Treat your network like gold

One of the most important lessons I've learned about what makes life work (especially if you are an entrepreneur), is the importance of making contacts and staying in touch.
But what does doing that look like in day-to-day reality? 
I found that just collecting people's business cards was not helping me build relationships with my new contacts.  I knew I needed to find a solution because the one thing that I kept hearing super successful business people say is that their list of contacts was their most valuable asset.
And then I found "base."  
In short, I love this program/app because when I enter the info on a contact I can...

1) Tag the contact under a label I create: OWL member, Simply Clean client, France Contact, etc.  This means that by clicking on a tag, all the contacts with that specific tab pop up.  This is helpful when I want to do something like send all my OWL members an email to the next workshop.

2) Make a note for the contact.  I do this mainly to make sure I remember how I know/met the person.  

3) Schedule an action for the contact.  I love this because when the day comes that I need to do something regarding a specific contact, I get an email reminding me of what I planned to do.

I learned from master networker Harvey MacKay that we should be adding people to our list of contacts every day and finding a creative way to stay in touch.  The first step to doing this is setting yourself up so that at the end of the day or week, you can take all those scribbled notes and business cards and input them into a rolodex that helps you manage your business and life in a productive, efficient way.

Designing a successful life comes down to the relationships you build with the people that become a part of your network.  So treat those names, phone numbers, and emails like gold.

Labels: Apps I love, What makes life work