Selling Every Month

Sales is how you convert trust and attention into revenue. To do this you need an effective process, several key skills (that anyone can develop), and a basic toolkit. What most consultants would benefit from, however, is stopping looking at sales as an activity you only do once for each client.

This is today's small reminder for you: Sales doesn't stop after the first sale is made - every month you keep a client, there is a sale happening.

I've written about it before. Retaining and delivering more and bigger projects to your existing clients is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. Sounds obvious, but few consultants do any form of client planning to make it happen:

• You can ask your clients questions that uncover more value, increasing the scope and urgency of their work with you.
• You can explore boring but important projects that clients are ignoring to favor more exciting ones, showing them different ways in which you can help - which they may not be aware of.
• You can use resourcefulness to propose new solutions or some changes to your services that can lead to better results.

As the saying goes, "the best future client is the current client."

If you're properly marketing, selling, and delivering value through your offerings in a profitable way, you'll be able to reinvest a significant part of your profits into growth. While people usually associate growth with new client acquisition, it can also come from retaining and upselling existing clients. So here's a question for you:

How much of your marketing budget are you investing in keeping, nurturing, and exploring new opportunities among current clients?

You might be neglecting the most effective and profitable segment of your audience.