How to grow your business without needing more leads

I’m going to be honest, marketers are not going to appreciate this article. I’m going to rock the boat, shake the apple cart and stir the hornets nest. You want to grow your business? You don’t need to do more marketing and you don’t need more leads! I’m going to show you how to grow your business without needing more leads.

I hear these types of statements almost daily:

• “I need more leads.”
• “What is the best social media platform to be on?”
• “I need a more effective marketing approach.”
• “What’s the cheapest way to advertise?”
• “What’s the most effective way to market?”
• “How can I get more customers?”
• “I need some new ideas for advertising.”
• “I need to drive more traffic.”

How to grow your business

When your goal is to grow your business, there are numerous things you should look at before you head out to invest time, money and effort in marketing. The answer is not out there. It’s important to get your ducks in a row and tidy up your business ‘backyard’ first. Before you spend huge amounts of money on marketing, make sure you have maximised every opportunity you currently have within your business.

Ok, let me be clear. I am not anti-marketing. There is a time and a place to invest in marketing. Marketing is an important part of any small business, but it’s not the be all end all to growing your business. In fact there are many important aspects of your business you should pay attention to before you look at marketing.

Behind the scenes

Saying you want to grow your business and then heading out to run a  marketing campaign is like saying you want to lose weight and then embarking on a comprehensive training regime with a personal trainer.

Ok, sure it sounds like you’ve got yourself together and your friends may be impressed at your initiative. It’s going to require a considerable investment of money, time and effort.

But behind the scenes, if you’re still eating takeaway and fast food every night and stuffing your face with chocolate at every opportunity, you’re never going to see results on the scales.

The first step

A good marketing campaign should bring in more leads, but the purpose of this article is to help you understand that more leads is not the best or the only solution to growing your business.

The first step in growing your business should be to look internally rather than externally. More leads is not the answer, if you have neglected to pay attention to the following nine areas of your business.

It’s also a matter of efficiency. Marketing takes time, effort and a great deal of money. Addressing these nine key performance indicators of your business first, before you worry about embarking on a marketing campaign, costs nothing and can often result in much greater gains and a much better return on investment.

How to grow your business without needing more leads

Improve your conversions

You can have more leads coming into your business but if you’re not effectively converting those leads into paying customers, you’re not growing your business. To become more effective at converting leads into customers, you must understand how and why customers buy and what people require from you so they can buy.

Retain current clients for longer

It makes sense that the longer you can keep current clients, the more stability you’ll create in your business. The longer current clients stay with you and keep buying, the more revenue your business generates without the need for more marketing to gain new customers.

Reduce client churn

There will always be clients who stop being customers of your business. The first challenge of any business when it comes to growing the number of clients is replacing those who leave. If you can reduce the number of clients who leave your business, it means you don’t need more leads to replace those clients who leave. When you do have new clients coming into your business, the result will be growth instead of just maintenance.

Ask current clients to purchase more often

If each client you currently have, purchased more frequently, you would achieve a greater revenue result without needing more clients. Reducing your need to gain more clients takes the pressure off marketing!

Ask current clients to purchase more in each transaction (upsell)

Similarly, growth can be achieved without the need for more leads, if you can increase the value of each transaction by asking current clients to purchase more in each transaction.

Increase your prices

With all other things being equal, an easy way for you to increase your bottom line is to increase your prices.

Reduce expenses

More income is not an indicator of business growth. Nett profit is the only thing that matters. Greater profit can be achieved with the same number of clients and the same revenue, if expenses are reduced.

Ask for referrals

Word of mouth is the cheapest, easiest and most reliable way of generating new business. Not only do referrals cost nothing, they bring in much more qualified leads. A person is who is referred by a happy and satisfied current customer is much more likely to become a new customer than a cold lead.

Reduce incidence of returns / refunds

The revenue you work so hard to generate needs to stay in your business. That’s a given. The more money you lose due to returns, refunds or suspensions, the greater the effect on your bottom line.

Conclusion

When you run a business, it’s vital to understand which aspects of your business are key indicators of performance and growth. These are the first areas to invest in when growth is the goal.