The best practices to manage your business contacts

echnologies have changed our lives completely and forever. You may or may not agree with this statement, but the facts speak for themselves. Most likely, you have noticed that every year the life rhythm speeds up, and you have to do the maximum in 24 hours. And it is not just a subjective perception of time. 

The most valuable resource is time; do not waste it on unnecessary things

Two studies prove that people walk faster in developed countries and big cities and do many things at a faster pace. One study was done more than 20 years ago; the other was done 10 years after the first. In the first and second, it was proven that we became more active in some things. What can we conclude from this? 

People have sped up to have time to complete all the daily tasks and to gain a competitive advantage among other human beings. It is a bold point to draw that in the world of technology and the new reality around us, time is the most valuable resource. It is for this reason that many people try their best to save it and spend it wisely. 

In Korean, there is such a concept as ppalli-ppalli. It refers to a culture in which service, maintenance, and other things are done at lightning speed. Some believe that it is the phenomenon of the ppalli-ppalli that has brought South Korea to such great success.

Lots of contacts = little time?

If you are in business, management, governance and have an enormous circle of acquaintances, it takes a lot of time to maintain relationships and make contacts. Because of this, most people have two of the biggest problems with professional networking:

• they are forced to communicate much, to remember all the birthdays and spend the lion's share of working and/or free time on it;
• due to the enormous number of work, personal, and business contacts, somebody from the network is always forgotten.

When you regularly blow someone, this person becomes offended and feels unfairly ignored. As a consequence, the relationship between you breaks down, or the connection within the network destroys. Nowadays, contact management becomes an ouroboros. The networking ouroboros symbolizes the fact that you can't take your relationship handling for granted and must sacrifice your time to keep the list of acquaintances in order. 

With the number of channels where you communicate increasing every year, this task becomes genuinely daunting. However, with effective practices for managing connections, you can cut down on time and stay in touch with all your contacts. 

Soon, you'll find a tool that will allow you to achieve what you want.

The usual ways of managing contacts no longer work

Chances are, you've read more than one or even two dozen articles before today, giving out advice on networking and, in particular, how to deal with people. But if you're here now, it's unlikely you've been helped by tips like:

• Choose the right customer relationship management system;
• Sort your contacts and keep your information organized;
• Synchronize data across all devices;
• Develop a strategy and remind the ones you need from time to time;
• Include new contacts in the table, highlight the most important ones in a different color, etc.

Although the recap is rather harsh, don't think that the above suggestions are useless. They do help when you don't have many contacts or are just forming your network. Once the number of people in your phone book, professional social networks and other channels has crossed the reasonable threshold, the traditional relationship management methods are no longer effective.

What are the most famous traditional tools to manage contacts?

• notebooks;
• phone books in mobile devices;
• business cards; 
• Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

The following options for keeping contacts work great for different people and situations. You can write other valuable data about a person in your address book besides the phone number, address, first name, and last name. The phone book on your smartphone allows you to quickly contact an individual, store several phone numbers for one contact, specify an email, and so on.

Business cards allow you to share information with other people, look respectable and reliable. If you give out such cards yourself, you can keep them in car business card holders or on the desk. What other people do with your cards is no longer your concern. But what if you have hundreds of these business cards and there is no good organization? Take it easy; there is already a solution!

Modern and more effective solution for contact management

Mobile apps are the best thing that could happen to humankind for building strong networking connections. With this type of software, you can collect contacts from many channels in one place, create and scan business cards, set up reminders, etc. While not all such tools have the above functionality, there is a solution capable of skyrocketing your professional networking.

And now we are talking about a great relationship management application called Nection. See for yourself how convenient and time-saving it is!

How the contact management used to look like: You had multiple Facebook, LinkedIn, phone book, and other social media accounts. To keep in touch with each person from these channels, you had to manually write reminders in your calendar, ask your secretary to do so, or leave yellow paper stickers everywhere. Tell me, was it that convenient, and did you manage always to remember all your contacts? I'd give you 9 out of 10 that it wasn't.  

How it works now with Nection: You download the app, import contacts from the desired channels, and can view any information you want about them. The application even has a map that shows the location of your acquaintances. It's handy if you're going to have a casual conversation or be in the right place at the right time to talk about business or chat.

How communication used to look like: You would go to your phone book, professional or other social networks, scroll for a long time through the list of accounts and only then find the right person. Then you had to spend a few minutes figuring out a reason to text or find a helpful article/book/service for your conversation partner. After that, maybe the talk would start, and you would gradually move on to more serious stuff. 

How communication looks like now with Nection: You find the desired contact in one click and just as quickly go to the channel that this individual uses to communicate. According to business etiquette, you should communicate through the instrument that your opponent is comfortable with. But how will you know about that channel if you don't have Nection? Waste a lot of time until you figure it out on your own? You don't have to suffer anymore! Everything you need has already been invented for you and implemented in this application.

How a group mailing used to look like: You add a bunch of people to your email list and write an impersonal message. People see that the same email is received by a dozen other users and don't consider it essential. If you're not trying to make the message personalized, then it won't have any effect. Although even in sales, such messages increase the conversion rate by 202%, imagine the benefits they will bring in personal and business relationships. One problem - a busy person hardly has enough time to create personalized emails for all their contacts.

How a group mailing looks like with Nection: With this app, you can create a group of contacts by sending them a template with a message. And no one will see that you have done the same for several people. The messages start with the name of your contact and are sent through a convenient channel for them. Such a mailing takes a minimum of your time, and other people do not feel uncomfortable.

A name is the nicest thing we hear. Even our brains work differently when we hear it from others. We all want and like to feel special; it boosts our emotions and inspires us.

You can learn about other valuable features of Nection for your network and business management on the Home Page. Already in love with it? Then Become the first user!

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