How to Generate Revenue (Even When You’re In a Slump)

Art of Earning

Launching a new product isn’t likely to get you out of a slump.

Neither is having a blow-out sale.

There comes a time in every business when you need to generate revenue — fast. And it could be for any number of reasons — something didn’t play out as you had expected, unforeseen expenses, maybe you had to take some time away…

Your bank account starts looking a little lonely and you need to generate revenue quickly, and without resorting to coupons or deep discounts.

I always encourage my clients to look at their business as a money machine: it has different parts that may need to be added, greased up, or fueled, but once you get it working properly, you should be able to turn on the money machine and generate revenue any time you need to.

How do you reconfigure your business to be a money machine?  A few dos and don’ts.

1) DON’T try to launch a new product.

Launching all the time, creating products all the time (even if you’re an idea person like me!), and selling all the time is exhausting. Beyond that, it’s not building a legacy for your business. It doesn’t give your prospects something to remember your business for.

But most importantly, constantly creating new offers doesn’t set you up for making more money in the long run.

Every time you launch a new product or program, you’re only tapping into a very small segment of your potential customer base (the Early Adopters). If you stop there, other customers might trickle in over time but most people won’t even know you have that offer available.

This is a great case study on this very topic by Jeff Goins.

That just puts your business back in the position of needing to generate revenue with another new product. It’s a vicious cycle.

2) DO send a sales email about your best-selling product or service.

Instead of a vicious cycle, your business needs a system for marketing, launching, and selling your best offers over & over again. And when that system also includes products that work together to create more value for your customers and your business than they could alone, it’s a Business Model.

When your business has that kind of system in place, revenue becomes predictable and more consistent. At the very least, you know when it’s coming. Best of all, you’ll find that your offers start to generate more and more revenue each time you enter a sales cycle because your customers are expecting them, planning for them, and eager to buy them.

What’s your No. 1 seller? There are people on your list who haven’t bought this product or service and likely would, if they knew about it. Even when we think “everyone” has bought our main product, there are people you’re connected to who still don’t know it exists.

Sometimes the best way to generate new revenue is to focus on old assets. What could you craft a fresh sales cycle for?

3) DON’T wait until you have the perfect “next big thing.”

I know you: you’re sitting on a great idea. You haven’t figured out how to make the time, find the money, or craft the sales process for that new product or program you have in mind.

Pro tip: don’t.

I’m not saying don’t make the thing, I’m saying don’t make the time.  Because more time isn’t going to magically appear in your schedule.

Instead, write down everything you know about the first iteration of this product. Then write down all the reasons your best customers or most engaged audience members need it. Put those things together with a strong pitch and…

4) DO beta test a new product or service with a small group of hand-picked customers.

…present it to a select few you know will dig it.

In Quiet Power Strategy, we call this the Living Room Strategy, and it’s a simple way to test out a new idea on a few of those Early Adopters who will be thrilled to work with you. You’ll generate revenue while doing the work to create the product, instead of waiting for the product to be ready & waiting to get paid.

5) DON’T discount your prices.

It seems to me that whenever entrepreneurs need to generate revenue fast, their first thought is to discount — but really, that’s backward thinking. If you lower your prices, you actually have to sell more to make up the difference.

In addition, discounting, sales, and coupons train your customers not to buy. It tells them that if they just wait long enough, there will be a sale and they can pay less.

6) DO consider raising your prices or adding a bonus.

Instead of discounting, consider if there’s a way you can raise a price or add more value.

There are two ways you can approach raising your prices. If you’re regularly selling something that’s been on the shelf for a while, you can just raise the price to give you a revenue boost.

The other way to tackle this is by giving your customers a heads up on an impending price increase. There’s probably something sitting on your “shelf” that could use a 10–50% bump in price. Craft an email that lets people know the price is going up and they have until a certain date to get the item/program/service at a lower rate.

If you’re not ready to raise prices, you can run a promotion instead of a sale, and add a bonus to entice people to take action. Promotions are very different than sales, but they almost always motivate people nearly as much.

In almost every case, I encourage you to add value instead of subtracting from your price.

7) DO repackage and reposition.

Many times, businesses have several smaller products that can be repackaged as a bundle with more value. In fact, the repackaged product might be a more compelling offer than the individual products.

If you’re a jewelry designer, you might try to package up a necklace, bracelet, and pair of earrings. Simple, right? But the result is a greater value than the sum of its parts; it’s now a night-on-the-town kit.

If you’re a health coach, you might try to package a recipe book, coaching program, and one-off session with you. Again, simple. And again, the result is a higher value than the sum of its parts; it’s now the method, the accountability, and the day-to-day information you need to succeed all-in-one.

8) DO reach out and find a collaborator.

You can also bundle your products or services with someone else’s to increase value for both of your audiences.

For example, a yoga studio and a massage therapist could come together and create a package deal to help people de-stress.  A handbag designer could pair up with a clothing designer to do trunk shows. A copywriter could pair up with a graphic designer to offer a single price for a finished ebook.

The possibilities are practically endless if you look at what else your customer might need.

The best collaborations often start from very small joint ventures. If there’s someone in your network you’ve been dying to connect and create with, this could be the time to jump on it.

By your powers combined, you could whip up a workshop or small event that will have both of your audiences asking for more. You get the chance to test drive the partnership, your audiences get value that they couldn’t have gotten from either one of you individually, and you generate some revenue to boot.

The trick here is to keep the scope small and the expectations for each party well-defined. That benefits both of you… and your customers.

The truth is, once you get the pieces in place, your business should be able to generate revenue any time you need it.  Of course, that doesn’t matter much if the prices you charge don’t support your growth. Enter your email address below to get my FREE “Price for Growth” course: