Low-Tech & Low-Cost Keep in Touch System

How often do you reach out to the people that you care about? Do you sometimes fall behind connecting with people who are important to you because you are so busy with your business and your life?

Do you have a system in place to help remind you to take the time to develop and strengthen your relationships?

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" - John C. Maxwell

This post is for Melanie and all the other brand new entrepreneurs who are on a tight budget.

Don't you hate it when there's that person in your life who only calls you when they need something from you. Don't be that person with other people.

Have a system where you touch base with your circle of influence on a regular basis just because you care and not because you want something from them. You want people looking forward to your call and not automatically switching you to voicemail.

One of your biggest challenges as a self-employed business owner is reaching out & keeping in touch on a regular basis. It's not only you, even large organizations have a huge problem with this. This issue has created it's own service industry, CRM (Customer Relations Management) software and online services help businesses to schedule their individualized reaching out. Services like Zoho, Contactually and InfusionSoft can range in price of $20/mo to over $200/mo!

Note: some have no-cost introductory services with limited features, Contactually has a free option that reminds you each day of 1 person to reach out to.

The new entrepreneur needs to keep cost down while building their business up is the #1 highest priority. So let me help you with a very effective simple system.

What you will need:

• (1) Index card box - to hold at least 200 index cards without them falling out
• (2) Sets of Index card dividers - 1 set of January- December and another set of 1-31
• (200) Index cards - 3 different colors for prospects, clients & teachers/mentors/leaders

It's a very simple system. All you do in your box is you have the dividers set for each month sequentially. Then for the present month you have the days of the month set up for that month. As the days of the month continue to move forward, they get placed in next month's slot.

For instance, I am writing this post on August 18th. The first divider in my box that I would see would be the 18 divider, followed by 19, 20, 21, 22 and so forth until 31 (31 days in the month of August). After which would be the September divider with 1-17 behind it. Then OCtober through August behind the 17 divider for the following months where you are not organizing contacts on a daily basis yet.

For the contact index cards, on the front you would have:

• Name
• Phone #'s
• Email
• Notes you feel are relevant for the relationship, i.e. birthday, spouse/partner/pets, how you were introduced, what they originally came to see you about, etc

On the back of each card: you keep dated notes for all the reaching out and connecting, so that as you continue to keep in touch, you can pickup where you last left off.

How does the system work. Some contacts you want to tap into on a weekly basis, others monthly, some quarterly and some an even longer spacing than that. So when you are reach out to somebody and you make a commitment to follow up after a set length of time, you write that date on the back of the index card and you place the card in the month slot (or day slot if it less than a month) for when you are scheduled to next keep in touch.

Then each new day as you work with your system, the people that you need to contact that day will be at the very front of your box, you pull out the cards that you need for the day and reach out at the appropriate time of the day, having the card with you so that you can update your notes and schedule the next follow up. At the end of the day, you simply place the updated cards in the appropriate day or month slot that is scheduled.

The different colors are used so that you can make sure that you prioritize your follow ups with your main business focus at the time; whether its reaching out to new potential clients, strengthen your relationship with your existing client base or striving to be of service to the leaders in your field thereby building those relationships.

Give yourself a goal of reaching out to 2 new people and connecting with at least 2 existing contacts each business day. Stay relevant, be interested instead of interesting, and most of all show you care.

"Communication - the human connection - is the key to personal and career success." - Paul J. Meyer