Find More Business with Existing Clients

Back in my CRM days I used to read over and over that it's five times easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one. Yet, rarely do I see anyone taking advantage of that fact. Most up selling and cross selling happens purely by chance as a client asks, "Oh, you guys offer that too?"

We're just as bad as everyone else, though hopefully we can change that. I intend to take some of the advice Yuwanda Black provides in a great post on how to pitch existing clients for new business.

"I recently snagged more work from one client by finding out that he had a lot of blogging work he needed done. These weren’t for any of his clients, but for his own sites. But, he just didn’t have time to do them and meet client deadlines as well (a lot of internet entrepreneur have this problem, including yours truly).

"Only by talking to him and getting a better understanding of his business, his workload, how his day flowed was I able to get this work – which is ongoing."

It's particularly useful for those of us in the creative services field, but there's no reason anyone else can't use this advice as well. If you have additional products or services to offer, how do you promote them to existing customers? Or have you fallen into the, "Oh, you do that too?" trap as well?

(From Freelance Switch via LifeHacker)