What’s one more client worth to your business?
By MARK RIFFEY for the Flathead Beacon
It’s not unusual to talk to business owners who want to double their business, even if the discussion is a bit unfocused at first.
It’s far more unusual to find someone who wants grow their business by 1000%, IE: growing the business by 10 times its current size. Some have said that growing a business by 10 times is easier than doubling it because of the changes it forces upon all aspects of the business. Easy probably isn’t the word, but it makes sense logically because you know you’d have to rethink every process from one end of the business to the other.
Doubling the sales of a business tends to result in doing things the same way, but doing them twice as often, or somehow doing twice as many of them. With that in mind, the idea of doubling your business might leave you wondering where will the time come from or who will do the work. Reasonable questions, I think. Even if that sort of growth seems possible, it might not seem reasonable, no matter how attractive it sounds or how confident you are that you could handle it.
While I’m not trying to talk you out of that kind of growth, and I’m confident that almost every business could use more clients, I know that not everyone is sure how they could make that happen, or how they’d handle the load if they did manage to double the business.
Instead of reaching for 10x or 2x, let’s keep things as simple as possible for now by starting with getting one new client in whatever timeframe makes sense for you.
Start with one
Keeping it simple… How would gaining one new client per day, week or month do for your business?
Perhaps your business isn’t structured in a way that one new client per day could happen, or perhaps you couldn’t deal with 30 new clients a month. What about one new client per week? If your clients require lots of time and effort, perhaps you could only handle gaining one new client a month or even per quarter. What impact would result from gaining one new client per day, week, month or quarter? Do the math on whichever timeframe makes sense for you.
How often do your clients return? If you have 365 new clients a year from now, and you keep adding one every day, how does that change your business? Even if your typical client spends only $10 per purchase, one more per day is a step in the right direction, particularly as these new clients return.
Bring some context to “get one new client”
For a little daily context, maybe you get one more dinner reservation, one more kayak rental, one more room filled, one more table turn, one more styling appointment, or one more portrait setting per day. If you maintain this month-in, month-out, what’s that mean to your business? What are 30 more table turns, 30 more rentals or 30 more room-nights worth to your business per month?
For some weekly context, perhaps you get one more home to clean, one more weekly cabin rental (or one more rental week in the shoulder season, if you have such a thing), one more legal consultation, one more pack trip or one more bookkeeping session.
Naturally, you may wonder how you would get that one more client. One easy way: Think hard about how you’re getting them now. If your lead flow numbers vs your sales numbers tell you that there are leads you’re losing, not closing, or simply not ideal for – dig deeper. Examine each lead source, each media, each referral source. Where can you find one more? Repeat the process.
Why only one?
You might be asking why only one new client per day, week, month or quarter? Simple. If you can figure out what you have to do to gain only one in the timeframe that works for you, then the path should be clear to your long term sales goals. By consistently getting one more, you’ll know you can do it as well as how to handle the growth. Whether you do what it takes to do that one, five or ten times – the choice is yours.
One critical piece – it helps to know what’s working. Remember to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
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Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him at mriffey@flatheadbeacon.com.