How to get more from what you've already got!

By Derek Gehl

In order to make your business more successful, you have three options:
1. Get more customers
2. Sell your products for more money
3. Sell more products to the customers you are already have

I don't mean to oversimplify, but really, that's all there is to it. If you get more customers, your sales go up. If you can sell your products for more money today than you did yesterday -- and still ship the same number of units -- you'll make more money.

And finally, if you can sell more products to your existing customer base, you'll make more money.

Whenever I analyze a business that's doing well but could be doing better, I start by determining how well it's doing in each of these three areas.

Is it doing everything it can to get more customers? Is it charging as much as it could be for the products it is selling? Is it making the most of the lifetime value of its existing customers?

Very rarely do I find businesses that are performing to their utmost capability in one of these areas -- let alone all three.

So, where should you start?

Look at these three areas of business, then pick the one that has the most potential to boost your revenues right now. I suggest you focus on the one that's currently most neglected because typically that's where you'll get the highest return for the amount of time you invest.

Once you choose the area you want to focus on first, here are some growth strategies for you to try out...

• 1. To get more customers:
  a. Increase your organic search engine rankings
  b. Get more traffic through the pay-per-click search engines
  c. Start an affiliate program
  d. Joint venture with complementary businesses

• 2. To sell your product for more money:
  a. Simply test an increase in price (try a simply 5 - 10% increase -- you may be surprised).
  b. If you increase your price and your sales drop to the point that you're making less money, then write better salescopy to support the new price and try testing again.
• (FACT: The more value you build in your salescopy the more you can sell your product for!)

• 3. To sell more products to your existing customers:
  a. Find other products your customers are looking for and find a way to sell them by...
  - Developing the product yourself.
  - Finding another website that sells the product and sign up as an affiliate.
  - Find a drop shipper that has the product you want
  b. Utilize email marketing to stay in touch with your customers, build a strong relationship with them, and sell more products over time.

... These are just the basics. I haven't touched on the many advanced strategies that can really accelerate the success of an established business.

The bottom line is this: Out of the three core strategies to grow your business, figure out which one holds the most opportunity for your business and start there.

Keep focused, apply the strategies I mentioned and your profits will grow! I promise!

All the best..