Up selling/Cross Selling and Customer Retention.
The traditional way of working is to focus on bringing in new customers. To engage with and sell to them once we have them once we’ve attracted them in.
Once inside the sales process, whatever that may look like. Once they have purchased there is often a limited time for follow up and then.
Nothing.
Nothing is usually the bit that happens after.
Customers are then ignored.
Forgotten like a discarded item of rubbish.
Most businesses don’t even bother to collect names and addresses or log them in some kind of usable database.
I have no idea why.
Perhaps it is a fear of data protection or some other red herring that doesn’t make any sense.
But a customer that decides to buy from you. Has a reason for choosing you over every other option they have, including doing nothing.
They had a reason to chose you over everybody else in your industry and indeed in your locality. Your customer took some of their hard earned cash and decided to buy what it was that you offer.
This kind of infers that your customer wanted what you have and made an emotional decision to buy from you.
This means that your customer does like you. Does want to do business with you and would want to hear more from you.
Perhaps. You could send them timely reminders. Possibly you could offer them an extended warranty. Perhaps you could sell them extra products or even ask for referrals.
But you choose not to do that.
And I have no idea why? It is far easier to do business with people that have already done business with you.
To put some numbers on that let’s say a new customer cost you 10% of turnover.
Perhaps selling to existing customers would only cost you two or 3% then that would make you seven or eight percent more profitable.
So it makes good business sense.
I can absolutely assure you the more you do this the easier your life will become.
By life I mean business life and personal life because if business is simple then your personal life is also simplified.
This is the ultimate vaccine for your business.
If you want to make your business pandemic proof.
If you want to do business on your terms then owning customer data and using that customer data is a very powerful way of doing more with what you have.
This is the farming method of business rather than a hunting method.
If you are farming then you are in control.
If you are hunting you are relying on hope, you hope the prize is going to be in the woods today instead of knowing that your food source is growing in your own garden.
I specialise in working with small businesses to solve this particular problem. It’s not complicated nor is it expensive but it is incredibly valuable.
Most of the people in the your marketplace. Those of you that want to sell you lead generation or the next search engine optimisation tweak kind of gig, don’t wanna talk about farming because they don’t understand it.
Because they are not business development people they are just selling widgets and fancy tricks. Tactics that only apply for one game.
The big players in the market place, those that are stupidly rich tech firms, Understand this better than anybody.
That is why Google changes the algorithm every five minutes, that is why Facebook on TikTok and Twitter manage the feeds for you.
If you rely on these methods of marketing than you are not only battling the conversation inside the consumers head you’re also fighting the tech firms, the next algorithm change.
If you have a relationship with your customers then it doesn’t matter what happens with the tech firms, they can do what the hell they like and it will have no impact on your business because you know what the most important thing is.
And that is a relationship with your customer.
The next time you think about employing a consultant to provide you with marketing services, ask them if they are hunters or farmers.
I guarantee you they are not farmers, they are like a junkie constantly chasing their next fix.
Well the world has moved on if anything it’s going backwards because owning the conversation, owning the relationship has proven to be more important than anything else.
Keeping people close to you and actually building relationships with them is the way that we have traditionally lived our lives as human beings, it is something we are used to.
It is something that is built into our DNA something that won’t change for many years. Whereas algorithms come and go search engines come on go and tech firms come and go.
Just a few years ago Facebook was the thing and that is now being dwarfed by TikTok and Insta.
The problem you have is which platform do you choose to focus on.
My recommendation would be none and you go back to basics. Quill pen and ink if you want.
When you are ready to get a shimmy on with this please get in touch.