8 Ways to Tap Into a Client Gold Mine
You could be sitting on a gold mine of new business and not even know it.
The motherlode consists of your past and present clients. Many of them have additional legal needs that aren’t being addressed. Others have friends and neighbors who could use your services.
Why not let them know you’re ready, willing and eager to help?
“Focusing on existing customers is remarkably important for small businesses,” says this Forbes article. “The customers are already engaged with the business and, as a whole, they can represent a reliable revenue stream, one that is more likely to trust you with more business—especially if they’ve already had good interactions with you.”
8 Ways To Bring in New Business
How to go about tapping the revenue potential languishing in your file cabinets?
Here are suggestions from eight members of the Forbes Los Angeles Business Council:
- Identify your clients’ unmet needs. “You have established a relationship and built trust by getting them to make the initial buy. Offer them a personalized experience to help inform your strategy on additional opportunities.” (Susan Levine, Career Group Companies)
- Invest in a Customer Relationship Management system. A CRM lets you stay in touch with your clients and provides an opening for referrals and new cases. (Thomas Yoon, Excelerate Capital Company)
- Treat your VIP clients like royalty. Determine which clients bring in the most revenue and allocate your time and resources accordingly. Create a list of your VIP clients. Communicate with them regularly. Let them know you’re thinking about them. Share an article they might find interesting. Send them a holiday card. Make them feel special. “By doing so, they continue to be your most profitable customers, and the upfront investment of time and money pays for itself.” (Christine Mendoza, Face & Bawdy)
- Focus on client service. “Every phone call, sales call, reporting call, and customer touchpoint is an opportunity to connect with our clients and provide them with strategic digital marketing guidance. Growing customer revenue is about promptly answering calls, communicating on the client’s cadence, and giving what they ask for when they ask for it.” (Robert Brill, BrillMedia.co)
- Monitor client satisfaction. Former clients will fall into three general categories: happy, moderately happy, unhappy. Each group should be treated differently. “You have to delight your clients in order to get on top of their preference for your service. Identify what will delight them and add a program to closely monitor their happiness levels. Ask for additional sales/visits or referrals from highly satisfied clients. Improve the satisfaction level of moderately satisfied clients so that they become a source of additional revenue.” (Beth Worthy, GMR Transportation Services, Inc.)
- Always be reliable. “It’s simple—be there for them when they need you and not just when they’re in the market looking for something. Be there especially when something goes wrong.” (Avner Papouchado, ServerFarm)
- Engage with clients regularly. Stay in front of them. Express your availability for repeat business or new work. Do a great job for existing clients. Ask for testimonials, which are “worth their weight in gold.” (Heather Newman, Content Panda/Creative Maven)
- Build an experience. “It’s difficult to stand out in today’s world. If you want to keep your customers engaged, multiple things need to happen. Key to this, the experience needs to be unique and memorable. We ask ourselves questions for major decisions that are customer-facing. Is this true to our brand? Does this separate us from our competitors? How can we be useful to our customers?” (Uri Thatcher, TouchUpDirect LLC)
What are some things you do to keep business flowing from your current and former clients?
