In the rush to find more business, most small business owners erroneously focus only on new customers. This is a mistake, and results in neglecting the existing customer base – a small business’s bread and butter in the marketplace.
Secondary sales are “brownie sales” – they are sales that are add- ons, repeated and do not require the same effort to be put in as with the first sale. This makes secondary sales complete profit, saving time, energy and profits, and allowing small business owners to focus on other aspects of the business, such as raising finances.
The first step in charting the sales portion of your business plan is to categorize your target market on the basis of the users of your product and services and the leads that will be generated from these users and future prospects. Once this part of the plan has been carried out, the customer’s purchasing power and buying habits can be analyzed.
This analysis can depend on what the customers do in their professional, personal, social life and how the product that your business provides can help. Customer research has to be not only for the present, but also on what effect it would have on them for future changes in customer lifestyles. Also, once customers find your product, what the impact has been and what can be done to make the customer use the product or service continually also have to be taken into account.
After this, it is important to study the sales of the products or services that your business provides; however, the fact is that first time sales should not always be considered to be profitable since a lot of time, effort and money has been invested to get initial customers. Your business should work towards helping existing customers increase their product use – and in this way, your business will get more repeat business as well. Working on this will help your business to capitalizing on sales and with this, your business can act on selling new services, products, or both to new and old customers.
A plan should be made to let existing and prospective customers know how the products offered by your business will help solve their problems, and this can be done by using presentations – both personal and impersonal. You should also take the time to understand why customers fear or avoid buying other services and products being offered and review customer relations; this can help you to find out what part of your business is steering customers away from buying. You can find all the answers to these questions by simply asking your customers what your business can do help them and serve their needs better.
At the forefront of every small business is finding new prospective customers, but it is just as important, and more profitable, to focus on your existing ones. Not only is selling and marketing to your existing customer base more profitable, but it can be a cost-effective means of finding new customers as well.
