It happened one day when I was in 6th grade. A girl in my class couldn't find her pen. Convinced that someone had taken it from her, she moved fervently around the room trying to find the guilty culprit. Her demands that the thief be revealed met with nothing but laughter. Infuriated by this public derision, she more adamantly insisted that her pen be returned THIS INSTANT! More laughter. I MEAN IT! Yet more laughter. The more frantic she became, the more the people laughed. The more the people laughed, the more frazzled she became. It was a cruel, downward cycle which seemed to have no end, until she exhausted herself and collapsed in her seat. Then, as if to hide her face from the taunting crowd, she lifted the lid of her desk and...

she found her pen.

It was right where it belonged
but the last place she ever thought to look.

As crazy as it may seem, most business owners act just like that little girl. They race around in a frenzy looking for new customers, thinking that's the best way to make more money. What they don't seem to realize is that the easy money is always where they should be looking in the first place;

In their database!

That's right! Just about every established business has a rich vein of untapped gold right under their nose—their database of existing customers! Ironically, it's oftentimes the case that this goldmine goes unnoticed until someone stops the merry-go-round long enough to literally sit down, take a break from the marathon of trying to find (more!) new customers and actually looks in their customer database.

You do have a database, right?

M...