I have been looking at why your existing clients are your biggest asset and why neglecting them will lose you money.
Identify the Gone-aways
There is a certain group within your current client list who you will need to turn your attention to first when you are attempting to stop The Gap in your business.
You need to identify the people that you have not seen for six months to a year (This time can vary with different businesses). I call these people the Gone-aways. Most business owners are reticent about contacting the Gone-aways. They think that the people they have not seen for a long time may be annoyed with them in some way or they have left because of price or they thought the service was poor. As I said in my previous post, this is rarely the case. (See 'Why you have a hole in your business')
You need to place the Gone-aways into a list of their own and send them an email. The email should read something like this:
"Dear Lesley,
I haven't seen you for a while , I hope it was nothing I said! I am sorry I haven't been in touch with you sooner and more often. I just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten you. As a valued client, I would like to offer you a free treatment this August. I really look forward to speaking with you soon".
(Please feel free to use this as a template. It works really well and you will receive responses).
You should send up to 6 of this type of email to your Gone-aways and remove them from the Gone-aways list when they reply. After 6 you can be fairly certain that this client has gone and you will probably never know why. You will, however, need to put a new system in place that makes this loss of a client a rare event.
"By sending an email to your Gone-aways asking them to come back, you generate more business for yourself because some of them will reply."
PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANYTHING LIKE THE FOLLOWING EMAIL TO ANYONE
"We note from our records that you have not been to our establishment for more than a year. Please indicate whether you would like to continue receiving information about our products and services or if you would like to be removed from our mailing list".
I see this type of email occasionally and I recoil in disbelief. If you do cannot see why this type of email is just wrong then there is nothing I can do to help you.
Organise your client list and send more emails
If you have not already done so, choose a straightforward and free piece of software and start organising your clients into contacts and email groups. This system does not have to be complex or expensive. I find that Gmail is a very good client database. The Virgin Media Group use Gmail to organise their client emails.
If you would like a guide in how to get started with your client database, please go here.
Find an efficient and profitable system of obtaining new clients
This is not easy. It is made more difficult because of the huge volume of advice available. I think you should do these two things below and begin as soon as possible.
The first is to find somewhere on the internet who has large numbers of potential new clients. You need to be able to identify and to group these prospects. The best source of these prospects is LinkedIn. Professional people who are able to purchase from you are on LinkedIn. You need to connect with them and send them something interesting. There is an argument that says LinkedIn is exclusively a business to business (B to B) platform and not business to client (B to C). This may have been true once but it is true no longer. In 2015, LinkedIn is the place to find new clients.
The second thing that you can do is add the details of your new prospect list to a database and start sending them emails. Again, the theorising and postulating about how this is to be done and with what system is mind numbing. You will be told what you should and should not do and when and where you should not do it. You will be told that unless you use software or gizmo Xxxx you will fail and everyone will think that you are stupid. To shield yourself from this information overload and emotional blackmail, you need to remember the following:
Create a list of new names and email them frequently with interesting things
The 'follow-up' auto-responder can wait. You will get along nicely without a full Sales force package. These may be very effective tools but the point is you can start without them.
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