Every touch costs different time and money, so spend dinners and gifts on your top tier and lighter touches on larger groups.
The idea
There's a whole menu of ways to add value: say hello, ask about their challenges, send useful information, write a handwritten card, send a gift, offer something exclusive, make an introduction, share a meal. Each has a price. A text costs seconds. A card costs a few dollars and five to 10 minutes. A meal runs $50-100 and about two hours with travel. An intro takes minutes but spends social capital. Match your total effort to how much the relationship matters and how many people sit in that tier. As we taught in my coaching: the higher the priority, the more you can invest, and the fewer A's you have, the more each one can get.
How to do it
List your tiers with a headcount for each.
For each tier, choose a mix from the menu you could sustain for every single person in it.
Compare the tiers side by side. If cold leads get more than your best clients, fix it.
If a tier is too much work, trim the people or slow the cadence. Every 45 days instead of 30 is a third less work, and most won't notice.
Example
In the book I sketched a split for a database with 100 web leads, 40 past clients, 20 hot prospects and 10 top clients. The 10 at the top: dinner twice a year, then a handwritten card and a personalized gift. The 20 prospects: a card plus a gift certificate to a neighborhood restaurant. The 40 past clients: a yearly gift and a call every six months. The 100 leads: the monthly newsletter and a call each quarter. I wanted to be everyone's best friend. I can't do that for everyone.
Watch out for
I won't give you a ratio. A college friend you reconnect with might open a whole new network; the prospect you take to lunch gets taken to lunch constantly.
Treating everyone the same means your best relationships get what strangers get.
A/B/C Spheres: Sort everyone into three tiers by gut feeling (love, like, don't know) and spend more time on A's than B's, and more on B's than C's.
CAPITAL: Add Value: The second A in CAPITAL. Make each touchpoint meaningful, relevant and valuable, size it to the relationship, and deliver it personally, by connecting, by hosting or by broadcasting.
The Capacity Formula: People times touches per year is the minimum number of outreaches you just signed up for. Do the math before committing.
The "Because I Love ___" Formula: Start from something you love, then plan it by tier: your A's experience it with you, your B's hear about it, your C's see it.