Is it Dangling...Right Before Your Eyes?
Low hanging fruit you can harvest, inexpensively, to make your business more profitable.

This low hanging fruit is your existing customer base and you probably aren't harvesting it enough. If you don't have fanatical customer service for them already, start now. It will save, nay, earn you money in the short term without costing any more than you're already spending with them.

I'm going to go ahead and shoot myself in the foot this month. Why not? It's got to be more comfortable than the heat has been lately. It would be a good excuse to stay indoors and enjoy the fresh air conditioning.

You don't need me. You don't need advertising. You don't need marketing. Heck, you don't even need business cards. Nothing!

This is only true if you already have customers though. Why? You can make money off of them again and again. In fact it would be much, much cheaper.

It's proven that if you simply maintain your existing marketing budget and simply divert some of it for use on existing customer retention you can increase business without increasing your spend. It's simple: if you already have 10 units set aside for marketing and you only use 2 units on your existing customers start using 4. You're still only spending 10, but it's going to have results like you're spending 15!

Market to them to spend with you again next time. Market to them to try another product or service you offer (cross-sell). Market to them to try another level of improved service or to upgrade their product (up-sell). If you do any, some or all of this you can win. Win big actually and you will find your cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale and your overall marketing program will be better than ever.

Give it a shot. Dont' use me. You'll be happy you didn't.

What have I done?!

I'd like to be your friend first, so get to know me by crawling around my newsletter, friends' sites and my web site. See you next issue!

| patrick |