NOTE: WHILE I AGREE WITH BOB ON THESE SMALL BUSINESS TIPS, I WOULD SAY NUMBER 4 IS A BIT UNREALISTIC. RATHER, I WOULD SUGGEST YOU USE THESE TIPS TO ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE FOR CUSTOMERS YOU ALREADY HAVE AND YOU USE ADVERTISING TO BRING IN NEW ONES.=DP
The 4 Easiest Ways to Make More Money
1. Increase your customer base.
The easiest way to gain new customers is to sell to those already in the market, those already buying the products and services you sell. If they are not buying them from you they are buying them from your competition. All you have to do is take customers away from your competition. It’s not always easy to do. You never want to use the cutthroat, lower price tactics. You won’t make the profit you need and desire, and a customer gained through low price will be easily lost when a competitor offers them a lower price. It’s also hard to take a customer away from the competition because of the loyalty people have to their suppliers. The longer the prospective customer has been a customer of the competition, the more loyalty they have to the
2. Increase your selling price. I have never seen a business in any industry, that is providing superior service, that cannot raise their selling price 1%-3%. You do the math for your business. Take last year’s profits and add 1%-3% to them. I am sure you will be presently surprised.
3. Sell more of your products and service to each customer. The easiest extra products and services to sell to your present customers are add-on’s. Products and services than enhance the main product/service. There is a rule, called the 1/3 rule of selling add-on’s — 1/3 of your customers will purchase add-on’s if you merely mention the add-on product during your sales process, 1/3 of your customers will purchase add-on’s if you actively sell them and 1/3 of your customers will not purchase your add-on’s unless you actively hard sell them.
4. Lower your marketing and selling costs.
a. Stop supporting media advertisers.
b. Use word of mouth advertising. You must create your own word of mouth advertising. You already have the tools paid for. You already have the best and most effective means to make word of mouth advertising work. Your sales and sales support staff. Train everyone in your business to use the 3 ft. rule. “Anyone within 3 feet of you knows who you are and how you can solve their problems, needs and wants.”
When you out-market, and out-service your competition you will out-sell them. And you do not have to spend extra and in most cases, as much of your marketing / selling dollars to do so if you sell the benefits the customer will receive when doing business with you. Even if they are the same benefits your competition offers, in most cases your competition is not selling them — or not reminding the customers all they do for them.
Powerhouse USA 