By - August 13, 2021
Categories: General
When you think bookkeeping, you probably don’t think about finding ways to increase your sales opportunities. The truth is, your bookkeeping is an underutilized asset. Especially when you have your accounts set up and maintained properly. Accurate bookkeeping isn’t just a list of numbers arranged in an Excel Spreadsheet. It’s a history of your entire business. The records of the transactions tell a story. And if you’re willing to listen, you can learn a few precious lessons that will help you increase your sales opportunities. Statistically speaking, more sales opportunities leads to more sales.
The first way you can increase your sales opportunities is by identifying clients or former clients who haven’t purchased from you recently.
Identifying “Lost” Clients
Unless you are dealing with a highly transactional business model, you need repeat customers. But what happens when a customer or client doesn’t return to do business with you again? Very few small businesses put any effort into tracking “lost” clients.
Yes, there are times you may not want to keep track of clients. If one of your clients was not paying their bills or was causing you problems, you may not want them back. Certain clients can be more trouble than the money they pay you. But for the rest of the “Lost” clients, leaving them alone can be detrimental to your business’s growth.
Client Lifetime Value
Once you have identified the clients who are considered “Lost,” you need to make sure they are still worth pursuing. Some of them may no longer be around. Others may no longer need your services, but how can you gauge that without talking to them? If you use the Client’s Lifetime Value to analyze your books, you will come up with some helpful answers.
Your client’s lifetime value is the total amount of money a client will spend with you over time. Each business and industry has averages that you can follow to see if you’re hitting your industry standards. Using bookkeeping data, you can calculate how much an average client will spend with you. You can also tell pretty quickly if the “Lost” client has reached their full value or not. If a client has reached that value, you may not want to spend as much time or energy trying to get them back.
Re-Targeting “Lost” Clients
Once you have identified the client, you can start to retarget them. Maybe services have changed since they last came in and you have new ways to help them. Maybe you have a service that a “Lost” client used to use frequently. Whatever the case, your bookkeeping data will be instrumental for identifying the best way to reach them.
And by being sincere when you do reach out to them, you can create opportunities to get feedback and build a stronger client relationship. It’s never a bad thing to let your clients know that you care about them.
More to Come
There are more ways to increase your sales opportunities than just identifying and targeting “Lost” clients. But for today, I want to leave you with one thought. If you are trying to increase your sales numbers without knowing what they are or where they come from, you will be lost the entire time. Everything you do will be a guess based on a fanciful wish. You need to know your business’s financial numbers and the only way to do that is bookkeeping.There are two more ways to increase your sales opportunities, but if you want to get started more quickly, and you don’t know that your financials are in order, set up a consultation with me and I can help you get started. See you in the next one.
