Why You Don't Need New Clients
- May 15, 2015
- 4 min read
The toughest part of being a freelancer is to have the discipline and the knowledge to do the right things at the right time. Where do you focus your energy?
How do you keep track of everything such as social media, following up with clients, or attracting new ones?
The way to solve these problems is to have a very systematic approach to business. Stock brokers and many other financial analysis’s have this down to a science. If they make X amount of calls a day, they produce Y results. So if they just double their calls they will double their results.
They don’t worry about the rejection or the emotional element of selling, they just focus on the system to be successful.
Creating A System
A lot of creative-minded business people, content marketers especially, really struggle with this systematic approach because their minds naturally take leaps from one thing to another. That is the nature of being creative after all.
One day they will focus on social media, the next on finding new clients and the day after that perhaps on a seminar. Creative people are not structured and so often they need to find tools to help them.
This is where a Customer Relationship Management tool can come in handy.
A New Way To Think About Your Clients
I asked a friend of mine about this and he told me something I found surprising: That you shouldn’t try and find new clients, in fact they are the worst type of clients to have. They suck up a lot of energy and resources without any clear indication of return.
Instead you should focus on leveraging and investing in the existing clients and relationships you already have.
He introduced me to the concept he called P.U.C.O.N which stands for:
Present Clients – 100 % of your business comes from your present client
Up Sell to your Present clients
Cross Sell to your Present clients
Old clients – reactive
N – new clients.
If you take an hour out of your day to focus on one task every weekday, you’ll notice 4 out of the 5 hours you spend are dealing with clients you already have.
We spend too much time chasing people and not enough time handling the needs of our current clients
Part of the problem is we don’t know how to up sell or cross sell our clients.
There is a particular art to it that needs to be refined.
If you’re a content marketer and you blog and manage social media manager, what can you upsell your clients on?
Perhaps it’s managing their email direct marketing campaigns for them as well. Perhaps it’s stepping into a more traditional public relations role and getting magazine interviews or podcast interviews.
The Art of Cross Selling and Up Selling
Cross selling is selling a different service all together to the same clients. For example you can now buy insurance from WalMart. WalMart's original business model is to sell everyday items at a low cost but since people trust the WalMart brand they will be more likely to buy insurance from them.
The cross sell can be a bit tough because you need to think of a product or service you can sell or create outside of your natural skill set. For a content marketer it could be web design.
I’ve heard this called the halo effect before. Once you become an expert in a certain topic then people are more likely to trust you’re an expert in something else as well.
3M spends billions on research and development which is why they do not need to go after new clients. For most of its 100 year history, 70% of 3M’s sales comes from products they have created in the last five years.
That means their $30 billion in revenue doesn’t come from new customers but comes from upselling and cross selling their existing clients.
This concept works because people like to buy from people they have already formed a relationship with and with people who they like. Once you’ve formed that bond, it’s much easier for them to reach out to you.
They don’t have to post any ‘help wanted ads’ or interview new candidates. They don't have to waste their time if the solution is right in front of them.
They will likely trust you to more to treat them fairly and get the job done.
Growing Old Together
A lot of businesses tend to forget about old clients. You do a job for them once and then move on. You don't keep the relationship fresh. You don't reach out to them. I know I’ve been guilty of this as well.
Instead of prospecting somebody who you don’t know and probably doesn’t even want what you’re trying to sell them, try reaching out to an old client you haven’t spoken to in a while.
Even if they’re not ready to hire you again, if you keep in touch they will remember you next time they need something done or know somebody who does.
The takeaway from all this?
Instead of spending a lot of money and time trying to get new clients, try focusing your energy on your existing clients. You’ll find by deepening those relationships you’ll strength your business for the long term.
If you want to find out how discoverable you are on the internet check this tool out
Joel Mark Harris is a writer, film producer and marketer. (@joelmarkharris) He is the founder of Story Laboratory which helps artists market their work. To get a free ebook on How to Make Money Blogging and a Content Marketing Tool Kit sign up HERE
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