I have spoken before about the easiest way to generate money is to market to the customers you already have, makes sense right?

You have a captive audience that has already purchased from you; some may have done so multiple times in the form of other purchases such as personal training packs, items from your pro shop, and additional memberships for their friends and family members etc.

Here is a quick way that if used consistently with the right offers will show next to immediate results for your business. Firstly I'll talk briefly about point of sales "upsells" the most successful businesses in the world use upsells.

You're familiar with one of the most famous "And would you like fries with that? This one tactic is responsible I read, for generating McDonalds an extra $20,000,000 million yes that's twenty million dollars in additional sales per year.

Australia Post has multiple upsells in the various methods they offer to get your parcels and letters from one destination to another, Harvey Norman offers extra warranty on their appliances, after the purchase of a new car comes the upsell to fabric treatment, paint protection floor mats extended warranties etc.

You get the idea!

At the point of sale when your customer has just purchased from you then this can be one of the best times to go for that extra sale as long as it is congruent with the initial purchase! By that I mean if you're in the business of selling health and wellness then a product or service that has a direct bearing on that product or service priced correctly is what's likely to succeed.

Here's an example if you sold gym memberships (as we do) then a congruent offer at the point of sales could be to offer to have the members fitness program re-evaluated after 3 months and you would do this 4 times throughout the year. You could present it as the normal cost for a 1 hour program, measurements and nutrition evaluation would normally be $75 so the total would be worth $300 extra dollars over the course of the twelve month membership term.

If they are paying their membership via direct debit at x amount of dollars per week per fortnight or per month then the upsell could be presented along the lines of offering the customer an immediate discount of thirty percent if they chose to take this option today.

Further it could also be incorporated in the actual weekly, fortnightly or monthly dues, so small it would barely be noticed, if for instance the customer was paying weekly then the $200 extra could be broken down to" just" under $4 a week.

For that small extra they would ensure that they keep making progress by having their exercise routine update to suit their current level of fitness, you could also increase the value of this by offering to give a friend or family member of the new customer a free month of membership to come along and try the facilities out.

The additional value would be the cost of your services for a single month in our case we sell a one month membership for $149, AND you also have a chance to gain another new client or customer.

So why wouldn't you use something as powerful and as simple as this? Most likely because your staff will be afraid to "offend" the customer or seem "pushy" overcome this negative way of thinking by role playing and the genuine belief that what you are offering is adding value to what the customer wants to achieve!

Strangely enough women are twice as likely to use this technique as males are, however if your team (and yourself) are NOT using this, then you are leaving lots of potential money on the table! Just imagine if, based on the above figures you joined 500 new clients a year and just 10% took you up on your offer that's 50 new members paying an extra $200 per year.

Could you use an extra Ten Thousand Dollars? In my next article I'll talk about "Welcome Letters" and why it's imperative to use them and how to make follow on sales through their use.