Harvest Your Low-Hanging Fruit

Women excel at complicating things. We often take the hard way when the easy path is right in front of us. We morph molehills into mountains and turn a simple decision into a battle of epic proportions.

I'm not a psychologist. But I've noticed that we seemingly gravitate to the difficult in our lives and our businesses. And I can tell you, as a business coach, that every business owner grows at least one bushel of uncomplicated and highly desirable crop: Low-hanging fruit.

Low-hanging fruit describes business opportunities and resources that are easy to access, inexpensive to implement and quick to yield a harvest (profit). But most of us ignore or undervalue this valuable crop.

Here are some examples of low-hanging fruit I learned about while coaching fellow business owners.

Refresh your success. A business consultant, eager to grow her revenue, reminded me that she had self-published a successful business "how to" book a few years ago. Then she collected a database of enthusiastic readers who purchased the book and contacted her with questions and compliments.

Where is her low-hanging fruit? She could utilize her database by updating select chapters of the book and selling them to these proven customers eager for her information. Updates take much less time than writing another book. They can also be delivered in an affordable e-book format targeted to an already qualified and interested market.

Re-purpose your content. A popular, professional speaker was frequently asked at the conclusion of her speeches where to buy her book. Her audiences were ready to make a purchase, but her reluctance to seek out a publisher or absorb the cost of self-publishing left her unable to capitalize on this demand.

Her low-hanging fruit? Write a simple one- or two-page recap of her speech and sell it to interested attendees. This would help this speaker earn income from her content without incurring any publishing costs.

Improve your responsiveness. A service business owner wanted to grow the business but was afraid she did not have enough money to hire more salespeople or increase advertising. However, she identified her own version of low-hanging fruit: Her business telephone line.

In the past, incoming phone calls frequently forwarded to voicemail instead of being answered personally. By ensuring that all incoming phone calls were answered in real time by staff trained to provide superior service and upsell callers, her revenue increased immediately--all without spending one extra dollar on advertising or marketing.

Just ask. Many business owners have a core group of loyal customers, but have not asked for more business from them in years. If you do not ask satisfied customers to do more with you, you miss out on a major source of low-hanging fruit.

So take a moment to ask yourself, "Where is my low-hanging fruit?" You may be surprised by how much new business is within reach and ripe for the picking.