The Power of Lists: The Ultimate Business Growth Strategy

I have always been amazed by the power of lists. When I built my first multimillion-dollar business in the martial arts industry, it all started with a mailing list — an old-school, snail-mail list of roughly 12,000 martial arts schools. After my first mailing, 4,000 returned as undeliverable or out of business. However, despite the initial setback, I managed to sell 100 manuals at $149 each to the remaining 8,000.

Over the next decade, I built a national franchise of 400 schools, all on the back of 1,148 names — the number of people who bought my first manual in the first year. Those 1,148 names generated several million dollars in income for the next seven years.

In the early 2000s, I ventured into the golf marketing business. I spent days harvesting emails of golf clubs, one by one. From that effort, I once again built a multimillion-dollar business, using the power of email rather than traditional mail.

Three years ago, I co-founded an online horse training business with Linda Parelli, the world’s number one horse trainer. Now, I know nothing about horses — at least, not the kind that aren’t badges on my car — but I do know the power of lists. Setting out to build a strong list quickly, we were able to turn a simple idea into a million-dollar business using nothing more than a few thousand…