According to Matt Davies Stockton, keeping track of your personal relationships and business contacts can be a nightmare. Some people use multiple phones just for that purpose. However, it isn’t that easy when you also have multiple emails, numerous social profiles, and hundreds of thousands of contacts. Let’s figure out how you can organize all of your contacts in one place.
The Details
Bring all your contacts to a centralized location – You probably have contacts all over the place. You may have one person’s phone and email, a LinkedIn connection for another, and just a Twitter handle for someone else.
You need to get all that information together in a single location. You may use spreadsheets, content integration apps, or a traditional address book for this purpose. That way you can find everyone in one place. That way, you don’t have to rack your brain to figure out how to contact Sarah Smith the next time you need to.
Categorize everything neatly – The next step to organizing your contacts is to categorize them. For instance, you don’t want a potential angel investor to be stored next to your friend Chad who runs your favorite coffee shop.
While categorizing contacts, consider factors like the importance of the relationship, the strength of the relationship, how often you contact them, when was the last time you contacted them, their location, and more. To achieve this, you may need to label or add notes to each contact and then organize them into categories with that information.
Keep notes – If you have a contact integration app, it will automatically track the number of phone calls and emails exchanged and the length or extent of the conversation. However, when you have so many conversations each day, it’s difficult to remember key details. That’s where keeping notes help. Keeping notes allows you to add a personal touch to your conversation.
This is very helpful for business and networking. For instance, if someone indicates that they are taking a long vacation or awaiting retirement and you note that down, you can use that information next time you call, text, or send them an email and leave a more positive impression.
Merge social networks – Social networks are a great way to stay in touch with your business contacts. You can ask them for advice when you need it and offer them help when they need it. However, keeping track of your favorite people on multiple social networking platforms can make you lose hours of valuable time and peace. Instead, use a social media manager like Hootsuite.
Conclusion
Matt Davies Stockton suggests that you use the above-mentioned tips to integrate all your contacts in one place. You can use spreadsheets, notes, or a dedicated contact integration app for the same. Contact integration apps are usually more practical since they can be accessed on multiple platforms. You can also do it manually on your phone’s contact app.
