“I need to find new clients.”

This is something I hear all the time from business people I meet. “What’s the best way to do it?” they ask me.

In my blog of 10 October 2012 I wrote about the four different strategies you can use to grow your business. Most people think that to grow a business, you have to find new clients. But what about your existing clients? When they’re planning how best to grow their businesses, far too many people almost ignore the clients they already have and spend all their time and effort looking for new ones.

Why do you need to look after your existing clients?

If they’re already buying from you, it’s because they like what you’re selling; they need it and it solves a problem they have; and they trust you enough to buy from you. If you provide a service (rather than a product), you’ve probably spent quite a bit of time building up the relationship and level of trust needed. Can you afford to invest the time and money needed to build up that type of relationship with a brand new, potential client? Not if you’re looking to grow your business quickly!

How can your clients help you grow your business?

More of what they have – if they already know, like and trust you, your existing clients are more likely to be loyal to you and buy more from you.  Start by thinking about how you can provide more of your existing services to these clients. If you deliver a coaching service once a month, do some of your clients need sessions twice a month? Do clients come to you once every six months for a massage? If so, think about how you can encourage them to come every two or three months. If your clients book you to run one workshop every two months, how much would they benefit from a workshop every month?

Something new – think about new products and services that you can provide to your existing clients. They’re already buying something from you, so if you develop something new, they are more likely to buy it from you. A potential client who doesn’t know you and doesn’t yet know how good your other products and services are is less likely to buy from you. Rather than spending a fortune on promoting your business to prospects, why not focus your efforts on the clients you’re already working with?

How do you promote your business to your existing clients?

In the simplest terms, it’s about keeping in touch with them! I’ll cover in more detail the marketing tools that work best with existing clients in my blog in a couple of weeks time, after we’ve looked at how to decide whether or not your clients are really ideal for you.

If you need to know more now about using this strategy to grow your business, its covered in more detail in Chapter 3 of my book, Magnetic Marketing (which is collecting 5 star ratings on Amazon!) and is also available to order through our website. There are also lots of marketing planning tips to download from the website, as well as helpful videos to watch.