If I asked you what the most important asset in your kitchen business is, what would you say?
There are all sorts of potential answers - superior products, terrific showroom, high-performing staff, manufacturing facilities and plant, the list goes on and on.
But I’d like to propose that there’s something even more important than that:
Your database of people that can buy your services or sell them on to the end user.
It really does trump everything else, especially if you sell to Trade. Yet most kitchen businesses that I come into contact with don’t seem to recognise it.
Their list of contacts stays in a paper diary, or in client files, and nothing is done with it on a regular basis.
If this describes your kitchen business, then I’ve got news: you’re leaving money on the table.
Let’s think about it logically - if you had an incredibly strong relationship with all the people in your local area who could buy from you, would you make more sales?
The answer is a clear and obvious, ‘Yes’.
The logic follows then that if you take steps to enhance your relationship with more of the right people, more sales will flow as a result.
How do you enhance that relationship? Simply by engaging with them, and it’s your database that allows you to do that – after all, no good relationship is one-sided, and if you haven’t got anyone to engage with, not a lot of engagement will be going on.
You can do that by - picking up the phone, sending out useful and relevant emails, sticking something in the post – but whatever you do, it needs to happen regularly.
The more you communicate with your database, and the more you add value to them, the more you’ll be elevated in their minds, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.
The value of your business can be defined by the relationship you have with your list.
What are you doing right now to regularly engage with your database and bring them closer to you?
P.S. You may be thinking, “This is all well and good, but I sell to the public and they’re only ‘in the market’ for a kitchen once every 15 years – what’s the benefit of me engaging regularly with them?” If that’s you, I’ll explain all in my next post…
