Advice from America’s most expensive business consultant, Jay Abraham, who has advised such companies as Sears, AT&T, Weight Watchers, Federal Express and hundreds more. . .

Part I of II of a Q&A with Jay Abraham On Your Most Prized Asset in Business

Q: Jay, at the risk of wanting to kick myself when I hear it, what am I overlooking?

A: You will at least arch your eyebrows when I tell you it’s your current customers and the goodwill you have with them. You are very likely limiting the amount of business that satisfied customers, clients or patients do with you. I know it sounds crazy, but I will bet you it’s happening in your business right now.

Unwittingly, unintendedly, you are probably keeping people from buying from you.

Q: You’re right it, sounds a little crazy. Please explain.

A: What most business owners don’t always realize is that a happy customer can be like a “perennial” in your garden. With proper care and feeding, you can always count on it to yield for you. When a customer buys from you the first time, he or she is saying, “I like you, you have my trust.”

This is an invitation not just for a sale, but for a relationship. It is an invitation to create more opportunities for that customer to buy from you. And to buy more frequently. The majority of companies and professional practices spend a fortune chasing after new customers, concentrating mostly on that first sale.

Q: Wait a minute. Don’t most companies truly value repeat business?

A: Of course they do. What I’m saying is that most firms, perhaps yours included, don’t aggressively cultivate additional business from that current customer in any organized way. If they did, trust me — they’d be seeing their business grow like never before without hardly working up a sweat.

Customers are silently willing, even begging, to be led to more purchases, and by providing that leadership you can put more immediate cash in the till.

Q: What do you recommend to make this happen?

A: Let me give you a few ideas directly from a Special Report I wrote called, “21 Embarrassingly Simple Ways to Build A Business Fortune.”
And just as the title suggests, these are ways that are simple, but have nuclear selling power.

One big idea:
Offer add-on products or services that help the customer or client achieve his or her desired end result. And if possible, at a special value. Customers will always perk up when you offer more value. It’s instinctual. It’s etched on their chromosomes. They want a deal! So give them one in the form of add-on, specially-priced products and/or services at the time or their original purchase.

Some simple examples:

** A computer dealer sells a unit to a new customer, and makes it enticing for that person to add on more memory or a new printer by offering it at a one-time-only “piggy-back” price.

** A dentist begins chatting up his patients about a reasonably priced teeth-whitening process that can be accomplished at night, while the patient sleeps. Bingo. The dentist makes an extra $10,000 the first month he tries it.

** When I call my favorite 800-number software catalog company, their order takers always ask if I’d “like to hear their daily specials” in the category of the item I originally called for. And you know something? One out of every two times I call, one of those specials sounds irresistible and worthwhile and I order.

Q: What can I learn from these examples?

A: Just this: if you keep in mind your customer’s desired end result –that is, what they want to achieve with your product — you can almost always interest them in products and services that bring that result more completely, conveniently and efficiently. Observe what people buy to go with your product in the pursuit of their desired result and combine those elements in a value package.

Q: What if I don’t normally carry all the things people buy to go with my product or service?

A: Offer them the convenience and/or savings of getting it through you. This is the principle that leads caterers to offer invitation printing and dermatologists to sell Vitamin E. It’s also why the local tackle shop offers fisherman not only the best in “Wooly Buggers” and Nightcrawlers, but the ability to buy or renew a fishing license right on the premises.

Remember:
Your customers already like and trust you. That’s why they chose you in the first place. That goodwill is the kindling for at least an immediate 20% sales boost. This will happen if you never make them leave you to go two or three other places for other transactions. You can help them do it easier, faster, better and for less money. Try this as soon as you have the logistics in place — and revel in the results!

Example:
The president of an industrial electronics firm in Mesa Arizona, heard me talk about add-ons at a seminar and when he got back to his office, he began noodling some ideas. What he decided to do was to routinely add an optional complementary product as an item on his price quotes that represents 10% to 15% of the overall quote.

The add-on wasn’t even part of the original discussion, yet 30% of the time people would buy them. “It’s an effortless process,” he said in a recent letter to me, “and it’ll mean about $60,000 in additional revenue this year.”

(In Part II of this topic, I’ll share Jay’s thoughts on two other effective add-ons that ALWAYS work.)

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