Let’s get straight to the point. The biggest and most important asset of your home business is your database.

Without a database of past, present and potential customers, you may as well spend the rest of your working years experiencing the roller coaster of feast and famine. Constantly chasing around like a puppy trying to catch its tail.

Yes, that’s right. The puppy never gets its tail. It just gets very, lumecreation very dizzy.

And so will you unless you focus your marketing activities and developing your business around building a database.

When you are starting up a home business, you are usually starting with nothing. You may have re-trained and starting a new career path with a new skill. You may have decided to take what you did in Corporate life and do it for yourself. You may have found a product that you want to sell and you are building a retail business.

But if you are starting a business from your dining room table or spare bedroom (or even one of those amazing converted sheds in the garden – yes, I am jealous!) it is highly unlikely that you are starting with a database of people who have all expressed an interest in what you do and are ready to buy. metrowater

This is why starting a new business from home can be so daunting and is one of the main reasons why many women give up.

Without any customers, business is not business.

Without any customers, business just isn’t fun.

And I know you want to have a “proper” business and be successful. And I am sure you want to have fun with it, too.

OK, so you get my point that having a database is King. But how do you go about this?

Here are my top ways of focusing your business activities on building a database.

1. Automate your buying process. Whether you are marketing events, selling high-end products or providing consultancy services, the more you automate your buying process, the easier it will be to build a database. You will be able to remember to ask for their email address at the same time as their mailing address. You won’t forget to ask how they found out about you. tobabet4d-slot

2. Get your buying process online if you can. People expect to pay with credit cards now. The Internet is not a scary place for most of the population now. Online shopping carts are so easy to run and you don’t need to spend a small fortune on getting a customised one built for you.

3. Ask for a referral every time. Are you too polite to ask for a referral? Or are
you just too scared to get a rejection? If you are providing a quality product or service and your customers are delighted to be paying you money, it is criminal not to ask each and every one “who else do you know who may be interested in what I do?”

4. Run a competition. I know a competition can be cheesy, but most people can’t resist an offer of a prize. It could be as simple as pulling a business card out of a hat at the next networking event you attend. Or be creative and run a slogan writing or silly photo competition. Why do you think a restaurant offers those pictures for children to colour in? They always ask for the parent’s name and address for them to send them a prize and yes, ask you check the box to say you would like to receive marketing information from them.

5. Offer a free report or regular newsletter full of top tips. Sell this on your website rather than your products or services and you will soon have a database of people who trust and respect what you do. These people are more likely to buy from you over time than cold from a website they have visited for the first time.