One of the most frequent questions I receive from new and existing agents and ISOs alike is how to grow or expand their business. In Jay Abraham’s book, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, he states that there are basically three ways (or a combination thereof) to increase your business and ultimately improve profits. They are:
- Increase your number of clients (expand your merchant base)
- Increase the average sale per client (sell multiple products to boost your residual stream)
- Increase repeat business
Let’s take a detailed look at each of these strategies and start brainstorming how you can apply them to your business.
Increase the Number of Your Clients
Review and analyze your current client base to see where and how the majority of merchants find you. If you haven’t been tracking this start now, create a log sheet and note where each client originated from for at least 30 days, in the meantime let experience and memory guide you.
Add up the number of clients from each source, see which marketing strategies are working the best and start spending more time utilizing those strategies that are bearing the most fruit. It’s all about doing more of what works. This may sound simple, and it is.
It’s just a matter of doing it!
If none of your marketing strategies are working very well, take time to reevaluate, be flexible and ready to try something new. It may mean you scrap your existing strategy and replace it with an entirely new system.
Increase The Average Sale Per Client
Take a look at all the products and services you offer and do two things. First, think about new valuable products or services you could add to the existing ones to create more interesting packages for your customers. What are you missing? How can you add even more value to your merchants?
Next, consider all of the ways you could bundle existing products and services in various combinations to create new and exciting packages.
Many of the agents and ISOs I work with have uniquely packaged products together based on the industries they are targeting. Product packaging or bundling has been around for quite some time, industries like automotive, telecom, ecommerce and cable have taken the bundling concept to new levels. By creating a package that yields massive value to the merchant you can demand higher prices or monthly lease payments.
If you are bundling a package around a free terminal concept you may want to consider charging a setup fee or training fee to help increase margins.
Increase Repeat Business
A well known fact is that it costs around seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell something to an existing customer. Take a look at your existing merchant base, as well as your previous customers, and think about what kinds of products and services they need and would like.
If you weren’t offering gift cards several years ago, maybe it’s time to go back to those merchants and offer a gift card program? This will not only increase sales but reduce your portfolio’s attrition rate. Or maybe it’s time to locate existing merchants that can utilize a cash advance program to help expand their business or hire more people.
Consider creating “follow-up” or “next step” products and services. A great way to find out what customers really want is to actually ask them. You can ask via: phone, mail, e-mail, or a web based survey. A great tool for conducting online surveys is Survey monkey; you can review their site at: www.surveymonkey.com. Make sure you develop and ask questions that clearly identify new product wants and needs of your customers.
Are you starting to identify how you can use these three ways, or a combination of them all, to increase your bankcard business?
Take the time to analyze your business, create a game plan, and get into action. Remember we want the same thing our merchants want, to improve and grow the business.
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