What's your database consist of? A bunch of piled unsorted business cards, an excel spreadsheet of outdated contact information, including a mix of few numbers in your palm pilot... Small businesses are often too busy making the widget, putting out the office fires, cutting checks etc. that they find themselves moving forward only after having taken two steps back.
Why is a current database important?
There are a number of reasons why:
1| If one of your staff needs to find info on a client or prospect, they should be able to easily access that info from a central location. Thus better serving your clients, because your staff is in the know.
2| If you want to send out a mailer specified for a particular segment of your database, then you should be able to easily locate the addresses for use.
3| You should be able to indicate which client is active, lapsed, or canceled.
4| You should keep in regular contact with all those in your database on a monthly basis...this constant personal touch helps generate more business.
5| Use it for storing up-to-date information on a client. Use it for gathering email addresses so that you can send out an e-newsletter each month. The uses for your database can go on and on.
