Small-business advice: Getting more revenue from clients

Dear Karen: Finding new clients is tough. How can we develop more revenue from existing customers?

Answer: Identify problem areas for your clients and offer to handle them. If you can find a match between your products or services and your clients’ problems, you’ve found a low-cost opportunity to up-sell.

“Anything you can take off their plate that’s slowing them down will help them and boost you,” said Anne Graham, a small-business strategy consultant with Legendary Value Institute in Vancouver, Canada.

Stay in regular communication with your clients. You’ll probably find that many have laid off staff and are doing more with fewer employees. Ask them what tasks they struggle doing in-house and figure out ways that your company can step in.

What makes for a success Dear Karen: What differentiates successful from unsuccessful business owners?

Answer: Six attitudinal factors seem to characterize successful entrepreneurs. They are collaborative, self-fulfilled, future focused, tech savvy, curious and action oriented, according to a survey by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute. The institute surveyed small-business owners whose companies expanded even during recession.

“The most successful entrepreneurs think and act like key executives in medium and large companies,” said Mark D. Wolf, the institute’s director. They seek out and implement best practices, love being their own boss and use technology to expand and plan for the future. “Success-oriented small-business owners are a special breed of highly motivated, caring and curious individuals,” Wolf said.

The survey results are available at www.smallbizdom.com (click “Research”).

Small-business questions? E-mail Karen at smallbiz@latimes.com