1. Increase the value of each sale. This means get clients to spend more money with you each
   time they buy. To use the previous example, if instead of getting $100 per month, you get $125
   per month, you are now making $750 instead of $600 for each client.
   
   

   Increasing the value of each sale is actually quite easy. You can do it through up-selling, where
   you offer a more comprehensive version of the product or service they’re buying. If you go
   to a fast food joint, they’ll up-sell you on larger fries or a drink for a few cents more. If you buy
   a gadget, you might have the option to purchase a longer warranty or more convenient
   customer service.

   You can also use cross-selling, which is suggesting your customer buys an additional item
   along with their purchase. Online stores do this all the time. If you add something to your
   shopping cart, they’ll recommend additional items that people who bought the item you’re
   about to buy also purchased.

   And finally, you can package or bundle several items together and offer a discounted price.
   For instance, an item might cost $25 each, but if you buy a package deal of three of them, you
   can get the package for $60.

2. Productize your knowledge. Offer your expertise in bite-sized chunks such as books,
   ebooks, cds, teleseminars, and live events for a smaller fee than you’d charge for one-on-
   one services.
   
   

   Informational products provide a number of advantages. They allow you to leverage your
   time, so instead of only getting paid per hour or by project, you can create a passive revenue
   stream. They also allow you to help far more people than those you’d be limited to just by
   working with the handful of clients you can manage at a time.

   In addition, informational products can help you market your higher-end services. People
   that buy your lower-end products often use that as a springboard to purchase your more
   expensive offerings. They’re also a great way to prequalify people to work with you because
   they’ve already shown that they are committed to investing in their success by buying from you.

3. Increase the number of times clients and customers buy from you. So many businesses
   focus on getting that first sale but never try to sell their new client anything else. Yet clients
   who have already bought from you are the most likely candidates to buy from you again.
   Many businesses will actually take a loss on the first sale because they know once they get
   someone to buy from them once, those clients and customers will buy more, higher priced
   items. You’ve probably seen book clubs that will sell you 5 or 10 books for less than $10 total,
   provided you’ll purchase 5 more books over the next two years.
   
   

   Another way businesses make money with repeat sales is by offering some type of
   continuity program. This could mean for an additional small monthly fee, they’ll receive
   a subscription to the company’s newsletter or membership program, or it could be a monthly
   retainer fee for consulting services. The business automatically bills the client’s credit card
   each month until he or she wants to stop the services.

4. Track client buying patterns and anticipate when they will be ready to re-order. If you have
   clients or customers that make repeat purchases, you can monitor their reorder rate and call
   them up just before they usually reorder. You see this with service professionals like dentists
   or hair salons. Your dentist may notice it’s been six months and you’re due for a checkup but
   you haven’t yet made your appointment, so they’ll send you a postcard or give you a phone
   call. If you regularly get your hair cut but haven’t come in for awhile, they might send you an
   email asking if you’d like to schedule your appointment. You’ll also see this with office supply
   stores who want you to reorder your stationary or with magazines, who want you to renew
   your annual subscription.
5. Reduce the number of clients who stop doing business with you. You may notice that
   clients only stay with you a certain amount of time and then slip away – either to your
   competitors or because they forget to re-purchase. Similar to tracking your clients’ buying
   patterns, you can also anticipate when people are more likely to leave – especially if you offer
   some type of continuity program. Over time, people will drop out, but if you can preempt
   them by sending a free gift or additional perk for being such a loyal subscriber, it will often
   make them think twice about leaving.
6. Reactivate former clients who you haven’t heard from in awhile. Every business has former
   clients who for one reason or another stopped doing business with them. Unless they had a
   horrible client experience with you, sending them a quick “we haven’t heard from you in
   awhile and we want you back” offer may be all it takes to get them to buy from you again.
7. Increase the number of referrals you receive. Ask your best clients for referrals. You can
   make it worthwhile for them to tell others about you by putting a referral reward system in
   place where you offer them simple things like store gift cards, movie passes, or other services
   in exchange for their referrals. Referrals from good clients are often much easier to sell
   because they’re already pre-sold. They’ve already heard about what a great job you’ve done
   for their friend or colleague, so you already are trustworthy and credible in their eyes and it
   takes much less effort to convert them into a paying client.

