Reflecting on the value of a personal relationship manager (PRM), it's clear to me it's been one of the best tools I've ever employed. A PRM, in essence, is a gesture saying, "Hey, our relationships are important, they matter." It's about ensuring that I can organize, manage, and nurture these connections so that I don't just lose track of them after an initial encounter.
I've experimented with different PRM softwares, and admittedly, a lot of them fall short. I ended up creating my own makeshift PRM using Notion—it's not perfect, but it gets the job done.
In this PRM, I'm essentially creating a database of people, logging when I meet them, and taking detailed notes about our interactions. It's an invaluable resource when I need to look someone up and recall the context of our past meetings.
One of the most powerful aspects of my PRM is the ability to keep those who matter to me 'top of mind' at varying frequencies. Some relationships need nurturing every week, while others may only require touchpoints every month, every three months, or even yearly.
Currently, my PRM houses over a thousand contacts, each tagged with a specific frequency for reminders. If I'm not quite ready to engage with someone, I can simply 'snooze' them until later. It's a proactive way of reminding myself of their existence and the potential for mutual benefit.
The truth is, you never know when someone might come in handy. Relationships require time and effort to cultivate, and the objective is twofold: to be useful to my network, and for my network to be useful to me. If I meet someone, resonate with them, but then forget about them, it's almost as if we never met, and that's a shame. This is where the PRM proves its worth.
At least once a week, I review my PRM to identify any overdue contacts. If I notice I haven't reached out to someone in, say, six months, and that was my intended check-in frequency, I consider what my next steps should be. If I don't need to act, I'll snooze them for another six months.
Overall, the PRM practice helps me remember that my network is my net worth. Different relationships might be valuable at different times, and a PRM helps manage that.
The bottom line? If you want to be entrepreneurial in your life, taking your relationships seriously is non-negotiable. Otherwise, you could simply let your superiors dictate your interactions, but in my view, that's a limiting approach that restricts your creative potential.