Using a Smart Phone as a Simple Contact Management System

One of our trainers made a statement that struck me as very true.  "If you don't need notes to remind you about the people you are prospecting and recruiting, then you aren't talking to enough people."
Okay, I get it, we need notes and help to manage our contacts.  There are hundreds of paper based systems and computer software Contact Management Systems.  What I'm am going to describe is a simple way to use your Smart Phone as a Contact Management System (CMS).


I'm using an Android (EVO), but the basics will be the same on almost all of the Smart Phones.



I am assuming that you have a Gmail Account and that your contacts are being synchronized with Gmail.  Gmail also has a simple Task Manager and Calendar you can use.



Either on your phone or in your Gmail Contacts section you need to create some groups.  Here are the ones that I use for my CMS.
1.  MA_Prospects (These are people I plan to call)
2.  MA_Pipeline (These are people I have shared the business with and am actively following up with.)
3.  MA_STP_Pending (These people are no longer prospects.  I have scheduled an appointment with them.)
4.  MA_Check_Back_Later (These people said "Not Now")
5.  MA_Never  (I have decided that these people are off my list).



Now it is simply a matter of adding people to the MA_Prospects group and moving them to the other groups when that is appropriate.  I can select a group on my phone and there is a list of all the Prospects or all of the people in the Pipeline.     There is even a widget that will show be a scrolling list of the members in a group.  If I have connected with them on Facebook, there will even be pictures.

More things you can do in your phone CMS.
1.  You can also use the Calendar and the Task list to indicate when to do follow-ups.  There are even apps to synch between your phone and Gmail.  I use GTasks and IRT Calendar on my Evo.
2.  You can go into your contacts in Gmail and print out one of the lists.
3.  You can add "Notes" in your contact list.  This is where you store the information that you want to remember about this person when you call them.  Keep notes after every contact.
4.  If you want to get snazzy, you can synchronize your significant other or even a business partner to your Gmail calendar.  I have an MA Business Calendar and a regular Gmail calendar.  My wife sees my business appointments in one color and my non-business appointments in another color.  I also see hers.  It reduces the number of conflicts when setting appointments.



Not very sophisticated, but it is in your pocket all the time.

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