About today's episode
You need today's episode if you are maxed out in your business and can not see how to hit profit goals without increasing your customer or client load.
Listen to the episode here
1. INCREASE AVERAGE ORDER VALUE
Increase average order or transaction value - so many missed opportunities exist here, with business owners assuming that their clients or customers already know everything you have to offer, but they don't!
You can increase profit by actively upselling, cross-selling and bundling goodies. This isn't just about you increasing profit. It's also valuable to your buyers, and it makes their lives easier when you do this. You can offer them more of what they already need or want and bundle up products or services, so they don't need to make as many buying decisions. Win/win.
2. RAISE PRICES
Increase pricing: this one is an obvious suggestion. However, I do want to caution against any coach or course that launches straight into upping pricing with the assumption that because you're female, you naturally under-price.
That is a whole other podcast episode, so I will stay on topic… if your pricing needs to be increased then do it asap. It's a great way to increase profits without taking on more customers or clients.
3. REDUCE COSTS
Cut costs: There are costs in your business that may not be contributing to making your business easier to run and manage or driving and converting new business. Consider what you're spending if you're utilising the investment effectively, or perhaps you could re-allocate that spending to a profit-increasing investment or cut it altogether.
Cost cutting to accountants can be much like price increasing to coaches; it gives this illusion of them creating extra money for you, but if you're cutting a cost that directly impacts sales or your ability to focus on increasing profit (like outsourcing tasks that free time up for you) then don't reduce that expense to increase profit.
You can only cut expenses so far before you hit zero; on the flip side, you can infinitely increase sales.
4. FOCUS ON HIGH PROFIT MARGIN OFFERS
Now we're getting into some of my personal favourites, such as focusing on high-margin offers. The products or services you sell with the highest margin might not be the ones you promote most. But, conversely, you may have a suite of low-margin offers that feel very easy to sell, so you unconsciously or consciously promote and sell those.
You could reduce your sales load and increase profits by putting some effective sales and marketing strategies behind high-margin offers. Sidenote: we do this in Members Club; we audit your offers for profit, marketing, enjoyment and scalability.
5. IMPROVE EFFICIENCY
Improve efficiencies in your business. When you streamline your process and tasks, especially those required to create or deliver your offers, you will increase the profit margins of those offers. Waste of time and raw materials and resources is a massive profit suck.
Streamline your onboarding and off-boarding experiences and add the automation that creates value for your client or customer and increases their value perception.
6. DEVELOP PARTNERSHIPS
Develop partnerships and collaborations with others with a similar or the same target market as you; you can expand your reach and attract new customers or clients who are happy to pay a premium for your products or services.
Have other businesses promote you to customers and clients and return the favour. While you might be thinking, "doesn't this just bring in more customers?" Yes, but it means you could focus on serving the customers or clients who spend more and spend on your higher-margin offers. You can then ditch those customers or clients who as not as profitable.
7. INCREASE CUSTOMER/CLIENT RETENTION
Here's a no-brainer suggestion for you: everyone can do this one… increase the retention of your customers or clients. Every customer or client has a lifetime value, and there is also a cost to acquire a customer or client. Someone who has purchased from you before is 4 to 7 times more likely to buy again (depending on which expert you believe).
I have experienced many examples of being ditched the minute you buy, the transaction is done, and you never hear from that business again. It's a big missed opportunity, so if you haven't been adding your customers to a list to market to, that is something you want to jump on asap.
I have a blog post on my website about a client who had hit a cash flow crisis; we moved all past customers onto an email list, sent them one email and generated $5k in sales in less than 3 hours.
8. CREATE LEVERAGED INCOME STREAMS
Create more leveraged income streams, this might not suit every business, but if you can create new revenue streams or subscription-based revenue streams you could be generating a whole new stream of income that doesn't require you to be personally involved in every sale or transaction.
9. EXPAND INTERNATIONALLY
Expand your business to other countries. Once again, this is a strategy you can implement, but with all plans, do your research first. That said, other countries can offer fantastic opportunities to increase your profit without taking on new customers or clients by moving into other markets.
10. VALUE ADD
Increase profits by adding more value to each customer or client transaction, which then can increase the average sale value. As long as the service or product complements your initial offer, you should find a percentage of people who take you up on that offer.