Why You Need to Start Building a List Right Now (Pod)

Today, I want to have a little fun.

I want to give you a little peek into the kitchen, so you can see how the gumbo gets made.

I want to introduce you to the method behind the madness.  The why behind the what.

But before I start running off at the mouth, I’ve got a confession to make.

I‘m not sharing this goodness with you just because I’m a stand-up guy.

I have an ulterior motive. 

I want to shift your thinking a little.

I want to rearrange the old mental furniture as it were.

Specifically, I want to adjust how you look at your list.

If you work in the salon industry, when I say your list, you probably think I’m talking about your clientele.

Which is sort of true, but not completely accurate.

Let me splain.

In ”salon world,” especially if you’re an independent in salon world, survival is all about building a clientele.

That’s a bunch of folks who, for whatever reason, decided to give you a shot, then decided they like what you do, they like the way you do it and they keep coming back.

Without them, every day is a white knuckled struggle to find new biscuits to sit in the chair.

Now, I come from the Internet Marketing world. 

To me there’s a pretty significant distinction between your clientele and your list.

You can reach out to the people on your list. 

You’ve got their phone number, their email.  You may even have a mailing address. 

If you need to contact them for whatever reason, you can.

You don’t have to wait for them to wander back into your shop.

Having a clientele is a good thing, of course, it’s just that it can be a little unpredictable.

Clientele is pretty much a salon industry phrase.  Outside the salon industry they just call it repeat business.

And everyone knows, you don’t survive without repeat business.

With that being said, if you had the option, which would you prefer to have.

A group of people who really like how you do what you do, or a list of people who really like how you do what you do and who just happen to have given you their phone number and/or email address?

Obviously, it’s that second group, but put a pin in that.  I want to knock out one of the walls in your mental living room.  Give you a little more floor space.

Everyone knows that your most important business asset is your list. 

Actually, let me be a little more accurate.  Your most important business asset is a responsive list.  Folks that are accustomed to hearing from you from time to time and are absolutely okay with it.

It’s so much easier to get these folks to stop in for a visit than to try to wrestle some stranger in off the street. 

Now here’s the rearranging the furniture part. 

If you agree with me that a responsive list is a valuable business asset, how many names do you need on your list to keep your appointment book full?

How exactly do you grow that list?

And what do you need to do to make your list a responsive list?

This is my favorite challenge.

You see a lot of entrepre-ninjas I meet are laser focused on getting to that next sale.

Whereas my focus is on getting them to build their list the way Internet marketers think of a list.

That means a list is more than just the folks who have already thrown a little cheddar in your direction. 

It’s anyone who knows who you are, knows what you do and who has given you their email address and/or phone number.

Some folks on your list will have already purchased services from you and some have not.

But what they all have in common is that they know who you are, they what you do and they’ve given you permission to reach out to them from time to time.

Percolate on that for a little why don’t you.

And while you’re percolating, let me give you a big piece of brisket to chew on.

What if you had a list with 1000 names on it.

That’s 1000 names of people who know who you are, know what you do and who have given you permission to contact them from time to time.

Do you think it would be a worth it to build an asset like that for your business.

Now I hate to do this to you, but  I like to keep these little confabs short so I’ve got to get ready to bounce.

But I’ll pick this up next time with a couple of tips on to how to grow your list and how to make it responsive.

Thanks for lending me your attention.

If you want a copy of the actual document I use to explain all of this stuff to my new clients in a non-geeky way, go to chriscarter.net/list and download my client blueprint.

Thanks again for your attention.

I’ll holla at you next time.