Say My Name...Save My Name...

Thanks to Dean L. at Prosperous Artists for this one

Stop thinking about Beyonce for a moment. We can always go back to her later …

Start thinking about how many people you know. The number of contacts made between you and all the people you’ve met over your lifetime, if we could count them all would be staggering. OK, let’s just limit it to those you’ve met over your professional career? Now, what have you done with the information you’ve received on all these contacts … and what are you doing with all that valuable data?

Let’s make it a bit easier - just think of the last few months … how many stacks of business cards, piles of flyers and scraps and scrapes of data have you accumulated that aren’t effectively working for you? Please … I’m not trying to guilt or shame anyone here … just make a point.

One of the most important steps in the evolution of Roundtable P&P has been and continues to be how do use the data of the people with whom I come in contact. I will confess it is an ongoing situation I have to solve, and my best success has come at points when I’ve effectively solved it.

Here’s the three questions to ask yourself …

1. How many contacts do you have … your best guess is probably wrong if you don’t generally know - you may have more or less. Right now, I have about 6,500 contacts, from various sources. But my main list is about 3K.
2. How do you work with them … are they all over the place, or are they in some sort of system that makes sense for you to work with. I will discuss this in future blogs, but useful data is more effective then collected data.
3. What is it you want them to do which they are not … and don’t say “make you money.” You need to develop a personal process of understanding who all these people are, what are their value to you and how best to work with them.

So, as you exchange business cards when you network, pay attention to them. Pretend each initial contact information is worth $5. If you grow and develop the list, it could be worth thousands of dollars or more if you can grow them into a life long clients.

I will share more about the ways in which we work with this data … and that’s all any of it is right now - raw data … in the next few weeks. We will talk about CRM’s, Email Blasts and working your lists … and I mean lists plural. YOUR ACTION STEP: Pay attention over the next few days to the ways you come aware of new people and then how you collect information about the people with whom you come in contact.

– Dean L.