I know of a large company that is growing rapidly and their biggest success is traced back to contacting ten people everyday. The ten they contact are usually past customers and referrals from those customers. They almost never do cold calls, the information they send out is always welcome. You may recognize Olympia Funding as one of the top ten fastest growing companies in the California Bay Area. A lot can be learned from their methodologies. Olympia Funding started with one person, a large credit card debt and a great idea. They gained their first deal within two weeks of starting and have never looked back. Here are some things that you can do to plan for your list of ten.

1. Write down all the customers you currently have and if the list is very small, you can list all the business people who actually know you (not the ones you know)
   

2. Prioritize the list so that the customers that do the most business with you are at the top (if you do not have customers, put your best prospect that knows you at the top)
   

3. Look at your list once again, and determine which customers are likely to continue buying and which ones you have lost
   

4. Break the list up into three separate lists, one for current customers, one for customers that buy some things from you but do not give you all their business, and the last one for customers that have gotten away or are "potentials" that you have a relationship with.
   

5. Plan how you will make contact with your list. This may be in the form of a phone call, and email, a postcard or a meeting.
   
6. Select a combination of touch points that you feel comfortable with. I suggest a phone call or even send a card (see www.SendOutCards.com/11666
   

7. Plan what you want to say to the people on your list. Give them news, find out how they are doing, talk about how you can do more for them, and suggest a new restaurant they might be interested in.
   
8. You should know their interests ahead of time through the power page.
   

9. Practice your information so that it will sound casual when you are talking to them, if it sounds like you are reading a script, you will likely get a quick hang-up and a lost customer.
   

10. Plan to ask for referrals from them and make sure this is part of what you want to say. Asking for referrals is easy and if you are doing a great job with customer service, getting them will be easy as well.

Take any combination of ten from the list each day and call them or make a touch point in some form When your list is exhausted, and it is not likely to be because of referrals, start back at the beginning and keep going.

Planning your call list is the first step to increasing business. The key is to not do any cold calling; you should only call those you already know and particularly those who know you. In the next topic we will talk about how to prioritize the list and determine the best ten.