September 30

Revenue UP…Expenses ZERO??

15  comments

As budgets tighten, companies in every niche are looking at that panic button harder and harder (if they’ve not already pushed it.) But this is the perfect time to actually increase revenue…and it can be done without buying ads or selling your soul.

Recently (well for a long time) the motto I’ve heard ad nausem has been “more leads, more eyeballs, more affiliates, more traffic, more blah, more blah.” Those things are VERY true in a sense. But with wallets tightening all over, getting those leads, eyeballs, and affiliates becomes exponentially more expensive. The people pushing the ‘more’ motto are leaving SO much money on the table, and really missing out on the easiest revenue available.

So how do you do it?

It’s a simple sales tactic that my Dad taught me YEARS ago…

When I was 12, I got my first job delivering newspapers. I kinda fell into it as my friend who was doing it, really hated it. (Come to find out he hated it because he was lazy and wasn’t any good at it.) So I took over in my neighborhood of 250+ homes with 25 papers to deliver (that’s only 10% of potential customers…not so great.) After the first paycheck I soon realized my early mornings, rain rides, and sore back was for chump change! But as a young and ambitious lad, I dove in head first.

So I went to my dad. I said something like “Dad this job sucks and I’d rather be playing street hockey. I’m busting my butt and I don’t even have enough money to consistently patronize the icecream man!”

I remember clear as day what he said to me next…”Brad, you’re not quitting. You know why?”

“No sir,” I told him.

“You’re not quitting because there’s low-hanging fruit in the neighborhood and once you grab it…you’ll be able to buy the whole icecream truck!”

“Dad, this is a planned neighborhood and the only fruit is the poison berries in the woods,” I told him.

He laughed and went onto explain what he meant. It turned out that two paperboys ago, almost 100 houses bought the newspaper. He told me to go to those people, introduce myself, ask them why they stopped buying, and promise them that if they signed up again their service would be second to none.

So out I went on a sunny Saturday afternoon. While my friends played street hockey all afternoon and into the evening, I was out knocking on doors and resubscribing old customers.

In one day I went from 25 papers to 93 (some people weren’t home!) By the end of the summer I was delivering over 210 newspapers and bought myself a new bike and had an endless supply of candy.

The point of the story is that the BEST way for you to squeeze more revenue is to focus on the people you had as paying subscribers, then focus on the tire kickers, then the lurkers! These people are the low-hanging fruit; they are just waiting to be picked. They know you, they know your products, and they have a relationship that you can monetize!

My question to you is this…

What are you doing to harvest that low-hanging fruit!?

If you have anything you’d like to share please do so in the comments section below as I know there are people desperate to hear from you!

Or if you have an idea you’ve been thinking about trying, but have questions…just ask! The comments section is for comments AND questions, so ask away!

All my best,
Brad

P.S. I have a number of methods, techniques, tricks, and tips which I’ll share once the comments get rolling…but I have to reserve some of my best methods for clients, sorry!


Tags

How to increase revenue without spending a dime!, improving conversions, improving revenue, marketing advice, questions to you!


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  • Great article Brad. I too was a paper boy when I was young.

    Going after the low hanging fruit is a great way to pull some revenue back into the coffers with not much expense. I do this from time to time myself and having been reminded… I will do it again.

    Thanks for the great post.

    Doug

    • Thanks Doug! You really know how to reconnect with people (I’ve seen you do it time and time again). That’s not an easy thing to do, so keep on truckin!

  • Hi Brad,

    Nice to see your blog and see you are still at it…

    Excellent blog post, it pays to stay nearer home sometimes eh?

    If you remember me from INO days, I am still at it but I always
    do better in my own backyard ;.-)

    All the best,
    Ed

  • First of all, I loved this article. It reminded me of the old sales adage “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”. It is been my experience that a highly overlooked location for low hanging fruit is your current customer base. We spend so much time, resources and energy on acquiring new business. Yet, many businesses then basically forget about their customers. This just does not make sense. Customer acquisition is the most expensive piece of the sales cycle. Once you have earned your customers’ trust, you then have permission to act upon it. The secret sauce is to set up an ongoing system that periodically reaches out to your customer base and asks them for references. There’s nothing better than having customers sell on your behalf.

  • I definitely agree. Old customer lists are a huge source of potential revenue and resubscribes. People naturally lose touch with you over time; change their email address, stop trading for a while and unsubscribe, or whatever, but it is possible to get many of them interested again later. Thanks for the reminder, I haven’t been working hard enough on this kind of thing lately.

    • The trick is figuring out how to get them from tire kickers to buyers again. What’s nice is that they’re already in the door!! Good luck dude!

  • Hey Brad,

    Good entry you have here and quite a vocabulary you had as a youngster! I think that we have a classic case of ignoring the a standard of client monetization. If we ignore the 80/20 model, we’re only making more work for ourselves. It’s a war of attrition if you only focus on new clients. Take a good hard look at the people that you are happy with your service and figure out why. What makes them come back, what makes them stick?

    The answer for our company has been a simple concept, but an often overlooked one: clients are singular but communities are plural. If you treat your client base as a community, meaning you encourage interaction and treat them as a group and not as Client A, Client B, Client C…you’ll find that people respond to that. Give members/clients a sense of ownership and they will build a community by default.

    Of course, the caveat to this is that you will have to provide a structure and also have a product/service that warrants your comfort of clients talking to each other. We’ve seen this not only strengthen our current service offerings, but even springboard our new products/services since the members are an active participant. In fact, our latest launch (http://www.forexultimatesystem.com/aff/?=fmpg ) has been built around community feedback and requests. We are now able to give them the exact product they are looking for.

  • A good reminder. It is so alluring to try to bring in a whole bunch of new customers. Yet, you are right, often we can find opportunities in customers we had in the past, or currently have.

    Thanks for the post,

    Cory

  • My monthly income for years now is my current customers. I believe if you nurture your current customers, lists, contacts, you name it, and deliver quality services, you can ride any storms.

  • key concept there Brad, going deeper with previous or existing relationships. In his great book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini often talks about how people overly focus on promoting their shop and then don’t put enough effort into turning them into buyers once they come in. If someone has made the effort to come in, they are already half way to buying. And it doesn’t end there, if they buy something, you have established a relationship, a belief in your goods, then offer a side sale, so if they buy a suit, suggest a shirt to go with it. As Cory commented above, build a community.

    We try to follow the principles of Tony Hsieh, in his book Delivering Happiness,which talks about going above and beyond with customers, employees and vendors. Naturally generate that community aspect and when you deliver them results – happiness and a Wow experience or product you not only retain them but they also become an excellent word of mouth referral engine for new business without spending lots on useless PPC and other ineffective methods.

    Thanks for the post,
    Marc

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