More than one Sale — Easier options
I’ve never been one for selling, I certainly don’t regard myself as the best salesman, in fact if I could find something else that I’d rather be doing, believe me I’d do it.
To me selling is one of those things that just doesn’t come naturally to me but is essential to make a business grow and thrive.
I was going through my funnel, yes I do have one of those. What I noticed was that I had listed all my prospective clients on there but not my actual clients for follow up.
I was still digging for diamonds when actually I already have plenty of diamonds to work with.
When you start a business you are without any clients, this is what makes the challenge of starting a business so exciting and scary all in one go.
Yet we spend hours, days sometimes even weeks tracking down that one client, do the work but then don’t go back to them or market ourselves for more work.
Working with your existing clients is important for 3 reasons:
1. The Relationship
When you have existing clients to work with you already have the foundations of a positive business relationship. It is this relationship that you need to harness on an ongoing basis.
I’m talking more than just signing them up to your monthly or quarterly newsletter. I’m talking about giving them a call at least once a month, check in with them, find out how business is going and look for opportunities.
When you hear or see a potential opportunity, especially in the digital arena, talk to them about it and discover a pathway that you can help your client achieve their goal.
Of course it doesn’t all have to be business, I’m not saying you ask about their private life. However you could ask them, at the start of a meeting to name one thing that went well for this week and one thing that didn’t.
Working with an existing client further cements your relationship which can lead to referrals and more clients.
2. Selling to an existing customer is easier
We put countless effort into searching for new customers. Often, when we are pitching for new business we spend hours on our marketing. We get the logo right, we devise some gorgeous looking flyers, social media posts and even optimise our website for ranking on Google.
Whilst we’re doing all of this we’re forgetting one thing, the clients that are currently sat in your pool. The diamonds that you have worked so hard to get to previously are now sat and are being forgotten.
Selling to an existing customer is a lot easier, this is because they know you, they trust you and have already built a layer of mutual respect.
So don’t go off looking for diamonds when you could be sat on a bunch already.
3. Cross Sell
In the retail world cross selling is the art of selling a product that compliments an existing product. So for instance if you’re selling shoes the one product most people will need is shoe polish or a brush.
Cross selling a product at the point of purchase can help increase the overall order value making it possible that the customer will buy more.
The art of cross selling also applies in other business sectors including the services sector.
Remember: It is important that you harness and maximise your current customers before you pick up new customers. It is also far easier to sell to a customer you already have a relationship with than it is to a new customer.
Let me know how you get on.
