3 Mobile (Sales) Apps to Jump-start New Relationships.

You’ll spend less time this coming year in front of your laptop and become more reliant on your smartphone.

And there’s a lot of advantage to that.

Most laptops don’t have “everywhere” access to the internet.  They work well when there’s wifi, but can leave you feeling disconnected when you are outside an access point.

Your smartphone can get you on the internet anywhere you can make a phone call.  So applications built for your mobile device really make it easy to be more effective.

There are tens of thousands of applications for the most popular mobile phone platforms — Blackberry, iPhone, and Andoid.  There are messaging apps, social media apps, contact management apps.

And if you had to pick just one app per platform to help you build a better relationship, here are the ones you can’t miss:

Sensobi (Blackberry)

Track your calls better…

Sensobi grabs all the contacts from the address book on your Blackberry and rates them based on your history of calling, emailing, and texting them.  It quickly alerts you to action items you need to do “today” and allows you set up a scheduled reminder for you to call that contact back at a later date – like next quarter.

And there new Jot feature is killer.  Anytime you finish a call, Sensobi sends you and email asking what you talked about.  If you want to track some notes or comments or action items, you simply reply to the email and Jot stores them for you.  You can log in to your online account any time and grab your notes.

It’s a better way to stay organized and be a more reliable sales guy.

Hashable (iPhone)

Make better introductions…

Hashable helps you track your interactions with the people you do business.  It’s primarily based on any Twitter relationship you have — but it’s just as easy to track interactions with an email address.  You just add a hash tag to your message (like #call, #had_beers, or #meeting) and Hashable automatically interprets what you’re up to and creates a connection.

Those Hashable connections becomes stronger the more you interact with a relationship.

And if you want to make a connection for someone else you simply use Hashable to make that happen.  Both people you are introducing will get a an icebreaker email that details a little bit of information about the person on the other end of that introduction.

It’s a better way to build connections with brand new or an existing relationship.

Aro (Android)

Uncover deeper meaning…

Aro uniquely ties together dates, people, and context from any  place on your phone.  In an email, when you reference a general date like “next Tuesday”  or a name like “Bob Stevens” those words create hyperlinks to other activity about that information.  “Next Tuesday” connects to the calendar where a specific date can be used to create appointment or schedule a reminder.

It makes a zillion different facts manageable.

You can take immediate action on a calendar event or an email full of tasks.  Aro provides the context of who you are doing business with, where you are doing business, and what you need to do to be successful.

It’s a better way to find meaning from all the different ways you engage with a contact.

Any relationship matters.

These tools help you manage better.  They won’t help you empathize, but they help you manage a lot of the busy work.

Try one (or a few) of these out.