Navigating the Messy Middle

There’s a stage of business that nobody really talks about.

When you're first getting started, notebooks work. You don't have many clients, prospects, or networking contacts to keep track of. You can usually remember who you met, what you talked about, and when you need to follow up. A notebook, a few sticky notes, and maybe a spreadsheet seem perfectly adequate.

Then something interesting happens.

Your business starts growing.

You attend networking events. You join communities like NBG and EBN. You connect with people on LinkedIn. You collect business cards. You have coffee chats, Zoom meetings, referrals, introductions, and conversations. Before long, you've met hundreds of people and have information scattered across notebooks, business cards, email folders, phone contacts, and random scraps of paper.

At first, it doesn't feel like a problem because you know the information exists.

The problem shows up when you need it.

You remember meeting someone who would make a fantastic referral partner, but you can't remember their name. You know you wrote down a great idea during a networking conversation, but you're not sure which notebook it's in. You vaguely remember promising to introduce two people, but now you can't remember who they were.

Suddenly, you're spending more time looking for information than actually using it.

In fact, a McKinsey study found that knowledge workers spend nearly 20% of their workweek searching for information they know already exists. Think about that for a minute. That's essentially one full day every week spent hunting for information instead of moving your business forward. And if you calculated that out for the year, you are losing two months searching for information.

What could you do with an extra two months?

The frustrating part is that many business owners assume the problem is a lack of discipline or organization.

It's not.

More often than not, the real issue is that the systems that worked when your business was smaller haven't grown with you.

I was talking with a business owner recently who described her CRM as "a stack of notebooks." When she needed information about someone, she'd search her calendar to find the date they met, pull out the notebook she was using at the time, and flip through pages trying to find her notes. If you've ever done something similar, you're not alone.

This is what I call the messy middle.

You're relying entirely on memory, and you haven't yet built a system that allows information to be found quickly and easily. If it takes you longer to find information about someone than it does to type their name, you are not only losing time, you are losing money as well.

The good news is that you don't need to jump straight into a CRM tomorrow. In fact, I often recommend a much simpler first step.

Start by identifying where your information currently lives.

Make a list of every place you might find information about a client, prospect, referral partner, or networking connection. Include notebooks, business cards, email folders, phone contacts, LinkedIn messages, calendar appointments, Zoom chats, event attendee lists, and anywhere else you tend to store information.

Most people are surprised by how many places end up on that list.

And that's exactly the point.

You can't organize what you haven't identified.

Awareness is the first step toward clarity.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by scattered information, you're not failing. You're not behind. You're simply navigating the messy middle, just like many business owners do as they grow.

And the good news is there is a way through it.

Talk soon,

Julie

P.S. Next time, we're tackling one of the biggest sources of hidden opportunities in most businesses: those stacks of business cards sitting in drawers, notebooks, and desk organizers. More importantly, we'll talk about how to turn them into meaningful connections instead of forgotten paper (and without adding them manually!)