July 21, 2020
Everyone knows it's generally easier selling more to your existing clients than it is to sell to new customers. Still, many salespeople and business owners focus a lot of attention on getting new clients. But what are some of the best ways to earn more from your existing customer list? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton, and I will discuss earning more from your existing customer base. Hi Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, it does seem like many people focus a lot more on attracting new business than to selling to their existing customers. Why do you think that's the case, David? David: Good question. I think a lot of it may have to do with just the idea of new customers. It's a lot more fun, a lot more sexy. People tend to gravitate toward that. Where the idea of selling to existing customers may seem a little bland compared to that. It could be some of that. It could be old habits dying hard. If you had a sales manager that you reported to, very often, you would be flogged for not bringing new customers through the door. So it could have something to do with that. The focus of the sales management or ownership, if the goal was to bring new people through. But I think a lot of it is just the idea that once we've conquered a particular account, once we've gotten that order, the tendency is to move on to the next one is to find the next customer, the next customer, the next order and that sort of thing. And sometimes we forget that it's been a while since we've gotten that order from the previous customer, and maybe it's just time to go back. Chris: It just seems to me like a major disconnect that selling to existing customers is something that just doesn't get near the attention that it should. And we all know, we all know that it's the easiest sale. The most rewarding sale is the repeat sale, isn't it? David: Yeah. And everybody can quote that. Everybody knows it, intellectually. We all know it. Probably anyone who's been in sales for any length of time knows that every business owner probably knows it. And yet it's just not practiced. Chris: When you think about it, how costly do you think it is for people who fail to maximize that value of their customer base? David: I think it's extremely costly. If you're not doing it, there's no question that you're missing out on revenue that you could otherwise have. In fact, one of the things that I focus on with my clients, whenever I take on a new client, if we're working one-on-one, or even if we're working in a small group, one of the first things that we'll do is to address that. Because if you want to grow your sales and profits, the way that I look at it is your existing customer base is going to account for some sort of percentage of that. So very often what I'll do is I'll say, okay, let's say I'm talking to somebody and they're doing half a million in sales and they want to get it to three quarters of a million in sales. One of the first questions that I'll ask them is what do you think you'll do with your existing customer base over the course of the next year? In other words, if you did half a million dollars with them last year, what's it going to be this year? Is it going to be 550? Is it going to be 450? Is it going to be 250? Right? Are a lot of them going to have gone away? What's that going to be? And a lot of times it's just spit-balling. You're just sort of trying to figure out roughly what might be. But very often people will have a good idea of that. So they'll say, okay, well I did half a million with them last year. Maybe I'll do 525 or maybe I'll do 550 with them, depending on a couple of different things. And then I'll say, okay, well, if you really decided to focus on trying to get the most from them, what's the most you think you could get?
