Don’t Leave Money On The Table

To be honest, I didn’t encounter the expression “Don’t Leave Money On The Table” until I was working for a very small startup about 5 years ago. The expression struck me as amusing since who would be silly enough to or wealthy enough for that matter to just leave money behind?

It brought to mind the image of robber barons lighting cigars with $100 bills.

Working for a tiny startup company gave me unique access to the CEO and strategy meetings that usually focused on sales and marketing. They weren’t the typical discussions centering around technical issues that I was used to participating in as an engineer.

It’s pretty amazing how insulated technical people can be from the business aspects of the companies they work for. In fact, many techies cover their ears whenever discussions head in this direction.

Now that I’m a business owner, with a grand total of one employee (me), I’ve developed an even deeper appreciation of the admonition of not leaving money on the table.

Basically, it comes down to missed opportunities for either making additional money or saving some money.

Below are areas to look for where you might be leaving money on the table:

• Affiliate links in eBook, viral reports, and sig files — if you create your own info products, these are a great place to slip in offers to recommended products and services. You want to strike the right balance here and not over do things. Also make sure that the forum rules allow affiliate links in sig files, but you can always put a link to your own site.
• Put a link to your own product(s) or place an affiliate link in your opt-in “Thank You” page. You just got someone to give up their name and email, so why not up the ante and put an offer in front of them while you have their attention?
• Use “One Time Offers” (OTO) for giveaway events or promoting resell rights products, and even your own unique products. Again, you’ve got their attention, and in some cases they may have just made a purchase, so just keep asking for the sale.
• Finally, always look for ways that you can save on products and services you purchase for use in your business. This includes coupon codes for things such as domain registration and other services. It also pays to be a savvy shopper for your business, so look for special sales and also similar products that sell for less. In other words, do some comparison shopping before making a big monetary outlay.
• Pay attention to your stats. Server logs and site analytics can reveal a lot about how visitors are interacting with your site. Look for places where they may be getting hung up on your site and leaving. Keyword tracking is another extremely valuable metric that you should be keeping if you’re doing any kind of PPC advertising. Why throw money away on keywords that don’t convert into sales?

I’m sure I probably missed quite a few other areas that should be monitored, but this handful should get you headed in the right direction. From there, you can start adding your own areas to the list.