Relationships

Who is On YOUR List?

Back in the early eighties, I was the Executive Director of a non-profit organization serving the fraternities and sororities of the University of Vermont. And one of the first things I did for this 20-year association was bring it into the computer age.

To do so, I spent a fair amount of time at Radio Shack with the TRS-80 and learned all I could about how to get these new-fangled machines and software to work for us.

At the time, there was another man who spent a lot of time at Radio Shack. His name was Richard Snelling. And he was learning, too. He was building his own database of influential people, political leaders, donors and VIPs.

His efforts played a major role in his bid for the U.S. Senate and then his re-election as Governor of Vermont in 1990. 

The new technology meant that you no longer had to rely on expensive main-frames, programmers and rented computer time. You could build, maintain and benefit from your very own databases. And it’s no less true today.

Our modern-day “Rolodex’s” are a critical part of our ability to influence, market to, collaborate and network.

With social media, cell phones, Google and personal information managers, the concept of Six Degrees of Separation popularized in the early nineties may now be more like two or three degrees of separation.

So who’s on YOUR list?

Do you have strategies, systems and practices to build, maintain and capitalize on your lists? If you don’t, you’re missing out in a huge way.

A simple contact list like you have in MS Outlook and categorized in a way that makes it easy to segment and find people can be a great start.

We may have 97,000 people on our eMail mailing list for SuccessNet, but I have 2,193 in my Outlook Contact List. And I would sooner lose $50,000 than that list. That’s how valuable it is to me.

I encourage you to systematize your list(s). Make it easy. Do it regularly. And keep it up to date. 

And look for ways to serve that list. What can you do for them? What can you give them? How you can help them? How can you be a person they know, like and trust?

Harvey McKay wrote a great book a few years ago named Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty. And it addresses the need to build your network and serve your network rather than waiting until you NEED that network.

Recently, I did an in-depth training on the subject of lists for our Diamond Club Members. It’s just one of the many benefits they receive as we help them get clear, stay focused and consistently make progress on their important goals.

And we're pleased to announce the availability of the in-depth, step-by-step “Simple List Building Blueprint” for building and serving an eMail mailing list. I think it’s one of the very best courses of its type we’ve ever offered.

Full details can be found here . . . 

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