Do you realize your most profitable trail leads to your
current and former customers? Most business professionals don’t. They are too busy trying to seek after new customers, that they neglect what they already have. According to a survey conducted by Fortune magazine it is FIVE times as expensive
to get a new customer as it is to sell to an existing customer.

1. Uncover Your Fastest Source of New Profits

You are literally sitting on a treasure chest this very
moment. Really, you are! The fastest, straightest path
to developing increasing business growth is consistently
going after your past and current customers. Your customers
look to you, they have faith in your abilities,
and they like you. So wouldn't it make sense to become
more active --in marketing to your existing
customer list?

You'll quickly find your fastest source of new profits
may be sitting in your not so new customer files. The cost
of reaching your existing customers is almost nothing
while it can be expensive getting new customers. That is
why the first thing I do when consulting with a client is
to have them go after their current and past customers.

2. Make An Incredible Offer

Go after your old customers with an incredible offer.
Remember all those old customer names sitting in your
files -- well we’re going to bring them back into your
business. You’ve spent perhaps tons of effort, money,
and time to sell to them the first time,
so let’s recover your investment.

First, you’ll need to put together a list of everyone
who has not bought anything for whatever you think is a reasonable
amount of time. I suggest 1 year because they will remember
you and your list will be up-to-date. Additionally, you don’t
want to reward your customer too early. But on the other hand,
you don’t want to wait too long before they establish a
relationship with your competition.

After you establish the guidelines you will compose and send
a personal letter or email to entice the ‘hidden’ customer back. Your
letter needs to show concern for their well being and also an
irresistible offer to come back. The best hook is a free
service or product. Everybody loves to get something for free.

3. Make it Free!

Free is the best offer you can make. Use something with a high
perceived value but very little hard cost to you. A free
article or some kind of sample product works very nicely.
Then once they come back, you will get these customers back
into the habit of using your services. Also at the same time
you should have special offers available for other services
they may be interested in.

A very smart thing to do is set an expiration date and limit the
time they can come in for these free services. That way you
have a very structured offer. You should not send too many of
these letters at once because I guarantee you’ll be swamped with
business. So try out 100 or 200 at a time and see how it goes.

4. Mine Your Best Prospects for New Service

Your best prospects for new services are right under your nose
To illustrate this point, let me give you an example from the
remodeling industry. Once a homeowner gets their kitchen remodeled after a short period of time they begin to notice the bathroom or some other part of the house really needs work. The new section only serves to highlight and contrast how much worse the other sections are.

This same thing applies with almost all kinds of customers. So
if a customer has purchased one of your products or services it shouldn’t be a surprise they’ll start looking for something else on that topic or in that line of service. This presents a perfect opportunity for you -- if you keep in contact with your customers.

That means you should continually be in contact with your customer.
By using a combination of newsletters, postcards, letters, etc.
you can keep them informed of new products and services you
offer. For the cost of a stamp you can produce a windfall in
profits for your practice.

For some people this will seem like a lot of extra work. I
disagree. Here’s why: A statistic from the mail order industry
says that a customer will lose 10% of their value every month
they are not contacted. So after 10 months, you might as well
be mailing to the white pages. Keep in mind, the transaction
value of one product at $ 49.95 is high enough that you can afford
to keep contacting your existing customers over and over again.

5. Make it Easy to Refer You with WOW Service

Make it easy for customers to give you loads of new referrals.
I’d am almost sure referrals and word-of-mouth are a substantial
and very important part of your business. Most offices rely
on referrals for somewhere between 20%-75% of their business.
Yet, these same offices give no thought whatsoever to engineering
a system to cultivate and extract referrals.

Simply providing outstanding service is not enough to generate
tons of referrals rolling into your door. You’ll never get
anywhere close to what you should get, unless you ethically
ask for them.

The first thing you need to do is position yourself to become
the recipient of referrals. That means you must deliver incredible
service, what I call the "WOW" experience. This makes customers
compelled to give you referrals. One easy way to start is to make
a quick list of everything customers expect when they come to your
business and then you brainstorm for ways to exceed those expectations. By delivering "WOW" experiences you’re sure to get more people to talk about you.

You also need to provide an added ‘crutch’ for your customers to
make it easy to refer new customers. Send out a letter along with
a free certificate good for a free consultation or free service to
your customers. The letter explains how you enjoy more customers like them and wanted to do something special for their friends or
colleagues. That’s why you are allowing them to give away this
valuable gift. This way you are proactively stimulating referrals
instead of hoping and waiting for them to happen.

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© Earma Brown, 13 year author and business owner
helps small business owners and writers who want to write their best book now! Author of “Write Your Best Book Now”, she mentors other writers and business professionals through her monthly ezine “iScribe” at http://www.writetowin.org Subscribe now at
iscribe@writetowin.org