WAY 132

Create Your Personal Gold Mine

Do you know what is more worthless than yesterday's newspaper, week-old bread, or a five-year-old phonebook? It's a database that isn't accurate. Your future success in winning over new customers will be determined largely by the quality and size of your prospect list. Today is the best opportunity you will ever have to make a commitment to keep that list up to date, accurate, and on target.

ACTION ITEM

Create a form that everyone can use to notify you when changes occur in your prospect list, and have them keep it by their phones or desks so they can use it easily.

Early on, Joanne realized how powerful a well-maintained, up-to-date list of prospects can be. She made a commitment to do several things to keep her database accurate.

  1. Pick up the telephone and verify the information anytime she was notified of a change by people in her company.
  2. Alert coworkers to pass along any information they got about changes in a prospect's situation, including people, phone numbers, or addresses.
  3. Add the term “Address Correction Requested” below the return address on all company mailings so the post office would alert her to changes.

If you're going to keep your database accurate, it is essential to have a multi-strategic approach to gaining and maintaining good information.

TAKEAWAY

If you invest in taking care of your future-
customer database, your future-customer
database will take care of you
.