That’s My Opinion By Ron Sturgeon
Tools for Success: Building a Network List I
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know this sounds trivial, but it’s got to be in my top ten most important secrets of my success. You see, no matter how smart you are or how hard you work, you simply can’t achieve maximum success without help. Many of my articles talk about how you need others to help you, using lever- age, delegating, being efficient, on and on. Many of those tactics require master- ing this seemingly trivial tool.
When I was 30, I was saving business cards. I starting using a pocket electron-
The list goes on and on. I use the list. If you and I were business friends, you would regularly hear from me by mail. Today, I email mostly but the principle of building contact list is the same. I’ve got every reporter who ever wrote
a story about me. Every banker that I met or who has made me a loan. Every attor- ney, real estate professional, and folks that do obscure things like land survey, phase-one environmental reports, CAD drawings, or transportation cost audits.
It takes me a minute or so, but it has paid off in spades.
ic Rolodex in the 80s, which everyone made fun of me for. This was long before iPhones or PDAs (can you say Treo or Palm?). If you had a lake house, I knew the phone number. I was everyone else’s phone directory. All my friends used to say, “Sturgeon’s got the number; ask him.” I’m not sure when I truly realized the value of keeping a database of contacts, sometimes in the 90’s, I reckon. I just knew it made me more efficient and saved me time (another article in this se- ries covers tactics to find an extra hour per day). I had a protocol for entering contacts though. I always entered your full name, phone, and mailing address. And keywords. This was important. If I met you at a business meeting, I got your card and entered what you did, and keywords like met at Kiwanis Club May 1993. When I did my first “private stock offering” I had over 2,000 contacts. To- day, its 4,000. Today, I also put them in categories, for further sorting. It takes me a minute or so, but it has paid off in spades. Need an SBA loan consultant? I’ve got three in my phone. Plumber? I can type the word plumber in the keywords, and 12 of those folks pop right up. Attorneys? Accountants?
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Imagine all the folks that you’ve met that you later wished you could remember when the time comes. Today, it’s about email. In a flash, as fast as you can say keep a list, I can reach out to that guy I met five years ago who does asbestos remediation reports. That’s effi- cient! I just scan my Outlook contacts for the word asbestos and I am on it! Now, about that stock offering. They say one out of ten private stock offerings gets to document stage, and one out of 50 actually funds. That’s one-in-500 odds. I sent my first one out to my list in 1998 (they are called friends-and-family offer- ings) and oversubscribed it in two weeks, raising $1 million. I’ve done four since, all oversubscribed. Many have asked me how to do it, but they don’t have a list; they haven’t kept it through the years. So they miss out on the benefits.
Ron Sturgeon shares his expertise in strategic planning, capitalization, growing market share, and more in his signature plainspoken style, providing field-proven, and high- profit best practices well ahead of
the business news curve. He is the author of nine books, including How to Salvage More Millions from Your Small Business. He can be reached at (817) 834-3625, ext. 232 or email
RonS@MrMissionPossible.com.
January-February 2019 • AUTOMOTIVE RECYCLING
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