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1. Increase profits by increasing your rates, lowering your costs, or a combination of both.

Yes some clients will object, but as your costs go up, inevitably you must pass along a portion of these costs to your clients. Most of my clients insist that they cannot raise their rates, yet I don’t know of anyone to date who has done this and lost all their clients. In EVERY case, they add an instant increase to their bottom line and barely hear a grumble from their clients. If anything, it acts as price-shopper pest control for their business and helps them avoid wasting time with price-sensitive clients. How do you do it? Have the guts to – there aren’t any secrets here and it is that simple and straightforward.

2. Turn one time buyers into repeat customers.

Stay in front of your customers with a monthly mailing, eNewsletter, or special offer. Let past customers know about new services you offer or recent industry opportunities that may be relevant to them.

3. Begin a subscription based product or service to increase purchase rates.

Otherwise known as “managed services” or “continuity income.” Offer to perform a regular service for a client on an agreed upon rate. For example, Net-Craft.com offers our clients discounted hourly blocks of web site maintenance services on a monthly basis.

4. Increase your average transaction size.

Make sure to let prospective client know about all of the complimentary services you offer. Many times a client will not even be aware of all of the services you offer. For example, we recently completed a large web design project for a local builder. Turns out he also needed business card, and postcard mailer design as well as an interactive DVD. We only found out about these needs because we asked if there were any other services he needed.

5. Actively track and improve your conversion rate.

You are probably tracking the number of people visiting your website on a daily and monthly basis. However are you tracking the number of people that click on a Request for Quote form or calling a phone number or purchasing a product? These amounts are known as your conversion rate. These ‘calls to action’ can be based on general web site visitors, PPC campaigns or even traditional advertising. Once you have established baseline conversion rates you can test different marketing pieces, special offers and pricing structures to see what works to improve those rates.