Guide · Teams
Keep your team's business network when people change roles or leave
Relationships leave with people when the only record is in one person's phone. Keep a shared record of who the company knows and who knows them, start the handover as soon as the date is known, and introduce the successor while the person leaving is still there.
Meishio editorial team
For managers and team leads: a country head before an expat goes home, a sales head when a rep resigns, a partner when a colleague moves to another practice. The checklist works with any tool, including a spreadsheet.
Why contacts walk out of the door
In most teams, client contacts live in three places: business cards in a drawer, the person's phone and their email. None of them stays when the person leaves. The CRM, if there is one, has the company and the deal, but rarely the second and third people the colleague knew there, or how well.
The cost shows up months later: a customer calls a number nobody answers, a distributor's new manager has never heard of you, or nobody can answer "who do we know at this company?"
Decide what belongs to the company, and say it early
Be clear and fair. A client's work email, title and company, and the history of the account, are part of the job. A person's private notes, personal numbers and friends are not. A rule most people accept: work details of work contacts are shared; personal contacts stay personal.
Check your employment contracts and local data-protection rules before copying anyone's address book. The simplest way to stay on the right side of both is to have people choose what they share while they are still in the job, not to collect it at the exit.
Keep the record all year, not at the exit
A handover that starts on the last day is a list of names. A record kept all along has the context a successor needs:
- Who the company knows at each customer, partner and supplier
- Which colleagues know each person, and how well
- The open follow-ups, each with one owner and a date
- When each person last changed role, so you notice moves
The handover checklist
- As soon as the date is known, list the accounts and people that matter most, with the person who is leaving, not for them
- For each one, name who else on the team knows them. Where nobody does, that is where the remaining weeks should go
- Make introductions while the person is still there: a joint visit or call, or an email that introduces the successor by name
- Move every open follow-up to a named owner, with a date
- Make sure their work contacts are in the shared record, with notes a successor can use
- On the last day, remove their access to shared tools and keep what they shared
After they leave: watch for movement
The first months after a handover are when relationships slip. Contacts change jobs too, and a contact who moves to another company is a new door, not a lost one. Check your most important contacts for role changes every few months, and note where people went.
When people rotate on a schedule
Expat postings, regional rotations and consulting secondments have a known end date, so the handover can start months before the last week. Start the list when the move is confirmed, and pair each departing manager with the colleague who will keep each relationship.
Successors often arrive after their predecessor has gone. An introduction email written before the move and sent on the successor's first day closes that gap.
This is routine for Japanese companies in India, where managers posted from Japan hand over to a successor at the end of each posting. The Embassy of Japan in India and JETRO counted 1,434 Japanese companies in India in October 2024, from a survey that relies on companies returning a questionnaire (press release (opens in a new tab)).
With Meishio
How Meishio keeps the record
In a Meishio team workspace, each person scans cards or connects Google Contacts and chooses which work contacts to share. The team sees the name, title, company, the work email and office numbers if included, and who knows them. Notes, mobile and personal numbers and where you met stay in each person's own account.
- The record of who knew whom stays when a member leaves the workspace
- Each shared person can have a follow-up owner and a date
- Admins remove someone's access in one step; what they shared stays with the team
- Meishio Search checks public sources for new roles when you start a check, with the source and date
- Admins can export the team list as a CSV at any time. There is no single sign-on or CRM sync yet, and the team screens are in English for now
Questions
Who owns a salesperson's client contacts?
It depends on the employment contract and local law, so ask your own adviser. In practice, most teams treat a client's work details and the account history as the company's, and personal contacts and notes as the person's. Having people choose what they share while they are still in the job avoids an argument at the exit.
How early should a client handover start?
As soon as the departure date is known. For a planned rotation that can be months ahead; for a resignation, use the notice period, and start with the introductions, which take longest to arrange.
What should a client handover email say?
Who is leaving and when, who takes over and how to reach them, one line on why the successor is the right person, and that the person leaving is available until their last day. Keep it short, and send it from the person who is leaving, with the successor copied.
Does Meishio keep contacts when someone leaves the team?
Yes. The records they shared with the team stay, along with the record of who knew whom. Their personal contacts stay in their own account. Meishio for handovers →
About these guides
Meishio editorial team
The Meishio editorial team writes these guides: how to keep a business network in order when cards pile up, teams change and people move on. Every fact about another product is checked on that product's own pages, and the sources are listed on each page.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from, and when we read them. Products change; check the source before you decide.
- [1]List of Japanese Companies in India (as of October 2024), press release (opens in a new tab), Embassy of Japan in India and JETRO ·