Use this one tip and it will prove to be one of the EASIEST ways to grow your business. Wondering what that tip is?
FOLLOW-UP! That’s right. You’ve heard it said before that ‘fortune is in the follow-up’ and it’s true. Now personally, whether you call it follow-up or keep-in touch, it’s pretty much the same thing! It’s about you & your business building/strengthening your relationship with prospects, current and past customers.
Why is follow-up such a good return on investment? Let’s review for a minute. If we think about it, there are actually 3 ways to grow a business:
- get more customers
- sell more stuff to your current customers at each transaction
- sell more frequently to your current customers.
The last 2 strategies are about working with your CURRENT customer base to increase your sales! It’s a well known fact that it costs 8-10 times more to develop a new customer than it does to work with a current customer (now that’s a whole other blog post). So continuing to keep in touch with your current customers is not only cheaper but it’s much more effective.
Your current customers already know you; they like you and they TRUST you! If you make a suggestion for a subsequent purchase, your current customers are much more likely to purchase from you than a prospect that has just met you!
So it begs the question — how do we keep in touch with current customers or even past customers? I can hear the excuses already….. I don’t want to be pushy. I don’t want to bother them. It’s been a while since I spoke with them, why should I get in touch again? Do you think they really want to hear from me again? It’s okay — I’ve heard these excuses MANY times. But the truth is that people would rather purchase from someone they know than someone they don’t know. So even if it’s been months, or perhaps even years, I highly recommend that you get in touch with past clients. And believe me, there are ways of doing it with out seeming pushy or sales!
How can you keep in touch? Well, with todays technology there are a multitude of methods including email, webinars, e-newsletters, etc. The old-fashioned use of the telephone, coffee -dates or even snail-mail are great ways to keep in touch regularly with past & current customers.
Whatever method(s) you decide is great! Create a system whereby you do this automatically and with consistency and I guarantee you will see results. How do I know? Because it works for me — over and over again. Just recently someone who has been on my email list for 2 years became a client!
If you would like to know more on how to create an effective follow-up system and what an effective one should look like — lets talk. I will reserve Monday morning (July 7) for you to call me (514) 690-1867. Bon Weekend!
