“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” — Carl Jung

For most of my adult life, in one way or another, I’ve been paid to meet people.

Whether it was my first part-time summer job selling cameras and 35mm film to the public, as a salesperson or Managing Director, or in my roles as a Project Manager and consultant, meeting people was a fundamental part of the job.

Which means my contact book, at this point in my life, is pretty big. In reality, I use a CRM for my ‘address book’. I have met way too many people in my life for them to be contained in an actual book — it would likely need wheels and a handle of it’s own just to cart it around with me.

The problem, of course, is how on earth do I keep up with important contacts and their movements. There would be times in my sales career where I’d be in the role for years only to see others move from business to business every six months.

Thankfully, my love of web tools, gadgets and apps have all come to my aid at some point. I’ve used all manner of solutions over the last two decades to help keep in touch with people as they move around. My favourite for the past three years has been a tool called Evercontact, which seems to be powered by actual magic.

I try to regularly keep in contact with the people I have met over the years via email. When I do, a good number of them reply back to me. Sometimes I’ll notice that the email signature has a different design or alternate contents from the previous one. Sometimes I won’t. The good news is, Evercontact never misses it.

It knows how to find all the pertinent details in the email signature and automatically keeps my contact database up-to-date with the new information, and sends me a handy email to tell me about the changes.

This, dear readers, is a goldmine. When someone changes role, it causes another of those chemical reactions Carl Jung was referring to. Can I help them in their new position? Can they help me? Often the answer to one or both of those questions in ‘yes’ and the relationship continues, prospers and is beneficial to both parties.

So, my recipe for success in business relationships is fairly simple. Be open to meeting new people, find out what you can do to help them, keep in regular contact and let Evercontact do all the heavy lifting if they move jobs.

As Tim Ferriss says (I’m paraphrasing slightly), “if you can’t automate it, outsource it”. In this case, I’ve found a smart little solution that does both.