Your Electronic Rolodex

Remember the Rolodex? In the days before personal computers, this was where businesspeople stored all of their contact information for vendors, key customers — and anyone else in their community whom they might need to get in touch with in short order. The value of a Rolodex was directly proportional to the contact information it contained.

In civil cases involving the theft of a Rolodex by competitors, past employees, etc., the information contained was often valued at thousands of dollars.

For most of us, today’s electronic version of a Rolodex is usually something like the “Contact” section of Microsoft Outlook. Because this is something we can see on a computer screen — but not physically hold in our hand — we often tend to undervalue it. Think about it though: How much time and effort have you spent over the years collecting names and contact information for:

• Vendors and suppliers.
• Sales reps.
• Training agency contacts.
• Civic officials.
• Attorneys, accountants and tax preparers.

Chances are, if you suddenly had to replace that information, doing so would take days — and there would be several key contacts you would miss. Additionally, what is the value of the opportunities you would miss if you did not have this information readily available?

To have this kind of value, however, you have to keep your electronic “Rolodex” up to date. Ask yourself:

• Do you have a stack of business cards on your desk from contacts you meant to enter into your electronic files “Real Soon Now?”
• Do you find yourself not calling or e-mailing certain contacts because you do not have their phone number or e-mail address where you can readily find it?

Maybe it’s time to make an effort to make sure your contact information is current.

All things considered, your electronic Rolodex most likely contains information whose value is exceeded only by that of your customer database. You wouldn’t dream of not backing up this database on regular basis (or, at least, we hope you wouldn’t). Be sure to back up your vendor/supplier contact info on a regular basis as well.

Speaking of backups: Be sure to keep copies of your backup data somewhere other than at the store. That way, if something happens to your store, you won’t lose an asset that the insurance settlement can’t replace.

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