This afternoon, I spent 20 minutes digging through client folders
Last Thursday, I was by the window of a shared office in Hangzhou, trying to follow up with a prospect who had asked for a custom quote. I couldn’t find the feature they cared most about in our chat history. I read the conversation three times and still sent only, “Have you been thinking it over recently?” I felt a bit defeated. The client was right there, but the information was scattered across WeChat, spreadsheets, and my head.
I’ve had the same problem: a client mentioned what they liked, where they got stuck last time, or who to contact next, and relying on memory alone makes it easy to forget something. My fallback is a short note, not a complicated system. We don’t need to organize everything today. At least, we can identify the problem: our information is scattered, not the client’s interest.
Person of Interest is for building profiles of “important people”
It feels more like client relationship notes than a traditional CRM: each specific person has a profile with background, conversation summaries, related clues, and next actions. The public demo uses a fictional contact named Michael Dawson. My friend Lin Yue, a freelance brand designer in Hangzhou, used a similar approach. Every evening, she pasted in new clues from the day, then added her own note the next morning. It was a small habit, but it did make it easier to recall where the last conversation had stopped.
I got one step wrong at first: I initially added everyone I had met, and the notes became messier. Later, I kept only people I might work with again within six months and added a “what to do next” note to every record. That step mattered more than the tool itself. Still, not everyone needs it. If I only work with one or two clients a day, a regular notes app may already be enough.
Today’s setup: 0 yuan, 20 minutes, no coding
Cost: 0 yuan. Time: about 20 minutes. The technical bar is being able to copy text and create folders; no coding needed. The first step is to open the Person of Interest page, find “Add contact” or a similar creation option, and create one test person rather than importing every client right away.
I can practice with one real but low-risk record, such as “the client who asked about packages on Wednesday,” then add four items: who they are, what they said, what remains unresolved, and when to contact them next. After that, I paste two or three key lines from the conversation into the record. I got stuck building my first template too; with too many fields, I didn’t want to fill them in. So I kept only these four, used the format for a week, and then decided whether to add more.
Match the setup to my stage, no need to do everything at once
If I’m just starting, I’d begin with one shared spreadsheet and record only my three most important prospects. Once the habit sticks, I can move to a more convenient information tool. If I already have one or two steady clients, I’d write a one-page background summary for each and add a “reason to follow up next time” after every conversation, so replying doesn’t depend on dredging my memory. If I’m scaling, I’d turn the shared fields into a template everyone understands and specify who updates the records. But I wouldn’t introduce a complex system immediately; I’d first make sure the team is willing to fill it in.
For me, the saving isn’t two hours of typing. It’s avoiding those awkward moments when we know we’ve talked before, but I suddenly forget everything. Maybe today I’ll record just one person. If it doesn’t work, I can delete it.