Have you ever put on a jacket you haven’t worn in a while and found a twenty-dollar bill in one of
pockets? You'd forgotten all about it, so discovering it is like getting a gift. If you've been in business for a year or longer, you may have gifts in forgotten pockets — sources of additional revenue waiting to be discovered and tapped.There are four ways to increase your net profits: reduce costs, increase prices, attract more clients or sell more to existing clients. When you consider that it costs you at least 60% and as much as 600% more to sell to a new client than to an existing one, it's clear that your best prospects are existing clients.
Are you selling as many of your services or products as you could to your existing client base? Could you increase your revenue by doing a better job of marketing to your existing clients?
You've established your credibility and value of at least one of your services with existing clients. They made a commitment to work with you at least once. How can you leverage this trust and client satisfaction into additional sales?
Tony called me from Washington D.C. with just this problem. He is an image consultant to politicians and corporate executives and struggling to increase his revenue. His new clients are happy with his services, but engagements rarely extend beyond initial contracted project. He is having a tough time getting repeat business. Tony knows his existing and past clients represent additional revenue but he doesn’t know how to mine it.
Once you have a client, what's best way to sell them more of your products or services?
The biggest mistake that most small business owners make is to think that after they've competed initial sale, their marketing job is completed. The opposite is true. Once you've made your first sale to a client and secured a commitment from them with a payment, you should begin your marketing effort to get them to buy again.
Of course, you don't want to constantly be "selling" to clients. That would get tedious for you and your customers and they'd be unlikely to want to maintain relationship. Instead, continue to educate them about their areas of need and how you help clients. Use your products and services to provide value and to educate clients so they can discover what they need and want, even if they've n.ever thought about it before.
For example, I've been working with a sports trainer to complete my recovery from shoulder surgery. In our first session he showed me which muscles needed to be reprogrammed with exercise to return to normal functioning. The obvious conclusion of his explanation was that I needed to work with him again to achieve my goals. Just by sharing a little knowledge he successfully extended project.