As you can see, there are numerous strategies you can start implementing today to bring in new business. By using even one or two of these strategies, you can grow your revenue substantially.

The post 7 Ways to Generate More Money From Clients appeared first on GetClientsToday.com.

What they often overlook is that attracting new clients isn’t the only way to grow profits. In fact, it is far easier to make money by selling more to your existing clients.

There are two key strategies for making more money from clients:

1. Upselling – Offering one or two similar, higher priced options. For instance, you might offer a Silver, Gold and Platinum option. Keep it to three – you don’t want to overwhelm customers. This way, your customers have a choice. If they want added features, they pay more – and many will choose one of the higher priced options.
2. Cross Selling – Offering similar products and services to the one your customers are about to buy or have already bought. Order a sandwich at any fast food place and they will immediately ask you, “Do you want fries with that?” It doesn’t cost them anything more to ask – and many times, customers will take them up on the offer.

Like McDonalds, you can sell your customers on add-on products and services or even more expensive ones. The key is to figure out what clients really want – and then offer them a few choices.

How to Upsell Products and Services

The key to upselling and cross selling products and services is to identify what other products and services prospects buy before, in addition to, and after they buy from you and then do one or more of the following:

• create additional products and services that meet those wants or needs (i.e. buy Product A for $17 or similar Product B which is a more complete solution and has a much higher perceived value for $27)
• bundle several of your products together to create a great deal (i.e. “buy two, get one free”)
• partner with others who offer those products and services so you can sell them to your customers (i.e. “If you like Product A, you may also find Affiliate Product B valuable. Here’s a discount coupon so you can try it out.” The discount code allows your partner to track sales and, potentially, give you a referral fee.)

Once your prospect has made a decision to buy, they are already in “buying mode.” They have their credit card in hand and are ready to solve their problem. If you give them a few choices at this point, many will be likely to take the “better or more complete” – and therefore, higher-priced – option.

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Selling is a five-step process that involves:

1. Identifying your niche’s problems. People buy products and services to solve problems. They buy the benefits and results they will receive once they have used your product or received your services. They aren’t nearly as interested in what you do and how you do it as what the finished result will look like and how it will improve their lives. What keeps prospects up at night? What are their motivations for buying?
2. Educating prospects with useful information. what mistakes or secrets can you share with prospects so they get instant results now? Do you have a quick technique they can implement and see an immediate benefit? Share your most valuable tips and tricks so prospects can see your advice in action. Once they see you know what you are talking about, they will be much more likely to buy.
3. Positioning yourself as a trusted advisor. People don’t want to be sold, but they are desperate to find someone who can help them navigate through all the information out there. Show them you are a go-to expert by speaking, publishing regular content, or even writing a book. Today, anyone can self-publish a book through sites like CreateSpace and Lulu.
4. Building relationships. People buy from those they know, like and trust. Those things take time to develop. But as prospects come to expect your weekly newsletter or podcast, they will look forward to receiving a new tip from you. With each helpful piece of correspondence, you build a little more good will. As prospects see your personality in your writing or speaking, they will come to know you better – thus making the sale much easier.
5. Leveraging technology to follow up. With databases like Act! and autoresponders, following up with prospects can be simple. Create a series of emails, letters, audio or video you can send prospects over time to educate them about their problems and how you can help. The internet makes it possible to pre-sell prospects so when you do talk with them on the phone or face-to-face, they already know a lot about how you might help.

Modern selling isn’t a matter of making the quick sale and disappearing from customers’ lives. You don’t have to be pushy or feel like the proverbial “snake oil” salesmen who peddled products that just didn’t work. Rather, if you have products and services that add considerable value to your prospects’ lives, you owe it to them to get the word out about why they should buy.

