The Easiest Profit Strategy for Small Business Owners

Welcome to Profit Points, I'm your host Megan Schwan, founder of Sidekick Accounting, certified Profit First Professional and Fix This Next advisor, and the person small business owners call when the numbers stop making sense. Here, you will find one financial or business growth concept broken down per episode, with real examples and language that actually makes sense, so you can stop guessing and start making decisions that move your business forward. Every episode ends with one clear action step, because information without application is just noise.

In this episode, we are talking about the growth strategy most small business owners completely overlook: the money that is already sitting in the relationships you have built. If you have been pouring energy into finding new leads while your existing clients sit quietly in your inbox, this one is going to shift how you think about revenue. Megan walks through three specific opportunities for increasing profit without adding a single new customer, and backs it up with real client examples that show just how simple and effective these moves can be.

This episode answers questions like:

• Why is chasing new leads often the slowest path to profit?
• What is the logical next step offer, and how do you figure out what yours is?
• How do add-on services increase revenue per client without adding more work to your plate?
• What does a win-back strategy actually look like, and how do you follow up without being annoying?
• How did one product-based client boost sales by 15% with one simple, complementary addition?
• Why upselling is not pushy, it is actually a form of serving your clients well.

This episode is for you if you are a small business owner who has been working hard to grow but feels like you are always starting from zero. If your marketing efforts feel exhausting and the pipeline never seems full enough, this is the episode that will make you look at what you already have differently. It is also for anyone who has a solid client base but has never thought intentionally about the next offer, the upgrade, or the client who has not heard from you in six months. Whether you sell services or products, the principles Megan covers here apply directly to how you build sustainable, repeatable revenue.

If this episode gave you a new way to think about your revenue, share it with a fellow business owner who needs to hear it. Subscribe to Profit Points so you never miss a week, leave a review on your podcast platform, and drop a comment or question to let Megan know what financial topic you want her to tackle next.

This Week's Action Step

·       Your three challenges from this episode:

·       Logical next step: Write down one next step offer you could suggest to a current client this month.

·       Enhancement add-on: Review your current services and identify one easy upgrade that delivers extra value without overwhelming your operations.

·       Win-back: Reach out personally to three past clients this week. Do not pitch. Just check in.

Resources Mentioned

Profit First implementation and coaching with Megan (book at chatwithmeg.com)

