“If you chase 2 rabbits you wont catch either.”
Time after time when I ask people “who are your potential clients?” I get the answer “everyone“. Then we go through the process of unpacking that. In business you need to know Who you want to talk to and Why. That is why list building is a crucial part of business growth, and yet is so often overlooked.
Your lists will help you focus your day to day business activities and enable you to craft your message so that your target audience can hear you above the noise.
In this post you can listen to a recent interview on Margo Manning’s Business Hour when we talked about the ins and outs of list building, and read my 5 Top Tips.
Listen to the podcast Here
My Five Top Tips for List Building…
1. Why build a list? As with all things, planning and preparation is the best way to ensure that the rest of your activities are successful. Building your list is part of that planning and prep’ so that you know Who you want to talk to and Why.
2. Getting started is the hardest bit. Write down names of just 10 people that you want to talk to over the next couple of weeks. Ensure that there are always 10 new names on your list.
3. Aspirational lists are really important too. These are the people and organisations that you want to be dealing with when you have built your reputation. These are your long term prospects.
4. Don’t write your list and file it away. This is a working document, put it on your office wall, in your diary, as your screen saver, or what ever works for you. Just make sure that those people are always in the front of your mind. That is how the magic happens!
5. There are no short cuts. Do NOT buy someone else’s list. They are expensive and a waste of time. If you have that money in your marketing budget invest in taking someone on to research and build your prospect list.
Spray and pray is not an effective strategy. Investing in getting organised always pays off long term.
What are your list building difficulties and success stories? Please feel free to share them below, I’d love to read them.
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