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How to grow your Ideal Clients by 25% with zero cost of sales
| Guest post by: Liz Walker |
Article Overview: We are big fans of “growing loyalty” among Ideal Clients over pretty much any other business building tactic—it’s the lowest cost sales activity you will ever engage in, since you are already doing business with them, you already know what they want and need, and you can easily find out if they are being wooed by someone else. How easy is that?
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Free Download - What are you really good at? By Liz Walker |
How to grow your Ideal Clients by 25% with zero cost of sales
We are big fans of “growing loyalty” among Ideal Clients over pretty much any other business building tactic—it’s the lowest cost sales activity you will ever engage in, since you are already doing business with them, you already know what they want and need, and you can easily find out if they are being wooed by someone else. How easy is that?
And yet… we have hundreds of examples of business owners who not only don’t take advantage of this fantastic opportunity, they positively destroy it. See if you recognize yourself in these stories:
A customer who spends $100 a month in your hair salon calls to make an appointment only to find her favourite stylist has left. Did you keep a database of all the clients who came to the salon, which allowed you to contact them, tell them the news and offer them an incentive to remain a loyal client? If not, you lose $1200 a year.
A customer who has been leasing his upscale cars from you for years needs some emergency service. Your service centre is booked up so you tell him you’re just too busy. The customer not only takes the car somewhere else for service, he never comes back. Did you check to see how much that customer’s business was worth and find a way to accommodate him? If not, you lose a lifetime value of $500,000.
A customer buys over a thousand dollars in clothing and accessories from you. He is particular but happy to spend to get the quality he wants. He leaves the store and never hears from you again. Did you add him to your database with a checklist of his preferences so you could contact him when specials were available? If the answer is no, you lose the $10,000 he would have spent with you over the next five years.
What would it take not only to keep those customers, but “grow” their business by 25% without spending a cent you wouldn’t have spent anyway?
The first step is a database of every single customer who does business with you. If you can, link it to your point of sales system, so you know how much they spend, on what, and when. At least, set up a spreadsheet with columns as follows: first name, last name, street, town, postal code, phone, email, and a column you can put an X in for the kinds of products and services they buy. Since your computer already comes loaded with Excel, that’s free.
The second step is to sign up for an automated email service
Inspiring Local Success - June 2011
“BEST WAYS TO IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS & CUSTOMERS”
3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When They Create Information Products
How Branding Can Lead to a Business's Success...or Failure
3 Steps to Filling Your Pipeline with Eager Clients and Customers
Article Tags: appointment, business building, business owners, cars, doing business, emergency service, hair salon, lifetime value, loyal client, loyalty, next five years, point of sales system, stylist, tactic, thousand dollars
Referred by: http://www.makingprofitspour.com
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About the Author: Liz Walker RSS for Liz's articles - Visit Liz's website Click here to visit Liz's website   How to Thrive in Times Like These A Marketing Tool that Works Day and Night 247 7 Ideas Owners Must Consider About Succession Planning Why Small Businesses Wont Double Their Revenue This Year What are you really good at |
Related Forum Posts
Re: Who Did You Learn Most From and Why?
- Hi Martin,
You missed out on the most essential community that helps you grow - Your Clients. Well, I believe that my Initial Clients have been the ones who have given me the moments of 'aha' in my business. They have stood by me even when I was a starter and that has helped me shape and build my stand. They have helped me grow as an entrepreneur, learn to have loads of patience and make the most of what comes across. They have also helped me to strengthen me as a person.
btw, personally speaking, my Grandfather always kept me on track and lent me emotional support when I was down in any matter - be it business or otherwise.
20% increase
- One of my businesses uses a system to help business owners manage customer relationships and encourage more referrals.
I'm finding that this economy is making business owners take a second look at their business and it's assets (aka customers) to see how they can leverage them. Make those Customers (one-time sale) into Clients (repeat sales). I'm finding them more open to having this discussion with me and the results are speaking for itself.
Everyone I've worked with so far has seen at least a 20% increase in sales or referrals within 4-6 months all done by managing an existing relationship.
Re: Sales with no start up fees.
- Hey Mary,
Have you tried help wanted ads? There are a ton of IT & sales people out of work right now, if there is no cost to become a reseller, how about running an ad for a commission sales person that has sold advertising or software before?
Set them up with a reseller website, some business cards, provide some training and get them to get your leads onto a webinar using gotomeeting or one like that?
I have had success with this in other venues with sales, not software, but similar arena.
Avatars help conversion
- According to February's INC Magazine, avatars are great conversion tools.
They show a case study of a gift company called Say Thank You With Coffee that used an avatar and saw their sales jump 20%. The monthly cost through services like SitePal are $10-$50 / month.
Oh and female avatars produce twice as many sales as male avatars!
Re: Is Ewen Chia a SCAM artist?
- Hi T.J.
Ewen Chia is not a scam artist, he is a very good internet marketer, and considered a guru. Why? Because he is. He spent YEARS, before making his real money, all real gurus did, they just don't let you know that in their sales letter, this is why it's called sales letter, they only tell you how much money they make, with out sharing the hard work, the sleepless nights, and all the failures on the way to success.
He manged to build a name for himself, and many internet marketer follow him - that's a guru.
I never bought one of his books, but you DID made some sales, so it must be working for you. If you keep following his weekly plan, your sales will grow, and maybe one day you will share with others how you made your first million.
Ewen Chia, started with a PIPS site like me and and like 3 other moderators here in the forum, and many other members in this forum. Many people never get to keep their websites, some stick with it, and the strong ones, take off and build a business.
Last, if you are not happy you can always ask for a refund.
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