10 Ways to Get More Sales From Existing Customers

If you are looking to increase your revenue per customer, here are some tips on getting your sales staff focused on inside sales, upselling, and marketing additional services.

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Every business needs new customers, but don't ever forget that your easiest and most predictable source of new revenue is right under your nose: It comes from the loyal customers who already know your company. Acquiring new customers is expensive (five to ten times the cost of retaining an existing one), and the average spend of a repeat customer is a whopping 67 percent more than a new one. So, sure, put some energy into new business development, but make sure your salespeople know that coming up with creative ways to sell more to your current customers is just as important. Here are 10 proven techniques to do just that:

1. Think lifetime value, not transactional value. To keep customers coming back to Zane's Cycles (and away from the superstores), Chris Zane offers a wildly attractive incentive to parents who buy their children's bikes from him: He'll credit the full cost of last year's bicycle toward an upgrade every year up to a 20-inch wheel. "We won't make money until they buy their second bike from us at full price," says the Branford, Connecticut entrepreneur. In the meantime, parents buy accessories for their growing children and, predicts Zane, are impressed enough with his commitment to service that they become customers for life.
Dig Deeper: Chris Zane on Attracting the Best Customers
2. Go for a no-brainer upsell. "We started noticing that our clients wanted us to store their media files because they had a habit of re-editing their sizzle reels several times over the course of the year," says Scott Gerber, CEO of SizzleIt, a New York City company that produces short promotional videos. The process became time consuming and tedious for the company, so Gerber started charging clients monthly and annual fees to store their data. "This created a whole new revenue stream for the company," he says, "not to mention it allowed us to get rid of large amounts of media files when clients didn't want to pay."
Dig Deeper: How to Upsell Your Customers

3. Offer complementary products or services. Put a little thought into what your customers are buying and the other needs that those purchases might trigger (think printers/ink cartridges). For instance, Language International's primary product is language study abroad programs. "But very often, our customers also need housing and travel insurance," says Karen Ong, CEO of the Boston-area company. Offering those complementary products has "helped us expand our gross margins from 21 percent to more than 25 percent," she says.
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4. Stay in touch. Sometimes you may not see your best customers as often as you'd like, so you need to work extra hard to keep yourself on their radar screens. Jack Mitchell, the CEO of The Mitchells Family of Stores in Farifield County, Connecticut, has his sales people contact customers by phone, email, and handwritten note "not trying to sell them anything, but letting them we're available to do alterations, or to come to their home, look at their closet and see what is still wearable," says Mitchell. He knows that if he keeps in touch with customers in a low-pressure way, his best customers will find their way back his four luxury clothing stores when the economy improves.
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5. Practice the art of the perfectly-timed pitch. What is a key day to reap additional revenue, and what can you do to capitalize on it? "We always have success with our yearly Black Friday e-mail blast," says Zalmi Duchman, the CEO of TheFreshDiet.com, a healthy meal delivery service based in Surfside, Florida. So last year, on the day after Thanksgiving, the company sent an e-mail blast to its database of clients, and generated an additional $400,000 in revenue in three days. "For us it's the best of both worlds," says Duchman. "Everyone is looking out for specials, and it's right after Thanksgiving so people are thinking about dieting and their New Year's resolutions."
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6. Help your customers sell more to their customers. If you're selling to other businesses, the best way to get more revenue from them is to help them increase sales to their customers. Nick Villaume, the CEO of The Dev Department, an Atlanta-based company that provides white label web development services to graphic design firms, developed a free credentialing system for the designers who are his customers. "This not only gives them the knowledge and confidence to sell more and bigger contracts, but also positions them as experts in their market," says Villaume. He launched the educational program six months ago and has since seen new client requests quadruple. "We are sending out many more estimates—20 to 30 per month—and about two thirds are closing," he says. "It not only provides more sales, but more profitable sales. We are spending less time coaching designers and less time doing non-billable revisions."
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7. Remind customers of everything you offer. Never assume that even your most reliable customers are completely aware of all the products and services you offer: you need to remind them regularly. Kelley Briggs, CEO of DesignWorks NY, a graphic design and marketing communications firm in Westchester County, New York, sends a personal letter to every customer once a year. She includes a list of her services with the ones they've used check off. "It reminds them of the types of projects we've worked on in that past year and shows them what services they did not use," she says. "It's an excellent cross selling tool." In recent years, clients who received the letter have signed on for additional projects such as annual reports, website design, and marketing strategy.
Dig Deeper: A Pitch for Marketing Multiple Services
8. Create incentives for in-house referrals. Scott Gerber's video production company, SizzleIt, often works with large companies, and he has found a way to effectively turn one client into multiple clients. "We inncentivized our current clients to recommend us to the project leaders in other parts of the company by offering them steep cash discounts for successful referrals," says Gerber. At a time when corporate budgets are tight, that lowered the cost of doing business with SizzleIt, strengthened customer relationships, and generated more income without the cost of attracting new clients.
Dig Deeper: Using Sales Contests to Get Employee Referrals

