Get Customers from Failing Businesses
One of dozens of strategies listed and linked to here:
How to Make More Money
from Your Business
By Steve Gillman
The following suggestions are not about hanging around failing
businesses like a vulture in order to pick through the scraps,
although that might be profitable too. In fact, you might get
some good deals on equipment, or snag a key employee. But this
page is about getting the customers, because doing so can quickly
boost your revenue. Let's start with an example.
You have a snow plowing business. One day you hear that one
of your primary competitors is failing, or is unable to run the
business due to an illness. He has 200 clients on his route.
Now you could just wait to see if some of those people call you
up to get their driveways and parking lots plowed. But that's
not a very efficient way to get their business.
Instead, why not help out the owner of the other business,
his clients who are about to be left hanging, and yourself. How?
Offer to take over the route and pay the owner $20 for each customer
that stays with you until the end of the season. If all of them
remained as clients of yours, you might get an average of $200
from each, or a boost to your revenue of $40,000. The previous
owner would then get $4,000 from you. Since many clients will
be happy to not have to look for another service, most will stay,
so you can even safely pay $2,000 of that fee up front.
How you obtain the customers of failing businesses depends
on the nature of your industry and how open the owner of the
other business is to new ideas. It is always best if he or she
introduces you to their customers in some way, either in person
or in a letter or phone call. It could be something as simple
as including your card in a letter going to clients announcing
the closure of the company.
If the owner is not interested in dealing with you, and you
know who some of his best customers are, you could contact them
directly and offer to meet their needs for the same price as
they were getting. If the closing of a company is big news in
the area, you can advertise and offer a special coupon or temporary
discount to all former customers who give your service or products
a try. They might really appreciate this, since they may not
have known what their alternatives were.
Look for failing businesses in your industry and get those
customers!
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