MAKING MORE WITH EXISTING CLIENTS
Saturday, May 7th, 2005MAKING MORE WITH EXISTING CLIENTS
by Charlie Cook
www.marketingforsuccess.com
Have you ever put on a jacket you haven’t worn in a while
and found a twenty-dollar bill in one of the 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 the 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 the engagements
rarely extend beyond the 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 the 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 the initial s.ale,
their marketing job is completed. The opposite is true.
Once you’ve made your first s.ale 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 the
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 the project.
This approach isn’t clever or devious; it is based on the
notion that an informed buyer — an educated consumer — is
your best client. Here’s how it works in practice:
1. Help Prospects Become Clients by Focusing on their
Problems
People buy solutions to problems or needs that they know
exist. Get your prospects’ attention by focusing your
marketing message on the problem(s) you solve in order to
get them to visit your web site or contact you. Then use
your conversation or your marketing copy to help prospects
further define their problems or concerns. Do this well and
they’ll clearly see the need for your products and
services.
2. Continue to Educate Prospects and Clients
Clients buy from you when they know how you can help them.
That’s why they initially contracted with you or bought
your products and services. Once you’ve signed on a new
client, don’t assume that they understand the range of
services or products you market. They may not even fully
understand what they’ve bought. Use each contact to
continue to educate your clients and help them understand
the issues, problems and solutions relative to your area of
expertise.
For example if you’re a financial advisor and you’ve been
hired to help a client with their investments, you might
ask them a q.uestion about their estate planning, tax
situation, insur.ance policies or retirement plan and
provide them with an idea they can use. Each time you do
this your client will learn how limited their own knowledge
is and understand more about why they need your assistance
in additional areas.
Instead of selling clients on additional services, educate
them. You’ll create a perception of need and increase
s.ales.
3. Transform Client Satisfaction into Additional Sales
Do you have clients and customers that appreciate your
products and services? Don’t wait until your contract is
complete to tap the goodwill you’ve generated by helping
them. Regularly ask them q.uestions designed to get
responses like, “I couldn’t have done it without you”,
“Worth every penny”, etc. Just after your clients have
provided positive feedback is the perfect time to ask them
a couple of q.uestions to identify needs and to mention the
solutions you provide.
Once you’ve gone to all the effort to attract a new client
don’t walk away from the rest of their needs just because
they haven’t identified or clarified them yet. Educate your
prospects and clients at every step of the way about the
problems you solve and they’ll understand why they need
more of your products and services. You’ll discover pockets
of opportunity to help your clients and increase your
revenue.
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2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
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The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals,
small business owners and marketing professionals attract
more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the
F.ree Marketing Plan eBook, ‘7 Steps to get more clients
and grow your business’ at
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
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