Keeping in touch with your friends and contacts....

One of the important things to be aware of , which we have talked about here at Sowpub from time to time, is the usefulness of contacts....

Some businesses are based almost totally on contacts!

I once met an interesting guy.... His daily job was as a salesman at a department store. But he also had a profitable sideline.... He made some extra cash as a "printing broker"....

He would get printing jobs, and then outsource these jobs to a printer he knew. He'd charge his clients a price which gave him a bit of profit after he paid the printer....

It's a little business he had, partly based on contacts!

This is one form of "leverage".... You can discover many MORE ways of applying leverage in Michael Ross's excellent report, The Art of Leverage....

To do the best you can with your contacts, it pays to be organized! I've only recently gotten my own list of contacts organized, and it's truly a great thing to do....

I'm using the Contacts manager which comes as part of Microsoft Outlook. So, if you're looking for a way to organize your contacts, this is a great way to do it.

I put down all the basics - contact details, spouse's name (when I know it and if the person is married), birthday (if I know it), and anything else I can think of. When it's someone's birthday, it automatically appears on Outlook's calendar, so I can remember to send a birthday greeting!

I also use the "Categories" feature to check whether these are "personal" contacts, "business" contacts, "science" contacts (from my physics research background), and so on....

Many people are in more than one category. For example, many people here at Sowpub are both "personal" friends as well as "business" contacts too!

Anyhow, if you don't have your "contacts" list organized, I highly recommend it.... As well as helping you to contact those you know when you need to, and helping you to remember their details (spouse's names and so on), it will also help you keep in touch with all your friends, old and new!

It's an amazing tool, which I now cannot imagine being without!

- Dien Rice