I coined this marketing strategy LLP. LLP stands for Listen, Learn, and Profit.
The rapid growth of my business in large part has resulted from me practising LLP, listening closely to the 'pain' points of my clients. Here's a quick story about my business that clearly illustrates the massive building power of LLP.
When I started my first business in October 2001, it was called Dynamic Communication. I was planning to be a consultant but I thought I'd also offer customer newsletters as a way to generate some cash immediately, and then that would lead to some consulting jobs.
Well, it's pretty hard to sell consulting services, but the newsletter part of my business really started taking off.
So I started out doing newsletters one-on-one with clients. I would write and design their newsletter and then get paid for it. Then when that newsletter was done I'd have to go and find another client. I did that for four years and developed a pretty good business.
However, while I was in my clients' offices, I kept hearing how it took them too much time to write and put together their own monthly newsletters.
Besides that, they never knew what type of articles to include in their newsletters. Coming up with the content was a problem for them; a pain point.
This is step one in LLP - listening for 'pain points' that your customers have.
It was around this time I started learning about Internet marketing and I started my first online business, No Hassle Newsletters. With No Hassle Newsletters I put together all the content a fun, informative customer newsletter should have and right off the bat I started getting monthly subscribers - because my program
As my new client list grew I then started getting feedback like, "Jim, we love the content, and our customers love to read the content you provide us." Now, let me offer a quick side note, this is officially listen, learn, and profit point number one.
When my customer said, "Jim, my customers love reading your content," I went and trademarked my articles as "My Famous Customer Loving Content." So it pays in multiple ways to listen to your customers!
The next part of the story is when my clients said, "We have a hard time getting designers to design newsletters the way you say they should be designed. And I thought, Okay, there's another pain point and opportunity!
So, I then created my No Hassle Newsletter 'Done-for-You' templates, basically newsletter templates that are already filled in with content. Using these templates, my clients can put out a monthly customer newsletter for their business in less than an hour each month. So essentially, I heard the additional pain point and I added more value to my existing program.
In November 2008, while exhibiting at a Marketing Conference in St. Louis, a client came up to our booth and said, "Jim, I love the newsletters, the content, and I love the new templates you provide, but we have a hard time working with printers who understand the way that you suggest the newsletters should be folded and mailed. They also don't know how to work with the mailing list."
Another customer pain point and that spells opportunity! So within 30 days I created and launched The Newsletter Guru's Concierge Print & Mail on Demand Service.
We now print more than 40,000 newsletters a month for my clients. So when they do their No Hassle Newsletter, they just send us their newsletter mailing list, pay for the quantity they want, and then we do the printing and mailing. They never even have to leave their desk or talk to anybody on the phone.
My No Hassle Newsletter business has grown to serve hundreds of clients in nine countries and I would often hear from some members the need for a good freelance writer to write an article on a specific topic that they'd like to include in their newsletter. Knowing I employed a large writing staff, I would often get asked to make a referral or recommendation for one of my writers.
Now, here's an important point and illustration about being a great listener. I could have easily made a referral and connected a client with a freelance writer - but what I heard was 'pain point' and that to me always means an opportunity!
So, about a month later I then launched my Custom Article Generator Service where my customers can order a custom article, written by my team of writers for a great price!
I could have made the referral, but instead I created another revenue stream because I learned from what I heard, created a solution and profited from it.
As you can see, every single one of the additional businesses and revenue streams that I've created came from me listening to what my customers were telling me! I listened to their pains, learned how to solve their pain by added more value and then I profited!
When you can hear and address the pain point for your clients or your prospects, and if you can deliver it with what I call world-class service, if you can give them real good value, you're going to have a customer for life.
So listen, learn, and boost your profits!
"Your big opportunity may be right where you are now." - Napoleon Hill
TAKE ACTION
What 'pain points' do your customers and prospects share with you? How could you use this information to offer additional products and services that could be of help to solve these pain points?
Graham McGregor is a Marketing Strategist and helps business coaches
attract perfect coaching clients from around the world. You can download
his marketing guide ‘You Deserve Perfect Coaching Clients’ at no charge
from www.perfectcoachingclients.com 
