Chapter 4
Building a Never-Ending List of Prospects
Your list of potential business partners and customers is the lifeblood of your business. The first step in making a list of names is really a brainstorming process. Your goal is to get as many names that you can remember written down on paper or entered into a spreadsheet or database. Whatever you do, do not prejudge anyone. Although some of the people you include may not be interested in starting a business, many of them will know someone else who is interested.
Your list of names will be used as much for referrals as for finding actual business partners and customers. In some cases you might remember only a person’s first name; in other cases, you might not remember a name at all. In these cases, create a placeholder, for example, “the guy who mows my neighbor’s lawn on Thursday afternoon.”
Many people have lists already compiled for various reasons. These might include:
- Wedding invitation list
- High school, college annual
- Church directory
In the world of Internet marketing, a list is typically housed with an autoresponder service. We discuss this in Chapter 14. But it is important to remember that some people on your team will want to build their business using the latest technology, and others on your team want nothing to do with technology. Many people are very successful using only a phone, a pen, and yellow notepad.
Your goal should be to write down 100 to 300 people’s names, but the actual number is not as ...