Connect with Megan

LinkedIn: Megan Schwan

Website & Community: youraccountingsidekick.com

Book a Free Consultation: chatwithmeg.com

Connect with me for practical financial education, resources, and support designed to help you build a profitable, sustainable business that works for your life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, class or business profit points five. You're client by certified profit first certified certificates. If you're a profit designer who wants to actually understand what is happening in your business financially, not just survive it, but genuinely get it. You're in the right place. Every episode covers one concept, uses real numbers, and ends with something you can actually do. That's the deal. Let's talk about today's topic. Want to hear a secret? Your next sale is probably already sitting in your inbox. So many business owners think they need more leads to grow, but often the fastest path to profit isn't finding new customers, it's serving your existing ones better. Today we're diving into the easiest growth strategy you're probably overlooking, the upsell that you're already sitting on. I'm Megan Schwan, your accounting sidekick, CEO and founder of Sidekick Accounting, and this is the Profit Points Podcast, where we uncover the areas in your business that affect your profit, sometimes in ways you never realize. When I talk to small business owners, I see this all the time. They're working harder, marketing more, and still wondering why growth feels so slow. But if your current clients already trust you, like you, and value what you offer, they are way more likely to buy from you again. The problem is most business owners never ask for the next sale, or they don't have structure in their offers in a way that naturally leads to one. I've actually been working on this myself, and it's definitely a bit of a shift. So I want to talk to you today about three opportunities that might be hiding in your business. So opportunity number one is the logical next step. Ask yourself what's the next natural problem my clients face after working with me or buying from me. So an example using myself might be a bookkeeping client that might need tax strategic tax planning or profit-first implementation. So more work on their cash flow and strategy. You don't need a brand new offer. You just need to connect the dots between what you've already done and how you've already worked with people and what will help them get to the next level and go further. So take a second. You can pause this if you're not watching live or come back. Write down one next step offer that you could suggest to your current clients this month and start brainstorming. Okay. Opportunity number two is the enhancement add-on, is what we're gonna call it. Sometimes clients don't need more, they just need better, or they need more options. So add-on services can deepen your results, their results without overwhelming your team or yourself. One example of this for using myself again is offering monthly KPI reports, doing a more strategic strategy call, or helping with audit prep for existing clients. Those are different add-ons that we have: accounts payable management, accounts receivable management, coaching. Those are services that we add on to our bookkeeping services. Those small add-ons, though, can boost your client satisfaction. It can increase your average revenue per customer. Lots of good things can happen when you start thinking about what are some additional things that I can add on without adding enough. Sometimes it can be as simple as a better template or form or process as well. So think about what are those things that you can do to add value to your customers, not add a whole lot of extraness on your side, but you're able to charge more for those things. So quick review win for this is to review your current services and identify where an easy upgrade that delivers extra value for your best clients can fit in. So what is that upgrade that you can add into what you're already doing? Okay, and then opportunity number three is the win back. So I like this one because it's happened with us in the past, and I think it's something that often really does get overlooked. But don't forget about your past clients, especially if you kind of had one something more of a one-off service, or if it's somebody that you know worked with you for a small amount of time, but so much has changed since then. Go back to those people. They already know and trust you and have worked with you. You can do a simple check-in or a reactivation offer, and that can bring back 10 to 20% of your old clients. Think about how big of a difference that would make for you. One thing that you can do is send a short email saying, Hey, I've been thinking about you. We've added new features to help businesses like yours stay profitable this quarter, or you know, we've revamped our services so that it can take you to the next level, or yada, yada, yada, whatever it might be. And then just ask them, want to reconnect and just leave it in their in their court, right? The ball is in their court then. What I will say though, too, is just like anything else, the follow-up is really important. So even when you're doing these reconnecting emails, make sure that you have a follow-up sequence that you're doing that. Don't do it like all the time, but you know, maybe give them a week and then follow up again or a few days and then follow up again. I would say do two or three follow-ups. And then if you don't hear from them, just leave it alone. But make sure you follow up, make sure you change the wording every time in the email so that it kind of you know catches their attention and you know, exudes the value that you're now offering to get them to reconnect. And if you can, you know, reconnect on that personal level. This is where we were at. You know, I remember you said this, that's gonna be really important too. Sometimes this friendly reminder is all that it takes to open up that door and get some sales from people you already have. So the win on this opportunity is to reach out to three past clients this week. Personally, don't pitch, just check in. So one of our clients used this up for these opportunities a couple of years ago. She makes personal care products and wanted to engage and sell more when she was selling at local markets and then offer a bigger variety of things that she sold online. So she started thinking vertically or horizontally. I have to probably brush up on what those terms mean. But, anyways, so she decided to add in some retail products. She makes personal care products. So she added in some products that she bought from other people to sell alongside her products. They complemented her products. A big one, for example, was lip balm holders, they're really super cute, like little keychain things you can put your lip balm on in your case so you don't lose it. I mean, who loses their lip balms all the time? I know I do. So she makes the lip balms. She bought these complimentary products, and just this one tweak, she was able to boost her sales by around 15%. She had people coming to her booth more often, which means that she sold more. Just a simple tweak that was complementary. I know it's a little bit different from what we talked about because it's product versus service, but the concept is the same. On the service side, one of our clients also did a similar move. What she did was that she looked at what her clients were buying, or we did together, and segmented it a little bit more. Now she had an entry-level offer that led to her like main offer, but then she also included a VIP offer instead of just the main one. This created the opportunity for greater retention and more entry points, which means she had a win, win, win. And you should do that too when you're thinking about upselling. What is the ladder? I don't have a picture, ladder, you know, or stairs to the next thing. What is the gap? What is the what is the upsell? How do you put that in? Upselling isn't pushy. This is the mindset shift that you really gotta have when it comes to this. It's serving. Upselling isn't pushy, it's serving. Your clients already want the results because they're they're they're working with you, right? You already have proof of concept, you just need to show them the next step. So the easiest way to increase your profit for this profit point isn't working harder, it's working smarter with the relationships you already have. And if you've ever heard anybody talk about this, you already know it costs way more to get new clients than to keep the clients that you currently have. So the more you can think about ways to keep them engaged, keep them on, you know, in services with you, the better, because it's gonna cost you a whole lot less in the long run to retain those clients versus having to always get brand new clients, which is why newsletters or some kind of connection point is always really important when it comes to building business and longevity and people that are coming back. So keep that in mind as well. Okay, so here's your challenge for the week. Look at your client list and ask what's the next step I could offer. What simple add-on could make their experience better? And then who could I check in with that I haven't talked to in a while? Three things. There's money sitting in your relationships, you just have to see it, and you have to ask, right? That's the next hardest thing. Okay, so some things that you can do to take action aside from that in the profit points arena is join my Facebook group at your accountingsidekick.com. I have different educational things in there. We're gonna start posting, you know, more and more, getting more activity in there, um, ramping that up. But there's a lot of resources in there for people that just need some help and some support. So definitely join that, or you can book your consult with me because these are the type of things we work on when we do coaching. So I do the profit first implementation and coaching, and this is part of those coaching points, the profit points that we go through when we do that. So definitely book your call if you're not sure where things are at, if you need help with kind of creating these different offers and brainstorming and having that accountability, or if you just need a better cash flow as well, especially going into this next year. Watch last week's episode if you haven't. We talk about the year-end things that you need to do. Every CEO must do before the end of the year. Okay, so chat with Meg.com takes my website. You can book a call with me there. Otherwise, I hope you have a fantastic week. And I'm Megan Schwan, your accounting psychic, helping you build a business that actually works for your life. See you next week. All right, that's your episode this time. Don't forget your action step. I want you to actually do it, not just add it to the list. If this episode was helpful, share it with a fellow business owner who needs to hear it. And if you're ready to go deeper on your specific numbers, look at strategic calls with sidekick accounting. Go to chatwithmed.com and I'll see you next time on Profit Point.