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1. Focus on quality leads, not quantity. With mass marketing, the idea was to generate as many leads as possible, regardless of quantity. This meant you had to sift through a lot of poor prospects to find the ones most likely to buy. Now, the focus has shifted on quality leads – those who are most likely to have a need for your product or service, are willing to pay for it, and who want to buy soon.
2. Focus on prospects’ problems, not what you offer. Traditional selling was about pitching your products and services to anyone who would listen – and hounding them repeatedly until they bought. With modern selling, annoying your prospects doesn’t work. If they have a poor perception of your business, they can spread the word about their negative experience quickly. Instead, focus on educating prospects about their problems and concerns, build a relationship with them, and do more listening than talking.
3. Focus on dialog, not message. With traditional selling, you controlled the message people heard because they didn’t have many other options for getting that information. Now, no matter what problem prospects have, the answer is a Google search away. With more information available, prospects have more control over the information they use to make decisions. They control the process. They buy when they are ready. And they actively avoid pushy sales pitches.
4. Focus on education, not spending advertising dollars. With traditional marketing and selling, the more you spent, the higher your profits. Prospects were easy to reach because of the limited number of media channels. There were only so many tv and radio stations, published books, and trade magazines. Now, customers segment themselves by consuming the media they want on their time. They buy satellite radio or Tivos or install internet ad blockers to avoid advertising. They have hundreds of thousands of ways to entertain themselves and even if you had a million dollar marketing budget, you still couldn’t reach everyone. So you have to go where the “best” prospects for your business are and educate them about the issues they are most concerned about. Otherwise, they will ignore you.
5. Focus on building relationships, not immediate sales. Traditional sales focused on making that initial sale. If their customers didn’t buy again, they just found someone else to buy. Now, selling has shifted to building relationships through follow up so that when you acquire a customer, you can sell them additional stuff they might also be interested in.

With so many choices, your prospects are in control of their purchasing decision. If they don’t like something about your company, products or services, or delivery, they can quickly find other options. The modern approach to selling accepts that you have lots of competitors – and that the secret to winning customers is to focus on building long term relationships with them.

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These days, no one has the time or attention span to listen to your sales pitch. I routinely get cold calls from people trying to sell me computer systems and printers, head hunters looking to find available jobs, and charities begging for money. All get transferred directly to voice-mail.

No one likes being interrupted or harassed by sales people who claim that if we only take 30 minutes out of our day to listen to them, they are certain they can help us.

What your prospect is really thinking is, “I didn’t ask for your call. I don’t know anything about you. I don’t think I have that problem. So why bother me? Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? I certainly do.”

How to Find Interested Prospects

As a business owner, you might be thinking, “Well, how else do I find potential buyers?” That is why education-based marketing is so important.

I (and, I suspect, you) don’t have time to listen to someone pitch me a product or service I don’t feel I need, but those products and services I do want, I actively seek information about.

If you cold call me, I won’t feel guilty about not returning your call – even if it is something I might be potentially interested in. I’m just not ready to talk with someone. I’m busy doing the thousand other things that require my attention today.

But, if I am interested and you send me a letter or postcard advertising your top 7 mistakes report, it has a much higher chance of catching my attention. And I might visit your website to download it because I can take action on my terms.

In the traditional model, sales people push their products and services onto anyone who might listen.

The modern approach is to offer bites of valuable information, let prospects respond on their terms, and continue the marketing and sales system as a dialog.

The only way you can create a dialog with prospects is to focus on them – their reality, their problems.
Initially, they don’t care about you. They don’t want to know how long you have been in business, how much experience you have, or the process you use to deliver your services. They only care about themselves and their problems.

How Do You Sell in the Modern World?

Modern selling isn’t instantaneous. It is about building relationships that will last for the long-term. Here are 4 steps to better selling.

1. Provide value first. Your marketing can do much of the sales work for you – but you have to focus on educating prospects about ways to solve their most pressing problems. If you focus on closing during each interaction, you will turn prospects off.
2. Be a trusted advisor. People like to buy from those they know, like and trust. They buy from you because you have established over the long term you have their best interests at heart.
3. Realize trust is earned. Solid relationships are based on ongoing communication. One phone call usually isn’t enough to build enough rapport, demonstrate your expertise, and establish credibility to close the sale.
4. Not everyone is a good fit. It can be easy to focus solely on the sale when you are short on cash, but only take on clients you can establish a good working relationship with and can genuinely help. Sometimes it is best to turn away “bad” prospects and focus your limited resources on those who will appreciate you.

The key to success in business is to build a base of loyal followers. You can’t do that if you are too focused on short-term profits.

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