Track personal connections

- Building connections is key to successful selling, especially when your product has a long-selling process and your prospects are more senior business leaders. If you're meeting in person or you're having a long call with the prospect, something is bound to come out of that meeting. Maybe it's a funny moment or finding out they support a certain sports team or finding out they have an interesting hobby, spotting something that you connect with in their office like a framed football shirt or a certain award, maybe it's a new movie or a TV show recommendation. Something will have popped up in the meeting. You need to keep track of these so they can be referenced later, be that straight after the meeting in your follow-up or when you speak again in a few months time. It takes away the mental effort of remembering everything about everyone, but it also makes you seem like you really paid attention to that person and remembered key details. We like people who pay attention to us and remember things about us. We connect with them instantly and have an affinity to them because they paid attention to us, and there's nobody more important than number one. It's as simple as that. So, because I have an awful memory, I have lists containing football teams that my prospects support so I can reference them at major events or interesting games, films or show recommendations that they make so that when I watch them, I can follow up to thank them, hobbies that they're all into so I can mention them if it arises or if I hear of an event related to it, and so on. All of these give me an opportunity to start more conversations which inevitably lead to opportunities and to strengthen relationships along the way. So for this week, I want you to create three lists that you'll populate over time. Create three things you care about, so to you, it's more natural and you're not forcing the question. I have football teams and movie recommendations because they're two things that I like, then hobbies for general notes, so when I mention football in a conversation, it isn't unnatural. If I was to make a list of what my prospect's favorite flower was, then it would be unnatural. I'd need to say, "Oh, by the way, what's your favorite flower?" out of nowhere. Plus I wouldn't find myself in the opportunity of referencing that later. But footballs and movies, I watch football every weekend and watch movies whenever I can so it's natural to find a talking point within them. So think about yours. Is it golf? Is it travel? Is it motor racing? Is it music? Just pick a few and make a start, and it will grow from there.