Mar

Getting More Business From Your Current and Existing Customers

By emily

I was talking to an attorney the other day who shared an important marketing strategy that she had been teaching to the junior associates in her office.

It was a simple strategy, but extremely effective. It’s something you can do, too, to make more money and build more credibility in the eyes of your clients.

The question essentially boils down to, "What else can we help you with?" Or, in the words of McDonalds – "Would you like fries with that?"

Have You Simply Been Focused On Providing Excellent Service?

You Need To Identify What Other Needs Your Clients Have That You Can Help Them With.

So many service providers get caught up in providing their own excellent product or service, that they don’t focus on being a RESOURCE for their clients and helping them meet their other needs.

The attorney I spoke to had a NICHE focusing in estate planning (writing wills, doing tax planning) for high net worth individuals. She did not do things like creating LLC’s, helping people buy and sell property, or handle litigation, divorce, bankruptcy, adoption, or any of the myriad other things that attorneys help people with.

However, she did realize that she had captured the mind share (attention) of her clients and they respected her opinion and appreciated her help.

She was in a unique opportunity to extract information from them and advise them on other strategies to meet their needs.

In this case, she limited herself to recommending other attorneys in her law firm who could also serve her clients. If they had other legal needs, she could immediately put them in touch with an expert she knew, and the fees from the additional legal work would go to benefit her firm. She didn’t get anything out of it, like a referral fee, but she did benefit the client by putting them in touch with excellent service providers, benefit the law firm, by helping them develop new business, and enhance and reinforce her credibility in the eyes of her clients as someone who was committed to helping them and was well positioned to do so.

Is this a strategy that you could implement within your business?

What if you are more of a one-man or -woman show, rather than a partner in a large law firm?

There are still lots of ways you could implement this strategy.

How Can YOU Implement This Up-Sell/Cross-Sell Strategy?

For example, realtors can refer people to mortgage brokers, home warranty programs, attorneys and title companies they work with. They can even make a 25% referral fee by sending clients to other agents, if they’re not in position to help that agent themselves.

Dave Ramsey is a radio personality who talks about getting out of debt and personal finance. He has a national audience, and he says to them, "If you need help with financial planning, real estate, taxes, etc. Go to my website and look at my endorsed local providers." Then people can do business with the people he recommends, and he gets a kick back for sending over the business. Brilliant, simple, you can do it, too.

This is rampant in the world of online marketing. If you have a list or sell a product, you know what your list members are interested in based on how they found you or what product they bought. (For example – give me your email, and I’ll give you a report on how to improve your credit score or I’ll sell you my book on how to not get burned by mortgage brokers). If you had a list of people like this, you’d know they were probably interested in improving their credit and/or obtaining financing. You could sell these leads to a mortgage broker, or let the mortgage broker play to email an ad to your list. You could call up the prospects and see if they were interested in getting a loan, you could email them an affiliate offer and earn a commission or a referral fee if they signed up to buy the product you recommended.

There are lots of different ways to go if you have people’s attention as a credible advisor and know what they’re interested in… their concerns and dreams.

Make it a point to ASK them, so you can find out. Then find a worthwhile way to help them with the most common and pressing concerns.