Recently, I attended a cooking demonstration at a local store. They did an excellent job. The demonstration covered exactly what it was advertised as. There weren’t too many people, so everyone could see what was being prepared. They kept everyone engaged for the full hour, and the samples at the end tasted as good as they looked.

The presenter used less than five minutes to display new products that were used in the preparation and point out where to find them in the store — not intrusive or distracting at all. So why do I bring this up in a blog post? Because they did make one major mistake. At no time in the entire process did the store get my name, number or email address. Not when I signed up for the class. Not when I arrived for the class. No “evaluate the class card.” No nothing.

Every business, no matter what you are providing to your customers must have some way to stay in contact with those customers. I’ve never purchased anything from that store yet, and while the class made me more inclined to go back and browse and shop, the store has no way to remind me of my great experience, no way to thank me for coming, no way to notify me of upcoming classes, and no way to connect with me.

Of course, not everyone who attends a class or demonstration will be willing to share their personal information. But you never know until you ask! Don’t put the time and effort into providing a high quality experience without remembering to ask for information and then put that information into your contact database. Don’t have a database? Tune in tomorrow for some thoughts on that!

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