How Do You Keep Them Buying?

This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.

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There are many proven and time-honored strategies for generating consistent revenue. The simplest one involves gathering contact information from people in your target market, and then bombarding them with product/service offerings. The underlying assumption is that since they’ve given you their contact information, they’ve also given you permission to market to them. All you have to do is continue developing products/services and offer them to your list of contacts.

It’s a good strategy. However, a problem exists in the intial question, "How do you keep them buying?" The question relegates one of your most valued assets – your network – to the position of cash cow that you can milk for all they’re worth. Have you ever felt like one of those cash cows? If so, how did that make you feel about the company who was trying to milk you?

I’m not meaning to sound self-righteous here. I realize we’re all in business to make a living and take care of our families. However, the companies who execute this strategy most effectively do so from a foundation of respect and genuine concern for the people in their network. They don’t start by asking: "How do we keep them buying?" They start by asking: "How do we continue injecting value into our network?"

Forget marketing. Think: feed your network.