How would you like to increase your revenue every year without increasing your sales quotas? Steady – I’m not selling some networking marketing method, or even a product. I just want to show you something obvious that you can do in your own business without paying anybody, or signing up for some crazy system. This is business 101.
The answer is simple and probably obvious. To grow revenues without increasing sales you need recurring revenue, which comes from selling recurring products/services.
Below, I will make a very quick case for recurring revenue. This will be followed by showing you a simple process for identifying recurring revenue streams in your own business.
Case for recurring revenue
Imagine:
- An average sales revenue of $12,000 (probably $1,000 per month).
- You make 10 sales per year.
- Your customers last an average of 3 years with you before moving on.
What is happening to your revenue?
If this is the case, and we sell the same amount of $120,000 every year, then our revenue will climb to $360,000 in year three, right?
Well, almost! If customers aren’t going to stay with you forever, or be locked into a very long contract, then we have to allow for some kind of churn. In this case, I have allowed for a churn of 33%, and so your customers will last with you for an average of 3 years. Consequently, we’ll lose 1/3 of each of last year’s revenue.
The point is that your revenue absolutely keeps on increasing as your sales remain flat but the amount of increase each year is decreasing. So, after 34 years, there is no lift and you have to sell 1/3 of your annual revenue to keep flat.
So, what do you do to keep the growth going? You rinse and repeat – sell recurring revenue and gain a rhythm with this, and then find another recurring revenue stream.
Where do you find sources of recurring revenue?
- Don’t drift away from your current strategy. Rather, double down on it.
- Find new ways to solve the problem you’re focused on solving for your market.
To reiterate, stick with the problem, and stick with the market. Then find new ways to solve the problem for your market.
Identifying recurring revenue streams
To grow your revenue without increasing your sales the steps include:
- Identify what it really takes to solve the problem you’re focused on solving. Importantly, this is the problem you want to be the best in the world at solving, or at least for a narrow segment.
- Identify recurring tasks that your customer has to take to keep that problem at bay.
- Ask current customers which of those recurring tasks they want solved.
- Find a way to solve it/them.
- Test and refine with your existing customers before taking to market.
- Rinse and repeat.
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In your Funnel Plan, we:
- Identify the problem you solve. This is where you’ve thought about several problems, and you’ve chosen one problem that you’re going to focus on solving – you’re going to be the best in the world at solving this problem.
The problems you solve best for your market
- Describe the market who most has that problem, and therefore the market you’re going to focus on – both the ideal client profile, and the segments in which you’ll find those ideal clients.
Your market
Note that nothing has changed – it’s the same problem for the same market.
- Describe the solution, which is where the change occurs. Alter the solution to include recurring revenue components.
Solving your market’s problem
You can then, of course, change this in the velocity section of Funnel Plan.
If you don’t have a Funnel Plan, get yourself a free trial here.
Our thanks
- Claudia Ivanka for video production.
- Hugh Macfarlane for scripting and presenting this week’s show.
