One of your most important business assets isn’t your phone, fax or even your computer. This asset helps you to pay the phone bill, buy a computer and upgrade your software. It’s your contact list. A good contact list enables you to keep in touch and promote your business so the projects keep rolling in.

You could buy or rent a list, but often they aren’t as up-to-date as you’d like. Plus, if you rent a list, you’ll need to re-rent it each time you do a mailing or follow ups. That can get pretty pricey quick. A better idea is for you to build your own. As you build it, you can get a bit chummy with your contacts, prospects and associates and learn about their business, their challenges and their needs. That alone puts you in a better position than the other guy who’s playing dialing for dollars with a rented list of names that’s two years out of date.

Before you start gathering names and contact information, you’ll need to have a system in place to manage it. This is critical. Without a system, things will fall through the cracks and you’ll miss opportunities. Your system might be as simple as a digital address book and calendar, or a robust contact management application like ACT!. There are several on the market for both Windows and Macs. A Google or Yahoo search will help you find one that’s a just right fit for your business.

One nifty thing about these apps is the ability to subdivide a general list into groups. For instance, you might have one group for hot prospects, another for media and yet another for associates,friends and such. Many will log your phone calls when you dial through a modem. There’s also a spot for notes, setting alerts, important contact info like birthdays, spouse names, etc. For example, you can pop in a note about a phone discussion, or when you mailed something and then set an alert to remind you to follow up down the road.

Once you have a workable system to help you put things on autopilot, it’s time to begin to gather your contact information. A good place to start is your friends, family, business associates and current clients. In a recent post on my blog, I wrote that odds are you know somewhere around 200 people. Those 200 each know 200 more. Those are some pretty catchy numbers when you do the math.

Next come new business contacts. There are loads of places to dig up that information. Web searches will yield many potential prospects. Trade association sites often have membership directories. If you belong to local business clubs, like Rotary or the Ad Fed, you should have received a membership list.

A day at the library can also get you on your way. The Reference Librarian can become one of your best friends. Ask them to point you to the directories. There are a bunch of them like The Million Dollar Directory, O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms, Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations and my personal favorites, The Red Books. Their formal titles are The Index Guide to Advertisers and the Index Guide to Advertising Agencies. These two tomes are jam-packed with not only contact info, but annual budget breakdowns, what they buy and more. That’s valuable stuff to know.

So how many contacts are enough? Well, the more the merrier, but I’d say shoot for 300 - 350. But, make sure they match in well with the type of work you want to do or niche area.

Another good place to find some names is the business section of your local newspaper or the newspaper in the largest city near you. Business journals like Crains and BizJournals, are great, too. You’ll find all sorts of nuggets like who was recently promoted, who took a new job, what companies are opening new offices or otherwise expanding, who’s launching a new product and such.

All of a sudden 300 contacts doesn’t seem like all that many to find.

Once you entered everything into your contact manager, it’s time to put it to work. Here’s how. Let’s say you start off your marketing blitz with a postcard or letter of introduction. You make a note about what was mailed and when in each contact’s pane. Then you set an alert to remind you to make follow up calls a week or so later.

Next, maybe you write a news release about an award you won or other newsworthy ditty. That gets sent to the media folks on your list, but it’s also emailed to your friends, family and business associates – folks you already know. Don’t email it to prospects unless they’ve “opted in” and given you permission. What you sent and to whom all goes in the contact manager. A few days later an alert pops up to remind you to send a birthday card to one of your prospects. You read in the paper that Mr. Smtih was recently promoted to Mighty Marketing Pava at Mondo BigCorp. You send a congrats card and make a note in the contact manager.

You get the idea.

It’s important to remember that this isn’t a one-time deal. Your list should be a work in progress. Some contacts will drop off. New ones are added.

Effectively and efficiently managing your contacts will keep you on the radar screen when a prospect’s project time comes rolling around or one of you friend’s friends needs a logo redesign for their budding business.