9. Give customers a say in what you sell. Last October, ModCloth (No. 2 on our Inc. 500 list this year), started an initiative called Be the Buyer, which allows shoppers to vote online on clothing samples. If a garment gets enough votes, the online clothing retailer will add it to its offerings, and then send emails to visitors who voted for the item. The program allows the company to confidently gamble on items it might have thought were risky choices, plus it encourages a high level of customer engagement with leads to repeat sales. Co-founder Susan Gregg Kroger says the initiative has also significantly boosted web traffic to the Pittsburgh-based company.
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10. Put some skin in the game. Greg Alexander, the CEO of Sales Benchmark Index, an Atlanta company that helps clients increase the effectiveness of their sales forces, says that the percent of his compan's revenue that came from existing customers jumped from 20 percent to a whopping 80 percent in two years. His secret: he started writing performance-based contracts. "We said if we don't deliver don't pay us. If we do deliver, pay us a percentage of the gain," he explains. He also started compensating his team according to the results they delivered for customers. "The 'skin in the game' technique resulted in our firm doubling revenue," says Alexander.
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Donna Fenn is the author of Upstarts! How Gen Y Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success (McGraw-Hill, 2009), about ways Gen Y is changing the entrepreneurial landscape. @donnafenn

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Kuza Biashara · October 31, 2012 at 3:24am

Very informative!!
Focus on listening to your customers. Take heed of what they say even if it means that you have to change direction – it is better to do so in the long run. There are many companies who create other products or services to enhance their existing products, just to be within the reach of their customers. The longer you retain and satisfy your customers, the longer your business will prosper and thrive.
http://www.kuzabiashara.co.ke/what-is-the-best-way-to-attract-more-customers-21264/

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Curtis Carpenter · October 30, 2012 at 5:08pm

question: I'm in a business i want profit to play with ASAP becuase i have just started, what is the fastest way to get profit into the business?

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· April 2, 2012 at 12:57pm

I really want grow in sales.

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Lejla Babic · February 25, 2012 at 7:34pm

Nice article I have found some intresting read on sales too.

http://www.articles.ba/3-WAYS-TO-GET-MORE-SALES-WHEN-YOU-ADVERTISE.html

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April Atkins · January 27, 2012 at 9:13am

Marketing and Sales departments need to merge together and adapt to the change in buyer expectations. Your buyers are not a one time transaction or a series of transactions that calculate lifetime value. They are living, breathing people that share experiences with their social connections; these social connections increasingly influence perceptions of your company in the marketplace and perception is reality. Social is the new normal, the social network and your company’s ability to make meaning of connections and take action will drive the future of your company’s engagement with your prospects and customers.

URL : http://www.addvalue.com.au.

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April Atkins · January 27, 2012 at 9:10am

Have you ever wondered where all this rapid change is leading us in the sales and marketing professions? What does the rise of the social networking fabric, advancements in technology and changing buying habits mean for our companies and our jobs? While nobody really knows where all this change is taking us, I do believe there are some tell tale patterns that have emerged. These patterns will continue to etch themselves into the marketplace until they are just the normal course of doing business. Below are some fascinating quotes on these patterns and my take on what it means for sales and marketing leaders.

URL : http://www.addvalue.com.au.

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Derrith · May 12, 2011 at 7:58pm

Great suggestions! Want more ideas on how to sell more to your existing customers? You'll find them on this how-to guide on MarketingZone, a new site for small business. Founder is ex HP marketing executive. /how/increase-sales/sell-more-existing-customersThe how-to guides on MarketingZone are written by marketing and sales experts and continually updated to share the newest and more relevant advice to help small businesses grow!

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Mwangakala John · April 30, 2011 at 4:34pm

Exciting and full of insight any idea how to so (increase revenue) in consulting business

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Cdfinlay · January 2, 2011 at 5:03pm

Thanks Donna for this article, it continues to give me more insight and re-establishes the information I received from Renee Phillips of Manhattan International Magazine in the Marketing course I took in 2010. This information reinforces the business plan that I'm now in the process of doing for the 2011 Calender year. I enjoyed all the comments and advice from the following participants also. Thanks Clyde D.Finlayhttp://www.imagineartbyclydedfinlayhttp://www.artslant.comhttp://www.artslammagazine.comhttp://www.outworksgallery.com

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Boris Fowler · October 14, 2010 at 11:09pm

I like this. Recurring business is the number one way to get acquired or bought by another company. This is where the main focus of a business should be. Now, for service industries like painting or renovation, referrals should sought and used as much as possible.

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