Have you asked yourself, what is the best way to avoid any cash flow problems? Well, one sure shot way to prevent cash flow problems in your business is to keep growing your revenues. To grow your revenues, you need to keep adding customers. This is a no brainer.
However, the moot point is how does a business keep adding customers? For starters, a business exists because customers exist. However, many business owners lose sight of this as they get more involved in their operations, resolving several issues and, with competition catching up, find it very difficult to attract more customers. It is very easy to get busy with firefighting on several fronts. The focus shifts to the urgent matters. The critical activities like growth is either left to sales & marketing teams or left to chance. Agree?
So, how does an entrepreneur attract more customers to his/her business? There are three easy ways. Regardless of your strategy and for most of the businesses, these ways work.
Build a following-Tribe
A tribe or a fan club if you want to call it that, are a group of people who fit your description of target clients of your business. They may not be immediate buyers but will be buyers at some point in time. It is also possible that they will buy many times.
If you can create a way to engage with them by assembling them at a location-digitally, like a group or have a database; and, engage them by adding value, providing information, you have a ready pipeline of customers. You make it easy for them to buy from you when they are ready to buy. You have a captive audience in case you are releasing a new version of your product/service. Imagine the ways this relationship can help your business.
Innovate
This is an easily overlooked area. People often think of innovation as a big-ticket item involving massive expenditure and resources. Many businesses that have successfully innovated their products and services and increased not just the customers but also the prices. The focus is on making customer’s life easy by making their products & services better. More popular examples are Uber/Ola; Amazon, Meesho; Airbnb, OYO; etc. While they stand out as technology intensive companies, the real value comes from the simple problems they solve and keep making the solution better and better for the customers. You may have noticed how restaurants moved from providing food to adding value added services example, providing space for get-togethers so that customers need not spent time & money looking after the arrangements. The focus is on customer needs. It builds additional revenue streams and expands the customer base for businesses.
Existing Customers
Smart businesses invest in customer relationships. Yet, many small and medium business owners let go this mine of opportunities. Existing customers are those who are your most valuable source of spreading a good word about your business, in short a strong referral for your product or service. A happy customer is most likely a repeat customer. They also provide feedback to improve your product/service. Leverage your existing customers by building the relationship and providing them the benefits of being loyal to your product/service.