I’ve mentioned one of mentors – Nigel Botterill – a couple of times before, and there’s a good reason: he really knows his stuff.
And today I just wanted to touch on one of his ‘rules’ for success:
‘Your most valuable asset – bar none – is your database.’
When you think about it, it’s incredibly accurate.
You see, when you think about all the other assets in your business, they’re generally replaceable.
You can move premises, find a different product or service to sell, and employ new staff.
But, without a database of prospects and customers, you’ve got no chance of success because you’ve got no one to sell your advertising and marketing services to.
Marketing guru, Gary Halbert, once said that if he ran a hamburger stand and he was allowed only one advantage to differentiate himself from the competition, it wouldn’t be superior beef, brioche buns, or the keenest price.
It’d be a starving crowd. Because that trumps everything else.
You’ve got people who are hungry, and they’ll buy from you; but without the people, there are no sales.
What’s my point? Well, it’s a simple one.
When you start to think about your database – and your relationships with it – as the most important asset in your business, you start to realise how important it is to:
Keep building it
Keep engaging with it and looking after it
If you don’t keep building it, you’re missing out on new people you can sell your services to. And if you never contact it, you’re not engaging with it, bringing it closer to you, and increasing your chances of making sales from it.
But when you add new contacts to it, get your team on the phone to it, send out regular emails, direct mail and other communications to engage with it … good things will happen.
Essentially, the value of your media business can be defined by the relationship you have with your list, your database.
It always has been, and likely always will be.
What are you doing right now to build and engage with your database?
