Money Right Under Your Nose

Work with enough frustrated business owners, and you see a trend: when growth is stalled, the ideas get more… creative. Unfortunately, it’s usually less of a healthy creativity and more in the vein of, “Well nothing else seems to work.” In other words, desperation.

If you’ve been there, you get it. I’ve been there. The temptation is to focus on “cracking the code” as though getting growth going again is a mystery and the answer has stayed hidden.

Expensive (ineffective) marketing campaigns.

Disappointing sales hires.

Far too many whiteboard sessions that never become actionable.

It all echoes the Acres of Diamonds story… You know, the one where the farmer slowly destroys his life and wealth searching for diamonds when his own farmland–which he sold during his searching–contained acres of diamonds.

Before you try to reinvent the wheel and get new business flowing again, there’s very likely one place you haven’t dug. More importantly, it’s also the least mysterious way to find out what your ideal customer is looking for and how you can provide it…

Today, we’re talking about expanding your existing, healthy client relationships.

Resisting the Pull of the Silver Bullet

If you’re an ideator, you may always feel a tug towards a bigger vision or an untapped opportunity that has yet to be unlocked. When growth is stalled, you find yourself looking for the next big deal or thing that will get growth going again.

If you are a tactician of sorts, then that reach is for some new shiny tactic or maybe just tuning up the volume on existing ones.

Re-igniting revenue growth is rarely a matter of one or two new tactics. It is also rarely some one-off event. In reality It’s a strategic question. Often one that was unanswered to begin with or answered so long ago it no longer applies.

Simply: Do we have an offer that our ideal customer really wants (more so needs? And do we communicate that in a clear, compelling way?

No investment into SEO, a new website, or top sales talent can fix a broken value proposition.

Before you dump thousands into new campaigns, it pays (literally) to revisit the alignment between your offer and your ideal customers.

How to Engage Your Existing Best Customers

This is a key part of the playbook we run when it comes to getting you out of park and into first gear in terms of revenue growth. Call it generating lift to get you off the revenue plateau.

Before you aggressively attempt to expand into new markets and client bases, it’s likely you aren’t capitalizing on the full potential of your existing, healthy relationships.

We recommend you go to your best customers (not always your biggest ones…) and ask them questions like:

1. What made you decide to buy from us instead of someone else?
2. How does our product/service help you accomplish your goals?
3. Have you seen any ways we can improve the value you’re getting from us?
4. Are there any other areas of your business where you’re saying “I wish someone could solve ______ for us?”

Questions 1-3 are invaluable in their own right for helping you understand the buying process and thinking of your best customer.

Question 4 is where I want to focus for now.

Expanding Revenue From Good Clients

I’m sure you’ve heard it said, “The hardest sale to make is the first one.” My experience generally confirms this, save for a few unique business models.

Why? Because every purchase requires some degree of trust. If you can build enough trust for the first purchase–and you serve them well–you are well positioned for future purchases where there’s additional value.

That’s why every business owner should always be looking for ways to build more revenue on healthy relationships.

I know that thought has crossed your mind before, but here are a few actionable ways you can do this.

1.) Identify adjacent needs your best customers have.

This is Question #4 I mentioned above. I’ve worked with many owners that found fresh growth right under their nose. It’s usually summed up by the phrase, “Well, you weren’t offering that.”

A client of ours in pharmaceutical trial translations is a masterful example of this. By and large, their competitors were only offering direct translation, but their clients then had to apply those translations to standardized medical forms. They leveraged their specialization and offered these forms as an available option for delivery. Instant revenue added PLUS it re-enforced their brand as the top specialized name in the space.

All it takes is asking for your best customers to say, “I wish someone would ______.”

2.) Sell support that maximizes the ROI of your offer.

This is especially important if you sell a product. We all know that customers who buy from you might not experience the full value of your offer due to user error. Or maybe you sell a piece of equipment that requires maintenance to stay online and at peak performance.

If this sounds like you, consider bundling an additional offer that gives you recurring revenue and the opportunity to deliver more value. It’s all about maximizing customer outcomes.

3.) Consider recurring offers that address risk.

Risk-related value propositions can be powerful when well positioned. It’s not for every business, but in the right situations, it’s a no-brainer for your best clients.

One quick example–we worked with an equipment manufacturer who provided a critical machine to their clients’ operations. How critical? We did the math of how much revenue is lost for every hour one of these machines is offline plus how many “hours” it usually takes to get one back online. Your average unplanned downtime cost well into 5 figures… 

Suddenly, a rapid-response maintenance subscription was no brainer for clients, even at a somewhat premium rate.

What win-win scenarios can you create for your clients?

Where’s Your “Hidden Diamond”?

Every business is different, but nearly every owner I’ve worked with had some version of their “hidden diamond”. Maybe it was a subscription offer. Maybe it was onboarding assistance. Maybe ongoing training for users.

If you need to get growth going again, you might want to start by seeing how you can provide more value to your best customers.

It may take some creativity–or just a veteran outside perspective. This is a key part of what we do for owners who want to grow their business purposefully. 

In fact, schedule 30 minutes with me and we can discuss this exact question for your business. You’ll get to see the way we work and bring insight to the table. I think you’ll find no “secret sauce” guru-sphere magic. Just a methodical, decades-deep approach to helping you get revenue growing again.

Grab a time on my calendar, and let’s get you back on your way.