If you are involved in sales, fundraising or just an active
networker, you have probably tried a variety of tools to manage
your contact list and remind yourself to stay in touch with all
of the prospects and people you meet. This tickler file is
designed to be an inexpensive, effective, tool that can be used
by salespeople in a variety of different types of organizations.
This tickler file uses inexpensive index cards and a simple file
box. You will need the following items to create your own index
card sales tool. I found everything I needed at my local office
supply store. The total cost was around $25.00.
- A box to store the index cards - Monthly 3" by 5" index tabs -
Daily (1-31) 3" by 5" index tabs - Alphabetical 3" by 5" index
tabs - A ton of white ruled 3" by 5" index cards (you don't need
a photo, right?) - A bunch of colored 3" by 5" index cards (pick
your favorite color) - A small case to carry your in your pocket
Once you have purchased the required supplies, you can organize
your 3X5. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that you are
assembling your 3X5 on January 1st. If this is the case you
would first organize your tabs in the order below (front to
back):
- January tab - Daily tabs 1-31 - February - December monthly
tabs - A-Z alphabetical tabs - Blank index cards - white and
your favorite color
All of your cards should now be in the file box and the first
thing you should see is the January tab.
Next, you should start creating cards for your leads. In the
beginning, this is going to take some time (assuming you have a
lot of leads). You might choose to use one color card for
prospects, one color for customers, another for personal
contacts, etc. If you are not going to organize your contacts by
color, you will only need white cards. Nonetheless, you can
either copy your contacts information onto the cards or simply
staple their business card to one of the index cards.
The system works like this.
Let's imagine it is January 1st. and you attend a networking
event where you meet a potential client. You get this lead's
business card at the event and you want to contact him/her on
the 2nd., so when you get to your office, you staple the leads
business card to a white index card and drop it behind the "2"
tab and then go home for the day. After all, it is new years day
and you have been working hard to create your new sales system
and you attended a networking event.
So, you arrive at work on January 2nd. and open up your tickler
file. The first thing you should do is move the "1" tab back
behind the February tab. You will always be rolling the system
forward like this, so that the first tab you see in the box
represents the most current month, then the most current day.
Now, you go to the tab for today (Jan 2nd.) and find the card
for the lead that you met at the networking event yesterday. You
call the lead and learn that he/she is out of town until January
6th. so you make a note which says, "1/2/05 - Mr. Lead is on
vacation till 1/6". Now you drop the card behind the "6" tab for
the month of January.
You will continue to roll this lead forward in the system,
making notes at each step, until the lead either turns into a
customer or asks you to leave them alone.
When the lead turns into a customer, I staple their business
card to a colored card and place it behind the appropriate
alphabetical tab. If their is another opportunity with this
client, I move the colored card back to the dated section and
move them through the process again.
Of course, as you add more people to your pipeline, you might
not get to contact everyone on the day you have them slotted
for. Just move them to the next day's slot at the end of the
current day so you contact them tomorrow.
You will not want to carry around a huge metal box full of index
cards, which is why you want to have a small index card wallet
or box, so if you are going to be on the road or out of the
office, you can simply grab your cards for the day and go. Not
just for salespeople.
While the system is great for salespeople, it also is a great
tool for those of us who are focusing on networking. I actually
use three different colored cards and use white for leads, blue
for clients and red for my networking contacts (patriotic, I
know). On the red cards, I write either 7, 14, 30, 45, 60, etc
in the upper right hand corner of the index card to remind
myself how frequently I want to contact the person, so I simply
move the card forward based on the number on the card. If I want
to contact someone every seven days, I move the card ahead a
week after I make contact.
I hope this system works well for you. If you have any
suggestions, please don't hesitate to send them to me through my
website (http://www.stephenlabuda.com).
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