You should be spending twice as much time selling more to your existing customers as you spend looking for new sales. Photo / Thinkstock
One of my favourite marketing experts is Bob Serling www.profitalchemy.com
I received an email from Bob a few weeks ago with the intriguing headline
'While you are reading this email you are losing money'.
I read the email and really liked what Bob had to say. So I thought I would share some of his comments with you.
Over to Bob:
While you're reading this email, you're losing sales. A lot of sales.
Why is this happening? It's simple, really.
You see, every business has a preferred, but limited way that it was built.
You used one method of prospecting and one method of conversion to build your business.
That was fine at the time.
But the problem is because you're comfortable with what got you here, you've stuck with that one type of prospecting and that one type of conversion all these years.
And that's why you're losing a lot of sales while you read this.
Because when you remain focused on a limited way of doing things, you get stuck in a rut. You get tunnel vision.
And that means you're missing out on a number of much larger and easier ways to substantially increase your profits.
Let me give you a couple of specific examples:
Profit Example 1 - The unlimited value of your customer list
I can practically guarantee that right now, you can't tell me exactly how many people on your email list are paying customers and how many are prospects who have never bought anything.
This is a critical error.
Because it also means that you aren't focusing enough attention on your paying customers.
So write this down.
You should be spending twice as much time selling more to your existing customers as you spend looking for new sales.
Studies have shown that a customer who has already bought something from you is at least 10 times more likely to buy again than a new prospect.
Plus, they're easier to reach, cost nothing to reach and already know that they like your company.
So selling more of your products or services to paying customers is the easiest source of increased profits you'll ever find.
Nothing else can even come close to this for increasing your profits.
Profit Example 2 - You're still stuck on selling only your own products
Here's another example of the worst kind of business tunnel vision.
The majority of businesses never look beyond the product or service they sell to identify other products their customers would want.
But every time a customer buys something, there are a number of associated products or services they're going to want as well.
Let's say you sell clothing for bicycle enthusiasts.
Well, your customers are also going to be interested in helmets, bicycles, bike racks for their cars, vitamins, vacations to areas that are bike friendly... and much more.
Plus - and this is the most important part, they would love to have recommendations they can trust for all of those things.
So you could easily create strategic alliances with many other companies to sell those things to your customers.
And you would get a commission of up to 50 per cent of the profits for each sale that's made.
Think about this.
With 5 or 6 quality alliances, you could potentially make as much or more with these added sales as you make with your core products.
Bob's email reminded me that it's very easy to get stuck in doing things a certain way and we often miss great opportunities to improve our results in the process.
Bob notes that if you spend the majority of your time and effort trying to find new customers, you're making a serious and costly mistake.
That's because the fastest and easiest sales you'll ever make come from using more effectively the assets you already have.
Some of these assets include your existing products, services, marketing pieces, customer loyalty, reputation, and more.
Bob recently created a new eBook that shows 42 no cost, no risk ways to turn these existing assets into immediate sales and new profits.
It's called 'The Profit Optimisation Play Book' and it's yours free of charge.
You can grab your copy at this link: http://www.ProfitAlchemy.com/tpop
I found this Ebook very useful and it's definitely worth reading.
My big takeaway from reading Bob's comments in his email and his 'Profit Optimization Playbook' is that there are dozens of low risk marketing strategies that we could be using in our businesses to improve our sales and profits.
We just have to be open to trying some of these strategies.
'You will enrich your life immeasurably if you approach it with a sense of wonder and discovery, and always challenge yourself to try new things.'
Nate Berkus
Action Exercise:
Look for ways to increase the sales and profits in your business that don't involve investing large amounts of money or time to put into action. (And if you want some practical ideas to help you do this then the Ebook from Bob is worth reading.)
The Government has committed funding to the sector in an effort to support future plans.