I am finishing up The Email Marketing Kit this week. My Members Club gals have been very patiently awaiting its arrival and after a mass tech screw up I am finally almost done (again).
I always need lots of little breaks when I am heavily into content creation mode. I head to a local cafe where they serve totally overpriced food and drinks but the ambiance is perfect. How is that for a lesson in pricing! It is one of those cool places that serve drinks in glass jars and burgers on chunks of wood. The salt and pepper shakers are seriously questionable and push the hipster boundaries way too far but I can overlook that to be surrounded by cool people doing cool things.
Cool story Melanie, but who cares…
This story has a point so stick with me because there is a good chance you’re making a similar mistake. My hipster-cool-people cafe has a cold-pressed juice that I am obsessed with. It has a super weird name that in no way describes what the juice is so I can never remember the name.
Also, it is NOT ON THE FREAKING MENU!
I have no clue how I stumbled upon the juice in the first place considering it isn’t mentioned anywhere. Every time I order my juice I have to ask for “that pinky coloured juice in the glass jar that you get from somewhere behind that front counter, I think it has mint in it…” which often leads to confusion while the staff pfaffs about trying to locate my fantasy juice. I have even had to ask multiple staff because my waitress or waiter is convinced that no such pinky-minty juice exists.
People won’t buy what isn’t on the menu
As much as I love my hipster cafe I would go somewhere else if they didn’t have the pinky-minty juice. That means that every week when I head out to grab a drink but end up staying for lunch and grabbing a take away treats from the dessert cabinet I “could” be taking my $25 somewhere else. Now $25 from one customer once per week might not sound like a lot but what if it isn’t just me? What if there are 20 customers that have gone elsewhere because they couldn’t see that thing they loved on the menu? Now we are talking $500 per week or $26,000 per year in lost sales.
What does this have to do with YOUR business?
Is every product or service you sell on your menu? I don’t literally mean that every business should have a menu but you should have a full and extensive list of the products and services you offer and you should be promoting those products and services regularly to both new and past customers.
Your previous customers will remember ONLY what you sold to them
I have no idea if the cafe sells salads (because this chubster does not go to a cafe to eat a freaking salad!). I don’t know if they have vegan or gluten-free options. I don’t know if they have soy milk or spicy latte turmeric drinks. I don’t know these things because I have never purchased any of them. I know my burger, I know my pinky-minty juice, I know my chocolate brownie.
Your previous customers probably have zero clue about the full extent of what you offer. They will remember that they came to you for business cards, but don’t know you create social media images. Maybe you wrote their will for them but they have no idea you also offer business contacts. Maybe you do their end of year taxes but can also offer mid-year tax planning. You might have sold them a vacuum cleaner part and never thought to mention you also offer in-home carpet cleaning. I could go on and on…
Maybe YOU even forgot what you sell
We focus on what comes easy. It is the low hanging fruit of business. It is the product or service that we don’t need to try too hard to sell. It isn’t always the most profitable and often is not the most enjoyable but it’s easy. What about all the other great stuff you have to offer? What would happen if every customer took two or three of your offerings instead of one? What would your profit look like then? What if you had an upsell package and just 20% of your customers took that option? What would you do with all that extra money? Purchase a pony? Fly business class? Buy the wine that doesn’t come in a box? Pay off your credit cards?
You can see where I am going with this…
Educating both potential and existing customers on everything you offer can be a profit changer. The key here is that it is YOUR job to educate them and make their lives easier, you can’t expect that you’re front of mind when they’re looking for something in particular.
Let me give you a non-pinky-minty juice example.
I had a man called Ronnie come over to tend my bushes (the ones in the backyard ;)) He did a great job and was both entertaining and charming. I thought all he did was trim bushes. I had no idea he also detailed cars, offered handyman services and took all your old crap to the tip.
These are services I have needed at some point and I would have happily called Ronnie. Unfortunately, Ronnie didn’t have a menu. He could have left me a flyer or even better sent me a nice postcard in the mail saying “thanks for letting me trim your bushes and by the way … here is everything else I can do…” but Ronnie kissed my hand, patted my pooch and went on his merry way.
The cost for Ronnie to send me a nice postcard with all his services would have been $1.50. I spent $200 on my bushes so 0.75% of the sale. He could have turned that $1.50 into $400 – $500 easily! This doesn’t include all the people (like my neighbours who needed a handyman a week after Ronnie had been!) that I could have referred Ronnie to.
Next steps for you
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1 | Write down a list of every single thing you offer (if you’re in retail or wholesale, not EVERY single item, think product categories instead)
2 | Rate your products or services in terms of how easy they are to find in your marketing, social media and website/physical store etc…
3 | Find the last date you promoted each of those products or services (or categories) on social media
4 | Check your email marketing. When was the last time you highlighted that product or service (or category) to BOTH new and existing customers?
How did you go? Jump in the Profit Lovers free group and share your results!