The Revenue Growth Habit: The Simple Art of Growing Your Business by 15% in 15 Minutes Per Day

28Growth Technique #11: Create Your Own Social Media—Relentlessly Grow Your Lists

A good list is one of the most powerful revenue growth tools a company has.

A list is valuable because it allows you to create your own social media.

If you're leading a small or mid-size company, and especially if you sell to other companies, your customers and prospects are not looking for you on social media. They are simply not deciding who to buy from based on anything anyone is going to write on Facebook or Twitter. Why focus on Facebook, where your customers and prospects are not looking for you, when you can be in their email inbox or on their desk, via a good list?

A list has many purposes, but its chief value to us within the scope of The Revenue Growth Habit is to allow you to communicate with many customers and/or prospects at once. It is the foundation on which your company-to-many communication is built. Without it, you really can't execute half of the effort that revenue growth requires.

Where to Maintain Your List

Clients and audience members often ask me about the best place to maintain their list.

Short answer: It doesn't matter.

Slightly longer answer: Keep it where you like, but the simplest solution is almost always best. And the simplest solution for most people is the one you already have. In order of simplicity, the following are good places for your list:

• A spreadsheet. Why not? A spreadsheet gives you one field per column and a quick ability to sort and organize your ...