First of all no, this did not happen to me. Secondly, it easily could.
Keep track of your contacts with league directors and when you tell someone you will send information or make a followup contact DO IT!
There is that old saying that goes like this; If you aren’t talking to your clients you can bet that your competition is. That’s a great one to remember. There is always someone out there sniffing around for your business. It simply isn’t possible for me to talk with all of our lab customers, but you can bet that I want to.
The lesson goes like this. There was this photographer that had wanted to get an organization for a number of years. It is one of the largest baseball/softball leagues in his state and he could see the great value in having this job. The board had a relationship with another photographer and simply weren’t interested in talking to him. He continued to make contact with this league over the course of a couple of years and found an opening. A new league president wanted to see his information. Wanted it for the board meeting that was to be in 6 weeks. Told him that a decision on sticking with the current photographer or opening it up would be made that very night.
That meeting happened this past Thursday. Our photographer still has that information in his hand because he forgot to send it. (How in the hell can you do that? Yes, I cleared posting this with him. No names.) He calls up and asks if he can still send it. President says sure, but we just signed a 3 year deal with the company that we have been using. They wanted to settle the deal before the end of their fall season so that they could concentrate on other matters this winter.
I said that this could easily happen to me, but it won’t. I use my trusty Treo to make notes of contacts like this and to set alarms to remind me to do things in a timely manner. There are companies out there that sell applications that you can use for such things, but I find that Outlook and my Treo do the deal for me just as well. I settled on the Treo because I had a Pocket PC and never bothered to carry the thing when it mattered the most. The Treo is also my cell phone. I have it every day, everywhere that I go and I now use it for everything.
Even if it isn’t a Treo, get some type of device that you can carry around with you to remind yourself of the things that you need to do. There are Palm models available for less than $100 that will do the same deal if you will get one. Palm Desktop is a very good PIM minus only the ability to manage email like Outlook. Insert Outlook Express, or better yet Thunderbird for email and you are all set. Then remember this one simple rule. USE IT!
I’ll follow this up in a day or two to outline how I make notes and reminders about contacts. It really is very simple and straight forward and will help to keep you in the game when it comes time to deliver the goods.
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