Cashflow and money stress can upset the thinking patterns of any human. As the business owner, you may have fewer people keeping you grounded, so it can be hard to think clearly and know where to focus your energy.
Ad Coach is here to be your ally, and a Mentoring Session can give you a safe space to freak out or get a mental reset and some clarity.
Otherwise, a helpful exercise is to remember that in any business – revenue is determined by only 3 factors:
Revenue / Income =
Client Count
How many customers you have
Yield
How much they spend each time
Retention / Frequency
How often your customer buys
So get out of your head, take closer look at those 3 areas of your business, and set yourself some actions from there.
If you’re still stuck, Ad Coach has compiled a helpful list of reflection points and activites to increase your revenue at each stage:
Client Count
How many people who live in your area may be a potential customer of your business? Do they know about you?
How many are going to a competitor instead – do you know why? Can you fix that?
Activities to increase the number of customers buying from you:
- Advertising
- PR – send a media release or offer influencers a trial
- Referral programs – reward your best customers for sharing their experience
- Cold Calling – pick up the phone and call 12 people, see what happens.
- Sales Training
Retention / Frequency
Start by understanding your customer’s buying cycle – how often does a customer “need” you? What triggers that?
For example, a customer needs food several times a day, where as purchasing home furnishings or may only be every 5 years.
Be realistic, how many times in that buying cycle will they come to you? Anticipating their needs gives you the opportunity to be “helpful” not salesy.
Activities to increase the number of times a customer buys from you:
- Email Newsletters – ensure you are collecting details to build a database to stay in touch after the purchase
- Customer loyalty program – incentivise your past customers to come back
- Pre-empt the next “need” – understanding your customer helps to identify the next purchase or upsell opportunities:
- When will they service their car? Or run out of make up? Can they give your product or service as a gift?
Yield
Start by understanding which products deliver you the best margin: including your time to sell and delivering the product or service.
Continuing understanding your customer – what will they need next?
Activities to increase the amount each customer spends with you:
- Focus your energy promoting products or services with a higher margin.
- Upselling & Bundles – by understanding your customer, you can imagine “life after buying”. Identify if there are any other needs you can fulfil for them and create a package they need to better solve their actual problem.
- Eg. How exciting you have bought a new guitar – where are you going to keep it? Have you got a stand, carry case and extra strings already?
- Reduce discounts – sounds obvious but easier said than done when a customer asks for a discount. Research your competitors to understand why you are delivering great value and practise negotiating. The golden rule is – never discount without getting something in return:
- Buy 2 (or more) and save – even by offering this option they are more likely to pay full price for the single item.
- Give us an online review or testimonial.
- Offer added value instead of a discount?
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