By: Ruth King
Here are four easy things to generate additional revenue:
- Review your customer files. They are a gold mine.
One of the first questions I always ask new clients is how many customers are in your database? How many customers are active customers (you’ve done business with them in the past 18 months)? Usually the number of customers in the file is much greater, sometimes exponentially greater, than the number of active customers.
Reactivate your inactive customers. Send a postcard (or three) with the theme “We want you back.” You’ll be surprised at how many call you and say “we thought you had gone out of business since we hadn’t heard from you in a long time.”
These people have purchased from you at least once. Give them a reason to purchase from you again!
- Review your proposal files. They are a gold mine.
When do you give up? When is a lead “dead”? The only time a lead is dead, according to Mike Ratchford, President of Texas Premier Safeguard (mike@txpsg.com), is when the potential customer dies or moves out of your service area. Any other condition, keep talking with her. Keep marketing to her.
What if the potential customer bought from your competition? Keep talking with her. You never know when she had an awful experience and would never buy from that company again. Or, your competition sells a product to your prospect and never talks with him again. There was interest in your products. Keep that person on your mailing list. Perhaps next time she will buy from you. Or, use your company for service.
What if the customer never bought? You won’t know unless you call her. Six months later find out. If she hasn’t bought, this might be time to buy. You’ll probably be the only person who follows up and you’ll probably get the job. Don’t be surprised if you get the question, “Is the price still good?” That means there still is interest.
Review your proposals every quarter. Contact those people you haven’t heard from and find out whether they have bought or not. You’ll probably win more sales.
- Review your tickler files. They are a gold mine.
At a service call last year, your customer might have said, “I’ll wait until after the holidays to fix it.” It’s now after the holidays. That customer and her potential work, should be in a tickler file. Pull the information from the file, call her and reminder her, politely, about the work that still needs to be done. You will get additional revenues.
If you don’t have a tickler file, start one this fall. To find work, review the service tickets from last year. It’s there. You just have to find it.
- Ask for Referrals. Your Customers who refer are a gold mine.
Asking for referrals is as simple as putting a statement at the bottom of your service tickets, on proposals, and the back of your business cards.
The best way to grow your company is through referrals from happy customers. Remind customers that you appreciate referrals by putting a statement on your service tickets and business cards.
Print “We grow our company through referrals from satisfied customers. If we provided excellent customer service, please tell your friends and colleagues. If we did something wrong, please tell us and we will fix it. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction.”
This statement lets a customer know that you are serious about providing outstanding customer service and that you appreciate referrals. Some will call you with referrals. Some will let you fix a problem rather than spreading the fact that they were unhappy to friends, neighbors, and social media.
Seeing a “gold mine pattern?” Just mine the gold. You have the customer base. Be proactive and talk with your customers. Implement these simple ideas. They can help you generate revenues.
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