Your Business Contacts
Your business contacts are an invaluable resource. Business contacts allow you to expand your customer base and generate more sales, but only if you keep them organized and maintain them over time. These three tips will help you manage your business contacts so that they’re always there when you need them the most.
Step 1: Create An Inbox
Having a dedicated inbox for your business contacts is a great way to stay organized. You can use a tool like Google Sheets or Trello to create an inbox where you can track your contacts. Plus, you can set up filters so that you only see the most important information. For example, in Gmail, there are tabs for Important and Unread.
Start with a tab called Important. The next time you receive an email from someone who falls into this category, reply to their email and mark it as Important by clicking on the menu at the top of their message. Then make another tab for Unread and when you receive any emails from people in this category, either read them right away or mark them as Unread. When you have time, switch over to the appropriate tab and get back to reading all of your messages. If you’re not able to respond to the email immediately, archive it and take care of it later.
Step 2: Track Contact Details With A Database
A contact management system will help you keep track of who you know, how you know them, and what interactions you’ve had. You can use a CRM like Salesforce or a simple Excel spreadsheet. Either way, make sure to include the following information for each contact: their name, job title, company they work for, email address, physical address, phone number(s), website url (if they have one), social media accounts (like Twitter handle) that are relevant to your business.
Once you have this information recorded in your database or spreadsheet- start maintaining it by adding in any new contacts that come into your life. Keep updating with each interaction- whether it’s a positive, negative, or neutral experience. Make notes about the type of interaction that took place and add anything else interesting you might remember about them. Add a row for yourself too! Keeping tabs on yourself will let you see if there are gaps in knowledge on topics that may be important to your field of work. It will also help you identify other professionals in your industry with whom you want to build relationships.
If you’re interested in finding more leads, find out where people are having conversations around your interests and become an active participant in those conversations. Google Alerts is a great tool for staying up-to-date on mentions of your brand.
Step 3: Find Leads Through A Good Email Signature
A good email signature is key to finding new leads for your business. It should include your name, title, company name, website, and contact information. You can also include a short message or tagline to give recipients an idea of what you do. Be sure to update your signature regularly so that it stays current. Include the newest promotions, products, events and anything else related to your business in the signature. Remember: people need reasons to stay in touch with you!
Some other tips on how to find contacts:
– Use social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
– Attend conferences where there are likely attendees who work in the same industry as you
– Make referrals when a customer mentions they know someone who may be interested in your services – Send follow-up emails to those who reach out but don’t respond right away
– Keep copies of correspondence with potential clients. Even if they don’t hire you, you never know when these individuals might make great connections. Plus, if something goes wrong later down the line and this person needs to get in touch with you for some reason, having their contact info will make things easier.
– Maintain a physical address book or database of all your contacts from different sources including phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. If possible have one list sorted by category such as Personal/Friends vs. Professional/Business Contacts. Having everything at hand will save time looking through multiple books to locate someone’s number or address; plus it’s handy to keep track of any changes that occur which could affect this list (e.g., change in marital status).
