4
Introducing the business development priorities 55
Priority 2 – Develop more business from
existing customers and clients
Your second business development priority should be about leveraging
more business from your existing customers and clients. Let me give you
several important reasons why this takes precedence over Priority 3, which
is all about new lead generation.
Loyalty leading to repeat purchases
It is easier to get existing clients to make repeat purchases from you than
to get businesses or people who don’t know you at all to switch brands
or loyalty. When, for example, did you as an individual last change your
brand of coffee, washing powder, baked beans, hairdresser, plumber or
supermarket? As a business how long is it since you considered trying a
different accountant, bank or solicitor? Most customers and clients are
resistant to change so long as they are happy with a particular service,
product or person.
Potential to sell other products, services and extras
If you have or can create additional items, extras or something new to
launch, your existing base will be easier to get at and more likely to be
receptive to other related products or services. Depending on the strength
of your brand, sometimes potential customers will even be desperate to buy
from you. If you doubt this, just look at the queues of Apple fans outside
Apple Stores when a new iPad, iPhone or other ‘must have’ Apple ‘iGizmo’
comes out. Not only are these people driven to buy the latest gadget,
but they will also spend even more cash on a new case and other related
accessories.
Inside knowledge of customer or client
With some smart gathering of information, your inside knowledge of the
customer or client makes it easier to proactively target other relevant goods
or services at them, that your competitors won’t know are appropriate. For
example, if you have bought this book from Amazon, it will know and
interpret your buying habits and intuitively e-mail you with other titles
‘that you may like’. In the services sector, a solicitor who has just handled
a divorce for you will know that you are in the market for a new will and if
they are clever, get to you rst.
56 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
Cheaper and less speculative
I can pretty much guarantee that whatever external business development
activity you engage in, it will be more expensive and speculative than
tapping into your existing base. Thus by focusing on existing customers
and clients rst, you can generate easier business for less cost, leaving you
with additional cash to put into external lead generation activities to feed
your ‘enquiries bucket’ at the appropriate time.
You can often charge higher prices
Generally speaking, with your existing contact base, the price you can
charge will be easier to increase or maintain as you will have an existing
relationship with customers based on loyalty to your service, product range
or brand. Whether it is justied or not, you may feel more price pressure
from new and totally cold enquiries. (See Chapter 3 on pricing.)
Positive word-of-mouth
Developing your existing customer and client base is also like recruiting
an informal ‘sales team’. Look after customers and they will become
advocates for you, spreading positive word-of-mouth to their friends,
colleagues and relatives. Any purchases they make from you is business
that you have not had to buy through external business development
activities.
When you look at this list of benets, it is an absolute business develop-
ment anomaly that most businesses spend the biggest part of their budget
and resources on Priority 3 . . . generating new enquiries. If this is you,
regardless of your size or sector, it is time to have a huge re-think.
I am not telling you to give up on external lead generation activities, they are of course
vital. I am however urging you to focus on Priorities 1 and 2 rst.
In Chapter 6 I will give you the ve golden rules of generating more busi-
ness from your existing base and many tools, techniques and tips to help
you make them work in practice. You will of course then need to choose
which ones you nd most useful and adapt them as appropriate.
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